History along the Way: Stories beyond the Texas Roadside Markers

Chapter 12. History on the Grounds

183 History on the Grounds Texans love to remember, commemorate, and celebrate their history . In numerous studies conducted by travel and tourism organizations , historic sites and museums consistently rank in the top ten on lists of places Texans, as well as out-of-state visitors, travel to see. The Texas Historical Commission’s website proclaims, “Welcome to Texas. Everything is bigger and better here, even the history !” Indeed, if the number of historical markers is any indication, that boast can be substantiated by the energyand enthusiasmTexans put into interpreting their history. With an estimated fifteen thousand markers currently dotting the landscape, and hundreds more added to the inventory each year, Texas has more historical markers than any other state in the union. While some proud Texans would argue the reason there are so many markers is that Texas has more history to celebrate than other states, a more modest explanation can be traced to the fact that the Texas marker program, unlike those in most other states, commemorates not only topics of statewide and national importance , but also topics of local significance. Believing the history of Texas is the collective story of its people, places, and events, the founders of the marker program designed a system in which local citizens, through participation in or interaction with county historical commissions, play an integral part in recounting that history . Taken together, the thousands of markers tell the sweeping story of Texas from the perspective of its people. In an essay entitled “Sense of Place,” the celebrated Western historian , writer, and environmentalist Wallace Stegner wrote, “No place is a place until the things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments.” Simi12 184 ChApter 12 larly, another writerobserved, “A sense of historyand sense of place are inextricably intertwined; we attach histories to places, and the environmental value we attach to a place comes largely through the historical associations we have with it.” If, as yet another historian has said, “The challenge of history is to recover the past and introduce it to the present,” Texans have taken such philosophies to heart with their participation in the state marker program, as well as through placement of monuments and other commemorative objects. One historic site where these concepts are exhibited to a high degree is the Texas State Capitol in Austin.While the building itself stands as a monument to the state’s pride and history, over theyears the cultural landscape of the Capitol grounds has also provided a venue for varied approaches to historical interpretation.1 In 1839, shortly after the Republic of Texas Congress designated the village of Waterloo as the new Texas capital and renamed it in honor of Stephen F. Austin, surveyors laid out a town grid and designated an area on a hillside north of the Colorado River at the end of Congress Avenue as Capitol Square. For the next five years the Republic of Texas Congress met in temporary buildings in downtown Austin, and following annexation to the United States as the twenty-eighth state in 1845, the first permanent state capitol building opened in 1853 on Capitol Square. In 1881, the same year the state legislature began making plans and seeking bids for the design of a grand newcapitol, the 1853 building burned to the ground. Architect Elijah E. Myers of Detroit, who had previously designed the Michigan capitol, won the contract to design the new building, and in May 1888, after six years of construction, the current Texas State Capitol was dedicated in a festive ceremony at which Texas senator Temple Houston, son of legendary Texas hero Sam Houston , was the featured speaker.2 Immediately following completion of the new building, it seems, people started making plans to use its parklike grounds as a place of public memory and commemoration. It perhaps came as no surprise to Texans that the first monument installed, in 1891, was one dedicated to heroes of the Alamo. Five years later, a statue honoring volunteer firemen went up nearby, and by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, three Civil War memorials ap- history on the grounds 185 peared on the grounds: the Confederate Soldiers monument (1903) and the Terry’s Texas Rangers statue (1907) on the south lawn, and the Hood’s Texas Brigade monument (1910) on the southeast side. Following installation of the Texas Cowboy statue on the southwest...