A significant all or nothing mindset set the tone. More and more oilfields sprang up all over the state as entrepanuers came from miles around to get a piece of the thriving business. Each area where oil was discovered quickly became populated. Towns grew and all sorts of new businesses sprang up to accommodate the higher population densities and their needs. These oil discoveries also increased literacy and general education as much of the state transitioned from rural to urban civilizations. Texas education also benefitted when the University of Texas at Austin as well as the Texas A&M University received enormous funding from oil discovered on land reserved for educational purposes, ultimately leading to a well-informed society and a higher per capita …show more content…
When new inventions open or expand a new market, others dwindle. As the oil industry took the lead in the state’s economy, Cattle Ranches and Cotton plantations suffered. Then high tech computer and electronics manufacturing swooped in to take the place of the oil industry as its prices fell. In short, the Texas economy displays creative destruction in that when a leading industry falters dramatic transformation takes place and it is replaced by another that thrives in its