DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and some stories, friend, deserve every word they've got. Stephen F. Austin.
The Father of Texas. Born November 3, 1793. Gone December 27, 1836.
Those are the bookends, but what happened in between is something else entirely. He planted the first Anglo-American colony in Texas — the one history would come to call The Old Three Hundred. Just let that settle for a moment.
The first. And he didn't stop there. In his several colonies he settled more than a thousand families.
More than a thousand. Picture the wagons, the muddy boots, the hoping and the hauling, all of it moving because one man believed in a place that wasn't even a state yet. From 1823 until 1828, Stephen F.
Austin was the actual ruler of Texas — not a governor with a title, not a general with an army at his back, but the actual ruler of the place. And after that, when the formal authority passed on, he remained its most influential leader. Texas didn't let go of him, and by all accounts, he didn't want it to.
Now, you can spend a lifetime hunting for words that capture a man's devotion to something bigger than himself, and most times you come up empty. But Austin left his own. He said — and I want you to hear this right — "The prosperity of Texas has been the object of my labors — the idol of my existence — it has assumed the character of a religion — for the guidance of my thoughts and actions." A religion.
That's not a politician's speech. That's a man confessing what lives in his chest. And he died in its service.
The marker says it plain and I won't dress it up: he died in its service. No other state in the union, the marker tells us, owes its existence more completely to one man than Texas does to Austin. This marker was erected by the State of Texas in 1936, with funds appropriated by the Federal government, to commemorate one hundred years of Texas independence.
One hundred years on, and they were still reaching for the right way to say thank you.
What the marker says
Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas, November 3, 1793-December 27, 1836. He planted the first Anglo-American colony in Texas, "The Old Three Hundred". In his several colonies he settled more than a thousand families. He was from 1823 until 1828 the actual ruler of Texas and thereafter its most influential leader. His own words are a fitting epitaph: "The prosperity of Texas has been the object of my labors -- the idol of my existence -- it has assumed the character of a religion -- for the guidance of my thoughts and actions" -- and he died in its service. No other state in the union owes its existence more completely to one man than Texas does to Austin. Erected by the State of Texas 1936 with funds appropriated by the Federal government to commemorate one hundred years of Texas independence.