Richmond: Founding Fort Bend & the Jaybird-Woodpecker War

Richmond sits on a bend of the Brazos River where Stephen F. Austin's colonists first fortified a settlement they called Fort Settlement — the fort that gave Fort Bend County its name. Laid out in 1837 by land promoters R. E. Handy and William Lusk, who named it for Richmond, Virginia, the town became county seat in 1838 and drew a remarkable cast of early Texans, from Jane Long, the 'Mother of Texas,' to the scout Erastus 'Deaf' Smith who raised the battle cry at San Jacinto. But Richmond is also remembered for a darker chapter: the Jaybird-Woodpecker War, a violent Reconstruction-era political feud between two white factions that climaxed in an 1889 gunfight on the courthouse square. This short walk circles the old and new courthouse squares, taking in the buildings and homes where the county was founded, governed, and fought over. Wear comfortable shoes; the loop is easy and mostly flat.