Tag Archives: Texas Colonists

Today in Texas History – June 16

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La Reunion August 2010 #1 photo DSC01820.jpg

From the Annals of the Utopians –  In 1855, 200 or so French, Belgian and Swiss immigrants arrived at La Réunion. The colony was located on the south bank of the Trinity River in Dallas County and was planned as a utopian socialist community. Victor Prosper Considerant was the founder of the colony and a French democratic socialist who directed an international movement based on Fourierism, a set of economic, political, and social beliefs advocated by French philosopher  François Marie Charles Fourier.  La Réunion was short-lived and disbanded due to financial troubles, bad weather, failed crops and rising costs.  On January 28, 1857, Allyre Bureau, one of the society leaders, gave formal notice of the colony’s dissolution.  By 1860, the site was incorporated into Dallas.  The colony’s name survives in the Reunion District of Dallas highlighted by the Reunion Tower.

Photo from texasghostowns.blogspot.com

Today in Texas History – November 11

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From the Annals of the Colonists –  In 1833,  members of the Beales Colony left New York aboard the Amos Wright headed for Texas. .  John Charles Beales and others had obtained large colonial grants that encompassed much of western Texas, eastern New Mexico, and the Rio Grande valley. The first colonists landed at Copano Bay on December 12, 1833. From there they traveled to a site on Las Moras Creek near Presidio del Rio Grande in the Rio Grande Valley.  The colonists named their settlement Dolores, in honor of Beales’s Mexican wife.  Beales’ Colony was a failure.  It was located in semi-arid brush unsuitable for farming and in country claimed by the Comanche.  Many colonists left for other settlements.  The final blow came during the Texas Revolution when the entire colony was abandoned before the advance of the Mexican Army.