Travis County is located in Central Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,290,188. It is the fifth-most populous county in Texas. Its county seat and most populous city is Austin, the state's capital. The county was established in 1840 and is named in honor of William Barret Travis, the commander of the Republic of Texas forces at the Battle of the Alamo. Travis County is part of the Austin–Round Rock–Georgetown metropolitan area. It is located along the Balcones Fault, the boundary between the Edwards Plateau to the west and the Blackland Prairie to the east.
History
Prehistoric Texas
Early inhabitants of Central Texas date to between 12,000 to 22,000 years ago as evidenced by the discovery of sites like Leanderthal Lady ("Leanne") at the Wilson-Leonard site near Leander, Texas.
Another two of the oldest Paleo-Indian archeological sites in Texas, the Levi Rock Shelter and Smith Rock Shelter, are in southwest and southeast Travis County, respectively.
In downtown Austin, archeological excavations have revealed that the hilltop where the French Legation now sits was utilized during the Archaic period (North America), possibly 5,000 years ago. Even earlier artifacts dating to the Paleo-Indians period show that humans may have used the area as early as 9,000 years ago.
Continuous occupation of Travis County continues into the Toyah Phase represented by sites like the Toyah Bluff Site in southeast Travis County along Onion Creek. The Toyah Phase is the last widespread prehistoric pattern prior to the arrival of Europeans.Society, Texas Archeological (2003). "The Toyah Bluff Site of Travis County, Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society, Volume 74, 2003". Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society.
Spanish period
The region (along with all of modern Texas) was claimed by the Spanish Empire in the 1600s, but at the time no attempt was made to settle the area (or even to explore it fully).
In 1691 Domingo Terán de los Ríos was instructed to make a tour of Spanish Texas with the goal of establishing missions among the Tejas (Hasinai), keep records of "geography, natives, and products" and investigate rumors of foreign settlements on the coast (the French). Terán's entrada took them through Travis County crossing the Colorado River near what would later be called the Montopolis ford, which today is part of El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail.McGraw, Joachim et.al. Teran and Mazanet 1691-1692, p.70, A Texas Legacy The Old San Antonio Road And The Caminos Reales: A Tricentennial History, 1691-1991. Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation. Portal of Texas History https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1364735/
In 1709 Captain Pedro de Aguirre led an expedition with Fathers Antonio de Olivares and Isidro de Espinosa (Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre Expedition) from San Juan Bautista Mission along the Rio Grande River in Mexico into Travis County hoping to meet with the Tejas Indians (Hasinai). They reached the south bank the Colorado River in or near Austin in April, but found the Tejas were not there. They were however visited by members of a number of Indigenous Peoples: Yojuan (AKA Yojuane), Simomo, and Tusonibi. Guides for the Spanish included Indigenous Peoples they had encountered just previously living near San Pedro Springs: Chaularame, Payaya, Sana, Sijame, and Siupan. With orders not to cross the Colorado the expedition returned to Mexico.Wade, Maria F. and Don E. Wade. Hard Choices: The Apache, the Spaniard, and the Local Native Groups 1700-1755, p. 165, The Native Americans of the Texas Edwards Plateau, 1582-1799. University of Texas Press, 2003
In 1730 Franciscan friars, who were given responsibility for all the Texas missions, made the decision to relocate three missions, La Purísima Concepción, San Francisco de los Neches, and San José de los Nazonis, to a site by the Colorado River near Barton Springs. The friars found conditions undesirable and relocated to the San Antonio River within a year of their arrival.
El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail runs through Travis County crossing the Colorado River just east of the Montopolis Bridge.
Mexican period
In 1821 Mexico won its independence from Spain, and the new government enacted laws encouraging colonists to settle the Texas frontier by granting them land and reduced taxation. Over the next decade, thousands of foreign immigrants (primarily from the United States) moved into Texas; in particular, American empresario Stephen F. Austin established one of his colonies, known as Austin's "Little Colony", consisting of 100 families near what is now Bastrop, Texas in 1827. Josiah and Mathias Wilbarger, Reuben Hornsby (namesake of Hornsby Bend, Travis County, Texas), Jacob M. Harrell, Noah Smithwick,Smithwick, Noah. Evolution of a state, or, Recollections of old Texas days. Austin, Tex., Gammel Book Company, 1st edition, 1900 and John F. Webber (namesake of Webberville, Travis County, Texas) were early settlers who moved to the Bastrop area in the early 1830s. Webber and Reubon Hornsby would later move west and form the settlements of Webberville and Hornsby Bend respectively.
Republic of Texas period
In 1836 Texas declared and won its independence from Mexico, forming the Republic of Texas. That same year, 1836, before Austin was founded, Fort Colorado, AKA Fort Coleman, was established in then Bastrop County, later to be Travis County, to secure and expand the Republic of Texas’ control over Native American territory. It was strategically located on the main road to what would later be Austin from Bastrop, Texas, Webberville, Texas and Hornsby Bend, Texas, what Barkley called the "Path of the Pioneers", today's Webberville Road, also known as FM 969. It was this path Vice President Lamar would later take to Waterloo in 1838 for the buffalo hunt which eventually led to Austin as the capital of Texas. Lamar stopped at the fort to procure an escort of rangers. Fort Colorado was also strategically placed near a trade route utilized by Native Americans since prehistory that the Spanish would later adopt, El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail. The site of Fort Colorado is located on today's Travis Audubon Blair Woods Preserve and is a part of the historic trail.Iruegas, Sergio and Melinda. The Archaeology Of Blair Woods Nature Preserve Historic Fort Colorado. El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association, and GTI Environmental, LLC, 2021. Copies on file with Travis County Archives, Travis Audubon and Austin History Center.
