CONSTRUCTION OF STATE CAPITOL
On February 20, 1879, the State Legislature set aside 3,050,000 acres of land in West Texas to pay for a new State Capitol building. Interestingly, the act provided for the survey of this land and detailed a force of Rangers to protect the surveyors in their work.
The cornerstone of the Capitol was laid on March 2, 1885, and the building was formally dedicated on May 16, 1888. The pink granite which forms the walls of the Capitol came from Granite Mountain near Marble Falls in Burnet County.
Forty years after construction of the Capitol, it was discovered that too much land had been given to the contractor in exchange for building the structure. The State recovered 57,836 acres of land in 1924. This recovered land is in Dallam and Hartley Counties.
SALE OF TEXAS LAND
Governments almost always have experienced a need for money to pay debts. Texas the Republic and Texas the State have been no exceptions.
An Act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas on December 10, 1836, empowered the President to issue scrip which could be traded for land in Texas. This scrip was to be sold by agents in the United States for not less than 50 cents an acre. Thomas Toby of New Orleans, Louisiana, was the most famous agent, and the land located with scrip he sold is classified in the General Land Office files today as “Toby Scrip”.
On July 14, 1879, large parts of the public domain were again offered for sale through land scrip at 50 cents per acre. Most of this land was located in 52 counties in West Texas.
Today, this land, which sold for 50 cents per acre, is worth many times more. All in all, about 3,000,000 acres of land were sold to help pay the public debt of Texas.