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The
history of Texas (as part of
the United States)
began in 1845, but settlement of the region dates
back to the end of the
Upper Paleolithic Period, around 10,000 BC. Its
history has been shaped by being part of six
independent countries: Spain,
France,
Mexico, the
Republic of Texas, the
Confederacy,
and the United States.
Starting in the 1820s, American and European
immigrants began arriving in the area; joined by
Hispanic Tejanos they
revolted against Mexico in 1836 and defeated an
invasion army. After a decade as an independent
country, Texas joined the Union (the United States)
in 1845. The western frontier state was
characterized by large-scale cattle ranching and
cotton farming. In the 20th century, it grew
rapidly, becoming the second largest state in
population 1994, and became economically highly
diversified, with a growing base in high technology.
The state has been shaped by the interactions of
Southern,
Tejano,
Native American,
African American, and
German Texan cultures.
Indigenous peoples
Texas lies
within the regions of three North American civilizations
which had reached their developmental peak prior to the
arrival of European explorers.
Namely, the Pueblo
from the upper Rio Grande region,
the Mound Builder of
the Mississippi Valley
region, and the civilizations of the
pre-Columbian cultures of
Mexico
and Central America. No one
culture was dominant in the present-day Texas region and
many different peoples inhabited the area.
Native
American tribes that lived inside the boundaries of
present-day Texas include the
Alabama, Apache,
Atakapan,
Bidai,
Caddo, Coahuiltecan,
Comanche,
Cherokee, Choctaw,
Coushatta,
Hasinai, Jumano,
Karankawa,
Kickapoo, Kiowa,
Tonkawa, and Wichita. The
name Texas derives from
táyshaʔ, a word in the
Caddoan language of the
Hasinai, which means "friends" or "allies".
Native
Americans determined the fate of European explorers and
settlers depending on whether a tribe
was friendly or warlike. Friendly tribes taught newcomers
how to grow indigenous crops, prepare foods, and hunting
methods for wild game. Warlike
tribes made life unpleasant, difficult and dangerous for
explorers and settlers through their attacks and resistance
to European conquest.
A remnant
of the Choctaw tribe in East Texas still lives in the Mt.
Tabor Community near Amberly, Texas. Currently, there are
three federally-recognized Native American tribes which
reside in Texas: the
Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas, the
Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas,
and the Ysleta Del Sur
Pueblo of Texas.
French Texas
Although
the Spanish had earlier sent a token force to the southern
border of what is now Texas, the first Europeans established
in the main part and heart of Texas were the
French. However, the French colonial
presence was short-lived. After exploring the interior of
what is now the United States, French nobleman
La Salle
returned with a large expedition designed to establish a
French colony on the Gulf of
Mexico, at the mouth of the
Mississippi River. They left France in 1684 with four
ships and 300 colonists. The expedition was plagued by
pirates, hostile Indians, and poor navigation. One ship was
lost to pirates in the West Indies,
a second sank in the inlets of
Matagorda Bay, where a third ran aground. They set up
Fort Saint Louis of Texas, near
Victoria, Texas.
La Salle
led a group eastward on foot on three occasions to try to
find the shortest route from Texas to the
Mississippi. During the
last such search his remaining 36 followers mutinied, and he
was murdered by four of them near the site of modern
Navasota, Texas. The colony
lasted only until 1688, when Karankawa-speaking
Indians massacred the twenty remaining adults and took five
children as captives. Tonti
sent out search missions in 1689 when he learned of the
expedition's fate, but failed to reach a fort with
survivors.
Despite the
failure of their colony in Texas, the French continued to
claim Texas, even after the Spanish arrived and colonized
it. The French period of Texan history is memorialized in
the Texas state seal and as the first (or second) of the
traditional "six flags over
Texas."
