Texas Utilities Company Business Information, Profile, and History

Related information about Texas

pop (2000e) 20 851 800; area 691 003 km²/266 807 sq mi. State in SW USA, divided into 254 counties; the ‘Lone Star State’; second largest state in the USA; first settled by the Spanish in the late 1600s; first American settlement, 1821; American rebellion after request for separate statehood turned down by Mexico, 1835; declared independence, defeated by Santa Anna at the Alamo, 1836; Mexican army then defeated by Sam Houston at San Jacinto, 1836; independence of Texas recognized; admitted to the Union as the 28th state, 1845; US–Mexican War, with Mexican defeats at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, 1846–8; joined the Confederate states in the Civil War (the only state not to be overrun by Union troops); re-admitted to the Union, 1870; discovery of extensive oil deposits (1901) transformed the economy; capital, Austin; other chief cities, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso, Fort Worth; bounded SE by the Gulf of Mexico, SW by Mexico; rivers include the Red, Sabine, Trinity, Brazos, Colorado; Rio Grande forms the state's entire international border with Mexico; Davis and Guadalupe Mts in the extreme W; highest point, Guadalupe Peak (2667 m/8750 ft); much of the E hilly, forested country with cypress swamps, cotton and rice cultivation, extensive oil fields; Gulf coastal plains around Houston heavily industrialized; tourism and heavy industry in the drier S coastal region; intensive agriculture in the irrigated lower Rio Grande valley, producing citrus fruits and winter vegetables; richest agricultural land in the C and N (the Blackland prairies); SC plains and Edwards Plateau have vast wheat and cotton farms and cattle ranches; far N dry, barren, mountainous; nation's leading producer of oil and natural gas; chemicals, processed foods, machinery, fabricated metals; major producer of cattle, sheep, cotton; wheat, sorghum, dairy produce, rice, vegetables, fishing; large Spanish-speaking population.

otheruses

Texas is a state in both the Southern and Western region of the United States of America. The state name derives from a word in the Caddoan language of the Hasinai: táysha, tecas, or tejas (Spanish spelling); meaning "those who are friends," "friends," or "allies".

Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836 and existed as the independent Republic of Texas for nearly a decade. It joined the United States in 1845 as the 28th state. With an area of 268,581 square miles (695,622 km²) and a population of 22.8 million, Texas is second to Alaska in area, and second to California in population.

History

Texas boasts that "Six Flags" have flown over its soil: the Fleur-de-lis of France, and the national flags of Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States of America and the Confederate States of America.

Native Americans in Texas

Native American tribes who once lived inside the boundaries of present-day Texas include Apache, Atakapan, Bidai, Caddo, Comanche, Cherokee, Kiowa, Tonkawa, Wichita, and Karankawa of Galveston. Currently, there are three federally recognized Native American tribes which reside in Texas: the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo of Texas.

European and American settlement

On November 6, 1528, shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first known European in Texas; in 1537, he wrote about his experiences in a work called La relación ("The Relation").

Prior to 1821, Texas was part of the Spanish dominions of New Spain. Moses Austin bought 200,000 acres (800 km²) of land of his choice. In 1821, Texas became part of Mexico and in 1824 became the northern section of Coahuila y Tejas. On January 3, 1823, Stephen F. The "Conventions" of 1832 and 1833 responded to rising unrest at the policies of the ruling Mexican government.

War for Independence

In 1835, Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico, proclaimed a unified constitution for all Mexican territories, including Texas. North American settlers in Texas announced they intended to secede from Mexico rather than be forced to the new Mexican constitution and instead, asked for consideration under the original 1824 Mexican Constitution which allowed: freedom of religion, freedom of thought and the press and also enslavement, which Mexico had abolished under this new constitution. The example of the Centralista forces' suppression of dissidents in Zacatecas also inspired fear of the Mexican government.

On March 2, 1836, the Convention of 1836 signed a Declaration of Independence,Unanimous Declaration of Independence declaring Texas an independent nation. On April 21, 1836, the Texans won their independence when they defeated the Mexican forces of Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. A factor in the defeat of Santa Anna's army at San Jacinto was the time the Texas Army got to gather itself, thanks to a small group of defenders at The Alamo and General Sam Houston's strategy of giving up land until he had rallied an army. The Republic of Texas included all the area now included in the state of Texas, and additional unoccupied territory to the west and northwest.

