How to Find Texas Historic Sites and Plan a Historical Road Trip on thc.texas.gov

The Texas Historical Commission's site (thc.texas.gov) is the state agency's hub for locating historic sites and building a trip around them. Use it when you want to browse official state historic sites, find historical markers near a route, or follow a curated itinerary rather than assemble one from scratch. The site offers three practical entry points: the Historic Sites listings, the Historic Sites Atlas and Historical Markers tools, and Texas Time Travel for trip planning.

Start with the Historic Sites section

The Historic Sites area is where the THC presents the state historic sites it operates. Each entry gives background on the place and what it represents, so you can judge whether it fits your route before committing.

Examples named on the site include:

• San Jacinto Battleground — the 1836 battle that resulted in Texas' independence from Mexico; a 1,200-acre park containing the San Jacinto Monument and the San Jacinto Museum.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos — known as "Where Texas Became Texas," where delegates met on March 1, 1836 to formally announce Texas' intention to separate from Mexico.
• Port Isabel Lighthouse — the historic 1852 lighthouse on the Texas coast.
• French Legation — one of the oldest homes in Austin, and its transformation from a diplomatic post to a symbol of cultural exchange.
• Casa Navarro — the restored 19th-century San Antonio home of an influential early Texas leader.
• Presidio La Bahía — established in 1749 during the Spanish colonial period and described as crucial to Texas' development.
• Fulton Mansion — a late-1800s home with views of the Aransas Bay.

Individual site pages carry the background and visitor information you need to decide whether to stop.

Use Texas Time Travel for curated itineraries

Texas Time Travel is described as a curated, one-stop resource for planning a journey into Texas' past. Instead of building a route from individual site pages, you start here when you want a ready-made theme or tour. The site links out to specific tour stops — for example, a "See Tour Stops" link appears in connection with a Smithsonian tour feature. Treat Texas Time Travel as the planning layer and the individual site pages as the detail layer.

Locate places with the Atlas and Historical Markers

Two tools help you find history that isn't necessarily a staffed site:

• Historic Sites Atlas — a mapping-style resource for locating historic places across the state.
• Historical Markers — state historical markers commemorate buildings, military sites, events that changed local and state history, and individuals. Marker records are useful for adding smaller stops between major sites.

A practical workflow: pick a corridor you want to drive, check the Atlas and marker listings for that area, then cross-reference anything that looks worth a stop against its site page.

Plan around events and seasonal programming

The homepage surfaces current programming, such as Texas Archeology Month and touring exhibitions, alongside events at state historic sites. If your trip dates are flexible, checking these first can put you at a site during a special event rather than on an ordinary day.

If your interest is preservation rather than travel

The same site covers the THC's preservation side: grants and other funding, tourism and economic development assistance, state and federal tax credit programs for rehabilitating historic buildings, the Texas Main Street Program, and project review through eTRAC, the agency's online processing tool. These are separate from trip planning but live on the same domain, so it helps to know which section you actually need before you start clicking.

Quick reference