The area that is now Texas was the target for exploration for centuries. First, it was the Spanish who sought to extend their frontier from central America northward, and, at the same time pursue the hope of finding gold. I mean, why not find the Seven Cities of Cibolo as told by the Indians and cart all that gold back to Mother Spain? Well, after trekking hundreds of miles all the way from the Rio Grande to what is now Kansas and finding no gold, they did away with their guide and went home. Next on the agenda of the Spaniards was to civilize the Indians by getting them into the Catholic Religion. Their principal attraction was freebies and a place to live in peace, away from the marauding Comanches, with a domicile near the expanding network of churches. Another condition of this was that they had to give up their nomadic tendencies and grow corn. Well, that didn't work all that well either.
Time eroded all of this quest for territorial gains and now, after a century or so, the French showed up in the land regions of the northern Gulf of Mexico and this specter gave the Spanish the willies, so to speak.
Then, when the French sold the huge tract of land called now the Louisiana Purchase, those nasty Americanos were their next-door neighbors. Well, we know all about next-door neighbors, how they keep encroaching on our property, and encroach they did. Americans began to move into what is now Texas. Some who moved in were honest people looking for freedom to grow with good land almost free for the asking but with one stipulation: they had to profess their faith to the Catholic religion and denounce all others. That was no challenge, but who was to police that agreement? Others jumped over the Sabine to escape the law close on their trail for crimes committed in the USA.
Finally, too much government from Mexico became too much to bear so the Americans living in the southwest said that's enough and revolted. Several big events then occurred all of which resulted in Texas separating from Mexico as an independent state. The big events are indelibly inscribed in Texas history; the Alamo, the Mier massacre, Goliad, and the final battle of San Jacinto, where the Mexican army was routed, and Santa Ana was captured while he was engaged with his mistress in his tent.
With Texas now becoming a separate country with the longer-term prospect of being annexed to the USA, the region became attractive to Europeans to migrate into, especially the Germans who had a special desire to settle in Central Texas where the conditions were most similar to their home country.
These conditions attracted many scientists too, such as botanists and geologists, and even explorers whose main interest was to provide immigrants with some written material on what to expect if they immigrated to Texas.
It's interesting to follow the narrative of these more recent explorers of Texas, especially that of Roemer as translated from his German text into English and published as Roemer's Texas.
In Roemer's book, he describes his arrival in Galveston, then his lengthier stay in Houston where there were only a few wooden shacks to demark the town. He describes the plantation of a newfound acquaintance located on a point of land extending into Galveston Bay. That location is now named Morgan's Point. The last time I was there exploring was 30 years ago and it was quite intact and isolated. His friend Mr. Morgan introduced him to Dr. Ashbel Smith, a physician who owned a plantation across the bay waters on an isolated point of land which is now Baytown. His plantation was called Evergreen and was located in what is now the Goose Creek Oil Field and near Cedar Bayou.
Many of the immigrants suffered from dysentery and fever from malaria. Some communities lost 50% of their population from these maladies, and so life was quite precarious.
As an illustration of the effect of growth in population and in the growth of wealth is to contrast his observation of the Guadalupe River canyon just north of what is now Gruene. He traveled from New Braunfels to the river and then up the riverbed as "far as I could go before the canyon narrowed to the extent that it was no longer passable". Although this was the description of where he was traveling, it must have been the stretch of the river from just north of Gruene to what Statler is now. Today, there is a road that is cut into the canyon and the canyon is packed full of vacation homes and visitor delights relating to the river. What a change 150 years makes. In Roemer's time the challenge was to find a way to feed yourself and stay warm in the winter, and today after creating all this wealth as displayed in this same canyon the challenge is to find a way to pay the taxes on all these glitterati.
Makes you think.
Here is another to make you think. Roemer and his accompanying travelers in their horse travel from the Austin area to San Antonio passed through the San Marcos area in 1843. Their travel path was the easy route below the Balcones Fault along what would become Interstate 35. As they passed through the area where the Blanco River joins the San Marco River, Roemer noticed that there was river debris in the tree branches 17 feet above ground level. His comment in the text says, "this area is obviously not available for development due to flooding". Perhaps the San Marcos government should have read the account of Roemer's travels; it would have saved a lot of distress due to the flooding of developed areas.
