Colorado River settlements and Waterloo
In the early 1800's there were various Anglo-American settlements along the Colorado River in Travis County. In 1835, Jacob Harrell and his family left one of these early settlements and set up a camp in a new location. It was near the present site of the Congress Avenue bridge. This camp is the first documented settlement of the area that would come to be known as Austin.

In 1837, after Texas had declared its independence from Mexico, William Barton moved from his property in Bastrop County to a new home on the Colorado River near the springs.

Does his name sound familiar? It should. The area he settled became Barton Springs.

Meanwhile, other families joined the Harrell's at their camp and named their settlement Waterloo. Soon more families moved into the area and created settlements with familiar names such as Montopolis and Govalle.

Austin vs. Houston - a 3 decade battle
When the Congress of the Republic of Texas began considering sites for a permanent capital, Vice President Mirabeau Lamar pushed for Waterloo. He had visited the area during a buffalo hunt and found its beauty and natural resources quite impressive. General Sam Houston disapproved. He felt that it was too far from the coast and too close to Mexico, still a threat to the new Republic.

Despite protests, Waterloo, renamed Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, became - at least for the moment - the capital of the Republic of Texas in 1839. The street plan first proposed by Edwin Waller (who later became Austin's first mayor) remains largely intact today for the area from 1st to 15th Streets.

In 1842 with Mexican troops once again invading Texas and capturing San Antonio, the seat of government was moved to Houston then to Washington-on-the-Brazos. Austin citizens protested and eventually the government moved back to Austin.

Texans voted in 1845 to join the United States of America and were admitted as the 28th state of the Union on December 29, 1845. Austin was again selected as the the seat of government, this time for a period of five years.

A state-wide election in 1850 selected Austin, once again, as the state capital - this time for a period of 20 years. Three years later the Old Stone Capitol building was completed on the site of the current Capitol complex.

Austin wins
In a state-wide election Austin won out Houston and Waco to become the capital finally and permanently in 1872. Houston received 32% of the votes, Waco 11%.

Jacci Howard Bear
Guide to Austin, Texas

Great things to do in Austin that cost little or nothing -

1.  Texas State Capitol Complex:

Austin, Texas

Nomadic people, such as the Tonkawas or Tickanwatic tribes, followed buffalo and deer and were some of the original settlers along the Colorado River near present-day Austin.

In 1709, Spanish explorers entered the Colorado River region. They returned in 1730 to set up a temporary mission at the free-flowing artesian-fed Barton Springs.

In the early 1800's Anglo-American settlements began to pop-up along the Colorado River. It is said that Stephen F. Austin brought the first Anglo colonists near the area that is now Austin in 1821.

1830s

1830s > Legend has it that Stephen F. Austin signed a major treaty with neighboring Native Americans under a large Oak Tree -- known as Treaty Oak that still stands today. However, there is little written evidence to support this story.

August 1833 > The first recorded instance of conflict between the Anglo settlers and Indians was the attack upon a hunting party of settlers at Walnut Creek. Two white men were killed and a third, Josiah Wilbarger, was scalped and left for dead. He survived, wearing an old sock over his exposed skull and reportedly lived nine more years.

1835 > Jacob Harrell and his family left one of the early settlements along the Colorado River. Then they set up a camp near the present site of the Congress Avenue bridge.

March 2, 1836 > Texas declares it's independence from Mexico.

1837 > William Barton creates a new home on the Colorado River near a beautiful spring. The area he settled later becomes known as Barton Springs.

1838 > Other families join the Harrell family and name their settlement, Waterloo. Texas Vice President Mirabeau B. Lamar is invited on a buffalo hunt near the small hamlet, on the banks of the Colorado River.

Taken by the area's beauty and abundant natural resources, Lamar declares, "Here should reside the seat of the future empire."

1838-1839 > Edwin Waller leads a group of surveyors to plan and construct a city out of a 7,735 acre plot. Waller narrowed the site to 640-acres that fronted the Colorado River and were nestled between Waller Creek on the east and Shoal Creek on the west. He created a 14-block grid that was bisected by Congress Avenue, and extended northward from the Colorado River to "Capitol Square."

1839 > The Congress of the Republic orders a site set aside for a "university of the first class."

May 1839 > Edwin Waller constructs a temporary one-story capitol set back from Congress Avenue on a hill that is now the corner of Colorado and Eighth streets.

