Mirabeau B. Lamar While the PUF Lands today are unquestionably one of the state’s most important resources and a key revenue source for higher education, that wasn’t true at the beginning. As president of what was then the Republic of Texas, Mirabeau B. Lamar was the first to allocate West Texas land to support higher ed, encouraging the legislature to set aside 50 leagues (over 380,000 acres) of land back in 1839.
1839
1876
1 Million Acres Decades after Texas became a state, the legislature significantly increased that allotment, adding a provision to the Texas Constitution in 1876 that delegated one million acres for the benefit of what would later become The University of Texas and Texas A&M University Systems.
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