Touring Texas Through the Eyes of an Artist

Waco, Texas: Texian Press, 1967. First Edition . Hard Back. Fine/No Dust Jacket. 6" x 9. 396 Pages. There are 208 etchings done by the author. One warm June day in 1962 I stood on the sidewalk along Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, to do the drawing on copper for this etching of our state capitol. These are the facts I have learned about this building: The Texas pink granite, of which our capitol was built, came from the granite quarries at Granite Mountain near Marble Falls in Burnet County. The owners, G. W. Lacy, W. H. Westfall and N. L. Norton donated the granite because of their great desire to have our state capitol constructed of the finest native materials obtainable. Would it be limestone or would it be granite? There were months of discussion and argument among the authorities before it was decided that Texas pink granite would be the building material.. In 1962 I stopped near Granite Mountain that is.so great that one would never know that huge quantities of granite have been quarried there for years. In front of the mountain were the railroad tracks and farther over were machinery, sheds, and all sorts of equipment. It was an experience to see it all and as I stood I tried my hand at drawing. This etching is linked to the very beginning of our state capitol. The massive cornerstone was quarried here and it weighed 16,000 pounds and was hauled fifteen miles to Burnet by sixteen yoke of oxen. From Burnet it was carried to Austin on the new railroad which was built especially for transporting the granite for the building of the capitol. The cornerstone was laid on March 2, 1885, the forty-ninth anniversary of the Independence of Texas, amid a crowd of imposing people assembled in Austin for the celebration and for the laying of the cornerstone. The Sam Houston Masonic Gavel was used in the dedication services. Convict labor, at sixty-five cents per day, was used at the quarries and also used to build the railroad from Austin to the quarries, The International Association of Granite Cutters boycotted the capitol job because convict labor was used. The contractors had union troubles at that early day. Gus Wilke (contractor) could not come to terms with the union so he imported sixty-two granite cutters all the way from Scotland for special work. They were under contract. In doing this, a federal immigration law was violated and Wilke stood alone when the case came to trial in 1889. The fine was $1,000 per imported worker and $1,000 in costs. When the judgement was executed in 1893 Wilke was held liable for $8,000 and costs. Thus the granite cutters union chastised Wilke, but the capitol was not affected. The capitol was paid for with 3,050,000 acres of state lands in the Panhandle. The area became known as the famous XIT Ranch. The contractors received the land, pieces of it at a time, as the work progressed. When the capitol was finished it was said to be the seventh largest building in the world at that time. Today the flag of the United States of America and the Lone Star Flag of Texas are the two flags that fly over our state capitol. Its classic architecture is similar to that of the national capitol at Washington, D. C. but the state's dome is a little higher.