Boonville was the first

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

Brazos County, Texas Brazos County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 233,849. The county seat is Bryan. Along with Brazoria County, the county is named for the Brazos River, which forms its western border. T ...

, United States. It is now located in the city of

Bryan, Texas Bryan is a city in and the county seat of Brazos County, Texas, United States. It is located in the heart of the Brazos Valley (East and Central Texas). As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 83,980. Bryan borders the city of C ...

History

Boonville was the county seat in Brazos County (established as Navasota County) from 1841 to 1866. The

Congress of the Republic of Texas : ''For the current Texas legislative body, see Texas Legislature.'' The Congress of the Republic of Texas was the national legislature of the Republic of Texas established by the Constitution of the Republic of Texas in 1836. It was a bicameral ...

established a committee that purchased its land and named it in honor of Mordecai Boon Sr., nephew of

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...

. The committee that established the town included Mordecai Boon Sr., Joseph Ferguson, J. H. Jones, Eli Seale, and William T. Millican. The town was planned and organized around a

town square A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Relat ...

. Many notable individuals made speeches and sermons at the town courthouse, including

Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two indi ...

and the Reverends William M. Tryon and Robert Alexander. A stage line was extended from

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

through Boonville in 1850. After the

Houston and Texas Central Railway The Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC) was an 872-mile (1403-km) railway system chartered in Texas in 1848, with construction beginning in 1856. The line eventually stretched from Houston northward to Dallas and Denison, Texas, with branch ...

was extended from Millican to Bryan in 1866, residents of Boonville elected to make Bryan the county seat. The former town site is now located in Bryan near State Highway 6. Since the 1990s, a cemetery on Boonville Road has been the last remaining structure associated with Boonville. It is marked by a Texas Centennial monument The area around the cemetery is now the Boonville Heritage Park as of early 2015. The park has new structures, including a log cabin built in 1856 and relocated from Grimes County. The park also features a

Six Flags Over Texas "Six flags over Texas" is the slogan used to describe the six sovereign countries that have had control over some or all of the current territory of the U.S. state of Texas: Spain (1519–1685; 1690–1821), France (1685–1690), Mexico (1821� ...

Plaza, a replica of a "

Twin Sister Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

" cannon and interpretive panels.

References

External links

{{Brazos County, Texas Geography of Brazos County, Texas Ghost towns in East Texas Former county seats in Texas