Important dates
Spanish Texas
The failure
of the French colony became known throughout the world. A
year thereafter, the Spanish entered Texas, eager to keep
the French in Louisiana, far from the wealth of
New Spain. Texas became an
important but sparsely populated buffer between the claims
of the world powers France and Spain. Spanish Texas lasted
between 1690 and 1821 when Texas was governed as a
Spanish colony separate from
New Spain, known as the "Kingdom of
Texas". This period begins with the expedition of the
governor of Coahuila to destroy the
ruins of the French colony of
Fort Saint Louis and
establish a Spanish presence in the area, and ends with the
independence of
Mexico in 1821, facilitating
Mexican Texas. During this
period, Texas was a part of four provinces in the
Viceroyalty of New Spain (Colonial Mexico): the El Paso area
was under the jurisdiction of New Mexico, the missions
founded near La Junta de los Ríosqv were under Nueva
Vizcaya,qv the coastal region from the Nueces River to the
Rio Grande and thence upstream to Laredo was under Nuevo
Santanderqv after 1749, and Texas was initially under joint
jurisdiction with the province of Coahuila. Slightly more
than three centuries elapsed between the time the Texas
shoreline was first viewed by a Spaniard in 1519 and July
21, 1821, when the flag of Castile and León was lowered for
the last time at San Antonio. Those 300 years may be divided
into three stages: the era of early exploration, in which
there was a preliminary evaluation of the land and its
resources; the period of cultural absorption, in which the
Texas Indians began to acquire Hispanic cultural elements,
at first indirectly from Indian intermediaries and then
directly from the Spanish themselves; and the time of
defensive occupation, in which the Spanish presence in Texas
was more dictated by international considerations than
caused by the momentum of an expanding empire.
For most of
the period of Spanish Texas, the area assumed a geopolitical
importance vastly disproportionate to its economic or
demographic place in the Spanish Empire. During the initial
period of Spanish expansion into Texas, the Empire moved to
establish a string of
missions (often with an accompanying
presidio) to establish a toehold
in the frontier land. Because the environs of Texas were
relatively unknown or unsubstantiated above reports made
during the early Conquistadore period, Spainish expansion
was as much about delineating the extent of their power as
much as actually settling the area. A system of
mission-presidios were established at present day San
Antonio, La Bahia, Los Adaes, El Paso, Loredao, Nagodoches,
and San Louis de las Amarillas. This initial expansion in
the early 18th century met with immediate setback, when
during the War of
the Quadruple Alliance in Europe,
hostilities spread to the New World
and French troops from
Natchitoches briefly captured the capital of Texas,
Los Adaes, in what is now
Northwest Louisiana.
Following this setback, the Presidios was San Luis de las
Amarillas although strengthened and maintained over various
years had to be abandoned in 1770 oweing to Indian
depredations and economic viability. Thus, Spanish efforts
toward expansion in Texas during the years 1731-62 were a
failure, except at La Bahía, San Antonio de Bexar, and along
the lower Rio Grande. Missions and presidios, although
proven frontier institutions, had clearly failed north of
San Antonio.
Spanish
Texas had solidified upon three primary centers. The oldest
and largest of colonial Texas communities was San Antonio de
Béxarqv. In its eighty-year history the settlement had
evolved from a presidio-mission complex to the first
chartered municipality and finally to the provincial
capital. Its population of approximately 2,000 was composed
chiefly of Mexican settlers from Coahuila, Nuevo León, and
other frontier provinces mixed with a small number of Canary
Islanders. After the United States acquired Louisiana,
reinforcement of the Spanish military presence in Texas
resulted in the transfer of the Second Flying Company of San
Carlos de Parrasqv (the Álamo de Parras company) to San
Antonio, where it was headquartered in 1803 at San Antonio
de Valero Mission, which had been closed. Other units from
Nuevo Santander and Nuevo León swelled the population to
over 3,000 by 1810.
The
secondary center of Spanish colonial power La Bahíaq
(present-day Goliad), was the second oldest settlement in
the province. It was originally established in 1721 at the
site of La Salle'sqv Fort St. Louis, then moved in 1749 to
the San Antonio River, where the presidio and two missions
had the task of guarding the Texas Gulf Coast against
foreign encroachment. In 1803 the settlement's population of
approximately 618 soldiers and civilians continued to live
under military jurisdiction.
The third
center of Spanish power and the one with the most limited
amount of Spanish royal control was far to the northeast,
near the Louisiana border. North-Eastern Texas had
traditionally been a community of English, French, and
Spanish settlers who had established the Presidio de Las
Adaes as the first capital of Texas. However, North-East
Texas was even further removed from Mexico City than San
Antonio de Bexar. Consequently, the area was downgraded in
colonial status and by Imperial edict the settlement was
ordered abandoned. The viceroy eventually did permit the
resettlement of East Texas, but would not consent to
dwellings within 100 leagues of Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Still, the refugees in San Antonio viewed any concession as
encouraging. In August 1774 they founded the settlement of
Bucareliqv on the Trinity River at a site in what is now
Madison County. The town had attracted 347 inhabitants by
1777, but it was plagued by floods and Comanche raids.
