Discreet 24/7 Biohazard Remediation in San Felipe, TX

San Felipe, also known as San Felipe de Austin, is a small town in Austin County, Texas, on the west bank of the Brazos River — but in the 1820s and 1830s it was the social, economic and political center of Stephen F. Austin's colony.

Stephen F. Austin picked the site, a high, easily defensible bluff above the Brazos near John McFarland's ferry crossing, in the fall of 1823, and the town was founded in 1824 as the unofficial capital of his colony.

The town's name honored both Austin himself and Saint Philip, the patron saint of Felipe de la Garza, governor of the Eastern Interior Provinces.

San Felipe housed the colonial land office, and Austin directed the government of his colony from a log cabin residence there for four years.

San Felipe is regarded as the founding site of the Texas Rangers, who were first employed there as a defense force for the colony.

Mail service in Texas began at San Felipe in 1826, with seven postal routes converging on the town, and its post office — ZIP code 77473 — is considered the oldest in Texas.

One of the earliest newspapers in Texas, the Texas Gazette, began publication in San Felipe on September 25, 1829, and Gail Borden's Telegraph and Texas Register followed in 1835.

The conventions of 1832 and 1833 and the Consultation of November 3, 1835 all met in San Felipe, and the town served as capital of the provisional government of Texas until the Convention of 1836.

By 1835 San Felipe had grown to about 600 residents and ranked second only to San Antonio as a commercial center in Texas.

Retreating Texans burned San Felipe on March 29, 1836, during the Runaway Scrape so that Santa Anna's Mexican army could not capture it; the town was rebuilt but never regained its former importance.