Stephen F Austin, otherwise known as ‘The Father of Texas’ was born in Virginia in 1821. He settled in a Texas when it was part of newly independent Mexico and worked with the Mexican Government to permit American immigration and he encouraged settlers to move to Texas. He died in 1836 shortly after Texas began its brief period of independence. In the 1830s settlers established a small village called Waterloo on the banks of the Colorado River. In 1836 the Republic of Texas was founded and Houston was named as the temporary capital, but the plan was to find a site nearer the centre of the Republic for the permanent capital. Tiny Waterloo fitted the bill, so in 1839 it was chosen to be the capital. Edwin Waller surveyed the site and and laid out the street plan including setting aside a site on high ground for a capitol building. In October 1939 the entire government of the Republic arrived and the tiny village in the middle of nowhere grew almost overnight into a town called  Austin after Stephen F Austin. The decision to move the capital to a location that was then wilderness was not universally popular. Sam Houston made several attempts to move it back to Houston, and in 1842 he succeeded. It was not until 1846 after Texas had become part of the USA that the capital returned to  Austin.The modern city is still based on Edwin Waller’s original design. Austin now has a population of over 900,000 people and in addition to being a seat of government it is a centre for technology companies.  

View from Congress Avenue Bridge

We have visited many state capitals, and a lot of them are pretty dead when the politicians are away from town. Austin is very different, its large technology sector ensures that it is always a vibrant city. In this picture we see both the commercial and political sides of Austin. In the foreground high rise commercial buildings while in the distance at the end of Congress Avenue stands the State Capitol.   

Angelina Eberly Statue, Congress Avenue

The decision to move the capital of the Texas Republic from Houston to Austin in 1839 was opposed by Sam Houston who considered Austin to be an insecure frontier town. Even after the decision was taken, Houston continued to agitiate for the capital to be moved back to the city named after him. In 1842 he secretly ordered the removal of all the state archives from Austin to Washington-on-the-Brazos, which he considered more secure. His plan was derailed by Angelina Eberly, the innkeeper of the Eberly House tavern. She spotted Houston’s men loading the archives into wagons, so she rushed to  the corner of what is now 6th Street and Congress Avenue where the town cannon stood. She fired the cannon, blowing a hole in the Land Office building and alerting the people of Austin. The townsfolk chased after Houston’s men and retrieved the archives. The incident is known as the Archive War and it helped to secure Austin’s place as the capital of Texas. This statue of  Angelina Eberly has been erected close to the site where she fired the cannon.

Austin

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The Driskill Hotel

Jesse Lincoln Driskill was born in Tennessee and in 1849 he moved to Texas where he became a successful cattle baron. During the Civil War he was a Colonel in the Confederate Army but he lost much of his fortune when the war ended. By the 1880s he had rebuilt his fortune and he decided to build a luxury hotel in his hometown of Austin. The Driskill Hotel opened in 1886, offering luxury to rival the grand hotels of New York and Chicago. As a luxury hotel in a frontier town the Driskill struggled to attract guests and it had to close after less than 6 months when half of its staff were recruited by a hotel in Galveston.  It reopened a few months later but with a combination of drought and a very cold winter killing thousands of cattle Jesse Driskill again lost his fortune. In 1888 the hotel changed hands, accounts vary regarding whether Driskill was forced to sell the hotel or lost it in a poker game. The hotel changed hands several times until in 1895 it was bought by cattle baron George W Littlefield who renovated and updated the hotel. Although Littlefield sold the Driskill in 1903, the bad days seemed to be behind it. In 1934 future President Lyndon Johnson met his wife to be Claudia ‘Lady Bird’ Taylor for the first time in the hotel. In 1969 the hotel was threatened with demolition, but local fund raising saved the Driskill and enabled it to be modernised. Now the oldest hotel in Austin, the Driskill Hotel is part of a luxury hotel group.

Foundations of former State Capitol

The rapid move of the capital in 1839 from Houston to Austin meant that for several years a log cabin had to serve as the capitol building. Log cabins are rather vulnerable to fire and the first capitol burned down in 1853.  The an new state capitol was built  between 1853 and 1856, a rather plain structure built from limestone sitting atop the hill designated by Edwin Waller. In 1881, fire once again intervened with the state capitol burning to the ground. This forced the government to move to a temporary capitol on the south west corner of Congress Avenue and West 11th Street. Plans were already in hand to build the current capitol on the site of the one that burned down, so the temporary capitol was only needed for seven years before the current one opened.  It is a good thing that the new capitol was ready in 1888 because in 1889 the temporary capitol burned down, completing a hat trick of capitol fires. A small park has been created within the still visible foundations of the temporary capitol .  

Millett Opera House

The Millett Opera House was built in 1878 by lumber seller Charles Millett. When it opened it was the second largest Opera House in Texas, beaten only by the Galveston Opera House. It was not just used for operatic and theatrical productions, but was also used for dances, church services, political rallies and much more. In 1896 a skating rink was installed  and the rest of the building became household storage space  Austin Public Free Schools purchased the building in 1940 then in 1956 it was threatened with demolition. Fortunately a local business leased it and they restored the lower floor of the building. The Austin Club is a private members club founded in 1949. The club leased the building in 1979 and after extensive renovations the former Opera House became their club house in 1980.

 Lower McKinney Falls, McKinney Falls State Park

Our longest visit to Texas was in 2011 and at that time much of Texas was in the grip of a severe drought. Less than 16 kilometres(10 miles)  from the centre of Austin, McKinney Falls State Park  is usually a place to relax by lovely waterfalls created by Onion Creek pouring over limestone ledges. When we visited the drought had reduced Onion Creek to no more than the occasional shallow pool. Until we can get back to Austin, you will have to imagine how this scene would look with added water!

© Mike  Elsden 1981 - 2025

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