November 1839 > The Texas Congress names the new capital city in honor of Stephen F. Austin, one of the founders of the new Republic.

August 1, 1839 > The first auction of the city's 306 lots takes place.

December 27, 1839 > The city is incorporated.

1840s

1830s > Legend has it that Stephen F. Austin signed a major treaty with neighboring Native Americans under a large Oak Tree -- known as Treaty Oak that still stands today. However, there is little written evidence to support this story.

January 13, 1840 > Waller is elected Austin's first mayor of the city that has grown to 856 inhabitants, including 145 slaves as well as diplomatic representatives from France, England, and the United States.

December 1840 > France's representative to the Republic of Texas, Jean Pierre Isidore Alphonse Dubois de Saligny, begins construction on The French Legation, at 802 San Marcos, now considered the oldest standing structure in Austin.

1841 > Austin establishes it's own fire department.

November 13, 1841 >The Daily Texan is first published.

March 5, 1842 > San Antonio is captured by Mexican troops.

1842 > Fearing an attack by Mexican troops, President Sam Houston orders the Texas national archives moved from Austin to Houston. Austinites, convinced Lamar will move the capital as well, refuse.

December 29, 1842 > President Sam Houston sends armed men to move the archives in an incident known as the Archives War. It was a bloodless incident in which enraged citizens met up with Houston's men. Later Houston moves the government, first to Houston and then to Washington-on-the-Brazos, which remained the seat of government until 1845.

1842-1845 > Austin's population drops below 200.

1845 > Constitutional convention convenes in Austin, agrees to become a part of the United States and to make Austin the provisional capital until election in 1850.

February 19, 1846 > Austin officially becomes the capital of Texas.

1850s

1850 > State begins construction of a new limestone capitol at the head of Congress Avenue. The building was completed in 1853.

1856 > Governor's mansion is completed.

1860 > The population grows to 3,546, including 1,019 slaves and twelve free blacks. That year 35 percent of Austin's family heads owned slaves.

1857 > Old General Land office is completed.

1860s

February 1861 > Austin and Travis County residents voted against the secession ordinance 704 to 450, but Unionist sentiment waned once the war began.

1865 > The end of the war brought Union occupation troops to the city and a period of explosive growth of the African-American population, which increased by 57 percent during the 1860s.

1870s

1860s and 1870s > The city's newly emancipated blacks established the residential communities of Masontown, Wheatville, Pleasant Hill and Clarksville, organized such churches as First Baptist Church (Colored), started businesses, and patronized schools. By 1870 Austin's 1,615 black residents composed 36 percent of the 4,428 inhabitants.

July 1871 > Democratic Statesmen began publication every three weeks.

1871 > Congress avenue is paved and drainage ditches replaced with sewers.

December 25, 1871 > The Houston and Texas Central Railway comes to Austin.

1872 > Austin wins a statewide election to make Austin the state's capitol city once and for all.

1874 > City constructs gas street lamps.

1875 > The first streetcar line is constructed. At that time, Austin's population continues to grown with 757 inhabitants from Germany, 297 from Mexico, 215 from Ireland, and 138 from Sweden. For the first time a Mexican-American community took root in Austin, in a neighborhood near the mouth of Shoal Creek.

1876 > City constructs the first elevated bridge across the Colorado River.

Also, David T. Lamme, Sr., arrives in Austin and opens a candy store at 721 Congress Avenue. His business becomes Lamme's Candies, one of the oldest continuously run businesses in Austin.

1880s

1881 > Austin wins statewide election to be the seat of the new University of Texas. Also that year, Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute, founded by the American Missionary Association, begin providing educational opportunities for African Americans.

Austin's public school system is established as well.

1884 > City's County Hospital opens it's doors. In 1929 it was named Brackenridge Hospital, in honor of a local doctor.

Also, Charles A. Zilker returns to Austin and establishes one of the first ice plants.

1885 > St. Edward's College is chartered.

1886 > The Driskill Hotel opens its doors to dignitaries and notables from all over.

May 16, 1888 > A new capitol is dedicated after a fire destroys the former building. The $3.7 million building was built from pink granite mined nearby in Marble Falls.

Civic leader Alexander P. Wooldridge proposes that Austin construct a dam across the Colorado River and use water power to attract manufacturing.

1889 > Austin Tribune first goes to press. 