Annexation and Statehood

Texans strongly wanted annexation to the United States. Great Britain tried to maintain Texas independence (as a counterweight to the United States), maintained a Texas Embassy in London, and tried to convince Mexico to stop threatening war. strong Northern opposition to adding another slave state blocked annexation until the election of 1844 was won on a pro-annexation platform by James K. On December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the United States as a constituent state of the Union. The Mexican?American War followed, with decisive American victories. Texas grew rapidly as migrants poured into the rich cotton lands.

Civil War and Reconstruction

During the American Civil War, the Texas legislature authorized secession from the United States on February 1, 1861 and was accepted as a state by the provisional government of the Confederate States of America on March 1, 1861.
Texas was most useful for supplying hardy soldiers for Confederate forces (veterans of the Mexican War), and in cavalry. As a whole, Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces until mid 1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men or cattle impossible. Texas regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war.

The last battle of the Civil War, The Battle of Palmito Ranch, was fought in Texas, on May 12, 1865, well after Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Texas descended into near-anarchy during the two months between the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia and the assumption of authority by (Union) General Gordon Granger, as Confederate forces demobilized or disbanded and government property passed into private hands through distribution or plunder.

Juneteenth commemorates the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation on June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Texas, by General Gordon Granger; nearly 1-1/2 years after the original announcement of January 1, 1863. On March 30, 1870 although Texas did not meet all the requirements, the United States Congress readmitted Texas into the Union.

Texas in Prosperity, Depression, and War: 1914?1945

The first major oil well in Texas was drilled at Spindletop, the little hill south of Beaumont, on the morning of January 10, 1901. Other oil fields were later discovered nearby in East Texas, in West Texas and under the Gulf of Mexico. permanently transformed the economy of Texas. Oil production eventually averaged three million barrels of oil per day at its peak in 1972.

The economy, which had experienced significant recovery since the Civil War, was dealt a double blow by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

Immediately preceding and during WWII, existing military bases in Texas were expanded and numerous new training bases were built, especially for Naval and Military Aviation training. Texas is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which ends in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico. It is considered to form part of the U.S. South and also part of the U.S. Southwest.

The Rio Grande, Red River and Sabine River all provide natural state lines where Texas borders Oklahoma on the north, Louisiana and Arkansas on the east, and New Mexico and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south.

By residents, the state is generally divided into North Texas, East Texas, South Texas, and West Texas, but according to the Texas Almanac, Texas has four major physical regions: Gulf Coastal Plains, Interior Lowlands, Great Plains, and The Basin and Range Province. This is the difference between human geography and physical geography.

Some regions of Texas are associated with the South more than the Southwest (primarily East Texas and North Texas), while other regions share more similarities with the Southwest than the South (primarily West Texas and South Texas). The Texas Panhandle and South Plains regions don't fit either category;

Geology

Texas is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which ends in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico. It is mostly sedimentary rocks, with east Texas underlain by a Cretaceous and younger sequence of sediments, the trace of ancient shorelines east and south until the active continental margin of the Gulf of Mexico is met. This sequence is built atop the subsided crest of the Appalachian Mountains–Ouachita Mountains–Marathon Mountains zone of Pennsylvanian continental collision, which collapsed when rifting in Jurassic time opened the Gulf of Mexico. West from this orogenic crest, which is buried beneath the Dallas–Waco–Austin–San Antonio trend, the sediments are Permian and Triassic in age. Oil is found in the Cretaceous sediments in the east, the Permian sediments in the west, and along the Gulf coast and out on the Texas continental shelf. A few exposures of Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks are found in the central and western parts of the state, and Oligocene volcanic rocks are found in far west Texas, in the Big Bend area. A blanket of Miocene sediments known as the Ogallala formation in the western high plains region is an important aquifer. however, the area is sparsely populated and suffers minimal damages and injuries, and no known fatalities have been attributed to a Texas earthquake.)

Climate

The large size of the state of Texas and its location at the intersection of several climate zones gives the state highly variable weather. Maximum temperatures in the summer months average from the 80s °F in the mountains of West Texas and on Galveston Island to around 100 °F in the Rio Grande Valley. weather.com.

Law and government

State law and government

Republican Rick Perry has served as Governor of Texas since December 2000, when George W. Two Republicans represent Texas in the U.S. Senate: Kay Bailey Hutchison (since 1993) and John Cornyn (since 2002). Texas has 32 representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives: 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats.

The Texas Constitution, adopted in 1876, is the second oldest state constitution still in effect. The bill of rights is considerably lengthier and more detailed than the federal Bill of Rights, and includes some provisions unique to Texas.

