Prehistoric Texas Early inhabitants of Central Texas date to between 12,000 to 22,000 years ago as evidenced by the discovery of sites like
Leanderthal Lady ("Leanne") at the Wilson-Leonard site near
Leander, Texas. Another two of the oldest
Paleo-Indian archeological sites in Texas, the
Levi Rock Shelter and
Smith Rock Shelter, are in southwest and southeast Travis County, respectively. In downtown Austin, archeological excavations have revealed that the hilltop where the
French Legation now sits was utilized during the
Archaic period (North America), possibly 5,000 years ago. Even earlier artifacts dating to the
Paleo-Indians period show that humans may have used the area as early as 9,000 years ago. Continuous occupation of Travis County continues into the Toyah Phase represented by sites like the Toyah Bluff Site in southeast Travis County along Onion Creek. The Toyah Phase is the last widespread prehistoric pattern prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Spanish period The region (along with all of modern Texas) was claimed by the
Spanish Empire in the 1600s, but at the time no attempt was made to settle the area (or even to explore it fully). In 1691
Domingo Terán de los Ríos was instructed to make a tour of Spanish Texas with the goal of establishing missions among the Tejas (
Hasinai), keep records of "geography, natives, and products" and investigate rumors of foreign settlements on the coast (the French). Terán's entrada took them through Travis County crossing the Colorado River near what would later be called the
Montopolis ford, which today is part of
El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail. In 1709 Captain
Pedro de Aguirre led an expedition with Fathers
Antonio de Olivares and
Isidro de Espinosa (Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre Expedition) from San Juan Bautista Mission along the Rio Grande River in Mexico into Travis County hoping to meet with the Tejas Indians (
Hasinai). They reached the south bank the Colorado River in or near Austin in April, but found the Tejas were not there. They were however visited by members of a number of Indigenous Peoples: Yojuan (AKA
Yojuane), Simomo, and Tusonibi. Guides for the Spanish included Indigenous Peoples they had encountered just previously living near
San Pedro Springs: Chaularame,
Payaya, Sana,
Sijame, and Siupan. With orders not to cross the Colorado the expedition returned to Mexico. In 1730
Franciscan friars, who were given responsibility for all the Texas missions, made the decision to relocate three
missions,
La Purísima Concepción,
San Francisco de los Neches, and
San José de los Nazonis, to a site by the
Colorado River near
Barton Springs. The friars found conditions undesirable and relocated to the
San Antonio River within a year of their arrival.
El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail runs through Travis County crossing the Colorado River just east of the
Montopolis Bridge.
Mexican period In 1821
Mexico won its independence from Spain, and the new government enacted
laws encouraging colonists to settle the Texas frontier by granting them land and reduced taxation. Over the next decade, thousands of foreign immigrants (primarily from the United States) moved into Texas; in particular, American
empresario Stephen F. Austin established one of his colonies, known as Austin's "Little Colony", consisting of 100 families near what is now
Bastrop, Texas in 1827.
Josiah and Mathias Wilbarger,
Reuben Hornsby (namesake of
Hornsby Bend, Travis County, Texas), Jacob M. Harrell,
Noah Smithwick, and John F. Webber (namesake of
Webberville, Travis County, Texas) were early settlers who moved to the Bastrop area in the early 1830s. Webber and Reubon Hornsby would later move west and form the settlements of Webberville and Hornsby Bend respectively.
