La Grange

La Grange, the county seat of Fayette County, is on the Colorado River and State Highways 71 and 159, U.S. Highway 77, and the Union Pacific Railroad in the central part of the county some sixty-three miles southeast of Austin. It is at the site where La Bahía Road crossed the Colorado River. Aylett C. Buckner settled in the vicinity about 1819, and in 1826 John Henry Moore built a twin blockhouse within what are now the city limits; he named it Moore's Fort. Area settlers sought shelter there from Indian attacks, and by 1831 a small community had developed around the fort. A town was platted in 1837, and when the Congress of the Republic of Texas established Fayette County that year, La Grange became its seat of government. The county had been named after the Marquis de Lafayette, and the county seat took its name from his chateau. A post office was established there in 1838, and that same year the Texas Congress passed a bill intended to place the capital of the Republic of Texas on a site contiguous with La Grange, but the bill was vetoed by Sam Houston. La Grange grew as a trade center for the area's developing plantation economy. Its first newspaper, the La Grange Intelligencer, began to publish in 1844, and in 1846 the La Grange Female Institute was established. The first Methodist and Presbyterian congregations in La Grange were organized in the 1840s. La Grange was incorporated in 1850, and by 1855 it had at least four schools, including the La Grange Academy and the La Grange Male and Female Seminary and Boarding School. The ethnic composition of La Grange began to change during the 1840s and 1850s, as increasing numbers of Germans and Czechs immigrated to Fayette County. The first Lutheran service in La Grange was conducted in 1851, and in 1859 the Casino Association of La Grange opened the area's first German Free School. In 1860 Heinrich Kreische, a German immigrant from Saxony, established in La Grange one of the state's first commercial breweries.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.