The monument, constructed between 1936 and 1939 and dedicated on April 21, 1939, is the world's tallest masonry column[4] and is part of the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site.

Visitors can take an elevator to the monument's observation deck for a view of Houston and the San Jacinto battlefield.

After a careful survey to determine the boundaries of the original battle site, land was purchased for a new state park east of Houston, in 1897.

[8] The Daughters of the Republic of Texas began pressuring the legislature to provide an official monument at the site of the Battle of San Jacinto.

Architect Alfred C. Finn provided the final design, in conjunction with engineer Robert J.

[9] In March 1936, as part of the Texas Centennial Celebration, ground was broken for the San Jacinto Monument.

In 1990, the base of the monument was redone to contain the San Jacinto Museum of History and the Jesse H. Jones Theatre for Texas Studies.

Stephen Fuller Austin, "Father of Texas", was arrested January 3, 1834, and held in Mexico without trial until July, 1835.

The first shot of the Revolution of 1835-36 was fired by the Texans at Gonzales, October 2, 1835, in resistance to a demand by Mexican soldiers for a small cannon held by the colonists.

San Antonio was captured December 10, 1835 after five days of fighting in which the indomitable Benjamin R. Milam died a hero, and the Mexican Army evacuated Texas.

On the following day General Antonio Lopez De Santa Anna, self-styled "Napoleon of the West", received from a generous foe the mercy he had denied Travis at the Alamo and Fannin at Goliad.

Citizens of Texas and immigrant soldiers in the Army of Texas at San Jacinto were natives of Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Austria, Canada, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and Scotland.

The freedom of Texas from Mexico won here led to annexation and to the Mexican–American War, resulting in the acquisition by the United States of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Almost one-third of the present area of the American Nation, nearly a million square miles of territory, changed sovereignty.