Austin
Austin began life as the village of Waterloo along Texas' Colorado River (not the one of Grand Canyon fame). Legend has it that Republic of Texas vice president Mirabeau B Lamar came to the region on a hunting trip in 1838 and fell in love with what he saw. In 1839, the president of the republic, Sam Houston, commissioned the layout of the republic's new capital at Waterloo, which was renamed in honor of Stephen F Austin, the secretary of state under President Houston and so-called 'Father of Texas.'
The capital was moved to Houston in 1842 after repeated attacks by Indians and Mexicans but returned in 1845; construction on the first state capitol building began in 1853.
The city began to boom after the arrival of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad in 1871, and Congress Ave was paved, its drainage ditches replaced by sewers. By the turn of the century, the city was as cosmopolitan as many in the east, with electricity, telephones, theaters, opera houses and, from 1895, the Moonlight Towers - 165ft (50m) streetlamps to light the city by night.
The 1880s saw the construction of the current capitol building (the original burned in 1881) and the establishment of the University of Texas at Austin.
In 1933, Kenneth Threadgill opened a gas station and beer joint he called, originally enough, Threadgill's (where you can still drop in and see 'Travis County Beer License No 01'). By the early 1960s, his Wednesday night 'Hootenannies' - informal jam sessions - were attracting musicians from around Texas. Janis Joplin was a regular on the bill. In the years to follow, other music venues around town began seeing their share of live acts as well.
The next big thing on the Austin music scene was the opening of Armadillo World Headquarters in 1970. During that decade, the Armadillo was ground-zero for musicians like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kinky Friedman and Asleep at the Wheel. And the 'Dillo didn't stop at folk and country: it played host to seminal rockers such as the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Zappa and Van Morrison. For those who couldn't catch the happenings live, public television's Austin City Limits soon brought the experience home.
Today, Austin's liberal populace is one of the brainiest in the USA, with the country's highest per capita rate of (among other things) computer literacy, college degrees and book purchasing. No wonder the area's become Texas' high-tech hotbed, attracting heaps of multinational and local computer hardware and software outfits.
Austin was hit hard in 1998 by climatological chaos of biblical proportion: first with weeks of record-high temperatures - in the 90°F (33°C) range - followed by tornadoes and severe flooding when the drought finally broke in October. Damage across the state was extensive.
© Lonely Planet.http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/north_america/austin/history.htm
