The Road to Spindletop
Economic Change in Texas, 1875–1901
By John Stricklin Spratt; drawings by Ed Bearden
University of Texas Press, 1955
This book is an economic history of Texas at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1875, Texas was an agrarian state with limited industry. A generation later, agriculture was heavily commercialized, thousands of miles of railroads carried people and goods around the state, and urban populations increased rapidly. Even before the Spindletop gusher that irrevocably changed the state’s future, Texas had already moved far from its days as a Mexican and American frontier.
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