For his service in the 1836 battle for Texas independence, Colonel Robert H. Porter was awarded several leagues of land in the extreme northeast corner of Navarro County on the Trinity River.

In the late 1830's he established a river port there which later became known as Porters Bluff and soon was the principal center of commerce for the region. 

In 1839, when Governor Sam Houston appointed a committee to select a site for the state capitol, Porters Bluff was among several considered. Historians say that it ran a close second to the little central Texas town of Waterloo on the banks of the Colorado River which received the most votes. Waterloo was renamed Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the early Texas statesman.

Porter established a townsite in 1848 named Taos with forty-nine city blocks and all the necessary shops and stores to compliment the bustling economy. It boomed until 1866 when a giant flood on the river wiped out everything and all that remains today is a field of weeds.