Austin History
Also see: Austin History Timeline

Austin began as a small village named Waterloo, settled by Jacob Harrell in 1835 along the mouths of Waller, Shoal, and Barton Creeks, which drained into the Colorado River. Several other settlers joined Harrell, building log cabins and erecting a stockade for protection against Indians.

After winning the Texas War of Independence (1835-1836), the Republic of Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836. When Mirabeau B. Lamar, vice president of the Republic, came to Waterloo on a buffalo hunt, he was so impressed impressed with the beauty of the area that he decided to make it the Republic's capital. Without delay, he renamed the city Austin, after Texas colonizer Stephen F. Austin.

After hastily renaming the city, Lamar had to battle for several years with Sam Houston, president of the Republic, who insisted that the capital be either Houston (the city named for himself) or the original site of Washington-on-the-Brazos to the east. Houston got his way until 1844, when new president Anson Jones changed the capital back to Austin. When Texas joined the United States a year later, Austin managed to remain as the capital. The issue was permanently settled when it passed two statewide voter referendums, one in 1850 and another in 1852.

During the years of the Republic, various diplomats lived in the city, and today the old French Legation is still maintained as a historic site. The governor’s mansion, built in 1853, is adjacent to the capitol’s large grounds and is a showplace of southern colonial architecture.

Austin flourished from the beginning, growing from 856 citizens in 1840 (when the first capitol was a one-story frame building that had to be protected from Indians by an 8-foot stockade) to 3,494 citizens in 1860. Large-scale growth began with the arrival of the railroad in 1871. A new capitol, built in 1853, was gutted by fire and the present building was built in 1888.

In 1938 the Lower Colorado River Authority began constructing a series of dams along the Texas length of the Colorado River, forming the beautiful chain of Highland Lakes and giving Austin two refreshing bodies of water, Town Lake and Lake Austin. Town Lake flows west to east through the city, dividing it into north and south sections. A leafy hike and bike trail lines both banks of the river within walking distance of downtown’s tall office buildings. Lake Austin is on the west side of town, and both lakes provide cool green oases for outdoor recreational pleasures.

The business district, lying on both sides of the river, is bisected by Congress Avenue, which runs from south of the river to the north, ending at the spacious lawns and wide avenues of the capitol complex. The pink granite structure, constructed of fossilized native stone from Hill Country quarries, boasts a dome seven feet higher than that of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Beyond the capitol rises the 27-story bell tower of the University of Texas, founded in 1881. The university is the home of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, the largest presidential library in the country. The enormous main campus is located just north of downtown, making Austin a noted educational center.

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