George Mitchell, innovator, scholar, philanthropist and friend to man. Among his most magnificent achievements is the founding of the community of The Woodlands in 1974. That community’s preparation for its 50th anniversary in 2024 marks a propitious moment to add yet another bit of magical flair to the lustrous aura of that fabled community: The Woodlands constitutes the anchor of the Cradle of Texas Road, linking with mystical wonder the historic treasure of that road to Metropolitan Houston.
Uniquely immersed in beautiful pines whose scenic wonder reeks of an eternal Spring, The Woodlands is appropriately named. Appropriate also is the name, Cradle of Texas Road, in two respects. The first links to its association with the Texas Republic of 1836 until 1846. From December 14th, 1837, until April of 1846, Montgomery County consisted of all or part of six present counties, Montgomery, Walker, Grimes, Madison, San Jacinto and a little slice of Waller. These mark the context of our Cradle Road.
It was in 1846 that Walker and Grimes became independent. The birth of these two initial counties finds identity with the theme of innovative wonder that is George Mitchell, this through the link of the two counties to the memory of the similarly innovative Sam Houston. It was to Walker County that Sam Houston, the liberator of Texas at San Jacinto, retired to become celebrated in Huntsville’s Oakwood Cemetery. Similarly, the namesake of Grimes County, Jesse Grimes, once ran for lieutenant governor on a ticket with Sam Houston for governor. While marking Sam Houston’s only loss for political office, the reason for the defeat—their then-unpopular stand for national unity-- waxes memorable.
The county seat of the Original Montgomery County was the town of Montgomery, the home of Texas’s first Secretary of State, Charles Stewart, also the designer of our venerated Texas Flag. Madison County took its name from the primary designer of our national constitution and our fourth national president, James Madison, while San Jacinto County rings with memories again of Sam Houston at the great battle of that name. Finally, Waller County history is associated primarily with Sam Houston’s friend, Jared Groce, on whose properties Sam Houston’s Army camped and on which the initial draft of the Texas Declaration of Independence received birth on March 1st, 1836.
The second basis for the name Cradle of Texas Road resides in the memory of Renè-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle, also like Sam Houston, a man of adventure of the highest order. The Frenchman La Salle’s trip to the Rio Grande River during the winter of 1685-86 set the stage for that river marking the southern boundary of Texas, while his death was near Navasota in 1687 in later Grimes County, in our Cradle Road area. More significantly, it was the Spanish hunt for La Salle that led them to establish the mission San Francisco de las Tejas; Tejas constitutes the Spanish name for Texas. It is this birth process which gives rise to the name “Cradle of Texas”.
Thus does incorporation of The Woodlands into the dramatic luster of historic Montgomery County incorporate the acclaim to a whole region, a historic treasure-land of our state and nation. Two grand conventions featuring key members of the Cradle Road area, both with representation of the State Historical Commission, have been convened to date, first in Conroe, then in Montgomery.
Formal linkage of The Woodlands with the Cradle of Texas Road expands even further the reach and legend associated with the grand innovator, George Mitchell.