History

Austin, Texas, with its modern buildings and treelined streets, suggests an aura of permanence, especially when one glances up Congress Avenue toward the massive Capitol building or drives by the gigantic University of Texas. That it could ever have been a minute, drab locality deep on the fringe of Texas civilization is difficult to imagine. Still more difficult to comprehend is the fact that the capital city once had to struggle vigorously to keep from being obliterated in its infancy. This paper is intended primarily to relate to the reader the early history of Austin, and to remind him, by using Austin as an example, that our modern Texas cities were implanted upon frontier foundations