Page 471 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

INTRODUCING TEX AS  469

industries, oil and agriculture. Since the
discovery of oil in the early 1900s, the
state has remained the center of the US
petroleum industry, producing almost
25 percent of the nation’s output and
controlling most of the vast quantities
imported from overseas. In fact, it is hard
to think of Texas without reference to
the oil industry, thanks to images of
gushers, the phrase, “Texas Tea,” and the
Sculpture of longhorn cattle outside the Dallas Convention Center machinations of the Ewing family on
the 1980s TV show Dallas.
roamed the open range. Rounded up and Agriculture, too, is very important. The
driven by cowboys to Texan towns such livestock industry is still big business, so
as Fort Worth and Dallas, these cattle identified with its “cowboy culture” roots
were loaded onto trains and shipped to that boots, jeans, and a Stetson hat seem to
different markets located in the eastern be the official state costume. However, Texas
US. After working on the range for weeks also produces other crops such as cotton
at a time, the cowboys’ arrival into town and citrus. The state’s high-tech industry is
was often heralded by a frenzy of gunplay led by Texas Instruments and Austin-based
and general debauchery. Dell Computer, while the huge military
presence supports a major aeronautical
Economy & Culture engineering industry, particularly at NASA’s
Though Texas has one of the nation’s most “Mission Control” in Houston.
diversified economies, historically it has These frequently booming and some-
been dependent upon two main times busting industries have created
many fortunes. Texan wealth supports not
KEY DATES IN HISTORY only glitzy shops and fancy restaurants
1519 Spanish explorer Alonso Alvarez de Pineda sets but has also endowed several excellent
foot in what is now Texas museums in Houston, Fort Worth, and
1528 Cabeza de Vaca and a black African slave spend other cities. However, the most authentic
six years traveling across Texas images of Texas are not of urban sophisti-
1685 Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle,
establishes a short-lived French colony on the Gulf of cation but of the down-home informality
Mexico at Matagorda Bay and vast open spaces of its rural reaches.
1716 Spain establishes Catholic missions in Perhaps the best way to find its heart is to
southern Texas follow a dusty country road, stopping for
1822 American immigrant Stephen F. Austin coffee in a small-town café with a parking
establishes a settlement along the Brazos River
1836 Battle of the Alamo; Texas becomes a Republic lot full of pickup trucks, or watching the
1845 Texas becomes a state sun set over the ever-distant horizon.
1870 Texas readmitted to the Union
1900 Hurricane hits Galveston, killing 6,000
1962 NASA’s “Mission Control” in Houston
1963 President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas;
Texas native Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson
assumes leadership
1986 Crude oil prices fall, damaging economy
2001 Texas Governor George W. Bush is sworn in as
43rd president after a Supreme Court decision that
involved counting of contested Florida votes
2009 Bush’s presidency ends and Barack Obama’s begins
Cowboys relaxing on a Texas ranch at sunset

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