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Recall that Texas was it's own country before joining the United States (The Republic of Texas [0]). So all the land in the state at one time was privately owne
by chiph 8y ago
Recall that Texas was it's own country before joining the United States (The Republic of Texas [0]). So all the land in the state at one time was privately owned, unlike states like Wyoming and the Dakotas. Any public parks & land in Texas (primarily Big Bend out near El Paso) is public because it was donated by the owners.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas
- kd5bjo 8y agoWell, none of the land was owned by the US government. I'm not sure if land owned by the Republic of Texas (now State of Texas) really counts as "privately" owned.
- chiph 8y agoThat's my point - very little land was owned by the Republic of Texas government. It was all (or nearly all) owned by individuals/families. And after running up large debts to fund the national military in order to keep Mexico at bay, they didn't have the money to buy any land to be turned into parks anyway. Part of the deal upon joining the USA was that Texas would give up large areas of land out west in return for $10 million, to be used to pay off the debts. You'll see the importance of private land ownership to the residents even today. When the Texas Central Railroad tried to acquire land for a bullet train a few years ago, their attempted use of eminent domain fell more than flat. https://www.texastribune.org/2017/02/23/come-and-take-it-eminent-domain-dispute-heart-train-battles/ https://www.texastribune.org/2017/02/23/come-and-take-it-emi...
- kd5bjo 8y agoI can certainly believe that Texas, in practice, never had much public land -- I readily admit my ignorance on this point. I'm still not convinced of your original statement, that it has no public land because it was previously an independent country.