A shipwrecked Spanish soldier, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was the first European to visit the Houston area. He lived and traded among native Karankawa Indians from 1528 to 1534. It was not until 1823, however, in the first years of Angelo American migration to Texas, that a trading post was built at the junction of Buffalo Bayou and Brayâs bayous by John R. Harris, a New Yorker. The townsite laid out there in 1826 was named Harrisburg. It e...
