Fascinating photos show iconic, ordinary Texas in the 1800s

"Texas in Focus: Early Photographs from the State Archives" — provides an unprecedented look at everyday life during the 1800s in Texas. "Texas in Focus: Early Photographs from the State Archives" — provides an unprecedented look at everyday life during the 1800s in Texas. Photo: Texas State Library And Archives Commission Photo: Texas State Library And Archives Commission Image 1 of / 86 Caption Close Fascinating photos show iconic, ordinary Texas in the 1800s 1 / 86 Back to Gallery

A series of fascinating archived photos show an infant Texas during the 1800s — including two rare photos of Sam Houston.

The collection — "Texas in Focus: Early Photographs from the State Archives" — shows "ordinary" Texas citizens alongside iconic figures in handcrafted images pulled from state archives by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

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Among the photos are the burnt remains of the state capitol building following a fire in 1881, a street peddler in San Antonio, seven men who voted against secession and Sam Houston donning a duster.

The state has collected photos since at least 1878, when the Department of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics and History was the agency responsible for doing so, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

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"Only my opinion, but I suspect that acquisitions of photos in the 19th and early 20th century may have been less than perfectly documented," John Anderson, preservation officer at the archives, told the American-Statesman. "Because a photo at the time was seen as something of a novelty or curiosity rather than a state record or historical document. Today, photographs and images are considered a very important part of the historical record, but even at the start of the 20th century I think they were often considered tangential to official records, at best."

Scroll through for a look into days of Texas past.

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Twitter: @JFreports