1890s

1890s > Baseball comes to Texas and Austin fields an all-white team the Austin Senators.

1891 > A new city charter more than triples Austin's corporate area from 4½ to 16½ square miles, the city fathers implement a plan to build a municipal water and electric system, construct a dam for power, and lease most of the waterpower to manufacturers.

1893 > The 60-foot-high Austin Dam was completed, impounding Lake McDonald behind it.

1894 > Writer William Sydney Porter, whose pen-name was O.Henry, publishes his short story "Tictocq" that describes Austin as "The City of the Violet Crown."

1895 > Dam-generated electricity powers the four-year-old electric streetcar line, the city's new water system and it's 31 new 150-foot-high "moonlight towers." April 7, 1900 > The dam collapses.

1897 > The University of Texas adds an athletic field to its 40-acre tract.

1899 > University's Main Building is completed.

1900s

April 7, 1900 > First Austin Dam collapses.

1902 > Seton Hospital first started when a group of citizens asked the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, a Catholic organization, to build a hospital to care for the sick. This 40-bed hospital, originally the Seton Infirmary, would eventually lead to the building of Seton Medical Center in 1975.

1904 > The Democratic Statesman buys the Austin Tribune, a competitor, and a smaller local newspaper called the Austin Daily News, and combines the three to become The Austin Statesman and Tribune. In 1916 this paper changed its name to the Evening Statesman to reflect a new time of publication while The American remained the morning newspaper.

1906 > Austin builds a new City Hall at Eighth and Colorado that includes all city services including the police department.

1908 > Austin voters overturned the alderman form of government, by which the city had been governed since 1839, and replaced it with commission government.

1909 > A. P. Wooldridge is elected mayor under new commission government.

1910s

1914 > Austin American begins daily publication.

1918 > Andrew Zilker sells Barton Springs, a spring-fed pool, and the surrounding land to the city for public use.

1919 > Austin American-Statesman is formed when the two daily newspapers combine.

1920s

1920s > Austin Black Senators field a team in the Texas Negro Leagues that plays other Negro minor league teams in Texas and Oklahoma. An exact date for when the team was created couldn't be found.

1923 > Oil is found in the Permian Basin field, land the University of Texas owns. This discovery led to one of the largest university endowments in the country, second only to Harvard.

1924 > Austin voters adopt a council-manager government, which went into effect in 1926 and remained in the 1990s. Progressive ideas like city planning and beautification became official city policy.

1928 > Austin enacts a city plan, the first since 1839, to develop its strengths as a residential, cultural, and educational center. A $4.25 million bond issue, Austin's largest to date, provided funds for streets, sewers, parks, the city hospital, the first permanent public library building, and the first municipal airport.

1930s

Oct. 14, 1930 > Austin's Robert Mueller Municipal Airport opens. It is named for a City Councilman who died just months after being elected to office.

1930s > Austin like most American cities suffered during the Great Depression despite a 66 percent increase in the city's population. However, United States Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson, who won election in 1937, made sure to take care of Austin.

1931 > A six-story tower is erected on Town lake to help train firefighters.

Nov. 10, 1934 > Gov. Miriam A. "Ma" Ferguson signed the bill that created the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1933 > Kenneth Threadgill opens a gas station and beer joint called Threadgills. He applied for an received Travis Country Beer License No. 01.

Austin's Central Library, which now houses the Austin History Center, was built.

1936 > The Public Works Administration had provided Austin with more funding for municipal construction projects than any other Texas city during the same period.

Also, the University of Texas constructs a 27-story Tower to replace the Main Building that was destroyed in a fire.

1938 > The Brown Building is built reflecting the art deco style popularized in many American cities.

July 2, 1939 > KTBC-AM radio goes on the air. It was first housed at Eighth and Colorado and then moved to the Brown Building in 1943. Among the station's famous employees Jake Pickle who later represented Austin in Congress, Nellie Connally, wife of former Gov. John Connally who also worked at the station following the war, and Bill Moyers, who went on to produce national PBS documentaries.

1940s

1940 > Tom Miller Dam is constructed creating Lake Austin.

1940s > The Victory Grill opens in Austin helping to bring out Austin's music scene and bring in some of the great Blues and Jazz musicians of the time.

1941 > Just upriver the Mansfield Dam was completed to impound Lake Travis. These new dams brought great benefits to Austin: cheap hydroelectric power, the end of flooding, a plentiful supply of water without which the city's later growth would have been unlikely, and recreation on the Highland Lakes that enhanced Austin's appeal as a place to live.

