Baron de Bastrop Monument

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to give it the telling it deserves. The name on this monument is Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, born in 1770, gone in 1829. And if you're standing in Bastrop County right now, well, you're standing inside his story whether you knew it or not.

Pioneer empresario on the Red River. Land commissioner of Austin's colony. Member of the Congress of Coahuila and Texas.

The man wore a lot of hats, and he wore every one of them in a foreign land, navigating empires and colonies and the whole complicated machinery of who gets to settle where. Now here is where the story sharpens. The year is 1821.

Moses Austin needs something from the Spanish government. What he needs is a contract, the first contract ever granted for Anglo-American colonization of Texas. That is not a small thing.

That is the kind of thing that changes everything that comes after it. And the marker tells us plainly: through the aid of the Baron de Bastrop, Moses Austin secured it. Not luck.

Not timing. Aid. The Baron put himself behind that effort, and the contract came through.

This stretch of land, part of Austin's 1821 grant, had its own names before it had his. It was known as the municipality of Mina in 1834. After March 17, 1836, it became the County of Mina.

But on December 18, 1837, that name was changed. To Bastrop. Town and county both.

The monument erected here in 1936 closes with a line that doesn't need embellishment. Let this name bring to mind the friend and advocate of the pioneer in a foreign land. That's the whole of it, really.

A man who helped open a door that wasn't his door to open, and asked for nothing but to be remembered. Seems like Bastrop held up its end of that bargain.

What the marker says

Erected in recognition of the distinguished service to Texas of Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, 1770-1829. Pioneer Red River empresario, land commissioner of Austin's colony, member of the Congress of Coahuila and Texas. Through his aid, Moses Austin secured from the Spanish government in 1821, the first contract for the Anglo-American colonization of Texas. In his honor, the name of this town and that of this county, a part of Austin's 1821 grant, known as the municipality of Mina in 1834 and the County of Mina after March 17, 1836, was changed on December 18, 1837 to Bastrop. Let this name bring to mind the friend and advocate of the pioneer in a foreign land.