Back to Thesis' Homepage

It was not until 1909 that the legislature first organized a state agency --the Texas State Library and Historical Commission (TSLHC)-- which included historic preservation objectives among its responsibilities. It was composed of five members appointed by the governor who worked without economic compensation. Its main duty was to control and administer the Texas State Library, but it also had to collect and preserve documents, manuscripts, artifacts, antiquities, and works of art related to the history of Texas, to mark historic sites and houses, and to secure their preservation. The final destination for these antiquities and historical materials was going to be a state history museum that was never built. This catch-all agency was the result of two bills that were combined to create a single agency: one of them was to create a State Library Commission and the other the State Historical Commission.⁽¹⁾

Although the TSLHC was to function as both a library and historical agency, it immediately dropped its historic preservation assignment. Instead, it worked exclusively on the conservation of library and historical archival materials and on the collection of historic objects and relics in a nineteenth-century antiquarian fashion. Nevertheless, the TSLHC legally kept its historic preservation duties until 1953, when the legislature transferred them to a new state preservation agency, the Texas State Historical Survey Committee.⁽²⁾

Evidence of how TSLHC ignored its preservation work was apparent, during the 1910s, when new historic sites became state historic parks through the exclusive initiative of the legislature. The parks were Acton in Hood County, acquired in 1911, Fannin Battlefield Ground in Goliad County, acquired in 1913, and, most importantly, Washington-on-the-Brazos in Washington County, acquired in 1916 to commemorate the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836.⁽³⁾ These three sites, together with the San Jacinto battlefield, were placed under the jurisdiction of the Superintendent of Public Buildings until 1919, when the legislature transferred management to a new state agency, the State Board of Control. (The Alamo, controlled by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, remained as the sole public historic site managed by a private organization.) Composed of three members (and later five) appointed by the governor, the Board of Control was created by the legislature to be the central purchasing and management agency for state buildings and grounds. Although an advisory commission appointed by the governor to assist it in administering some historic parks, the board always had the last word to authorize any action.⁽⁴⁾

Besides historic sites, the state began to take an interest in setting aside natural lands as public parks. Until the 1910s there was no real need for organizing a state park system. Texas was still little urbanized, with vast underdeveloped land areas even near major cities, and thus scenic and recreational possibilities were widely available to everybody. For this reason, when in 1916 Isabella Neff, Governor Pat M. Neff's mother, donated a six-acre tract near Waco to the state as a recreational field, no state agency was legally authorized to accept it. This fact stirred the concern of Governor Neff in establishing a state park system to accept donations of land and develop them for public enjoyment. At the beginning of his second term in 1923, he suggested to the legislature that it create a state department to hold title to park lands and develop them for public use. Its immediate response was to create the State Parks Board (SPB) to manage natural and recreational parks, to solicit donations of land, and to investigate and report possible park sites. During its first years of existence, the activities of the SPB were limited to accepting donated park sites, since the legislature appropriated no funds for park purchase or development. It was not until 1931 that the legislature granted SPB the authority to acquire land for parks and to underwrite park development.⁽⁵⁾

Not only did Governor Pat Neff support natural parks, but in 1923 he also proposed creation of a State Historical Board to promote the purchase of historic sites. The legislature accepted his proposal, and the result was the establishment of the Texas Historical Board. This board, composed of "five patriotic citizens" who served without economic compensation, had as its main goals

to gather data relating to the history of Texas . . . and to present to the Legislature . . . such data and such recommendations as it may see fit looking to the preservation of historic relics, and marking of historic spots, the purchase of historic grounds and the erection of fitting monuments.⁽⁶⁾

If you want to read the rest of this chapter, please e-mail me at miguela.lopez@uah.es

1. General Laws of the State of Texas Passed by the Thirty-first Legislature at its Regular Session Convened January 12, 1909, and Adjourned March 13, 1909 (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones Co., 1909), chapter 70, section 1, page 122 and ff.; unidentified paper, Texas State Library and Historical Commission Vertical File, CAH.

2. The information about the preservation activities of this agency is non-existent, not only in the agency's archival records, but also in the records of other state agencies or private organizations.

3. There were two more state historic parks (Gonzales in Gonzales County, established in 1907, and King's in Refugio County, established in 1915) whose administration was later transferred to the cities where they were located because of their local rather than statewide importance. Texas Legislative Council, "Texas State Parks: A Survey and An Analysis. A Report to the 56th Legislature," December 1958, copy on file at the Texas Capitol Legislative Reference Library, Austin, Texas (this repository hereafter CLRL), 2.

4. General Laws of the State of Texas Passed by the Thirty-six Legislature at its Regular Session Convened January 12, 1919, and Adjourned March 19, 1909 (Austin: A.C. Baldwin & Sons, 1919), 323; Texas State Board of Control, Eight Biennial Report of the Texas State Board of Control for the Biennium Ended August 31, 1936 (Austin: The State of Texas, 1936), 50. Although some advisory commissions were appointed the same year the park was created (as happened in 1915 with Washington State Park), their appointments were often delayed for years. For example, the San Jacinto battlefield, purchased in 1883, and the Fannin Battleground Park, established in 1913, did not have their own commissions until 1919 and 1947, respectively.

5. Journal of the House of Representatives of the First, Second and Third Called Sessions of the Thirty-eight Legislature of Texas (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones Co., 1923), 161; Llo Hiller, "Parks for Texas," Texas Parks and Wildlife, June 1972, 21.

6. General Laws of the State of Texas Passed by the Thirty-eight Legislature at its First, Second and Third Called Sessions (Austin: A.C. Baldwin & Sons, 1923), chapter 28, 63.

Back to Thesis' Homepage