President Mirabeau B. Lamar and his Cabinet arrived in the newly designated Texas capital of Austin in 1839.  Lamar had commissioned Edwin Waller (who would become Austin’s first mayor) to lay out the new capital city on the site of Waterloo – a controversial decision because Austin was on the very edge of the Commancheria and the target of raids from the Commanches and their allies.  The move was part of a grand scheme to extend the reach of the Republic – with dreams that it might someday touch the Pacific.  Despite at least one later attempt by Sam Houston to relocate the capital to Washington-on-the-Brazos, the decision stuck and Waterloo was transformed from a small village into the capital of a new nation.