1942 > Del Valle Army Air Base, later Bergstrom Air Force Base, opens in Austin. The base remained in operation until 1993.

1943 > Del Valle Army Air Base is renamed Bergstrom Air Force Base after John August Earl Bergstrom, believed to be the first Travis County soldier killed in World War II.

Philanthropist Clara Dricoll deeds her 1916 Lake Austin estate to the Texas Fine Arts Association (TFAA) to be used "as a Museum to bring pleasure in the appreciation of art to the people of Texas."

1946 > The first specimens of the Barton Springs salamander were collected.

Also, the University of Texas establishes the Balcones Research Center on a 393-acre site of a former federal World War II magnesium plant northwest of Austin.

1950s

1952 > Cactus Pryor becomes program director of KTBC-TV, Austin's first television, and begins a 30-minute variety show broadcast live from the Driskill Hotel.

1956 > The University of Texas became the first major university in the South to accept African Americans.

1957 > National Radio Personality John Henry Faulk, who lived in Austin, is blacklisted and his career is ended. On June 28, 1962, Faulk sewed the non-profit entity that labeled him a communist. The jury awarded him the largest libel judgment in history to that date -- $3.5 million.

1960s

1961 > The Texas Fine Arts Association Austin chapter establishes the Laguna Gloria Art Museum.

1963 > Football Coach Darrell Royal leads the University of Texas Longhorns to their first national championship. It was the first national championship for the state of Texas.

August 1, 1966 > Charles Whitman kills 16 people during a shooting rampage from atop the University of Texas Tower. He wounded 31 more that day, before a young Austin police officer shot him, in one of the nation's first major sniper incidents.

1966 > KTBC receives a Peabody award for Neal Spelce's reporting of the Tower shooting.

1967 > IBM and Tracor set up shop in northwest Austin.

1968 > First African-American voted onto the Austin School Board. This was the first African-American to serve in Austin politics since the 1880s when two African-Americans served on the Austin City Council.

1969 > Texas Instruments comes to Austin.

1970s

1970s > Austin's population continues to expand propelled by the emergence of the city as a center for high technology.

1970 > Armadillo World Headquarters is established.

1971 > Berl Handcox, first African-American voted to the city-council seat since the 1880s. A plan is developed to beautify the shores of Town Lake and create a hike and bike trail system for Austin recreation.

Also, a small sandwich shop opens on South Congress. Schlotzky's Deli creates it's original sandwich which immediately becomes an Austin favorite.

May 22, 1971 > The LBJ Presidential Library and LBJ School of Public Affairs are dedicated.

1972 > First Mexican American voted on the Austin school board.

Austin Community College, a two-year institution, was founded.

1974 > Motorola builds a plant in Austin.

Later that year, KLRU General Manager Bill Arhos writes the first proposal for a PBS music show called Austin City Limits. The first pilot is filmed with Willie Nelson.

1975 > John Trevi?o is the first Mexican American voted to the Austin City Council.

1980s

1980s > Two major research consortiums of high-technology companies, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation combine to develop Sematech, which later becomes an incubator for many software and high technology spin-offs.

1982 > Lady Bird Johnson creates a national wildflower center research center as part of her national beautification efforts.

1984 > Michael Dell starts his computer company in Austin.

Feb. 14, 1988 > Children's Hospital of Austin opens

1989 > Treaty Oak was deliberately vandalized with massive amounts of poison. As the tree slipped into critical condition, a blank check was written by Texas industrialist Ross Perot to save the tree. Eight years later the tree produced its first crop of acorns after being poisoned.

1990s

1990s > The city's corporate area grew sevenfold to 225.40 acres.

Jan. 29, 1990 > Bergstrom Air Force Base announced as one of the military bases for closure study.

1992 > Austin completes a new convention center.

May 22, 1999 > Robert Mueller Municipal Airport closes and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport begins passenger service.

2000s

2000 > Austin City Council moves to temporary site while construction begins on a new City Hall and public plaza.

January 2, 2000 > Michael and Susan Dell purchase a 40-acre site in the heart of the Jewish Community and donated this for use as a Jewish Community Center and for other Jewish Organizations.

May 2002 > Austin completes expansion of its Convention Center.

Courtesy KLRU, Austin Texas