The executive branch consists of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Comptroller of Public Accounts, Land Commissioner, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, the three-member Texas Railroad Commission, the State Board of Education, and the Secretary of State. The governor also appoints members of various executive boards and fills judicial vacancies between elections.

The Legislature of Texas, like the legislature of every other state except Nebraska, is bicameral (that is, it has two chambers). The speaker of the house, currently Tom Craddick (R-Midland) leads the House, and the lieutenant governor (currently Republican David Dewhurst) leads the state Senate. Texas has two courts of last resort: the Texas Supreme Court, which hears civil cases, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. their powers and limits are specifically defined by the state government.

Unlike other states, Texas does not allow for consolidated city-county governments, nor does it have a form of metropolitan government (the Councils of Government which exist are not governmental entities but voluntary associations of other local governments).

Politics

Regardless of party affiliation, Texas politics are dominated by fiscal and social conservatism.

The Texan political climate is currently dominated by the Republican Party, which has strong majorities in the Texas Senate and House of Representatives. A notable exception to this trend is the Travis County District Attorney, Ronnie Earle, a Democrat elected by the people of Austin who has served since 1978 with statewide authority and responsibility for legally prosecuting political mischief. most states grant this authority to the more broadly elected position of Attorney General.

Note: The congressional districts in Texas were redrawn in 2003 by the Republican-dominated legislature. the United States Supreme Court remanded the map to a three-judge federal panel to redraw the 23rd District, which it ruled unconstitutionally diluted Hispanic voting strength in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The Democratic challengers of the map had pointed to an early 1990's map drawn by federal judges as one that should be kept in use.

Like other Southern states, Texas historically was a one-party state of the Democratic Party. One of the most famous Texans was a Democrat: Lyndon Baines Johnson served in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and as vice-president and president of the United States. a 2005 law change changed the alternate sentence to life without parole.

A 2002 Houston Chronicle poll of Texans found that when asked "Do you support the death penalty?", 69.1 percent responded that they did, 21.9 percent did not support, and 9.1 percent were not sure or gave no answer.

Well-known for their role in the history of Texas law enforcement, the Texas Rangers continue today to provide special law enforcement services to the state.

Military

Texas is home to numerous major military installations, with bases in nearly every corner of the state. The guard units are collectively known as the "Texas Military Forces."

The Texas Military Forces includes the Texas Army National Guard and the Texas Air National Guard and the Texas State Guard, the state militia. The headquarters of the Texas Military Forces is at Camp Mabry in Austin.

Congressional districts

Economy

In 2005 Texas had a gross state product of $982.4 billion, the second highest in America after California. Texas's growth is often attributed to the availability of jobs, the low cost of housing (housing values in the Dallas and Houston areas, while generally rising, have not risen at the astronomical rates of other cities such as San Francisco), the lack of a personal state income tax, low taxation and limited regulation of business, a geographic location in the center of the country, limited government (the Texas Legislature meets only once every two years), favorable climate in many areas of the state, and vast, plentiful supplies of oil and natural gas.

Texas remained largely rural until World War II, with cattle ranching, oil, and agriculture as its main industries. before the oil boom back to the period of the first Anglo settlers, the chief industry was cotton farming (as in most of the South).

In 1926, San Antonio had over 120,000 people, the largest population of any city in Texas. for example, the timber industry is a major portion of the East Texas economy but a non-factor elsewhere, while aerospace and defense manufacturing is primarily centered within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

The state has two major economic centers: Dallas and Houston. Houston stands at the center of the petrochemical and biomedical research trades while Dallas functions as the center of the aerospace/defense manufacturing and information technology labor market in Texas. Other major cities include San Antonio, Austin, Brownsville, Lubbock, Amarillo, Abilene, Bryan-College Station, Beaumont, McAllen, Tyler, Odessa and Midland. Other important cities include Killeen (home to Fort Hood, the largest military post in the U.S.) and the cities of El Paso, Eagle Pass, and Laredo (these have particular significance due to their location on the border with Mexico, making them important trade points).

As of 2006, Texas, for the first time, has more Fortune 500 company headquarters (56) than any other state (California has 55; This has been attributed to both the growth in population in Texas and the rise of oil prices in 2005, which resulted in the growth in revenues of many Texas oil drilling and processing companies.
Texas is the largest international exporter among the 50 American states, with international merchandise exports totaling $117.2 Billion in 2004.USA Today, Feb 26, 2006, 6B In 2002, the Port of Houston was 6th among the top sea ports in the world in terms of total cargo volume; With a nod to its diversity and its past as a former sovereign nation, the state tourism slogan is "Texas: It's like a whole other country.®" (The slogan is used only in domestic advertising, a different slogan is used for marketing to Latin American countries.)

