WHEN TEXAS USED TO BE BIG

Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

When Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845, it was larger than it is today, and its northern border extended into present-day Wyoming. However, under the Compromise of 1850 (which dealt with a lot of slavery issues), Texas ceded much of its land to the United States, and that real estate was eventually swallowed up by New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming. Texas was willing to go along with this, as the deal included a provision that the federal government would assume $10 million in debt incurred by Texas when it was a separate nation from 1836 to 1845.

Texas's present northern border was fixed at 36°30′ latitude, which was the legal limit under the Missouri Compromise of 1820 for the northern border of a western slave state. When Colorado and Kansas were formed, this left a 34 mile-wide gap between these two states and Texas, and this gap ultimately became the Oklahoma panhandle. For several decades, no territory or state claimed or governed the panhandle, and it become a legendary bastion of lawlessness and a notorious refuge for scalawags, owlhoots, and ne'er-do-wells.