Spanish missionaries were the earliest European settlers in Texas, founding San Antonio in 1718. Hostile natives and isolation from additional Spanish colonies kept Texas sparsely occupied until following the Revolutionary War and the War of Mexican self-government when the newly established Mexican government began to allow settlers from the U.S. to claim land there. This lead to an inhabitant’s explosion, but dramatically abridged the percentage of the population with Mexican heritage, causing friction with the government in Mexico City. After a number of smaller insurrections, the Texas Revolution broke out, and the state became an independent nation in 1836. However, the newly formed Texas Republic was not capable to defend itself from further incursions by Mexican troops and eventually negotiated with the U.S. to join the union in 1845.
The Johnson Space Center in Houston, originally established as the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in 1961, is the site of Mission Control for all flights into space. On July 20, 1969, its flight controllers oversaw the Apollo 11 flight that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon and returned the astronauts safely home. Referred to as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” the Astrodome in Houston was the world’s first domed stadium when it was opened in 1965. Drawing crowds for sporting events, concerts, rodeos and entertainment, the Astrodome was last used in 2005 as a shelter for Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Texas is the leading crude oil- and natural gas-producing state in the U.S. In 2011, it also produced more cattle, sheep, hay, cotton, and wool than any other state. The name Texas derives from a Caddo Indian word that means “friends” or “allies,” which was incorporated into the state motto: Friendship.
During Texas’ war for independence from Mexico, a group of 200 volunteers who were defending the fort and former Franciscan mission known as the Alamo near San Antonio was attacked by a much larger force of Mexican troops. The siege, which had begun on February 23, 1836, lasted for 13 days before the Mexican forces broke through the courtyard and annihilated most of the Texans, including famed frontiersman and former congressman from Tennessee, Davy Crockett.
On September 8, 1900, a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 130 miles per hour pummeled Galveston, Texas, killing more than 8,000 people and destroying the once-thriving city. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in United States history.
While traveling through Dallas in an open convertible on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. Two hours later, Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States aboard Air Force One while stationed at Dallas Love Field airport.
Part of the state’s tradition of cowboys is derived from the massive cattle drives which its ranchers organized in the nineteenth century to drive livestock to railroads and markets in Kansas, for shipment to the East. Towns along the way, such as Baxter Springs, the first cow town in Kansas, developed to handle the seasonal workers and tens of thousands of head of cattle being driven.
The first railroad to operate in Texas was the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado Railway, opening in August 1853. The first railroad to enter Texas from the north, completed in 1872, was the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. With increasing railroad access, the ranchers did not have to take their livestock up to the Midwest and shipped beef out from Texas. This caused a decline in the economies of the cow towns.
Since 1911, Texas has led the nation in length of railroad miles within the state. Texas railway length peaked in 1932 at 17,078 miles (27,484 km) but declined to 14,006 miles (22,540 km) by 2000. While the Railroad Commission of Texas originally regulated state railroads, in 2005 the state reassigned these duties to TxDOT.
In the Dallas–Fort Worth area, three public transit agencies provide rail service: Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA), and Trinity Metro. DART began operating the first light rail system in the Southwest United States in 1996. The Trinity Railway Express (TRE) commuter rail service, which connects Fort Worth and Dallas, is provided by Trinity Metro and DART. Trinity Metro also operates the TEXRail commuter rail line, connecting downtown Fort Worth and Northeast Tarrant County to DFW Airport. The A-train commuter rail line, operated by DCTA, acts as an extension of the DART Green line into Denton County. In the Austin area, Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates a commuter rail service known as Capital MetroRail to the northwestern suburbs. The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO) operates light rail lines in the Houston area.
Amtrak provides Texas with limited intercity passenger rail service. Three scheduled routes serve the state: the daily Texas Eagle (Chicago–San Antonio); the tri-weekly Sunset Limited (New Orleans–Los Angeles), with stops in Texas; and the daily Heartland Flyer (Fort Worth–Oklahoma City). Texas may get one of the nation’s first high-speed rail lines. Plans for a controversial, privately funded high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston have been planned by the Texas Central Railway company.
The first Texas freeway was the Gulf Freeway opened in 1948 in Houston. As of 2005, 79,535 miles (127,999 km) of public highway crisscrossed Texas (up from 71,000 miles (114,263 km) in 1984). To fund recent growth in the state highways, Texas has 17 toll roads (see list) with several additional tollways proposed. In central Texas, the southern section of the State Highway 130 toll road has a speed limit of 85 miles per hour (137 km/h), the highest in the nation. All federal and state highways in Texas are paved.
Around 1,150 seaports dot Texas’s coast with over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of channels. Ports employ nearly one-million people and handle an average of 317 million metric tons. Texas ports connect with the rest of the U.S. Atlantic seaboard with the Gulf section of the Intracoastal Waterway. The Port of Houston today is the busiest port in the United States in foreign tonnage, second in overall tonnage, and tenth worldwide in tonnage. The Houston Ship Channel spans 530 feet (160 m) wide by 45 feet (14 m) deep by 50 miles (80 km) long.
Texas has 730 airports, second-most of any state in the nation. Largest in Texas by size and passengers served, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is the second-largest by area in the United States, and fourth in the world with 18,076 acres (73.15 km2). In traffic, DFW airport is the busiest in the state, the fourth busiest in the United States, and sixth worldwide. American Airlines Group’s American / American Eagle, the world’s largest airline in total passengers-miles transported and passenger fleet size, uses DFW as its largest and main hub. It ranks as the largest airline in the United States by a number of passengers carried domestically per year and the largest airline in the world by a number of passengers carried. Southwest Airlines, headquartered in Dallas, has its operations at Dallas Love Field.
Texas’s second-largest air facility is Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). It served as the largest hub for the former Continental Airlines, which was based in Houston; it serves as the largest hub for United Airlines, the world’s third-largest airline, by passenger-miles flown. IAH offers service to the most Mexican destinations of any U.S. airport. The next five largest airports in the state all serve more than three million passengers annually; they include Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, William P. Hobby Airport, San Antonio International Airport, Dallas Love Field and El Paso International Airport. The smallest airport in the state to be designated an international airport is Del Rio International Airport.