Without authorization, the population moved again in 1779 to
Nacogdoches. The new town began to be garrisoned in 1795 by
a detachment from Bexar as a means of further solidifying
the interests of San Antonio over the province. By the
beginning of the 19th century, the settlement was attracting
increasing numbers of immigrants, legal and otherwise, from
the Anglo-American frontier.
Towards the
end of the 18th century Texas remained a sparsely settled
territory, heavily dependent on the military and continually
exposed to the depredations of Indians that resisted Spanish
sovereignty in the region. Crown efforts during much of the
18th century to bolster the small population and thus
improve the province's viability proved in general
unsuccessful. The population remained a mixture of
hispanized Indians centered on the missions, Spanish and
Mexican soldiers with their families, Spanish colonial
officials and their families, and various communities of
French, British, Italian, German, and American settlers who
had been assimilated into the Spanish system. Then in the
early years of the 19th century Spain once again faced
concerted efforts by rivals, now including the United
States, to wrest from it important parts of its North
American empire. Relations with the United States had come
dangerously close to war over navigation rights on the
Mississippi River and the expansion of Anglo-American
frontier settlements into the Spanish Floridas. Napoleon's
coerced acquisition of Louisiana in 1800 and his subsequent
sale of the vast territory to the United States in 1803 left
Spanish North America divided and vulnerable.
The most
complete census data for Spanish Texas in the early
nineteenth century are for 1804, the first year after the
sale of Louisiana to the United States. It is quite possible
that this systematic count resulted from the need to assess
the strength and numbers of the Spanish and Hispanicized
population in the face of aggressive Americans to the east.
The following population figures were compiled between
January and December 1804: Nacogdoches, 789; Presidial
Company of San Antonio de Béxar, 413; Mission San Juan
Capistrano, 74; Mission San Antonio de Valero, 121; Presidio
(Settlement) of La Bahía, 399; Presidial Company of La
Bahía, 301; Missions La Bahía, Rosario, and Refugio, 224;
Mission San Francisco de la Espada, 107; Villa San Fernando
de Béxar and Presidio (Settlement) of Béxar, 1,177. Total:
3,605. Although the Spanish-speaking population included
merchants and a few artisans such as tailors and
blacksmiths, the vast majority of Texans were stock raisers
and small farmers. The figures do not include unsettled
Indians or black slaves; as Randolph B. Campbell has
demonstrated, there were virtually no black bondsmen in
Spanish Texas on the eve of Mexican independence.
The early
19th century position of Spanish Texas did not look
promising. Foreign encroachments, Indian warfare, and
insurrectionary activity all contributed to demographic and
economic collapse. In the end, desperate Spanish authorities
authorized Anglo-American colonization in an effort to
bolster the province and so produced a new set of problems
for the Mexican authorities who soon replaced them. In the
years following the Louisiana
Purchase and the acquisition of
New Orleans by the U.S., American settlers had begun to
move westward into Mexican claimed territory. Some settlers
were active filibusters,
who sought the long-term annexation of the area by the U.S.
In 1812-1813, the
Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition attempted to separate Texas
from the Spanish Empire. In response the Spanish government
in Mexico ordered a virtuall genocide of the entire Tejano-American
population and any of their collaborators amongst the Tejano-Spanish
population. The result was the utter devastation of Texas
which left it with a population size it had at the beginning
of the 18th century. Spanish Texas was a failing colonial
policy.
The
uninterrupted Spanish occupation of Texas (1716-1821) lasted
for just 105 years. However, the legacies of Spanish Texas
are lasting and significant. On reflection they seem all out
of proportion to the relatively small number of Spaniards
and Hispanicized Indians who became the Mexican nation in
1821. Perhaps most obvious, yet superficial in importance,
is the use of Spanish names for hundreds of towns, cities,
counties, and geographic features in Texas. San Antonio, the
first formal municipality in Texas, is one of the ten
largest cities in the United States. Forty-two of the 254
counties in Texas bear either Hispanic names, or an
Anglicized derivation such as Galveston, or a misspelling
such as Uvalde. The names of physiographical features such
as Llano Estacado, Guadalupe Mountains, and Padre Island
serve as reminders of Spanish explorers and conquistadors
who crossed portions of Texas well before the English
settled the Atlantic Coast of North America. Spaniards
introduced numerous European crops, irrigationqv at San
Antonio and other mission sites, livestock, and
livestock-handling techniques. Farming, initially practiced
by some Indian groups in Texas, was likewise expanded and
improved by Spanish missionaries and settlers. The restored
missions at San Antonio and Goliad stand as enduring
monuments to the Franciscans who brought the mantle of
Christianity to Texas Indians. With the exception of those
in California, the finest examples of Spanish mission
architecture in the United States are found in Texas.
