Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the Texas History podcast. Before I began, I want to thank everyone for the tremendous response

to the launch of the podcast. I released an introductory episode and three others and had

hundreds of downloads just the first few days. Feedback has been tremendous and I very much

appreciate it. Now, if I've asked for suggestions about Texas history questions or topics you'd like me to address,

and this episode four is in response to one of those suggestions.

A listener from Houston wanted to learn more about the capitals of Texas.

At first blush, that might seem easy, but like so many things in Texas history,

it's a little bit complicated, but also very interesting.

So interesting, in fact, that I've decided to split it into two different episodes.

So this is episode four, part one of the capitals of Texas.

To start our discussion about the capitals of Texas, we need to go back to 1836 and get wise about Texas. In episode one, we discussed San Felipe de Austin,

which was the capital of Austin's colony, but we're going to start discussing capitals as of March

2nd, 1836, which is the day Texas declared her independence for Mexico and elected a provisional

government. There was a convention held at

Washington on the Brazos, which was located on the Brazos River in what's now Washington County. The

declaration of independence was adopted on March the 2nd, and they signed it on March the 3rd. On March

the 4th, they formed a committee to organize the military, and Sam Houston was appointed to commander-in-chief.

From there, the convention dragged a few days, while the members squabbled over how to fund

the revolution, how to draft a constitution, and while everyone was eagerly awaiting word

from the alamo. Finally, on March 15th, word came to Washington that the alamo had fallen,

and that bad news made the formation of the government more urgent,

and the Constitution was adopted the following day, March 16th.

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