On February 20, 1879, the State Legislature set aside 3,050,000 acres of
land in West Texas to pay for a new State Capitol building.
Interestingly, the act provided for the survey of this land and detailed
a force of Rangers to protect the surveyors in their work.
The cornerstone of the Capitol was laid on March 2, 1885, and the
building was formally dedicated on May 16, 1888. The pink granite which
forms the walls of the Capitol came from Granite Mountain near Marble
Falls in Burnet County.
Forty years after construction of the Capitol, it was discovered that
too much land had been given to the contractor in exchange for building
the structure. The State recovered 57,836 acres of land in 1924. This
recovered land is in Dallam and Hartley Counties.