Capt. Don Foxhall has had a passion for archaeology since his boyhood and he hopes that an upcoming lecture series will help him share that love with everyone in Refugio County.

Foxhall, who lives in Bayside, said, “History doesn’t have to be boring.”

Foxhall said that so often students memorize important dates but “as soon as they finish the test, they forget all of the information.”

History, and specifically archaeology, can be fun, Foxhall said.

“It is a treasure hunt,” Foxhall said. “You never know what you are going to find. It is part of the romance of archaeology. It is a labor of love.”

The theme for this lecture series, which begins on Oct. 15, is “the history and archaeology of Refugio County and surrounding area.”

Saying that the history covers Refugio County could be misleading to those who don’t know just how big the county once was.

In those horse-and-buggy days, travel and communication were quite primitive and some of the outlying areas were several days distant from the Refugio County administration.

With the gradual establishment of the nearby centers of population of Sinton, Rockport and Corpus Christi, the counties of San Patricio, Aransas and Nueces were separated from Refugio County and administered separately. Thus, Refugio’s complete history overlaps the modern county lines, placing many important early events rightfully as belonging to the history of Refugio County, Foxhall said.

In celebration of Texas Archaeology Month, the Refugio County Historical Commission is hosting this first in a series of presentations with a talk on the history and archaeology of Fort Lipantitlan by archaeologist Margaret Howard of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Howard was among the group who researched the history and conducted field investigations during the period from 2001 to 2004 at the Lipantitlan State Historic Site on the Nueces River

Howard is also co-author of the 230-page site report on Fort Lipantitlan in which the history of the site and its relation to Texas chronology is thoroughly developed. Two important battles and several minor skirmishes took place at Lipantitlan during the Texas Revolution and Texas Republic era.

Efforts to raise the two cannons thrown into the Nueces by the Texans from Goliad who captured Lipantitlan from the Mexican garrison in 1835 have been undertaken recently and are ongoing.

For both Foxhall and James Kelley, chairman of the Refugio County Historical Commission, the lecture series will spread the word of just how important this area was during the Spanish/Mexican colonial era, the fight for Texas independence, and events during the Texas Republic and early statehood.

An important recent development is the long-awaited inclusion of Refugio County in the Texas Independence Trail, a regional grouping of the most important counties involved in the Texas Revolution as promoted by the historical commission to foster a greater interest in the events and locations of that struggle.

Future historical presentations at quarterly intervals are planned, featuring historians and archaeologists who will explore in detail the rich historic lore of Refugio County.