Category Archives: Today in Texas History

Today in Texas History – October 13

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From the Annals of Statehood –  In 1845, Texas voters approved annexation of Texas as a new member of the United States.  Voters also approved a new state constitution and the annexation ordinance. 

The annexation of Texas was part of a much larger political game between the free and slave states and between the pro-slavery Democrats and the anti-slavery Whigs.  In 1843, U.S. President John Tyler decided to pursue the annexation of Texas as part of his political platform for another four years in office.  Tyler claimed that he was attempting to  outmaneuver the British government’s alleged plans to recognize Texas as an independent state in exchange for emancipation of slaves.  Tyler believed this would undermine slavery in the US.  Through secret negotiations with Sam Houston’s administration, Tyler secured a treaty of annexation in April 1844.   Now in the public eye, the terms of annexation and Texas’ admission to the Union took center stage in the election of 1844. Pro-Texas-annexation southern Democratic delegates denied their anti-annexation leader Martin Van Buren of New York the nomination at their party’s convention in May 1844.  Instead, the Democrats nominated James K. Polk who ran on a pro-Texas Manifest Destiny platform.

In June 1844, the Senate, with its Whig majority rejected the Texas Annexation Treaty.  But Polk narrowly defeated anti-annexation Whig Henry Clay in the fall.   This opened the door for lame-duck Tyler to ask Congress to revisit Texas annexation which it did.  The last major act of the Tyler administration was to sign the Texas Annexation bill.

Today in Texas History – October 11

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From the Annals of Suicide –  In 1878, Kiowa chief Satanta committed suicide by jumping from his prison cell in Huntsville.  Satanta was probably close to 60 at the time.  He had been a rising leader since the Medicine Lodge Treaty council in October 1867, where he came to be known as the “Orator of the Plains.”  In 1871 Satanta and his fellow chiefs Satank and Big Tree were arrested for their part in the Warren Wagon Train raid. Satank was killed while trying to escape. Satanta and Big Tree were tried for murder at Jacksboro which was the first time Native American chiefs were tried in a civil court. They were convicted and sentenced to hang, but Texas governor E. J. Davis commuted the sentences to life imprisonment. Satanta was quickly paroled in 1873, but was re-arrested for his role in the attack on Lyman’s Wagon Train in Palo Duro canyon and in the second battle of Adobe Walls.  His second incarceration was too much for the Kiowa Chief who took his life rather than spend his remaining days in prison.

Today in Texas History – October 10

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From the Annals of College Football –   In 2011, Texas Christian University accepted an invitation to join the Big 12 Conference beginning on July 1, 2012.  TCU’s Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin on January 1, 2011 had re-established TCU as a worthy program after having been snubbed by the nascent Big 12 following the breakup of the Southwest Conference in 1996.  The Frogs were destined to wander among the walking dead of college football for 15 years going from the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA to the Mountain West.  Along the way, the Horned Frogs picked up 7 c0nference championships (2 WAC, 1 C-USA and 4 MWC) to go with their 9 SWC championships.  It didn’t take the Frogs long to return to their winning ways among the bigger dogs – winning the B1g-12 in 2014 and capping it off with a 41-3 thumping of Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl.  Since rejoining the Big 12, TCU has played in 3 bowl games only losing a 1 point squeaker to Michigan State in 2012.

Today in Texas History – October 7

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From the Annals of the Red River – In 1759, Spanish soldiers under the command of Diego Ortiz Parilla fought a losing battle near a fortified Taovaya village on the Red River.  Ortiz Parilla was leading an expedition to punish the Indians responsible for the embarrassing destruction of Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission in March 1759.  The Spaniards faced a combined force of  Comanches, Yaceales, and Tawakonis who outsmarted the Spaniard.  Ortiz Parilla did not know exactly how close he was to Indian village.  When his forces were  charged from woods by sixty or seventy warriors who quickly withdrew, he ordered a pursuit not realizing that the purpose of the attack was to lead the Spaniards into a well-laid trap. Pursuing their attackers, the troop found itself sinking in a sandbank at the edge of the Red River, before the Indian fortifications. As darkness fell, Ortiz Parilla led an orderly withdrawal from his difficult position.  However, he was forced to leave a pair of cannons behind  on the river sandbank where the Spaniards had found themselves pinned down.  And more critically lost nineteen men killed, fourteen wounded, and nineteen by desertion.  The humiliating defeat led to his replacement as commandant of San Luis de las Amarillas Presidio by Felipe de Rábago y Terán.  The Spaniards held onto the fort near present-day San Saba for another decade but failed to make any significant inroads into north central Texas for almost 50 years.

Painting of the destruction of the San Saba Mission.

Today in Texas History – October 6

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From the Annals of Preparedness –    In 1961, President John F. Kennedy advised American families to build bomb shelters to protect them from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.  Kennedy attempted to assuage fears by claiming that the U.S. civil defense program would ramp up to provide such protection for every American.  Kennedy’s warnings seemed correct when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted over the USSR’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba and the prospect of “nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Ruskies” seemed imminent.

