Texas Government & Geography Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering Texas geography, natural resources, demographics, and political history.

23rd Congressional District

A large Texas congressional district stretching from San Antonio along the Rio Grande to the outskirts of El Paso, covering a geographical area larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Guadalupe Peak

A West Texas mountain peak reaching an elevation of 8,749 feet.

Llano Estacado

A high plains region surrounding Lubbock and Amarillo that sits over 3,000 feet above sea level and features high concentrations of wind turbines.

Surface Rights vs. Mineral Rights

The legal distinction under Texas law between ownership of the land's surface and ownership of subterranean resources like oil and natural gas.

Spindletop

An oil field east of Beaumont where a major oil gusher in 1901 initiated the modern Texas energy economy.

George Mitchell

The individual credited with developing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract oil and natural gas pockets from rock formations.

Zombie Wells

Abandoned or unowned oil and gas wells in West Texas that were improperly secured and pose environmental risks by leaking into groundwater.

Majority-Minority State

A demographic condition in which no single racial or ethnic group constitutes more than 50% of a state's total population.

Juneteenth

June 19, 1865, the date Union troops landed in Galveston to announce the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and the end of slavery in Texas.

Thirteenth Amendment

The amendment to the United States Constitution that formally abolished slavery.

Reconstruction

The period from 1865 to roughly 1876 during which the federal government sought to reorganize Southern political and social structures after the Civil War.

Poll Tax

A mandatory fee required to cast a ballot in elections, historically used in Texas to disenfranchise low-income African Americans and poor whites.

Fifteenth Amendment

The amendment to the United States Constitution establishing that the right to vote cannot be denied or abridged on account of race.