
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 18, 1995                   TAG: 9507180087
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AUSTINVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

STRAY TEXANS SOON CAN FIND MONUMENT TO THEIR `FATHER'

A site for a monument to Stephen F. Austin, "the father of Texas," has been secured near his birthplace in eastern Wythe County.

A fund-raising effort soon will be started by the Stephen F. Austin Memorial Foundation, organized last year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Austin's birth and to educate the public about his contributions to the development of the nation.

Foundation Chairman Tom Bralley announced Monday that the site of about 17 acres, near the Austinville community southeast of the Lead Mines Bridge between the New River and New River Trail State Park, had been secured as part of the state parks system.

He said plans for the fund drive and park development would get under way in a week or two.

The site was secured from Lead Mines Estates after long negotiations, said John Crowgey, another foundation member.

Austinville Postmaster Jim Bobbitt said visitors from Texas often come to the Austinville Post Office seeking the birthplace of Stephen Austin.

"Unfortunately, all I can say is it's somewhere in the area. There's so much history in Austinville. ... It's not that far off the interstate," and development of the Austin park "can only be a plus," Bobbitt said.

"The property itself is part of a land grant that predates the Revolutionary War," said historian Ed Weinberg. It was in this part of Wythe County that settlers penned the Fincastle Resolutions, which expressed many of the principles later put in the Declaration of Independence, he said. Because of its lead mines, Austinville also played a key role in the Civil War, he said.

Austinville was named for early mining operations superintendent Moses Austin, the father of Stephen Austin.

Stephen Austin was among those who helped win the independence of Texas from Mexico. He served as Texas' first president before it became part of the United States. Bralley said that Austin played a key role in the southwestern territory that came into the nation; without Austin, the land area of the country might have been 25 percent smaller than it is.

The capital of Texas was named for Austin, as was Stephen F. Austin University. He founded the Texas Rangers law-enforcement agency.

Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.

by CNB