Site of Temporary Texas State Capitol of 1880's
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built, 1882-1883, to replace the previous capitol, which had burned in 1881. Until the building was completed, the orphaned Texas government conducted business in the county courthouse and jail across Congress Avenue. The three-story brick building -- third Texas capitol in Austin -- was used five years. During this time it witnessed the passage of strong legislation to aid education and to halt fence-cutting, which, in 1883, had exploded into a range war. Governors John Ireland (1883-1887) and Sul Ross (1887-1891) both served in this building. In 1883, the University of Texas held classes here for its 218 students until campus facilities were complete. On another occasion, cattle baron Charles Goodnight loaded $100,000 in cash in a wheel barrow and had it hauled to the capitol to force settlement of a land dispute, but officials refused his offer. After the present capitol was finished, 1888, this structure was used as home of Austin High School, studios for music teachers, and for various offices. When it burned, Sept. 30, 1899, curious spectators sat on the fence around the new capitol to watch volunteer firemen, hampered by low water pressure, fight the blaze. The old building was razed soon after and the bricks were used in structures throughout Austin. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After fire destroyed the previous statehouse in 1881, Texas built this three-story brick Temporary Capitol in 1882–1883, the third capitol to stand in Austin. During its five busy years it saw legislation to fund education and to halt the fence-cutting that had erupted into a range war, hosted the first classes of the University of Texas, and even witnessed cattle baron Charles Goodnight wheel in $100,000 in cash to force a land settlement. After the grand new Capitol opened, the building served as a high school and offices until it, too, burned in 1899.
Why it matters
The temporary capitol was the improvised seat of Texas government during a formative decade, its story braiding together statehouse politics, the birth of a university, and the last convulsions of the open range.
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Related people
- · John Ireland
- · Sul Ross
- · Charles Goodnight
Related events
- · Fence Cutting War of 1883
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Classes of the University of Texas Law School
Austin, TX
On September 15, 1883, the University of Texas held its very first classes in the Temporary Capitol on this site, and 52 of the 218 original students enrolled in the new Law department. They studied under two towering figures of Texas jurisprudence: former governor Oran M. Roberts and former state supreme court justice Robert S. Gould. Graduates of that first class went on to notable careers, including Albert Sidney Burleson, later U.S. Postmaster General.
Governor Edmund Jackson Davis
Austin, TX
Edmund J. Davis (1827–1883), a Florida-born lawyer and judge, became one of Reconstruction Texas's most polarizing figures. During the Civil War he commanded a regiment of Texas Unionists and rose to brigadier general, then led the Radical Republicans and won the governorship in 1870 as Texas rejoined the Union. His controversial term — praised for backing free public education, condemned over the state police and corruption charges — ended in the 'Coke-Davis' standoff of 1874, when Davis occupied the Capitol's first floor before President Grant declined to intervene and he left peacefully.
Henry Smith
Austin, TX
Henry Smith arrived in Texas in 1827 and quickly became a political leader in the Brazoria area as tensions with Santa Anna's centralist government mounted. In late 1835 he authored the plan for a provisional government and was elected the first provisional governor of Texas, serving through the eve of the revolution. He later held office in the Republic before joining the California Gold Rush, where he died in 1851 and was buried in an unmarked grave.
Governor Elisha Marshall Pease
Austin, TX
Elisha Marshall Pease came to Texas from Connecticut in 1835 and fought at the Battle of Gonzales that opened the Texas Revolution before building a career in law and government. As governor in the 1850s he helped establish a permanent school fund and Texas's first free public schools, expanded railroads, and moved his family into the new Governor's Mansion. A committed Unionist, he later returned as a Reconstruction-era provisional governor and resigned in protest in 1869.