Austin Texas History

When it is often helpful to get out into the surrounding country-side and explore places of historic interest. Austin has a fascinating past so it often helps to know a little of the area’s history.

Austin was originally home to the Tonkawa tribe who called themselves “those most like humans” and roamed the area around present day Austin hunting the abundant herds of buffalo and deer that grazed the verdant hills.  The Tonkawa’s first contact with Europeans was when the Spanish arrived in the early 1700’s. To deter the potential for French expansion from Louisiana, the Spanish who had claimed sovereignty over the region, built a series of missions in the region that were in effect military outposts.   One of these mission settlements, one of these military outposts was established right near Barton Springs, the current site of Austin.  These abundant springs have always been a life source for Austin and remain the centerpiece of the city’s recreational area today. 

Many of the Spanish missions established throughout the area during this time remain as a link to this past.  The most famous, the mission San Antonio de Valero, is a short drive south of Austin, and is well known to us all as the Alamo, where, in 1836 nearly 200 men died defending it from General Santa Anna and his Mexican troops.  Known as the “Cradle of Texas Liberty,” The Alamo is the place where Jim Bowie, Bill Travis and Davey Crockett held out long enough for Sam Houston to regroup and eventually defeat Santa Anna.

After his victory over Santa Anna, Sam Houston declared Texas a republic, and under his presidency established the seat of government in the city of Houston.  The first half of the 1800’s were turbulent years for Texas and when the Vice President Mirabeau Lamar succeeded Houston in 1838, he fulfilled a vision he’d had while on a hunting trip with his friend Jacob Harrell and moved the seat of Government to its current location of Austin.

Harrell had owned a trading post on the lower Colorado River, in what is now known as the Texas Hill Country, an area just outside of the present-day Austin.  Vice President Lamar had told Harrell, while they were hunting buffalo there a year before, that great cities should be built nestled amid hills, as Rome had been, and if he ever got the opportunity, he would establish the capitol of The Republic of Texas in the Hill Country. Lamar, true to his word, did just that a year later, when he succeeded Houston to the presidency of the fledgling republic. The only state in the union it must be remembered, to have had that history of independence and that may explain a lot about Texans.

There was a small settlement in the Hill Country at Barton Springs, established by the American colonists that Stephen Austin had brought to the area in the early 1820’s.  Austin had negotiated a contract with the Spanish, who had sovereignty over the area, to sell farmland to these American colonists.  When Mexico gained independence from Spain and reestablished ownership of what is now Texas, Austin, a legendary figure in Texas history, traveled to Mexico City and had the contract endorsed by the new overlords, the Mexican government.

In spite of this agreement, and the legal title to the land held by the settlers, friction grew between the Mexicans and the colonists. These frictions often grew out of individual religious differences between the groups of Catholic Mexicans and Protestant Americans, resulting in a war for independence and the defeat of the Mexican army by Sam Houston in 1836, immediately after the Battle of the Alamo. 

From the period 1836 to 1845, when Texas gained statehood, Austin was the capitol of an independent republic, complete with foreign embassies and independent relationships with foreign countries.  In fact, one of the oldest buildings in Austin is the original French embassy.  It stands on a hill just east of downtown Austin.  After statehood, there was a major construction effort to satisfy the increase in population.  Many of these landmark buildings still stand today, including the governor’s mansion in built in1856, and the Old General Land Office, built in 1857. 

The late 1800’s were a period of prosperity for Austin.  This city in the hills has always attracted a diverse mix of ethnicities and talents and is today a cultural, commercial and intellectual center of excellence.  Of course now, Austin is home to the 48,000 student University of Texas that was first conceived in 1839 when the Congress of the Republic ordered a site set aside for “university of the first class.”  That early vision was not realized until 1882, when construction on a single building began.  Now UT ranks as one of the leading institutions of learning in the United States and has one of the largest campuses in the nation.  This early vision and commitment to academic excellence produced a bountiful harvest almost 100 years to the day after construction of that first building when a 19-year-old Michael Dell launched his Fortune 500 Company from his UT dorm room. 

This dynamic spirit that pervades Austin, Texas has attracted a rich mix of businessmen, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, academics and musicians.  This dynamism and human capital was the basis for a technology boom that began in the early 80s when IBM, Texas Instruments, 3M, Motorola, Samsung and of course Dell decided to make Austin home. Success feeds success and pretty soon the sophistication and commercial spirit of the city was being compared to that of New York. That attracted an even greater array of world-class chefs, restaurants, theater groups, artists and most importantly, 1.2 million successful citizens, many of whom live in Austin apartments, who today make Austin the vibrant city it is.