Capitals of Texas part 2: Houston and Austin go to War! (ep. 5)
Wise About Texas
Ken Wise
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2015
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Houston was the capital of Texas, but not for long. After the capital moved to the new town of Austin, President Sam Houston kept trying to move it again…leading to an armed conflict and a cannon fired on Congress Avenue! The only question is whether the war is really over…
Angelina Eberly statue on Congress Ave. in Austin
The original capitol building in Austin, 1839
The first capitol building in Houston, 1837, on Texas Ave. at Main St.
Sam Houston’s first residence as President of the Republic of Texas. Located Caroline St. in Houston
Historical marker for the first Houston, Texas.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the Texas history podcast. First of all, I want to thank everyone for a continued tremendous response to this podcast. |
| 0:23.9 | Hundreds of folks are enjoying it and spreading the stories of Texas history. |
| 0:27.9 | Please take a minute to give the show a rating and review on iTunes |
| 0:31.1 | because that really helps the people find the show. |
| 0:34.8 | And be sure to share the Wise About Texas Facebook page. You can also follow the show and be sure to share the wise about texas facebook page you can also follow the show |
| 0:39.9 | at wise about texas that's at wise about texas i love telling these stories and i hope that you'll help me |
| 0:46.5 | preserve texas history now in response to a listener's suggestion i decided to do a show on the |
| 0:52.6 | capitals of texas but quickly discovered that it needed to be a show on the capitals of Texas, but quickly discovered |
| 0:55.1 | that it needed to be two episodes. In the first episode, you learned about the travels of the |
| 0:59.5 | provisional government before and right after Texas won independence and how several places |
| 1:04.4 | could have been considered a capital of the Republic of Texas. Washington on the Brazos, the |
| 1:09.6 | Bernardo Plantation, Harrisburg, the Texan |
| 1:12.9 | Army camp at San Jacenno, Galveston, Velasco, and Columbia were all headquarters for the new government |
| 1:18.8 | at one point in time. The first legislature convened at Columbia and within two months had already |
| 1:26.0 | voted to move the capital, this time to the new city of Houston. |
| 1:30.0 | So let's go back to 1836 and get Wise About Texas. |
| 1:34.8 | Before we get to the city of Houston as the Capitol, I've got to start with one of those side stories that this show is becoming famous for. |
| 1:42.7 | Did you know that the city of Houston, |
| 1:44.7 | the present-day city, was not the first town in Texas named Houston? I didn't know that until I was |
| 1:49.7 | researching this episode. It turns out that in 1835, 500 acres was donated by Joseph Jordan and |
| 1:57.2 | William McDonald for a town site and a fort in Anderson County. The town site was |
| 2:02.6 | located in a curve of a stream called Town Creek, which is about two miles west of present-day |
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