Site of Lubbock Ranch

Texas statesman Francis Richard Lubbock (1815-1905) owned a 1300-acre ranch near this site. A native of South Carolina, Lubbock came to Houston in 1837. He soon opened a general store and was a business, political and civic leader. He served as clerk of the Republic of Texas House of Representatives in 1837 and as comptroller of public accounts from late 1837 to 1839.

Lubbock and his first wife Adele (Baron) lived on their ranch here from 1846 to 1861. Beginning with a few cows, pigs and sheep accepted as payment while he was district clerk of Harris County (1841-1857), Lubbock built up large herds that grazed on his lands between the Brazos and Trinity rivers. Cattle were loaded onto steamships at the mouth of Sims Bayou and shipped to New Orleans to market.

In 1858, forty camels grazed on the Lubbock Ranch before being driven west to be used by the United States War Department in desert transportation. Francis R. Lubbock served as lieutenant governor of Texas from 1857 to 1859, and governor from 1861 to 1863 during the Civil War. He entered Confederate military service at the end of his term as governor, and served as a Lt. Colonel in the Red River campaign.

Lubbock left Texas in 1864 to serve on the staff of Confederate president Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia. Captured with Davis at the end of the war in 1865, he was imprisoned for eight months at Fort Delaware. Former governor Lubbock served as Texas state treasurer from 1879 to 1891. He remained active in public service until the age of 80, and spent his last years in Austin, where he is buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

(1970, 2001)