Last Saturday Sam didn't have much luck with his experiment, so being frustrated and all, we decided to go for a little trip. We went to a historic site near College Station in a place called Washington, it is called "the Birthplace of Texas". I don't know if Washington is qualified for a town or even a village, because the only public building there beside of the historic park is just a Post Office, and they only have one commercial building in the whole "town", which serves as a grocery store, a dinner, and a pub at night. Beside the park, other areas are mostly farm land. According to our tour guide, there are not more than 50 people in Washington, that includes the staff who works at the park. I don't think I have ever been to a "town" that is this small before....
But Washington wasn't like this in the 1800's, it was still a small town of 200 people, but because it is by the "super highway" and close to the river, it was a busy place with settlers coming from Mexico and United States since the price for an acre land was only 12.5cent (can you imagine that?!) at that time. Texas was actually a part of Mexico in the early 1800s, but with all the immigration, Americans out numbered Mexican by 5 to 1 in the 1850's. Everything was peaceful . and quite until Santa Anna became president of Mexico and neglecting the people in Texas. That is when Texan's decided that they want to become a independent country. In March 1836, 59 delegates gathered in Washington intent on establishing an independent Texas republic. It wasn't the best choice to hold such an event because there wasn't a whole lot here, but the resident thought that it wouldn't be too bad since there would only be 59 people. But of course, these 59 people brought their families, their servant and their secretaries with them, so Washington was overwhelmed with all these people, and most of them had to camp and sleep outdoors. Well, it wouldn't be too bad if there wasn't that blizzard storm 2 days before the convention, and the temperature dropped below freezing...
On March 1, 1836, the 59 delegates gathered in an unfinished frame building for their meeting which is the only place big enough to held the event. The window openings were covered only with cloth, the ceiling was open to the rafters, and they can't build a fire in this cold weather because there wasn't a fire place in the building. As miserable as it was, on March 2, 1836, the delegates declared their independence from Mexico, and become the Republic of Texas. 4 days later came the famous battle at Alamo. The Republic of Texas only lasted 8 years; in February 19, 1846, Texas became the 28th state of the United States.
Few people know that Washington was the Capital of Texas for a while after Sam Houston moved it from Austin, it flourished as a political center and trade hub because of the river traffic. The fatal mistake the town made was rejecting the railroad plan that took over the river traffic, and Washington gradually declined.
Today the Washington-on-the-Brazos historic park is all that is left of the old glory days, and they recreated the independence hall on the exact site of the old building. There's a museum in the park that showcases the things and stories on the republic era, and a living historic farm that is based on Anson Jones' (the last President of the Republic of Texas, who retired here) original home.
There isn't a whole lot of exciting things here, but we had a really good tour guide and I learned a whole lot from this trip. I kept thinking back to the scenes I saw in the movie "Alamo", and things make more sence to me know after being here. People always think that Texans always have some kind of pride that they could never understand, maybe this is because this place was once a country itself.
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