Republic of Texas period In 1836 Texas
declared and
won its independence from Mexico, forming the Republic of Texas. That same year, 1836, before Austin was founded, Fort Colorado, AKA Fort Coleman, was established in then Bastrop County, later to be Travis County, to secure and expand the Republic of Texas’ control over Native American territory. It was strategically located on the main road to what would later be Austin from
Bastrop, Texas,
Webberville, Texas and
Hornsby Bend, Texas, what Barkley called the "Path of the Pioneers", today's Webberville Road, also known as FM 969. It was this path Vice President Lamar would later take to Waterloo in 1838 for the buffalo hunt which eventually led to Austin as the capital of Texas. Lamar stopped at the fort to procure an escort of rangers. While there were skirmishes between Anglo-Texans and Native Americans, there were also attempts at peace. In 1837 a band of Penateka
Comanche (Nʉmʉnʉʉ) approached Fort Colorado to seek a treaty of peace. Texas Ranger and historian
Noah Smithwick, stationed at the fort, lived with the Comanche as emissary for many months where he “was made the recipient of every attention known to their code of hospitality”. This is the only known peace treaty initiated from inside Travis County. The treaty was unfortunately never ratified by Texas. Tribes such as the ethnographically well-known Comanche, Lipan Apache, Waco (Wichita branch), and even the Tonkawa migrated into Texas, of which Travis County is a part, just before or during the early European contact period. The expansion of the Spanish into what is now Travis County, establishing missions, traveling El Camino Real de los Tejas, and introducing European diseases, along with the migration of other Native American tribes to the area, particularly the Lipan Apache who in turn were retreating from Comanche expansion, displaced tribes that were indigenous to the area since before European contact, like the Coahuiltecans. After Texas Vice President
Mirabeau B. Lamar visited
central Texas during a
buffalo-hunting expedition between 1837 and 1838, he proposed that the republic's capital (then located in
Houston) be relocated to a site on the north bank of the
Colorado River. Edward Burleson had surveyed the planned townsite of
Waterloo, near the mouth of Shoal Creek on the Colorado River, in 1838; it was incorporated January 1839. By April of that year the site selection commission had selected Waterloo to be the new capital. A bill previously passed by Congress in May, 1838, specified that any site selected as the new capital would be named Austin, after the late Stephen F. Austin; hence Waterloo upon selection as the capital was renamed Austin. A new county was also established the following year, of which Austin would be the seat; the county was named Travis County, after
William B. Travis, commander of the
Alamo. Travis County was originally a part of Bastrop County; many old land records from the time of
Mexican Texas for Travis County were originally filed with the Bastrop County Clerk's Office. Later a number of other counties were carved from the original boundaries of Travis County: Callahan (1858), Coleman (1858), Comal (1846), Gillespie (1848), Hays (1848), Burnet (1852), Brown (1856), Lampasas (1856), Eastland (1858), Runnels (1858), and Taylor (1858). In the years following the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, Mexican leaders periodically threatened to renew hostilities against Texas. March 5, 1842, at the direction of
Antonio López de Santa Anna, a force of 700 men under
Ráfael Vásquez (general) marched into Texas and seized
San Antonio. Forewarned of the Mexican advance, most residents had already evacuated allowing Vasquez to enter the town unopposed. Fearing a subsequent attack on Austin (which never came), many residents left Austin and President Houston moved the capital to Houston on March 13, 1842; it was then moved to
Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas September of that same year. It was during this period the
Texas Archive War took place. The capital was moved once more, back to Austin, in 1845.
Civil War and Reconstruction In 1861 Travis County was one of the few Texas counties to vote against
secession from the Union. Since the majority of the state did favor secession, Travis County then became a part of the
Confederacy for the duration of the
Civil War. After secession, life became difficult for those in Travis County that continued to support the Union. Governor Sam Houston refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Confederate States of America and was forced to step-down as Governor. Some, like prominent lawyer and businessman, Josiah Fisk, namesake of Fiskville and brother of
Greenleaf Fisk, opted to leave Texas when threatened with conscription. Others like former Texas Ranger Richard Lincoln Preece mounted guerilla resistance against the Confederacy from inside Travis County, eventually being forced to leave Texas via Mexico to join the U.S. Army. Barkley describes hangings and attempted hangings in Travis County of persons remaining loyal to the Union. During the Civil War a number of forts, or fortifications, were built in Austin anticipating Union attack (which never occurred). One of the better documented of these located on South Congress was Fort Magruder. Among shortages experienced in Travis County during the Civil War was timely news from newspapers. Some newspapermen closed shop and enlisted when the war began. Other newspapers were forced to close due to lack of ink and paper available only through Mexico or the Gulf Coast which was blockaded by Union forces. In Travis County the "State Gazette" (Austin) kept a pony express rider at the
Brenham, Texas railhead to bring in Houston papers with news only 18 hours old. During the Civil War, the
Tonkawa massacre of 1862 took place on a reservation in Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). It was an attack by a number of pro-Union Native American tribes on the Tonkawa who supported the Confederacy; the massacre led to near extermination of the tribe. After the massacre, by the summer of 1863, some Tonkawa began drifting south into Texas, some returning to the Austin area, then a fortified Confederate city. At the end of the Civil War, Austin was surrendered to the United States and occupied by Union troops. By 1867 the United States ordered the removal of the Tonkawa from Austin. The
Indian Papers document the escorted removal of 135 Tonkawa from Austin to
Jacksboro, Texas, March 3, 1867 to April 18, 1867, for eventual resettlement on a reservation near
Fort Griffin in
Shackelford County, Texas that same year.
