Austin

Austin, city, capital of Texas, United States. In addition to its role as seat of the state government, Austin is a commercial, manufacturing, educational, and convention centre. Products include high-technology items such as electrical equipment, semiconductors, and computers.

Points of interest include the pink-granite State Capitol (1888); Elisabet Ney Museum (1892), once the home and workshop of the noted German-American sculptor; the home of American writer O. Henry (William S. Porter), now a museum containing many of his possessions; the Risher-Nicholas Building, occupied variously by J. J. Jennings, a black druggist, J. H. Stevens, a black doctor, and the Austin Watchman, a turn-of-the-century black newspaper; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, housing the papers of United States President Johnson; and the Texas Archives and Library. Austin is the seat of the University of Texas at Austin (1883).

In 1730 Franciscan missionaries established three temporary missions in the area, then occupied by Native Americans of the Comanche, Tonkawa, and Lipan groups. A settlement of five families on the site of the modern city was begun in 1832. A permanent community was laid out in 1838 and named Waterloo. The following year the community was incorporated, designated as the capital of the republic of Texas, and renamed in honour of Stephen F. Austin, known as the father of Texas. A threatened invasion by Mexican forces in 1842 resulted in the removal of the capital to Houston, but Austin citizens forced its return in 1844 by retaining the government archives in what came to be called the Archives War.

Texas entered the Union in 1845, and Austin became the state capital in 1850. Following the American Civil War Austin's economic development was spurred by its location on the Chisholm Trail, a major cattle-driving route, and by the coming of the railway in 1871. Austin benefited in the 20th century from the construction of power and irrigation projects on the Colorado. A number of firms engaged in developing and manufacturing high-technology items were established in the metropolitan area in the 1970s. Population 690,252 (2005 estimate).