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In early July 1824, Commissioner of Colonization Baron de Bastrop arrived at San Felipe de Austin and began issuing land titles to Empresario Stephen F. Austin’s first colonists. In July through mid-August of 1824, Bastrop issued titles to approximately 270 Mexican land grants, totaling over 1.5 million acres of land.
These first families of Austin’s colony became known as the “Old 300” since Austin had been authorized to bring 300 families to Texas, under his colonization contract with the Mexican government.
The remaining “Old 300” grants authorized under the first contract were issued at San Felipe in May and June of 1827, while grants under the second contract were also being issued. The majority of these original land grants are located along the rivers and large creeks, especially the Brazos River which ran through the middle of Austin’s colony, bounded on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and the north by the Old San Antonio Road (El Camino Real).
