San Felipe de Austin sat on the west bank of the Brazos River at a long-established river crossing and ferry point on the roads linking Austin's colony to the rest of Texas, making it a natural funnel for traffic in early 1836. As Santa Anna's army advanced following the fall of the Alamo, the crossing's everyday function as a practical travel and ferry point turned into an emergency escape route: colonist families streaming out of the path of the invading Mexican army used the San Felipe crossing to move east across the Brazos during the mass civilian flight known as the Runaway Scrape. Local militia under Moseley Baker held the river line at San Felipe for a time to cover the crossing before the town itself was burned by Texian forces at the end of March 1836 to keep it from being used by the advancing Mexican army, and Mexican troops reached the river's west bank in early April, exchanging fire with Texians posted on the far side. The crossing therefore served, briefly and under extreme duress, as a lifeline for refugees rather than in any peacetime civic capacity beyond its normal role as a river ford and ferry landing. Today the site is marked by Texas historical markers in the San Felipe area describing the town's burning and the broader Runaway Scrape, and it is preserved as part of the historic site interpreted at San Felipe de Austin, drawing heritage visitors interested in the town's founding and its wartime evacuation.