SAN FELIPE, Texas-Heading west on I-10 out of Houston, you normally clear the clotted traffic at about the Fort Bend County line, if you're lucky; a few miles farther on you'll come to Exit 723.
The Houston Chronicle reports a left turn at the Shell station will take you to Frydek, a tiny Czech farming community that's known for its historic Catholic church.
A right turn takes you into a scattering of comfortable ranch-style houses set among lush, green pastureland, along with a handful of weathered structures from the 19th century, a volunteer fire department, a front yard barbecue stand, a few trucking businesses and a couple of churches. Locals tend to call their small, incorporated community San Phillip.
San Felipe or San Phillip, whatever your choice, is more than just a Sealy suburb. The historic hamlet was home to the Father of Texas, Stephen F. Austin, and the seat of Texas government for most of the Texas Revolution. If your detour into San Felipe were to take you into a time warp, you'd likely encounter everybody who was anybody in early-day Texas-Austin, of course, but also William Barret Travis, Gail Borden, Jane Long, Noah Smithwick, Angelina Peyton and Judge Robert M. "Three-Legged Willie" Williamson. (His two-story, wood-frame home, thought to have been built in 1836, still stands.)
Because of its vital role in the settlement of Texas and the push toward independence, this little town on the west bank of the Brazos should be as prominent as Gonzales, Goliad, Washington-on-the-Brazos. And yet it's been a long time since San Felipe has been anything more than a quiet, little community.
Fortunately, San Felipe's obscurity may be changing. The opening a few weeks ago of the handsome San Felipe de Austin Museum is beginning to draw visitors in numbers the historic site deserves.
"We're here to tell a story that's mainly forgotten and is more subtle than the Battle of the Alamo or the Battle of San Jacinto," site manager Bryan McAuley recently said.
It's more subtle because San Felipe is not about battlefield exploits but about politics and intense planning for a different type of Texas-either a separate Mexican state or an independent republic. The San Felipe story is about Texans sitting around a table arguing, debating and plotting as events rush inexorably toward some kind of confrontation with the tumultuous Mexican government.
The town came into being in 1823 as the capital of Austin's colony. The empresario envisioned a town with a regular grid of avenues and four Spanish-style public plazas, similar to towns he had encountered on his journey to Mexico City in 1822. it turned out, the settlement grew more aimlessly, sprawling westward from the Brazos for more than a half mile along Atascosito Road (FM 1458).
The thriving, little town hosted the vital Conventions of 1832 and 1833 and served as the capital of the provisional government until the Convention of 1836 met the following March at nearby Washington-on-the-Brazos.
After the fall of the Alamo, Gen. Sam Houston's dispirited army tramped through San Felipe, headed eastward toward the Sabine. Houston left behind a small garrison under Moseley Baker to defend the Brazos crossing. On March 30, 1836, Baker ordered the town evacuated and then burned it to the ground to keep it from falling into the hands of the advancing Mexican army.
A bronze sculpture at the new museum by Navasota artist J. Payne Lara commemorates the terrified residents of San Felipe who hastily gathered up what few belongings they could carry and fled eastward during the Runaway Scrape.
Many, but not all, began returning after the Battle of San Jacinto, but their town never regained its early prominence. When the railroad picked Sealy in the mid-1870s, San Felipe gradually settled into rural somnolence.
The 10,000-square-foot museum, airy and high-ceilinged and featuring the latest interactive technology, brings those early decades back to life.
A large touch-screen wall mural, for example, depicts an interactive layout of San Felipe's downtown prior to independence. Visitors can engage with its stories by touching animations on the large screen. The museum's permanent collection includes a desk that once belonged to Austin, a cast-iron printing press like the one used to publish Travis' "Victory or Death" letter and hundreds of artifacts recovered during archaeological digs at the state historic site. The largest exhibit is an 1830s-era log cabin from the Columbus area that was rebuilt inside the museum.
"Our hope is that visitors come here and learn what they didn't know before," McAuley said, as he stood before the fascinating interactive mural.
They'll come away knowing more about Angelina Peyton (tavern keeper and heroine of the "Archives War"), the amazing Gail Borden (the milk man) and, of course, esteemed editor, soldier, lawyer and judge Robert McAlpin Williamson, who wore a wooden leg to compensate for a right leg drawn back at the knee as the result of a childhood illness (thus, "Three-Legged Willie").