A future road in League City will be named after an African American man who played a big role in the growth and development of the area. The story of Alexander Winfield remained widely unknown, until efforts by his great-granddaughter to restore lost history caught the attention of the city’s mayor.
Deborah Konrad began looking into her family’s ancestral history more than 20 years ago, after the death of her mother. She found that Winfield, her great-grandfather on her mother’s side, wasn’t just a Buffalo Soldier who fought in the Civil War in 1863. He was also a contributing and influential figure during the early days of League City.
“He was born in Sussex County, Virginia in 1847. But he made it to Ohio rather quickly, which makes me think he probably wasn’t enslaved. We believe he was manumitted very early. He was a member of the Ohio Colored Troops and then mustered out to Texas in 1970,” Konrad said. “He settled in LaGrange in 1873 and met my great-grandmother, Rose Booker. Something brought him to League City and I believe it was the settlement of Black cowboys in Texas City.”
Konrad said Winfield bought land in 1904 and their family worked as farmers and laborers. She said he also founded the first Methodist church in League City, which was later moved to Dickinson.
“So what did he contribute? Certainly, a workforce. It takes a lot of people to put together a city and Alex Winfield, his descendants, his children, they helped with that,” Konrad said. “League City was made and put together by many hands. In my opinion, they’re all important. My family may not have had the highest-level jobs. But they were necessary.”
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SOURCE: abc13, Rosie Nguyen
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