Location: 600 block of south Congress Ave. in Austin, Texas
Admission: Free
In 1842, six years after Texas won its independence from Mexico, the capitol of the young republic was an isolated village on the western frontier whose name had recently been changed from Waterloo to Austin. Sam Houston (then President of the independent Republic) thought Austin was an inappropriate location for the capitol of Texas, and campaigned to have it moved to a city he found more to his taste--Houston. However, the citizens of Austin resisted his attempts to move the capitol. To get his way Houston sent a delegation of Texas Rangers to steal the government archives. They would have succeeded if it had not been for a fiery local innkeeper named Angelina Eberly, who heard the rangers loading their wagons in the middle of the night. She hurried down to the the corner of what is now Sixth and Congress and fired off the town cannon, missing the rangers but blowing a hole in the General Land Office building. The cannon fire roused the populace, who chased down the rangers and recovered the archives near Brushy Creek. Had it not been for Angelina’s impulsive gesture, Houston would now be the capitol of Texas. In a very real sense, Angelina Eberly (July 2, 1798 – August 15, 1860) was the savior of Austin.
Historical information credit: Capital Area Statues (of Austin, TX
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