While there were skirmishes between Anglo-Texans and Native Americans, there were also attempts at peace. In 1837 a band of Penateka Comanche (Nʉmʉnʉʉ) approached Fort Colorado to seek a treaty of peace. Texas Ranger and historian Noah Smithwick, stationed at the fort, lived with the Comanche as emissary for many months where he “was made the recipient of every attention known to their code of hospitality”. This is the only known peace treaty initiated from inside Travis County. The treaty was unfortunately never ratified by Texas.
Historically recorded tribes in Travis County at this time were Comanche, Lipan Apache, Tonkawa, Waco (a branch of the Wichita), and others.Wilbarger, John Wesley. Indian depredations in Texas. Hutchings Printing House, Austin, 2nd edition, 1890. See index listing for Travis County for tribes mentioned in Travis County.Winfrey, Dorman H. (editor). The Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest 1825-1916, Volume 2, p.271, p.291, Texas State Historical Assoc., 1995. See references to Waco.Sowell, A.J. Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest Texas, Ben C. Jones & Co. Printers, 1900, p.55. For 2019 reprint p.52. See references to Waco. Tribes such as the ethnographically well-known Comanche, Lipan Apache, Waco (Wichita branch), and even the Tonkawa migrated into Texas, of which Travis County is a part, just before or during the early European contact period.Prikryl, Daniel J. Fiction and Fact about the Titskanwatits, or Tonkawa, of East Central Texas. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 72:63–72, 2001. Portal https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1013930/m1/69/Collins, Michael. Archeology of Central Texas. The Prehistory of Texas, Texas A&M Anthropology Series, p.217, Timothy K. Perttula, editorTxDOT Tribal Histories Reports. The tribes participated with TxDOT in the research and writing of these reports. https://www.txdot.gov/business/resources/environmental/compliance-toolkits/historic-resources/tribal-histories.html The expansion of the Spanish into what is now Travis County, establishing missions, traveling El Camino Real de los Tejas, and introducing European diseases, along with the migration of other Native American tribes to the area, particularly the Lipan Apache who in turn were retreating from Comanche expansion, displaced tribes that were indigenous to the area since before European contact, like the Coahuiltecans.Skeels, Lydia L.M. An ethnohistorical survey of Texas Indians. Office of the State Archeologist report # 22. Texas Historical Survey Committee, Austin, 1972. For an approximate distribution of the Coahuiltecan language(s) which includes Travis County see map Ethnolinguistic Distribution of Native Texas Indians, 1500 and 1776 on file at Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) Map Collection, University of Texas. https://maps.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas_texas/ethnolinguistic_natives.jpg
After Texas Vice President Mirabeau B. Lamar visited central Texas during a buffalo-hunting expedition between 1837 and 1838, he proposed that the republic's capital (then located in Houston) be relocated to a site on the north bank of the Colorado River. Edward Burleson had surveyed the planned townsite of Waterloo, near the mouth of Shoal Creek on the Colorado River, in 1838; it was incorporated January 1839. By April of that year the site selection commission had selected Waterloo to be the new capital. A bill previously passed by Congress in May, 1838, specified that any site selected as the new capital would be named Austin, after the late Stephen F. Austin; hence Waterloo upon selection as the capital was renamed Austin.
A new county was also established the following year, of which Austin would be the seat; the county was named Travis County, after William B. Travis, commander of the Alamo. Travis County was originally a part of Bastrop County; many old land records from the time of Mexican Texas for Travis County were originally filed with the Bastrop County Clerk's Office. Later a number of other counties were carved from the original boundaries of Travis County: Callahan (1858), Coleman (1858), Comal (1846), Gillespie (1848), Hays (1848), Burnet (1852), Brown (1856), Lampasas (1856), Eastland (1858), Runnels (1858), and Taylor (1858).
In the years following the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, Mexican leaders periodically threatened to renew hostilities against Texas. March 5, 1842, at the direction of Antonio López de Santa Anna, a force of 700 men under Ráfael Vásquez (general) marched into Texas and seized San Antonio. Forewarned of the Mexican advance, most residents had already evacuated allowing Vasquez to enter the town unopposed. Fearing a subsequent attack on Austin (which never came), many residents left Austin and President Houston moved the capital to Houston on March 13, 1842; it was then moved to Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas September of that same year. It was during this period the Texas Archive War took place. The capital was moved once more, back to Austin, in 1845.
Civil War and Reconstruction
In 1861 Travis County was one of the few Texas counties to vote against secession from the Union. Since the majority of the state did favor secession, Travis County then became a part of the Confederacy for the duration of the Civil War.