Old Station

Old Station, a receiving point for settlers bound for DeWitt's Colony, was located about six miles above the tidewater of the Lavaca River in the southern part of present-day Jackson County. It was also referred to as Lavaca Station or Lavaca Settlement. The settlement originated in 1825 and probably was intended only as a temporary establishment. The community began to take on a more settled aspect, however, as immigrants, unfamiliar with the interior and apprehensive about the Indians, congregated there. By August 1826, when Green DeWitt appointed James Norton alcalde, the settlement numbered about forty individuals. That August, DeWitt also hired the schooner Dispatch for a term of four years to transport settlers bound for the colony. Old Station was in violation of the Mexican law that prohibited settlement by foreign colonists within ten leagues of the coast, and the political chief refused permission to establish a permanent community on the site. In May 1827, however, he did sanction the permanent maintenance of a warehouse that the colonists had erected at the mouth of the river. For two years Old Station served as the nucleus of the colony. Concern, however, about the possibility of smuggling and of conflict with the nearby De Léon colonists caused the political chief on August 29, 1827, to order the abandonment of the community. By December 17 the settlement had been dissolved.