Texas is one of the top filmmaking states in the United States, just after California and New York. In the past 10 years alone (1995-2004), more than $2.75 billion has been spent in Texas for film and television production.
The Texas Film Commission was founded for free services to filmmakers, from location research to traveling.

Since 2003, Texas state officials have been committed to developing the economy of Texas with various initiatives such as the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, which invest money into developing Texas business. The state passed New York in the 1990s to become the second-largest U.S. state in population (after California).

As of 2004, the state has 3.5 million foreign-born residents (15.6 percent of the state population), of which an estimated 1.2 million are illegal aliens (illegal aliens account for more than one-third of the foreign-born population in Texas and 5.4 percent of the total state population fact).

Census data reports 7.8 percent of Texas's population as under 5, 28.2 percent under 18, and 9.9 percent over 64 years.

Race and ethnic origins

The largest reported ancestry groups in Texas include: Mexican (24.3%), African American (11.5%), German-American (9.9%), Anglo American (7.2%), and Scots-Irish American (7.2%). Descent from some of these ancestry groups is underreported.

Much of east, central, and north Texas is inhabited by Texans of White Protestant heritage, primarily descended from ancestors from Great Britain and Ireland. African Americans, who historically made up one-third of the state population, are concentrated in those parts of East Texas where the cotton plantation culture was most prominent prior to the American Civil War, as well as in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metropolitan areas.

Other population groups in Texas also exhibit great diversity. Frontier Texas saw settlements of Germans, particularly in Fredericksburg and New Braunfels. After the European revolutions of 1848, German, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, Czech and French immigration grew, and continued until World War I. Lavaca County is predominantly Czech.

More than one-third of Texas residents are of Hispanic origin and may be of any racial group. Some are recent arrivals from Mexico, Central America, or South America, while others, known as Tejanos in English, have ancestors who have lived in Texas since before Texan independence, or at least for several generations. The Hispanic population in Texas is increasing as more illegal immigrants from certain Latin American countries—primarily from Mexico—look for work in Texas. Numerically, Hispanics dominate south, south-central, and west Texas and are a significant part of the residents in the cities of Dallas and Houston. This influx of immigrants is partially responsible for Texas having a population younger than the union average.

In recent years, the Asian American population in Texas has grown, especially in Houston and in Dallas. People with ancestry from Vietnam, India, China, the Philippines, Korea, and Japan make up the largest Asian American groups in Texas.

In August 2005, it was announced by the United States Census that Texas has become the fourth minority-majority state in the nation (after Hawaii, New Mexico, and California).U.S. Census Bureau News, August 11 2005 According to the Texas state Data Center, if current trends continue, Hispanics will become a majority in the state by 2030. The University of Texas-OU football game is played at the Cotton Bowl near Fair Park during the State Fair.

Texas has a vibrant live music scene in Austin boasting more music venues per capita than any other U.S. city as the Austin's official slogan is The Live Music Capital of the World. Austin's music revolves around the many nightclubs on 6th Street and an annual film, music, and multimedia festival known as South by Southwest. Austin City Limits and Waterloo Records run the Austin City Limits Music Festival, an annual music and art festival held at Zilker Park in Austin.

Arts and theatre

Known for the vibrancy of its visual and performing arts, the Houston Theater District—a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston—is ranked second in the country (behind New York City) in the number of theatre seats in a concentrated downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 movie seats.www.houstontheaterdistrict.org/en/cms/?68

Houston is also one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines (the Houston Grand Opera, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Ballet, and The Alley Theatre).www.visithoustontexas.com/arts_and_culture.asp?pageid=232 Houston is widely recognized as the nation's third most important city for contemporary visual arts.

Dallas and Fort Worth serve as epicenters of the North Texas region's art scene. The city is also home to the Kimbell Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, the Will Rogers Memorial Center, and the Bass Performance Hall downtown. The Arts District of Downtown Dallas is home to several arts venues. Notable venues in the district include the Dallas Museum of Art, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, and the Nasher Sculpture Center.

Also within Dallas is the notable Deep Ellum district which originally became popular during the 1920s and 1930s as the prime jazz and blues hotspot in the Southern United States. Artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, and Bessie Smith played in original Deep Ellum clubs like The Harlem and The Palace. One major art infusion in the area is the city's lax stance on graffiti, thusly several public ways including tunnels, sides of buildings, sidewalks, and streets are covered in murals.

