One man once tried to create the 51st state within Texas and he tried to make it happen just a few decades ago.

The Annexation of Texas Technically Could Split Texas Into Five States

If you know your Texas history, you know the 1845 agreement for Texas to join the United States as the 28th state does allow Texas to divide itself into five separate states without Congressional approval. Although no one has really tried to do anything with this right for Texas, one man tried to do it back in 1991.

Everyone Meet State Representative David Swinford

David Swinford was born right here in Wichita Falls, Texas back in 1941. He would move all over our state throughout his years, but would settle down in the panhandle area of Texas. He was a Republican Representative for Dumas, Texas (District 87) from 1990 to 2010. In just his second year as a state representative, he had a pretty radical idea.

Introducing Our 51st State "Old Texas"

Representative Swinford wanted to create a new state within Texas called "Old Texas". It would be the 26 northern counties in the Texas panhandle. The capital of this new state would be Amarillo. Now why on Earth did Representative Swinford want to make a new state in Texas? He was upset that his area was not receiving a lot of the tax money for the oil industry, even though a lot of that was coming from his "Old Texas" area. This new state would be able to keep that tax money for themselves. David claims that this new state would be the richest in the nation per capita.

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'The people of the Panhandle are not impressed with the New Texas. It simply costs too much,' Swinford said. 'For years the people of the Texas Panhandle have been sending their hard-earned tax dollars to Austin, where big government has squandered every penny.'

Old Texas Could Have Done Pretty Well

At the time in 1991, the region produced 44 percent of the wheat grown in Texas, 76 percent of the beef cattle and 33 percent of the corn, along with its oil and gas reserves. The population for the new state would have been around 371,956, which was larger than ten current states in the country.

Old Texas Died Very Quickly

Sadly, the dream of a new state within Texas didn't last long. The proposed plan would not even get to committee. David Swinford sadly passed away just last year in 2022. Just a random piece of Texas history I found interesting today. We could've had Old Texas as it's own state at one point in time.