Important dates
Mexican Texas
Mexican
Texas is the name given by Texas historians to the brief
period between 1821—1836, when Texas was part of
Mexico, as a part of the State of
Coahuila y Tejas. The period
begins with Mexico's victory over
Spain in its
war of independence
in 1821 and ends with
Texas's
Declaration of Independence from Mexico in 1836, forming
the Republic of Texas.
The
Rio Grande and
South Texas areas have had a long
and turbulent history of independence movements by the local
Mexican population, on account of unitary and perceived
dictatorial and unconstitutional practices by the central
Mexican government. North Texas
and East Texas, meanwhile,
remained largely in the hands of
Native
American tribes, some of whom were hostile to Spanish
and then Mexican rule.
In the
1820s, the population in Texas was very sparse and the
Mexican government had difficulty in attracting Mexicans to
the area. In order to populate and develop the area, Mexico
sought settlers from Europe and especially the neighboring
United States. Mexico reached an agreement with
Stephen F. Austin to permit
several hundred families from the United States, known as
Texians, to move into the region.
Thousands of additional settlers soon flooded into Texas.
Mexico expected its citizens to be members in good standing
of the Catholic Church, whereas the settlers from the United
States were Protestant. When Mexico
abolished slavery nationwide, some immigrants from the
U.S. refused to comply with the law. American-Texans
complained about the tightening political and economic
control over the territory by the central government in
Mexico City.
In 1835,
Mexican President
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna abolished the
Constitution of 1824 and
sought to centralize national power in
Mexico City. This caused much
political unrest throughout Mexico, an
example of which was the rebellion and resulting massacre in
Zacatecas. The new government's
efforts to tighten political and economic control over the
territory of Texas roused emotions in the
Texian settlers and local Tejanos,
leading to the Texas Revolution.
Important dates
Republic of Texas
The first
declaration of independence for modern Texas, by both
Anglo-Texan settlers and local Tejanos, was signed in
Goliad on
December 20, 1835.
The Texas
Declaration of Independence was enacted at
Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2,
1836, effectively creating the Republic
of Texas.
Four days
later, the two-week long
Battle of the Alamo ended as Mexican General
Antonio López de
Santa Anna's forces defeated the nearly 200 Texans
defending the small mission (which would eventually become
the center of the city of San
Antonio). "Remember the
Alamo!" became
the battle cry of the Texas Revolution. The
Battle of San Jacinto
was fought on April 21,
1836 near the present-day city of
Houston. General Santa Anna's entire
force of 1,600 men was killed or captured by Texas General
Sam Houston's army of 800 Texans;
only nine Texans died. This decisive battle resulted in
Texas's independence from Mexico. Sam
Houston, a native of Virginia,
was
President of the Republic of Texas for two separate
terms, 1836–1838 and 1841–1844. He also was
Governor of the state of
Texas from 1859 to 1861.
The first
Congress of the
Republic of Texas convened in October 1836 at
Columbia (now
West Columbia).
Stephen F. Austin,
known as the
Father of Texas, died
December 27, 1836, after serving two
months as Secretary of State
for the new Republic. In 1836, five sites served as
temporary capitals of Texas (Washington-on-the-Brazos,
Harrisburg,
Galveston,
Velasco and
Columbia) before Sam Houston
moved the capital to Houston in 1837.
In 1839, the capital was moved to the new town of
Austin.
Internal
politics of the Republic were based on the conflict between
two factions. The nationalist faction, led by
Mirabeau B. Lamar,
advocated the continued independence of Texas, the expulsion
of the
Native Americans, and the expansion of Texas to the
Pacific Ocean. Their opponents,
led by Sam Houston, advocated the annexation of Texas to the
United States and peaceful co-existence with Native
Americans. The first flag of the republic was the "Burnet
Flag" (a gold star on an azure field), followed shortly
thereafter by official adoption of the
Lone Star Flag. The Republic
received diplomatic recognition from the
United States,
France, the
United Kingdom, the Netherlands,
and the Republic of Yucatán.
In
London, England, the original Embassy
of the Republic of Texas still stands. Immediately opposite
the gates to St James Palace,
Sam Houston's original Embassy of the Republic of Texas to
His Majesty's Court is now a hat shop, but is clearly marked
with a large plaque.
