In 1883, Austin became a university city with the founding of the University of Texas at Austin. Then, in 1886, the magnificent Driskill Hotel opened its doors to a city that was now bustling. After a fire destroyed the original building, the current Capitol was completed in 1888 and is taller than our nation's Capitol. The new capital was named after Stephen F.
Austin, known as the father of Texas, but many people, including Sam Houston, were not satisfied with the location of the capitol. Houston and others were concerned about the remoteness of the site, fearing that it would be difficult to defend it from the Mexican army and local Indians. Despite these objections, the president of Texas, Mirabeau B. Lamar, commissioned Edwin Waller to plan the new city.
After the Civil War, Reconstruction gave Austinites their first real chance for economic prosperity. Marking the beginning of a new era, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad granted the city its first rail connection in 1871, making Austin an important center of commerce and commerce in the Lone Star State. With this development, the population more than doubled as new, more modern buildings were built throughout the burgeoning capital. There's no question that Austin is a fascinating place. From our unique bat bridge to our extravagant traditions, this city marches at its own pace. It's no wonder, then, that their story is incredible.
Here are 10 things you probably didn't know about the history of Austin. Although a second railroad, the International and the Great Northern, arrived in Austin in 1876, the city's fortunes worsened after 1875, when new railroads crisscrossed the commercial region of Austin and diverted much of its trade to other cities. In 1975, Austin City Limits premiered on PBS, introducing the country to Austin's burgeoning music scene. During the summer of 1845, Anson Jones, Houston's successor to the presidency, called a constitutional convention meeting in Austin, approved the annexation of Texas to the United States, and named Austin the state capital until 1850, at which time Texas voters expressed their preference in a general election.
Austin's history has also been largely tied to state politics, and in the late 19th century, the establishment of the University of Texas made Austin a regional center for higher education, as well as a center for state government. During the Republic of Texas era, France sent Alphonse Dubois de Saligny to Austin as its chargé d'affaires. Austin suffered the plague of segregation in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, but race relations improved during the civil rights era and the University of Texas admitted black college students in 1956, the first university in the South in doing so. By 1936, the Public Works Administration had provided Austin with more funding for municipal construction projects than any other city in Texas during the same period.
The streets that run from north to south (parallel to the Congress) were named after the rivers of Texas and their location matched the order of the rivers on the map of the state of Texas. After testing the city-owned electric power, they refused to return; they bought the local private power company, which used steam generators, and the current municipal company Austin Energy is, in a sense, a legacy of the old Austin dam. A state constitution passed in 1876 mandated that Texas establish a first-class university, which would be located by vote of the people and was named the University of Texas. As the westernmost railroad terminal in Texas and the only railroad city in tens of miles in most directions, Austin became a commercial hub for a vast area.
Three years later, Texas took the first steps to build a new Texas State Capitol, which culminated in 1888 with the inauguration of a magnificent granite building that rose above the city. During the 1960s alone, the number of students attending the University of Texas at Austin doubled to 39,000 in 1970. On December 25, 1871, a new era began with the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, the first rail connection to Austin. The first European settlers in present-day Austin were a group of Spanish friars who arrived from East Texas in July 1730.
