In April 2025, the Texas Historical Commission selected the University of North Texas Libraries’ Portal to Texas History to receive the 2025 Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation, described by the Texas Historical Commission as, “The Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation recognizes . . the highest achievement in the preservation of Texas’ prehistoric and historic heritage.”
![Photograph of the 2nd capitol building for the state of Texas. There is a attached to the bottom right hand corner of the photograph a label that reads "The 2nd State Capital [sic]. Located on the site of the present Capital [sic], Burned in 1881."](https://news.texashistory.unt.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/metapth124080_xl_PICA06175c-400x310.jpg)
Photograph of the 2nd capitol building for the state of Texas.
The Portal to Texas History represents a large-scale collaboration, built by many hands, all of whose contributions have made the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation possible. The Portal to Texas History hosts over 2.2 million primary source items, representing Texas people and history, including just over 1 million newspaper issues, nearly 500,000 photographs, as well as 150,000 videos and scripts, in addition to letters, maps, and other rich cultural artifacts that illustrate the state’s history. This has been accomplished through the diligent efforts of staff and student workers at the University of North Texas Libraries, as well as with financial support from many groups, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, the Summerlee Foundation, and the Tocker Foundation, among many other private donors. The materials hosted on the Portal are available through the preservation efforts and contributions by partners from across Texas and across the U.S. The Cathy Nelson Hartman Portal to Texas History Endowment provides long-term financial support that will ensure the Portal’s stability, preservation, and access for future generations of researchers.
Everything on the Portal supports research and cultural preservation but the following collections and items are especially unique to the history of the Portal itself.
The earliest collection added to The Portal to Texas History, From Republic to State . . ., offers early government documents from or about the years leading up to Texas statehood. Added in 2006, the May 18, 1934, issue of the Mineral Wells Tattler was the first newspaper issue added to the Portal. Another early collection, from 2010, is also among the most highly used on the Portal, the Clyde Barrow Gang Collection, contributed by the Dallas Municipal Archives.
Lithograph of an original newspaper manuscript first published by Captain William H. May
Among very unique newspapers, the Portal hosts one newspaper title printed in Esparanto, an artificial language developed to serve as a universal language, as well as two newspaper titles written by hand, the Fort Lancaster Western-Pioneer and The Old Flag.
Portal partners submit materials from across Texas, including as far east as Newton County, as far west as El Paso County, as far south as Cameron County, and as far north as Dallam County.
Coin images contributed by Abilene Christian University Library represent the reign of Nero Claudius Drusus depict the oldest items on the Portal with a known creation date. The earliest items from Texas history relate to Spanish exploration and mapping of the region that became Texas, contributed by St. Mary’s University Louis J. Blume Library, hosted in the Spanish Archives of Laredo Collection.
![Map of the coastline along the western part of the Gulf of Mexico, starting in the south (left) at a point labeled "La Desconoscida" and ending in the north (right) at "C[iudad] Escondido." Segments of the coastline are shaded in red, yellow, and green, with labels for river mouths, ports, islands, and other points along the coast.](https://news.texashistory.unt.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/metapth1000000_xl_Millionth-Item-Map_01-400x321.jpg)
Map of the coastline along the western part of the Gulf of Mexico
The one-millionth item added to The Portal to Texas History is a Dutch map depicting the Gulf Coast of what is now Texas and was then Spain, purchased by UNT Libraries’ Special Collections Department, specifically to celebrate that milestone.
All of these resources, contributed by our valued partners, are just a few examples of the many collections that make The Portal to Texas History a state treasure, and we are honored to receive the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation.
Despite this early discovery, it wasn’t until 1921 when the “dean of the oil industry in the Laredo district” O.W. Killam, struck gold on his third well in the Mirando Valley, that Laredo became an oil-town. According to the Laredo Weekly on December 28, 1928, Killam’s discovery proved to industrialists nationwide that “there was oil in paying quantities in this territory.”