Important dates
-
1835:
The Texas Revolution
began. Early in 1835
Stephen F. Austin announced that only war with
Mexico could secure Texan freedom.
-
2 October 1835:
Texans fought a Mexican cavalry detachment at the town
of Gonzales, which
began the actual revolution.
-
28 October
1835: At the "Battle
of Concepcion", 90 Texans defeated 450 Mexicans.
-
2 March 1836:
The "Convention of 1836" signed the
Texas
Declaration of Independence, making an attempt at a
clear break from Mexican rule.
-
6 March 1836:
A Mexican army (numbering 4,000 to 5,000) besieged
approximately 230 Texans, led by
William B. Travis, at
the Alamo in
San Antonio. The
thirteen-day siege resulted in the deaths of all of the
white malendefenders, including
Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie
and Travis. The women, children, and slaves, who were
not considered to have participated in the battle of
their own free wills, were released.
-
27 March 1836:
By the order of General
Antonio López de
Santa Anna, the Mexicans executed
James Fannin and nearly 400
Texans in the Massacre at
Goliad.
The
battleplace-names Goliad, Alamo,
San Jacinto, etc. line the rim of the Rotunda of the
Capitol in Austin.
-
21 April 1836:
Having seemingly defeated the Texas rebellion, General
Santa Anna divided his forces to conduct mopping up
operations. Those forces directly under Santa Anna's
command advanced to San Jacinto
in pursuit of the fleeing rebels. Led by
Sam Houston, the Texans won
their independence in one of the most decisive battles
in history when they defeated the Mexican forces of
Santa Anna at the
Battle of San Jacinto. Houston's army of 800 killed
or captured the entire Mexican force of 1,600 men,
themselves suffering only nine fatal casualties.
Santa Anna
himself passed into captivity.
-
14 May 1836:
Republic of Texas officials and General Santa Anna
signed the treaty of Velasco.
-
1836:
Five cities (Washington-on-the-Brazos,
Galveston,
Harrisburg,
Velasco, and
Columbia) each served as
temporary capitals of Texas before Sam Houston moved the
capital to Houston in
1837.
-
1839:
Austin is chosen to become
the capital of the Republic of Texas.
-
5 March 1842:
A Mexican force of over 500 men, led by Rafael Vasquez,
invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution.
They soon headed back to the Rio Grande after briefly
occupying San Antonio.
-
11 September
1842: 1,400 Mexican troops, led by Adrian Woll,
captured San Antonio again. They retreated, as before,
but with prisoners this time.
Statehood
On
February 28, 1845,
the U.S. Congress
passed a bill that would authorize the
United States to annex the
Republic of Texas and on March 1 U.S.
President John Tyler signed the
bill. The legislation set the date for annexation for
December 29 of the same year. On
October 13 of the same year, a
majority of voters in the Republic approved a proposed
constitution that specifically endorsed slavery and the
slave trade. This constitution was later accepted by the
U.S. Congress, making Texas a
U.S. state on the same day
annexation took effect (therefore bypassing a territorial
phase). One of the primary motivations for annexation was
that the Texas government had incurred huge debts which the
United States agreed to assume upon annexation. In the
Compromise of 1850, in
return for this assumption of $10 million of debt, a large
portion of Texas-claimed territory, now parts of
Colorado, Kansas,
Oklahoma, New
Mexico, and Wyoming, was ceded to
the Federal government.
The
annexation resolution has been the topic of some incorrect
historical beliefs—chiefly, that the resolution was a
treaty between sovereign states, and
granted Texas the explicit right to secede from the Union.
This was a right argued by some to be implicitly held by
all states at the time, and until the conclusion of the
Civil War. However, no
such right was explicitly enumerated in the resolution. That
having been said, the resolution did include two unique
provisions: first, it gave the new state of Texas the right
to divide itself into as many as five states (a proposal
never seriously considered). Second, Texas did not have to
surrender its public lands to the federal government. Thus
the only lands owned by the federal government within Texas
have actually been purchased by the government, and the vast
oil discoveries on state lands have provided a major revenue
flow for the state universities.
Important dates
Civil War and Reconstruction:
1860–1876
Texas
seceded from the United States on
February 1, 1861, and joined the
Confederate States
of America on March 2,
1861. Texas was mainly a "supply state"
for the Confederate forces until mid 1863, when the Union
capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of
men, horses or cattle impossible. Texas regiments fought in
every major battle throughout the war.
