On Oct. 17, Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas, and his cabinet arrived in the new capital city of Austin. Lamar had appointed Edwin Waller to lay out the new capital at the site of the community of Waterloo, on what was then the frontier, as the first step in a grand scheme to extend the republic all the way to the Pacific Ocean. He made the decision on a bluff overlooking Walnut Creek, on property adjacent to Pioneer Farms. Fearing an invasion from Mexico, Sam Houston, who replaced Lamar, moved the capital from Austin in 1841, but it was returned in 1844.