SANTA ANNA VISITED
Wallisville is a small community east of the Trinity River just south of Interstate 10 in Chambers County. It is on the site of a former French trading post and was named for the first family that settled the area. Rice and cotton became the major crops. It was once a thriving community with lumber production, ship building, various businesses, a newspaper, hotel, ice cream parlor, skating rink and a busy port for steamboats, since roads were few and waterways wee the principal way to get around. Many of the structures in Galveston were built with bricks and lumber shipped from Wallisville, which was the county seat for 50 years. Hurricanes and fires had disastrous effects on the town and in 1908 the county seat was moved to Anahuac.
Sam Houston had a residence there for a while. The Mexican dictator Santa Anna, who Houston defeated at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, spent some time chained to a tree in Wallisville while he was being transported as a prisoner to
Washington DC.
Because of its abundance of birds, ducks and alligators, Chambers County is one of the most visited places for hunters and birders along the Texas coast. When the Wallis family got to the area in 1925 there wasn’t much civilization there. “It was just miles and miles of prairie land,” says Marie Hughes of the Chambers County Museum in Wallisville. “They had to keep fires going at night to keep the alligators away. There were also bears and wildcats around here then.”
The county’s rich history has evidence of Native American, French, Spanish and Anglo cultures. The museum celebrates the county’s history on February 5, Heritage Day. It is the museum’s main fundraiser. Visitors enjoy raffles, auctions, entertainment and a gumbo cook-off with nearly a dozen competitors.
A school building on the museum grounds built in 1869 has had many different uses. It served as the courthouse for a while after the original courthouse burned. It was also a church and once housed the museum. “It’s yellow with blue trim right now,” says Marie. “Originally it was built with board and batten, where they had the upright planks with smaller strips of wood to go over the seams.”
Chambers County showed its patriotism late last year when the body of Sonny Boy Saunders, a US sailor killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, was recovered and brought home for burial at a cemetery in nearby Winnie. “Multitudes of people showed up to honor him,” says Marie. “When they left the funeral home the procession went past all the schools where the school children were lined up along the streets waving American flags. It was wonderful to see the support. With all the things going on in the world today I think we were ready to celebrate a hero.”
Memorabilia from his military days are on display at the museum. Sonny Boy was laid to rest on December 7th, 2021, 80 years after Pearl Harbor was attacked.