Red remembers when the local Shopper’s World had a contest with the grand “prize” being a home bomb shelter.  The drawing was won by a friend’s father who had it installed in the backyard where it promptly filled up with water.  Red’s friend still has bitter memories of having to stand in knee deep water handing up buckets to try and drain the useless “shelter.”  He also remembers touring a new hospital in San Antonio with a Boy Scout group where there was an elaborate basement bomb shelter complete with showers for washing radiation off as you entered, cots, blankets and immense stocks of food, water and other supplies.  In reality, San Antonio would likely have been an immense field of fused glass and smoking rubble in the event of a nuclear war.  If ever there was a waste of money on a pretense of  caring about the populace – the bomb shelter craze was it.  As they told us at school, in the event of an attack, take cover under your desk, put your head between your knees – and kiss your ass goodbye!

Today in Texas History – October 5

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From the Annals of the Benevolent – In 1889, Liberal Hall was destroyed by fire. The Waco location was the home of the Religious and Benevolent Association founded by James Shaw and promoted freethinking.  The association began to publish a monthly magazine called the Independent Pulpit in 1883. The publication served as a forum for many of the members’ freethinking views. It was edited by Shaw and had a world-wide circulation. The introduction of such an association was bitterly opposed by churchmen across Texas.  Although, the RBA planned to rebuild it never did and the suspicious fire effectively put an end to the group.

Today in Texas History

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From the Annals of Higher Learning –  In 1876, Gov. Richard Coke  dedicated the  Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas now known as Texas A&M University.  It was the state’s first public college.   TAMU’s origins trace back to the Morrill Act of 1862.  This act provided for donation of public land to the states for the purpose of funding higher education whose “leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts.”  In November 1866, Texas agreed to create a college under the terms of the Morrill Act.  Actual formation did not occur until the establishment of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas by the Texas state legislature on April 17, 1871. A commission created to locate the institution accepted the offer of 2,416 acres of land from the citizens of Brazos County in 1871. Admission was limited to white males who, as required by the Morrill Act, were required to participate in military training.

Today in Texas History – October 3

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From the Annals of the Pests –   In 1984, Charles W. DeRyee, a druggist in Corpus Christi, mentioned in a letter that the boll weevil was in Texas. This was the first known reference to the pest being in Texas.  The tiny insect was one of the most devastating pests ever to effect American agriculture.  By the 1920’s, the BW was present in ever cotton producing region of the state.  Eradication programs have been somewhat successful, but the BW remains a problem to this day.

Today in Texas History – September 28

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From the Annals of the Panhandle –    In 1874 Col. Ranald Mackenzie and the Fourth U.S. Cavalry attempted a surprise attack on Comanche, Cheyenne and Kiowa encampments in Palo Duro Canyon.   Although known as the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, the attack involved little loss of life as it was primarily a raid to seized Indian horses and property.  Assisted by Tonkawa scouts, the cavalry wanted to surprise the Indians who were settling into their winter camps.   However, the Indians were warned by the Comanche leader Red Warbonnet, who discovered the soldiers and fired a warning shot before being killed by the Tonkawas.  Cheyenne chief Iron Shirt, Comanche leader Poor Buffalo, and the Kiowa chief were left in charge.  The camps were located in various parts of the vast canyon which did not allow the Indians to mount a united defense.  As a result most of the Indians retreated leaving behind over 1400 horses and most of their winter stores.  Only three Comanche were killed as was one soldier.  The BOPDC was the last major event in the Red River Wars and resulted in the confinement of southern Plains Indians in reservations in Indian Territory.

Today in Texas History – September 27

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From the Annals of Corruption – In 1993, Senator Kay Baily Hutchinson (R-Texas) was indicted on charges that she misused state facilities and employees while she was the Texas state treasurer. In one of the most unusual legal proceedings ever, KBH eluded conviction and really even a trial.  Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earl seemed to have a fairly strong case against the Senator based on telephone records and other documents showing that Treasury Department employees were campaigning for KBH from state offices.  The trial judge was John Onion, the former presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.  Onion refused to rule on the admissibility of evidence seized pursuant to a grand jury warrant from the Treasurer’s office.  The most curious aspect was that strong precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals holds that a government employee such as KBH does not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in the government records that comprised the primary evidence against KBH.  In other words, she had no standing to challenge the admissibility of the evidence because the documents being relied on by the prosecution did not belong to her.  By refusing to rule pre-trial, Onion denied the state the chance to appeal.  Once the jury was empaneled, Earl refused to go forward and KBH’s attorney Dick DeGuerin asked Onion to instruct the jury to return a not guilty verdict which they did.

Red thinks the fix was clearly in. Then Gov. Ann Richards was facing the possibility of similar charges based on her own alleged use of government employees for political purposes.  Onion, a Democrat, was tight with Richards and Earl had long known Richards in Travis County political circles.  The word on the street was that Earl was instructed by Richards to fall on his sword and that Onion was complicit in the strategy.   However it came down, it was a huge political win for KBH.