Sports

Texas is known for its love of American football and is noted for the intensity with which people follow high school and college football teams—oftentimes dominating over all else for the purposes of socializing and leisure. In May of 2005, Sports Illustrated also named the high school's sports program as one of the top 25 in the nation.

Baseball is also very popular in Texas, with Major League Baseball. Minor league baseball is also closely followed.

Other popular sports in Texas include golf (which can be played year-round because of the South's mild climate), basketball, fishing, and auto racing. Soccer is a popular participatory sport—especially among children—but as a spectator sport, it does not yet have a large following despite two Texan teams in Major League Soccer. Hockey has been a growing participatory sport in the Dallas/Fort Worth area since the Minnesota North Stars became the Dallas Stars in 1993.

Cities and metropolitan areas

Largest metropolitan areas

Texas has 25 metropolitan areas defined by the United States Census Bureau. Population figures are as of the 2005 U.S. Census estimates.

Texas rank	U.S. rank	Metropolitan Area	Metropolitan Division	Population
1	5	Dallas?Fort Worth?Arlington		5,819,475
			Dallas?Plano?Irving	3,893,123
			Fort Worth?Arlington	1,926,352
2	7	Houston?Sugar Land?Baytown		5,280,077
3	29	San Antonio		1,889,797
4	38	Austin?Round Rock		1,452,529
5	68	El Paso		721,598

Based on census data, as of June 2003, there is are specific data classifications, a new one being that of a ?Metropolitan Division.?

Largest cities

Ranked by population of cities (incorporated municipalities), the six largest cities in Texas are Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, and El Paso.

Texas is the only state in the U.S. to have three cities with populations exceeding one million: Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio; The city is the core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the nation and lacks any direct link to the sea—Dallas's prominence despite this comes from its historical importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries, its position along numerous railroad lines, and its powerful industrial and financial tycoons. miles

Geographic Area
1	4	Houston	2,016,582	601.7	Southeast Texas
2	7	Dallas	1,248,673	385.0	North Texas
3	9	San Antonio	1,227,042	412.1	South Texas
4	16	Austin	690,252	258.4	Central Texas
5	19	Fort Worth	624,067	298.9	North Texas
6	21	El Paso	598,590	250.5	West Texas

Transportation

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is a governmental agency and its purpose is to "provide safe, effective, and efficient movement of people and goods" throughout the state. Though the public face of the agency is generally associated with maintenance of the state's immense highway system, the agency is also responsible for aviation in the state and overseeing public transportation systems. New landscaping projects and a longstanding ban on new billboards are ways Houston has tried to control the potential side effects of convenience.

Another common characteristic found near Texas overpasses are the Texas U-turns which is a lane allowing cars traveling on one side of a one-way frontage road to U-turn into the opposite frontage road (typically crossing over or under a freeway or expressway) without being stopped by traffic lights or crossing the highway traffic at-grade.

Airports

The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, located nearly equidistant from downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth, is the largest airport in the state, the second largest in the United States, and fourth largest in the world. The airport serves 135 domestic destinations and 37 international, and is the largest and main hub for American Airlines (900 daily departures), the world's largest airline, and also the largest hub for American Eagle. Houston is the headquarters of Continental Airlines, and the airport is Continental Airlines' largest hub, with over 750 daily departures (over 250 operated by Continental Airlines). Because of Houston's proximity to American Airlines' hub at DFW in Dallas-Fort Worth, that airline also maintains a large presence at IAH. IAH currently ranks second among U.S. airports with scheduled non-stop domestic and international service (221 destinations), trailing only Atlanta Hartsfield with 250 destinations.

Some of the other airports that are served by airlines include Dallas Love Field, Houston Hobby Airport, San Antonio International Airport, El Paso International Airport, and Valley International Airport in Harlingen, TX.

Mass transportation

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is the Dallas area public transportation authority, providing buses, rail, and HOV lanes. DART began operating the first light rail system in the Southwest United States in 1996 and continues to expand its coverage.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO) operates bus, lift bus, and light rail service in Harris County, which includes Houston. METRO began running light rail service (METRORail) in Houston on January 1 2004. It runs about 8 miles (13 km) from Downtown Houston to the Texas Medical Center and Reliant Park.

The city of Austin will add a commuter rail line called Capitol Metro in 2008.

