The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916 Page: 41
452 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Harris County, 1822-1845
favor of the location of the capital at Austin, it is well known
that he was not a favorite in the city of Houston. However, as
the city grew, his name was again placed on its enlarged map, to
designate one of its chief streets. Joseph Tucker Crawford, who
visited Texas in 1837 to report on the condition of the country for
Great Britain,5 was popular with the citizens of Houston, and
the second map of the town shows his name on one of the streets.
It was evidently the first intention to locate the government
buildings on the block marked "Congress Square" and the ad-
joining unmarked block, shown on the map as lying between Con-
gress and Prairie streets, and bounded on one side by Travis and
on the other by Milam. Besides the Borden map there were others
made and used by the Allens in disposing of the townsite, and
several different plans seem to have been devised for the location
of the Capitol building, which were not adopted. The National
Building was to occupy the center of four city blocks, and the
broad avenue leading to it was Capitol Avenue. Circumstances, of
whose detail we have no record, determined upon another location
for the Capitol.
Governor F. R. Lubbock, in his memoir, Six Decades in Texas,
says,
The Allens had undertaken to provide a capitol building for
Houston, but fearing they might not have it ready for the meet-
ing of congress on the first of May, erected on Main Street a one
story building covering the front of an entire block. At one
corner of the block a large room was constructed for the Senate,
and on the other corner a larger one for the House of Representa-
tives, and the space between partitioned off into rooms for the
department offices. Col. Thos. W. Ward was the Capitol Con-
tractor under the Allens.
This crude substitute for the capitol building was soon super-
seded by a two story structure covering about two and one-half
lots on the northwest corner of Main Street and Texas Avenue,
which was built for the Allens by Thomas W. Ward, of lumber
brought from Maine. The Republic of Texas paid a yearly rental
of $5000, beginning the twenty-fifth day of September, 1837.6
'See THE QUARTERLY, XV, 202 ff.
*After the removal of the capital to Austin in 1839, this building was
converted into a hotel and was long known as the "Old Capitol." Several
pictures of the building made while it served this purpose have been pre-
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916, periodical, 1916; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101067/m1/50/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.