The last
battle of the Civil War, the
Battle of Palmito Ranch,
was fought in Texas on May 12,
1865.
Clampitt
(2005) suggests that Confederate soldiers of the Army of the
Trans-Mississippi in Texas after the Confederacy's collapse
in April 1865 were undisciplined. Due to low morale, a lack
of discipline, and a large number of desertions, disbanded
regiments and deserters pillaged government and private
property as they made their way homeward. Moreover, a lack
of participation in the larger campaigns of the war, a
feeling that their sacrifice had been a waste, and the fact
that they had not been paid in more than 16 months all made
the former soldiers feel entitled to take government
property (however, most Texas soldiers, being from a "supply
state," conducted themselves well in armies such as Lee's
Army of Northern
Virginia).
Reconstruction
When the
news arrived in Galveston, on June 19, 1865, of the
Confederate collapse, the freed slaves rejoiced, creating
the celebration of Juneteenth. The
State had suffered little during the War but trade and
finance was disrupted. Angry returning veterans seized state
property and Texas went through a period of extensive
violence and disorder. Most outrages took place in northern
Texas and were committed by outlaws who had their
headquarters in the Indian
Territory and plundered and murdered without distinction
of party. President Andrew Johnson appointed Union General
A. J. Hamilton as provisional governor on June 17, 1865.
Hamilton had been a prominent politician before the war. He
granted amnesty to ex-Confederates if they promised to
support the Union in the future, appointing some to office.
On March 30, 1870,
although Texas did not meet all the requirements, the
United States Congress
readmitted Texas into the
Union.
Important dates
-
23 February
1861: In the statewide election on the secession
ordinance, Texans voted to secede from the Union by a
vote of 46,129 to 14,697 (a 76% majority). The Secession
Convention immediately organized a government, replacing
Sam Houston when he refused
to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.
-
1 August 1862:
Confederate troops kill 34 pro-Union
German Texans in the "Nueces
Massacre" of civilians
-
19 June 1865:
Union troops landed in Galveston, Texas putting into
effect the
Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery
-
30 March 1870:
The US Congress readmitted Texas.
Border dispute with New Mexico
The
creation of the New Mexico
Territory in 1850 fixed the boundary with the state of
Texas at the Rio Grande. Between
then and 1912, when
New Mexico became a state, the
course of the river shifted. A boundary dispute case was
filed with the
Supreme Court of the United States in 1913. The court
settled the matter in 1927 by
determining where the river had flowed in 1850, largely in
agreement with the claims of Texas.
Texas in prosperity, depression,
and war: 1914–1945
Anthony F. Lucas,
an experienced mining engineer drilled the first major oil
well at Spindletop, on the morning
of January 10,
1901 the little hill south of
Beaumont, Texas. The
East Texas Oil Field, discovered on
October 5, 1930 is located in east
central part of the state, and is the largest and most
prolific oil reservoir in the
contiguous
United States. Other oil fields
were later discovered in West Texas
and under the Gulf of Mexico.
The resulting "Oil Boom" permanently transformed the economy
of Texas, and led to the first significant economic
expansion after the Civil War.
The
economy, which had experienced significant recovery since
the Civil War, was dealt a double blow by
the Great
Depression and the Dust Bowl.
After the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the economy suffered
significant reversals and thousands of city workers became
unemployed, many of who depended on federal relief programs
such as FERA, WPA and
CCC. Farmers and ranchers were especially
hard hit, as prices for cotton and livestock fell sharply.
Beginning in 1934 and lasting until 1939, an ecological
disaster of severe wind and drought caused an exodus from
Texas and Arkansas, the
Oklahoma Panhandle region
and the surrounding plains, in which over 500,000 Americans
were homeless, hungry and jobless. Thousands left the region
forever to seek economic opportunities along the West Coast.
Immediately preceding and during
World War II, existing military bases in Texas were
expanded and numerous new training bases were built,
especially for aviation training. Hundreds of thousands of
American (and some allied) soldiers, sailors and airmen
trained in the state. All sectors of the economy boomed as
the
homefront prospered.
Important dates
Texas modernizes: 1945–Present
From 1950
through the 1960s, Texas modernized and dramatically
expanded its system of higher education. Under the
leadership of Governor John B.
Connally, the state produced a long-range plan for
higher education, a more rational distribution of resources,
and a central state apparatus that managed state
institutions with greater efficiency. Because of these
changes, Texas universities received federal funds for
research and development during the John F. Kennedy and
Lyndon B. Johnson administrations.
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