Congress Avenue

Congress Avenue was laid out to be looked at. It is named for the Congress of the Republic, and Edwin Waller ran it straight to the hill where the Capitol would stand. When the granite Capitol rose at its head in 1888 the street became a vista, and since 1983 state and city law have kept tall buildings from blocking the view. Before Interstate 35 was finished, the avenue was the main road into Austin from the south. The stretch from the river to the Capitol is a National Register historic district.

What the plaque says

Congress Avenue In his original 1839 plan for the Capital City, Edwin Waller, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and Austin's first mayor, designed Congress Avenue as Austin's most prominent street. Known for many years as "The Avenue", the street has been the scene of many important social, political, patriotic, religious, and military events. Early structures along Congress Avenue included government buildings, hotels, saloons, retail stores, and restaurants. By the late 1840s it was a well-established business district. The mid-1870s saw the introduction of gaslight illumination and mule-drawn streetcars, as well as construction of a new Travis County Courthouse at Eleventh Street. The present Capitol was built in 1883-88. Bricks replaced the original dirt street in 1910, and trolley cars operated on the avenue until 1940. Economic progress and modernization altered the avenue's appearance over the years, but it remains the city's most historic and identifiable street. In recognition of its architectural and historical significance, Congress Avenue from First Street to the Capitol was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.8 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Texas State Capitol — 0.8 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Texas State Cemetery — 1.2 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 1.2 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.

More markers nearby

• H&TC and I&GN Depots — steps away
• J. P. Schneider Store — 0.2 mi
• Original Site of First Methodist Church of Austin — 0.2 mi
• Headquarters of US Army, 5th Military Dist. — 0.3 mi