Mirabeau Lamar had been at the head of the Texas Cavalry at the Battle of San Jacinto. He had led the charge that broke the last shred of Mexican resistance. When he was promoted to Major General of the Texas army, Houston praised him for his action against General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Later Houston said that Lamar’s performance in battle was the sole basis upon which he was made a vice president of the Republic of Texas in 1836.
At the next election he then ran against Houston to be the second President of the Republic and won. Thus, Lamar became the second President of the Republic of Texas and immediately surprised citizens by announcing how fortunate Texans were that the United States had not chosen to annex the Lone Star Republic. You see, Lamar wanted to stay independent from the United States of America and Houston, who had lost the election, wanted to become one of the states belonging to the United States.
Lamar sent five men to find a suitable spot for a permanent capitol. Lamar’s men would pick the village of Waterloo on the north bank of the Colorado River. This was against strong opposition from Houston who wanted the capital to be the city named in his honor Houston.
Later the Archives War would ensue. This was when Houston set out to transport the States archives to Houston, where it would become a new seat of government. The town became the center of a political firestorm.
Houston sent wagons to the land office in Waterloo now Austin where all of the State records were kept. As the drivers loaded their wagons, Irate citizens assembled and managed to aim a cannon at the land office. Tradition says that a woman fired the cannon, but even though the shot hit the building and not the wagon with the precious land documents, and turmoil ensued. All of the records were hastily dumped into the wagons and sped out of town.
