TOURISM. While tourism as a major source of revenue for Texas is
a relatively recent phenomenon, the state's role as a visitor
destination may be traced far back into history. The origin of
tourism in Texas might be rooted in the coastal map produced in
1519 by Texas's discoverer, Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, for map
making and map distribution remain a keystone of modern tourist
promotion. Similarly, active visitor promotion in Texas could be
traced to Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, whose reports in 1536 of
seven golden cities of Cíbola induced Francisco Vázquez de
Coronado and 1,000 troops to make a tour of West Texas in a
fruitless search for riches. Promotional literature in pre-
republic Texas was beamed at potentially permanent residents,
although at least one guidebook for casual visitors, Mary Austin
Holley's Tourist Guide to Texas, was published in 1835. A number
of guides to Texas were published during its decade as a
republic and during its early days of statehood. In Melinda
Rankin's Texas in 1850, the a