About this tour
Bay City became the seat of Matagorda County in the 1890s, when the old coastal town of Matagorda proved too vulnerable to storms and too far from the growing rail lines. A new town was platted on higher, safer ground, and it built itself the way Texas county seats always did — around a central courthouse square, ringed by banks, churches, and the homes of its leading families. This short walk circles that square, visiting the courthouse and the museum that tells the county's story, the churches whose steeples still mark the skyline, the bandstand in the park, and the old bank building on the corner. Wear comfortable shoes and look up at the cornices and steeples; Bay City's founding generation built to last.