About this tour
Before Austin, there was Waterloo — a tiny cluster of cabins beside a buffalo ford on the Colorado River. In 1839 the young Republic of Texas chose this frontier spot to build a brand-new capital from scratch, named it for Stephen F. Austin, and platted a city on the hills above the water. This driving tour traces that Republic-era origin story: the visionary whose colonizing dream started it all, the printers and founders who staffed the new government, the standoff that kept the capital here, and two of the oldest houses in the city — including the home of an actual Alamo survivor. It runs from just north of the Capitol out to the near-east side, following how a buffalo camp became the seat of Texas.