To understand how Austin became Austin—center of art and technology and innovation and seat of the annual festival most closely associated with all three—consider the man who gave it its name.
Stephen F. Austin was born to a well-off coal mining Virginia family in 1793. He was a diligent student and an ambitious young man who dreamed of a career in government and the law. For a spell, he seemed lucky: By 21, he was serving in the legislature of the Missouri Territory. By 26, however, he was caught in the financial crisis of 1819, and was left without a penny to his name. He moved to Arkansas, bought some land, ran for office and won. But bad luck followed him around: his claim to his property was contested and eventually revoked, and with it his position as a judge. He decided to follow his father on an initiative to bring 300 American families to Spanish Texas; the old man soon died. Austin persevered nonetheless, and by late 1825 he led the first 300 families to the new colony he had founded, the Austin Colony.
Per usual, his good fortune was short-lived. By 1834, Texas, now numbering 30,000 colonists, was agitating for independence, and Austin was arrested by the Mexican authorities, falsely suspected of being one of the revolution’s ringleaders. No court agreed to hear his case, and he spent a year being bounced from one prison to another before being granted amnesty and released in 1835. He headed back to Texas, but got no further than New Orleans when he heard of Santa Anna’s defeat at the hands of Sam Houston and of Texas’s independence. The news made his giddy; few people, he believed, had a more valid claim on the leadership of the newborn republic. He announced his candidacy for Texas president, and felt confident he’d win.
Two weeks before the elections, however, Sam Houston entered the race. The hero of the Battle of San Jacinto needed no campaigning: when Texans took to the ballots, Houston won 5,119 votes. Austin came in third with 587. Still he was appointed Texas’s first Secretary of State, and took to his new office with diligence and enthusiasm. Not for long: two months later, in December of 1836, he caught pneumonia and died. He was 43. His last words were “the independence of Texas is recognized.”
How you choose to see Austin’s story speaks volume. You could see a tragedy, unfulfilled promise, failure. Or you could see a man who—true to the spirit that still guides so many of the dreamers and tinkerers and creators who today flock to the city named after him—simply hustled harder, remaining committed to his life’s work even as the blows kept on coming and the odds looked slim. This week, between the panels and the performances and the barbecue runs, let his memory be a blessing.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia