Texas Best Lobbying News: Priceless Historic Texas Documents Found
The following is a digest of an article originally published at the Fort Worth Star Telegram. The Texas Lobby Group is posting this summary as a public service for citizens of Texas, Texas politicians, consultants, and interested persons, Texas government employees and historians, and other interested parties.
The Texas Legislation papers between the years 1835 and 1845 have been found, and have managed to survive a remarkable amount of transition and hardship. They’ve been through lengthy amounts of unusual storage, a house fire, and a hurricane. These priceless historic documents have recently found their way into the hands of the Texas state government, after many years scattered. They can now be found in the “Texas State Library and Archives” in the capital of Austin. This collection of papers has been appraised at nearly 1.5 million dollars, making them an incredibly valuable addition to the state’s collection of other historic treasures.
“‘The legation papers — the records of the Republic of Texas Embassy in Washington, D.C. — document the political maneuvering and financial straits of a newbie nation struggling to chart its destiny,’ said Ken Stevens, a TCU professor who spent hundreds of hours researching the files.”
These documents also cite many interesting historic, lesser known events. Apparently, Samuel J. Morse offered Texas exclusive use of the telegraph when it first came out. For whatever reason, Texas never responded to his offer. It is safe to say that, at the time, the state probably had no way of foreseeing how popular and widely used the telegraph would eventually become. These papers include public and private records and letters that have broadened our understanding on Texas in it’s developmental years.
The papers are composed of over 266 varying records over a ten year span. They have been on a long hiatus, being transferred from place to place. They last ended up in the hands of private individuals. In the last decade, the state of Texas named a high dollar amount on these papers and began to seriously pursue them. The collection ended up being delivered to state officials in a tweety bird gym bag, of all things. Then they remained in a bank vault until 2006 when their display rights were purchased by the TCU library. They are apparently quite an experience to decode, as they reportedly are riddled with messy handwriting and poor spelling.
Read the original story here.