Monument Hill State Historic Site
Independence Trail Region
While this beautiful 36-acre complex offers ample opportunity to enjoy nature, the elegant monuments on the hill – and the tomb they shroud – it recalls a more somber and uncertain era. Some of these dead were casualties of the infamous Mier Expedition – the most disastrous of the Texan raiding expeditions into Mexico.
In March 1843, with an order to kill every tenth Texan prisoner, Mexican colonel Domingo Huerta chose victims by a strange lottery. In what is now known as the “Black Bean Episode,” 176 Texans were ordered to pick beans from a pot; the seventeen who drew black beans were blindfolded – and executed by firing squad. Some of the survivors ultimately escaped, were released, or died in Mexican prison.
Amenities
- Gift Shop
- Nature/Interpretive Trails
- On-site Parking