Although located in the middle of the service areas of DART, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, and the Trinity Railway Express that connects the two, the city of Arlington remains the largest city in the United States that is not served by a public transportation system.

Education and research

Healthcare and scientific research

Houston is the seat of the internationally-renowned Texas Medical Center, which contains the world's largest concentration of research and healthcare institutions.

There are 42 member institutions in the Texas Medical Center—all are non-profit organizations, and are dedicated to the highest standards of patient and preventive care, research, education, and local, national, and international community well-being. These institutions include 13 renowned hospitals and two specialty institutions, two medical schools, four nursing schools, and schools of dentistry, public health, pharmacy, and virtually all health-related careers. It is where one of the first, and still the largest, air emergency services was created—a very successful inter-institutional transplant program was developed—and more heart surgeries are performed there than anywhere else in the world.

Some of the academic and research health institutions are Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and The University of Texas M. Anderson Cancer Center is widely considered one of the world?s most productive and highly-regarded academic institutions devoted to cancer patient care, research, education and prevention.

Other healthcare and medical research centers in the state are the South Texas Medical Center in San Antonio and the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Texas has two Biosafety Level 4 laboratories: one at The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, and the other at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, the first privately owned BSL-4 lab in the United States.

In May 2006, Texas initiated the program "code red" in response to the report that Texas , at 25.1 percent, has the largest number of un-insured population of any state.www.utsystem.edu/hea/codered/

Colleges and universities

The University of Texas System (UT), established by the Texas Constitution in 1876, consists of nine academic universities and six health institutions. In 2004, the University of Texas at Austin, which is the largest institution in the UT System and in the state of Texas, maintained an enrollment of 50,377 students.
The University of Texas at Austin was once the largest institution in the United States, but it is now one of the top three largest by population and is the nation's 52nd ranked university. Seven doctoral programs at UT Austin rank in the top 10 in the nation and 22 degree programs rank in the top 25, according to a comprehensive study of the quality of graduate schools conducted by the United States National Research Council. In 2004, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas was ranked the 16th highest ranking medical school in the United States, with four of Texas's 11 Nobel laureates.The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas list of Texas Nobel Laureates

The Texas A&M University System, established by the 1871 Texas legislature, is the second largest state university system of higher learning in Texas. The University of Texas's rivalry with Texas A&M dates back to the late 19th century.

Baylor University, chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas, is the oldest university in Texas operating under its original charter. The 735-acre campus is located just southeast of downtown Waco, roughly bounded by Interstate 35, Speight Avenue, Eighth Street and the Brazos River.

The University of Houston System is the largest urban state system of higher education in the Gulf Coast, which has four universities with three located in Houston. The interdisciplinary research conducted at UH breaks new ground in such vital areas as superconductivity, space commercialization, biomedical engineering, economics, education, petroleum exploration and management. The UH Law Center's Health Law and Policy Institute is ranked number one in the nation while the Intellectual Property Law Program is ranked fifth, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Houston is the location of a well known prestigious private institution, Rice University, which boasts one of the largest financial endowments of any university in the world. Rice is also associated with the Houston Area Research Center, a consortium supported by Rice, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, and the University of Houston.

Another liberal arts college in Houston is the University of St. Thomas. Founded by the Basilian Order in 1947, the University has become one of the premier Catholic universities in the world, renowned for its theology and philosophy departments. Michael Miller currently serves in the Roman Curia as the prefect of Catholic universities throughout the world. The campus is also home to some major historic buildings, such as the Link-Lee Mansion (once the largest house in Texas) and Hughes House (the childhood home of Howard Hughes).

Houston is also home to Texas Southern University, the first historically black college and university to house a law school; Its pioneering spirit continues today.

The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has the fourth-largest university in the state—the University of North Texas—along with two UT System institutions—The University of Texas at Dallas and The University of Texas at Arlington, as well as private universities such as Southern Methodist University, which has the Metroplex's largest law school, University of Dallas, and Texas Christian University.

San Antonio is home to many colleges and universities, such as The University of Texas at San Antonio, the second-largest institution of the University of Texas System, as well as University of Texas Health Science Center, Trinity University, St. Mary's University, University of the Incarnate Word, and Our Lady of the Lake University.

Other large public universities in Texas include Texas State University-San Marcos (formerly Southwest Texas State University) and Texas Tech University in Lubbock, the only institution in Texas with the university, law school, and medical school—all residing on the same campus.

Primary and secondary education

Texas has over 1,000 school districts, ranging in size from the gigantic Houston Independent School District to the 13-student