Quintana-Tx.org
Title
QUINTANA, Gateway to the Texas Gulf Coast
Description
Quintana's history dates back to 1528 when Spanish survivors of the Navarez Expedition, a search party looking for Montezuma's gold, were adrift and dying of thirst when they noticed a current of muddy water flowing into the Gulf. The water was drinkable - "fresh water from the sea" they said and followed the current to the mouth of the river calling it Los Brazos de Dios, the Arms of God.
Stephen F. Austin's colonists landed the Lively here in 1821. Austin was commissioned to lay the town out in 1833 and named it after General Adreas Quintana, deputy minister of Mexican Foreign and Internal affairs, who was sympathetic to Austin's efforts to colonize the area. Quintana prospered with a dry goods warehouse, meat market, school, hotel, grocery store and post office. It became a popular resort for plantation owners who built huge summer homes on the beach.
The Civil War brought about a decrease in the population and a confederate fort guarded the mouth of the Brazos. During the last decade of the nineteenth century the population increased dramatically as a result of work on the harbor and jetties and other improvements related to a deep-water port. In 1891 residents voted thirty-seven to nineteen to incorporate the town and authorize the election of a mayor, a marshal and five alderman as officers of the city.
