The Growth of Towns

Even thought most texans lived on ranches, many began to move to towns. Between 1850 to 1860 the number of people who lived in towns doubled from 13,000 to 26,000. Galveston was the largest town in 1850, but was beat by San Antonio when many German immigrants came to San Antonio. Every town had homes, stores, and offices, but none of these towns could be called cities, because they didn't have paved streets. Nearly all the building in these towns were made of wood. At the time Texas only had two manufacturing facilities, one for textiles and one for hats.