The Galveston County Daily News

Tom Linton, a longtime member of the Friends of Galveston Island State Park, wrote a series of columns called “Parking with Brigid” about his travels — with his dog, Brigid — to the state parks built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. This is the eighth of a second series of columns on the parks of Galveston County.

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Lawyering on the east side of Galveston Bay appears to have long been an occupation filled with surprises.

Take, for example, the young lawyer, recently arrived from South Carolina, who set up his practice in Anahuac.

At the time, Texas was still under the control of Mexico. He had been retained in a case that upset Juan Davis Bradburn, the military officer in charge of the Mexican garrison at Anahuac.

Bradburn was upset because he suspected the young lawyer was involved in a plot to bring about Texas independence from Mexico and was using the case as a springboard to do that.

The young lawyer and another suspected “troublemaker” were arrested and thrown into jail.

Hearing that a mob was forming to attack and free the prisoners, Bradburn had the young lawyer and his fellow prisoner staked, spread eagle, on the parade grounds of the garrison headquarters.

To further dissuade the mob from attacking, Bradburn had his soldiers stand in a ring around the prisoners with their rifles trained on the lawyer and his fellow troublemaker.

While it is not clear as to how this matter was resolved, we do know that it was, because the young lawyer, William Barret Travis, went on to become well known through his military service at the Alamo.

And because of the Alamo, not the Anahuac events, a fort was named for him — this fort is now the site of the Galveston County Fort Travis Seashore Park.

There are quite a few layers of history one has to get through to correctly identity the Fort Travis.

The original Fort Travis was somewhere else — on the East End of Galveston.

The present Fort Travis once was something else — the Confederate Fort Green.

And the present fort once housed more than just cannons — a legal matter that will be mentioned later.

But as stated previously, lawyering on the east side of Galveston Bay has always been just full of surprises.

Fort Travis Seashore Park is on the Bolivar Peninsula. It consists of 70 acres on which there are hiking trails, picnic pavilions, sports playgrounds and a fishing pier.

It is at the following coordinates: 29 21 54.78N & 94 45 33.00W.

Bolivar Peninsula is a place where many of the roots of what became the state of Texas are found.

All manner of revolutionaries, generals, would-be generals and just plain troublemakers made this their residence when they hatched plans and assembled forces for their insurrections.

In many cases, their rewards were simply a trip to Mexico, where they were executed.

Bolivar is not unique in this regard since many unsavory characters and hard-to-believe events have been recorded from around the world.

However, there is one event that occurred there that is hard to believe — even by Bolivar standards.

There was one early resident of Bolivar who suffered more hardships than most could endure but persevered, stayed the course, fought the good fight, etc. — and lived to a ripe old age to tell about it.

This is none other than Jane Long, “The Mother of Texas.” Her story is one of unbelievable privation — it is hard to see how she lived through it all.

So if you ever get the feeling you have had a bad day, Google “Jane Long” — her story will no doubt put your problems into proper perspective.

Grant funds were used as the means to preserve this site where so much early Texas history took place.

In December 1975, a federal grant of $200,000 was awarded to Galveston County to match a grant from the Moody Foundation “to purchase the old Fort Travis area and for its development as Fort Travis Seashore Park” (Galveston County Historical Commission, application for Fort Travis Historical Marker).

Some local history of more recent vintage involves Fort Travis. In 1957, when the state attorney general’s forces were in the process of “shutting down Galveston,” they had to, literally, look high and low to find the illegal gambling equipment that had been stored until “the heat was off.”

One such “low” site was in an “underground bunker in old Fort Travis” (Cartwright, 1991).

There they found 350 “one-armed bandits.” Just another one of those surprises you find on Bolivar Peninsula.

The devices were transported to a more permanent “aquatic” storage site in Galveston Bay.

So when you visit Fort Travis Seashore Park, as you are making the ferry crossing from Galveston to Port Bolivar, notice the old cement ship, Selma.

Near the old ship is the final resting place of those 350 slot machines that once resided in Fort Travis.

It is said by some that with the appropriate type of sensing equipment, they can still be located there, on the bottom, in their final resting place.

But the lawyer who put them there is still around and still feels the same as he did then about gambling.

They say it is best to let sleeping dogs lie, and the same might be said of scuttled slot machines.

Tom Linton is a member of the Friends of Galveston Island State Park.