Texas Historical Marker #06316
Fort Lipantitlan. Occupied in 1831 by soldiers of the Mexican army. Captured November 4, 1835 by volunteers under Capt. Ira Westover. Unsuccessfully attacked June 7, 1842 by an army under Gen. Antonio Canales. #6316
FM 70, via FM 3088, off FM 666 from Banquete, Banquete, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #06315
Fort Lipantitlan. Occupied in 1831 by soldiers of the Mexican army to prevent further Anglo-American colonization in Texas. Captured November 4, 1835 by volunteers under Captain Ira Westover. Unsuccessfully attacked June 7, 1842 by 700 men under Gen. Antonio Canales while defended by 192 men under General James Davis. Five acres of land surrounding the site of the fort were generously donated to the State of Texas by the heirs of J.C. Bluntzer in 1937. #6315
CR 101 at Fort Lipantitlan State Park, Banquete, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #06307
Nicholas Bluntzer. (October 29, 1835-September 5, 1901) A native of the French province of Alsace, Nicholas Bluntzer came to Texas at age nine with his parents and other Alsatian families led by colonizer Henri Castro. The Bluntzer family settled in DeWitt County, in an area along Coleto Creek which would become the town of Meyersville. In 1856-57 Bluntzer served as a scout in a punitive expedition led by Col. Robert E. Lee against Comanche Indians in West Texas. In 1858 he married Justina Peters. Later, as a member of the Confederate army, he participated in the last battle of the Civil War at Palmito Ranch in May 1865. After the war Bluntzer became an influential rancher, acquiring large tracts of land in Nueces and other counties. He also invested in Corpus Christi real estate. He established a large cotton-growing operation near this site in the 1890s. A settlement grew up in the area and was named Bluntzer. Upon his death in 1901, he was buried in a San Patricio Cemetery. The Bluntzer home not far from this site remained in the family until 1961, when it was bequeathed to the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. Nicholas Bluntzer was posthumously inducted into the South Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1967. (1967) #6307
FM 3088, Banquete, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #00299
Banquete, C.S.A.. In the critical civil war years, Banquete meant water, supplies, repairs and defenses to thousands on arid trips along the Cotton Road to Mexico. The Cotton Road was well known, for it followed a segment of the historic "King's Highway" of early explorers. Yet its vital role for 4 years in supplying the confederacy earned it undying fame. It was the way to Mexico's border towns of Bagdad and Matamoros, where 20,000 speculators clamored for cotton, using valuable European goods to make attractive bargains. To get guns, ammunition, shoes, clothing, medicines--necessities scarce at home--the confederacy sent to neutral Mexico long trains of 5 to 15 wagons or ox carts that lumbered for many weeks over the desert. Sometimes to lighten a load for an exhausted team, cotton bales might be hidden in roadside brush. The traffic left signs in the wilds. Often the landscape would whiten with the lint thorned off passing loads. Banquete's water made possible the long hauls to Mexico and back to the goods-hungry confederate population. Thus the town named for an 1832 fiesta honoring Texas colonists served a strategic role in the history of the civil war, 1861-65. #299
SH 44 at FM 666, Banquete, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #00743
Casa Blanca Land Grant. The first spanish land grant awarded in what is now Nueces county was the Casa Blanca land grant. Granted in 1798 by the spanish government to Juan Jose de la Garza Montemayor (1765-1816) and his three sons, Juan Manuel, Jose Perfecto, and Jose Agustin, it was located between Penitas Creek and the Nueces River. Originally called Penitas Grant, it consisted of 70,848 acres, or sixteen sitios of land. The Montemayor family established a ranch near Penitas Creek. Since it was near the site of Casa Blanca Fort, it became known as Casa Blanca Ranch. Under continual attack by indians, the ranch remained in the Montemayor family until 1849, when it was purchased by William Mann (1818-1855). Mann later divided the lands and sold portions to area farmers and ranchers. Following his death, his heirs sold 22,000 acres to Richard King. Eventually, oil was discovered in Nueces County, and the owners of the former Casa Blanca Land Grant became oil producers. Today, the principal industries on the Casa Blanca lands are oil and gas production, farming, and ranching. Lands included in the grant now lie in the counties of Nueces (44,042 acres) and Jim Wells (26,806 acres). #743
FM 624 and FM 666 N of Banquete, Banquete, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #04584
Santa Margarita Crossing. Ranchers occupying the 1804 Spanish land grant of Jose Herrera established this crossing of the Nueces and named the scattered settlement Santa Margarita. In 1828, John McMullen and James McGloin received a land grant from the Mexican government for an irish colony north of the river and founded the town of San Patricio. This site soon became a major crossing on the Matamoros Road into Texas. To protect the crossing, the Mexican army, in 1831, established nearby Fort Lipantitlan, which was captured November 4, 1835, by insurgent Texans. On Feb. 27, 1836, Gen. Jose Urrea's Army defeated the Texan forces of James Grant and F.W. Johnson here before marching to Goliad. After Texas won independence, Gen. Vicente Filisola led the defeated Mexican troops back to Mexico along this road. After crossing the river here in summer of 1845, Gen. Zachary Taylor held his army in this region until March 1846, when he moved to the Rio Grande, the action which precipitated the U.S. War with Mexico (1846-48). During the civil war the old Matamoros Road, then called the "Cotton Road", served as a trade outlet for the confederacy. Texas products were transported via the Santa Margarita crossing to Mexico, circumventing the federal blockade of confederate ports. #4584
FM 666 about 9 mi. N of Banquete, Banquete, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #00298
Banquete Cemetery. In June 1832 the colony of Irish families settled along the Nueces River by John McMullen and James McGloin was linked to Mexico by completion of the Matamoros Road. Mexican officials sponsored a Fiesta near this site as a goodwill gesture to the colonists. The village that later grew up here was called "Banquete", the Mexican name for the 4-day celebration. Banquete was settled before the civil war (1861-65) as a stock raising and horse trading center. During the war, it was an important stop on the trade route to Mexico. Oldest marked grave in Banquete Cemetery (1 mile east) is that of Joseph P. Madray (b. 1840), a local rancher who was serving in the confederate army when he died of typhoid fever, June 2, 1863. Also buried here are other confederate soldiers and prominent Banquete residents, including members of the Bennett, Elliff, Saunders, and Wright families. By tradition, the cemetery property was once the site of stockpens belonging to Sally Scull, notorious horse trader and cotton freighter of the civil war period. Pioneer rancher B.A. Bennett (b. 1824) deeded one acre for the community burial ground in 1910. In the 1950's, another acre was added to the cemetery, which contains about 200 marked graves. #298
SH 44 E of Banquete, Banquete, TX, United States