Sometime in 1836-1845, Texas was an independent nation and it didn’t have a permanent capital city. Because of this dilemma, their congress enacted a plan to build a capital city in Central Texas zone. But this plan was met with clamor by Sam Houston, who wanted the capital to be placed in Houston, the city that was incidentally named after him. Nevertheless, Sam Houston never got his wish and Mirabeau Lamar who was elected President of Texas in 1839 approved the plan to put the capital in the small town of Waterloo and subsequently named it Austin in honor of the “Father of Texas”, Stephen F. Austin.
By 1841, Sam Houston became President. As someone who never approved of Austin as the capital city in the first place, he refused to stay in the presidential mansion and opted to reside in the Eberly House instead. When Mexico attacked Texas seizing San Antonio, President Sam Houston saw this as an opportunity to transfer the seat of government from Austin to Houston and ordered the removal of the nation’s archives. However, the residents of Austin figured that if they held possession of the archives, the capital was theirs and so they formed a vigilance committee.
In December 1842, a secret mission to retrieve the archives was made through the leadership of Colonel Thomas Smith and Captain Eli Chandler but their efforts were foiled when Mrs. Angelina Eberly spotted them and sounded the alarm by firing off one loaded cannon. This led to the ensuing Archives War which was eventually won by the Austinites. After which, the President back off anymore plans to transfer the government and Austin remained capital ever since.
Because of Angelina Embry’s heroic efforts, a 7-foot tall bronze statue of her firing the cannon was erected. This can be visited on Sixth and Congress in downtown Austin, TX.
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