Texas Capitol

Last Friday, I spent the morning in downtown Austin. Austin feels like an old Western town that blossomed into a big city. It has some of the same old fashioned storefronts I'd seen in Ouray with more elaborate but still old fashioned banks and hotels built up around and on top of the storefronts.

Downtown Austin is surprisingly tall (much taller than DC). The most iconic and third tallest building is the Frost Bank Tower, which has been likened to an owl. I sort of see it (first picture below). There are lots of sculptures and desert-themed floral displays downtown as well. I particularly liked the lively statue of innkeeper Angilena Eberly firing a cannon.

In 1842, Eberly fired a cannon through the General Land Office Building when she noticed Republic of Texas archives and artifacts being spirited away from the capital city en route to Houston. This alerted Austin residents to what was happening and rallied support for keeping the capital in Austin instead of Houston.

Anchoring downtown Austin is the Texas Capitol. Completed in 1888, the Red Sunset granite edifice is towering and sturdy, befitting the state it serves. I took a 45 minute tour and learned all about Texas history and the building. The Capitol itself hardly cost the taxpayers of the state anything--politicians sold land in Northern Texas to California businessmen for the funds to build the structure.

The rotunda peaks 218 feet above the terrazzo floor in the center of the Capitol. The center of the dome is adorned with a star eight-feet across that looks like a thumbnail from the ground far below. The floor bears the seals of the six countries whose flags have flown over Texas--France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederacy, and the United States.

Hanging from the walls of the five floors tapering up to the rotunda are portraits of the state's governors and the presidents of the Republic of Texas before that. The most recent former governor--currently George W. Bush--gets prime real estate on the south wall of the main floor. Whenever a new governor takes office, Capitol staff shifts all the portraits back one to make room for the additional painting. The process takes five days.

Aside from George W. Bush, I enjoyed learning about Governor Mirium Ferguson, known as Ma Ferguson. She was Texas' first female governor and served two non-consecutive terms. Her husband had been governor before her, but had been thrown out of office for corruption and withholding funding from the University of Texas. Running as her husband's surrogate, Ma Ferguson was elected a few years later, then lost due to allegations of corruption before being elected once more.

An old joke about Ma Ferguson goes that once when she entered an elevator a man inadvertently stepped on her foot and said, "Pardon me." Governor Ferguson responded: "Oh, you'll have to talk to my husband about that."