• Sam Houston first arrives in Texas

• Huntsville founded by Pleasant and Ephraim Gray

• March 2 - The Texas Declaration of Independence is signed and the Republic of Texas begins.
• March 6 - Battle of the Alamo
• April 21 - Houston defeats Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto.
• October 22 - Sam Houston becomes President of the Republic of Texas.

• June 9 - Huntsville organizes first post office

• December 13 - Sam Houston becomes President of the Republic.
• Oldest continuous business in the state is the Huntsville firm of Gibbs Brothers and Company, begun as Gibbs and Coffin.

• December 29 - Texas admitted to the Union as a state.

• Walker County organized
• Huntsville Academy recieves charter (also known as Old Brick Academy)

• Woodland Home built

• Sam Houston Law Office built

• October 1 - Texas State Penitentiary receives first convict
• November 22 - Austin College receives a charter by the governor of Texas; the charter remains in affect today.

• Austin College opens in Huntsville.

• Austin College Building built

• February 7 - Methodist Church established Andrew Female College (lasts until 1879)

• Austin College establishes first law school in Texas

• Steamboat House built

• July 26 - Sam Houston dies in the bedroom of the Steamboat House, succumbing to pneumonia at age seventy. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery at Huntsville.

• February 6 - The Peabody Education Fund is established.
• Huntsville yellow fever epidemic.

• Austin College moved to Sherman Texas
• Methodist Church buys Austin College Building, establishes short-lived Mitchell College for boys

• April 21 - Governor Oran M. Roberts creates legislature to create an institution named after the hero of San Jacinto. Only Texas A&M and its associated Prairie View campus had been established earlier, in 1876, as state-supported institutions of higher learning, making SHSU the third-oldest university in Texas. The Normal received top students that were recommended on a quota basis from each Texas senatorial district.
• October 10 - Sam Houston Normal Institute, the first teacher training school in the southwestern United States opens with one classroom building, four faculty members and 110 students.
• Bernard Mallon begins tenure as president (October 10 to 21).
• Hildreth H. Smith begins tenure as president until 1881.

• First graduation class of SHNI, last reunion in 1940.

• Joseph Baldwin begins tenure as president until 1891.

• 300 students attend SHNI.

• Main Building built
• Texas Normal College and Teachers’ Training Institute opens in Denton.

• Henry Pritchett begins tenure as president until 1908.

• Legislature authorizes Southwest Texas Normal School in San Marcos.