Reconstruction began with the end of the Civil War lasting from 1865 to 1870. As the capital of Texas, Austin played a central role in administration of Reconstruction policies and programs. U.S. Army troops were stationed in Austin to enforce new laws and protect African Americans. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, better known as The Freedmen’s Bureau, was administered from Austin helping formerly enslaved people with labor contracts, education, and legal disputes. During Reconstruction Travis County saw the formation of many
Freedom colonies by enslaved African Americans. After Reconstruction the first Railroad to enter Travis County was the
Houston and Texas Central Railway arriving in Austin December 25, 1871, making the city the westernmost rail terminus in Texas. With the arrival of the railroad materials like milled lumber became readily available ushering in a building boom and making Austin a trading center. A second railroad soon followed, the
International–Great Northern, reaching Austin in 1876. Several lumberyards appear on the
1887 Birdseye Map of Austin near the rail freight yard.
20th century The
United States Geological Survey (USGS) was established in 1879. In the early years of the USGS its survey work was hampered by lack of funds and as late as the 1920s nearly 60% of the US was still unmapped. Travis County was fortunate to be one of the first areas mapped producing what is known as the "1902 Austin folio" (surveyed 1895-1896, published 1902). Although referred to as the "Austin quadrangle" it covers all of Travis County. In addition to the map produced, the USGS produced written reports including the "culture" of Travis County at the turn of the 20th century. Quoting the USGS: "The Austin quadrangle has a comparatively dense population, but nine-tenths of its inhabitants are found on the Coastal Plain, east of the Balcones scarp, the
Edwards Plateau country to the west being but sparsely populated. The densest rural population is found in the White Rock and Taylor prairies and the Colorado bottoms, nearly the entire areas of which are devoted to the cultivation of cotton, with some minor crops. The few people inhabiting the Edwards Plateau are engaged in raising cattle and cutting cedar timber from the hills to supply the city of Austin with fuel. Occasionally farmers cultivate small areas of alluvial soil in the valleys of this district." Towns cited: "Austin, the capital of the State, occupies both banks of the Colorado near the center of the quadrangle. It is a city of 30,000 inhabitants and contains many handsome public buildings, including the capitol and university. Manor, about 12 miles northeast of Austin, is a prosperous rural village of about 5000 inhabitants.
McNeil,
Manchaca, and
Buda are small towns along the line of the International and Great Northern Railroad. The other towns on the map, such as
Oak Hill,
Watters,
Pflugerville, Sprinkle,
Bluff Springs,
New Sweden, and Fiskville, are small villages with one or more stores and a few houses." Railroads:
International and Great Northern Railroad;
Houston and Texas Central Railway;
Austin and Northwestern Railroad branch of the
Houston and Texas Central Railway. Roads of the time are categorized as "county roads of the first order, which lead from Austin to the neighboring county seats; lanes leading from the main highways to small communities or farms; and country roads, originally made by wood cutters, which meander through the region of the Edwards Plateau ... Three substantial bridges span the Colorado, the westernmost of which is devoted solely to railway traffic, and the others, at Austin and
Montopolis, Austin, Texas, to vehicles." The USGS descriptions concludes with a note that applies to Travis County to this day: "It is interesting to note on the map how the courses of the principal railways and highways are governed by the geologic structure." 1936 was the Centennial of Texas' independence from Mexico. In celebration the Texas Legislature created the Commission of Control for Texas Centennial Celebrations. Of about 600 historical markers erected statewide Travis County received about 50 of the 1936 Centennial markers. Unfortunately most Centennial markers, being a product of their time, focus on the "Anglo Texan" view of the last 100 years overlooking the diverse experiences of Native Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans in Texas. In addition to markers, Travis County celebrated the Centennial by publishing
The Defender 1936, a yearbook of Travis County rural public schools, compiled by the students and staff of the schools represented in the book.
The Defender is a valuable primary source for genealogists, researchers, educators and students of Travis County history. The 348-page book contains hundreds of names of students, teachers, principals, trustees, etc. There is history of each school and photos of people and school buildings. Having been out of print since 1936, copies of
The Defender 1936 are hard to access. Fortunately the book has been scanned and published on-line through the University of North Texas’ Portal to Texas History.
The Defender 1936 unfortunately does not include the many African American and Mexican American schools that were in Travis County at that time. The Travis County Engineering Department did however produce road maps in 1932 with names and locations of all these schools. From the end of the Civil War to the early twenty-first century, Travis County has experienced steady, rapid population growth (averaging more than a 36% increase every decade from 1870 to 2010), driven largely by the growth of Austin and its suburbs; it is now the fifth most populous county in Texas, after
Harris (Houston),
Dallas,
Tarrant (
Fort Worth) and
Bexar (
San Antonio) counties. ==Geography==