From the Annals of Fire – In 1881, the Texas State Capitol was destroyed by fire. The second Texas capitol was built in 1853, on the same site as the present capitol in Austin. The fire accelerated already existing plans to replace it with the much larger structure that still serves as the Capitol.
From the Annals of the DRT – In 1891, the organizational meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas was held in the Houston home of Mary Jane Briscoe.
Mary S. M. Jones, widow of Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, was selected to serve as president. The rather awkward first name chosen for the new association was the Daughters of Female Descendants of the Heroes of ’36. The group quickly changed its name to the Daughters of the Lone Star Republic, then Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the first annual meeting in April 1892. The stated objectives of the association are to perpetuate the memory and spirit of the people who achieved and maintained the independence of Texas, to encourage historical research into the earliest records of Texas, especially those relating to the revolutionary and republic periods and to promote Texas Honor Days. However, membership is limited to descendants of ancestors who “rendered loyal service for Texas” prior to February 19, 1846, the date the Republic ceased to exist and Texas became part of the U.S. The DRT was most famous for its custody of the Alamo – but it has now been displaced by the state of Texas.
Photo of DRT members in 1932 at Laguna Gloria, home of notable member Clara Driscoll from KayKeys.
From the Annals of Neutrality – In 1806, the United States and Spain established the “Neutral Ground” between Louisiana and Texas. After the Louisiana Purchase, the US and Spain had been unable to agree on the boundary between Louisiana and Texas despite Spain having once controlled the area. To avoid an armed clash over the disputed land, Gen. James Wilkinson and Lt. Col. Simón de Herrera, the American and Spanish military commanders, entered into an agreement establishing a Neutral Ground between Texas and Louisiana. Even the boundaries of the NG were never exactly prescribed. The NG was generally described as being bordered by the Arroyo Hondo on the east and the Sabine River on the west. The Gulf of Mexico clearly constituted the Southern boundary and most likely the thirty-second parallel of latitude formed the northern boundary. Despite an agreement that no settlers would be permitted in the NG, settlers from both Spanish and American territory moved in. Predictably, the NG became fertile ground for illegal activity and the US and Spain cooperated in sending joint military expeditions in 1810 and 1812 to enforce order and expel undesirables. The US obtained ownership of the NG with the signing of the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1821.
From the Annals of the Little Known Battles – In 1835, one of the smaller engagements of the Texas Revolution occurred. The battle of Lipantitlán was fought on the east bank of the Nueces River in San Patricio County, directly across from Fort Lipantitlán. The Fort was one of the last two garrisons of Mexican troops remaining after the initial engagements of the revolution. Most of the Mexican forces had left the fort for operations in the field. While they were engaged elsewhere a Texian force of around seventy men from Goliad under the command of Capt.Ira J. Westover seized and dismantled the fort. The Mexican force of about ninety men under the command of Capt. Nicolás Rodríguez encountered the Texians as they were attempting to cross the rain-swollen Nueces River on their return to Goliad. The short battle lasted only about 30 minutes, but the Texian long rifles proved decisive in a longer distance fight against Mexican troops armed with close range muskets. The Mexican troops were forced to retreat with between 3 and 5 soldiers reportedly killed in action. The Texans reported only one relatively minor casualty.
From the Annals of the Founding Fathers – In 1793, Stephen F. Austin was born in Virginia. Austin often referred to as the “Father of Texas”, was actually following in the footsteps of his father Moses Austin. Austin was raised in Missouri, but educated back east gaining a degree from Transylvania University and then studying as a lawyer. He was pursuing a legal career in New Orleans, when his father traveled to Texas and received an grant that would allow him to bring 300 American families to Texas. Moses Austin caught pneumonia soon after returning to Missouri. He left his empresario grant to his son Stephen. Though Austin was reluctant to carry on his father’s Texas venture, he was persuaded to pursue the colonization of Texas by a letter from his mother written two days before Moses Austin died.
At the age of 24, Austin led a party of potential settlers to San Antonio covering 300 miles in about 4 weeks. Austin sought a reauthorization of his father’s grant. While in transit, Austin learned Mexico had declared its independence from Spain, and Texas had become a Mexican province rather than a Spanish territory. Jose Antonio Navarro, a San Antonio native with ambitious visions of the future of Texas, befriended Stephen F. Austin, and the two developed a lasting association. Navarro, proficient with Spanish and Mexican law, assisted Austin in obtaining his empresario contracts. With a reauthorized grant, Austin began to explore the area between San Antonio and the Brazos River to find a suitable location for a colony – eventually settling on San Felipe in present day Austin County.
From the Annals of Cattle Ranching – In 1912, the XIT Ranch of Texas sold its last head of cattle. The XIT was once one of the largest cattle ranches in Texas, and the land was received in exchange for financing the construction of the state capitol building in Austin. Thus, the XIT it was not owned by the iconic independent cattle ranching pioneer popular in Western mythology. In fact, many of the biggest cow operations in the 1800’s were owned by big-city capitalists and stockholders. The Chicago capitalists behind the XIT—also known as the Capitol Syndicate Ranch—were leveraging their capital and banking on the growing American appetite for fresh beef.
The CSR determined that ranching would be the only profitable use for their new land. The built a a large and highly efficient cattle-raising operation that stretched over parts of nine Texas counties. At its peak, the XIT had more than 160,000 head of cattle, employed 150 cowboys, and operated on 3 million acres of the Texas panhandle.
Increasing land prices and declining beef prices, convinced the CSR that they could make more money by selling their land. By 1912, the XIT abandoned ranching altogether with the sale of its last herd of cattle. As the land was sold off the XIT holdings shrunk. By 1950, the XIT consisted of less than 20,000 acres.
Map from the XIT Museum.
From the Annals of the Wilds – In 1984, Pres. Ronald Reagan signed the Texas Wilderness Act of 1984 establishing five new wilderness areas in East Texas. The five were the Big Slough Wilderness Area, Indian Mounds Wilderness Area, Little Lake Creek Wilderness Area, Turkey Hill Wilderness Area and Upland Island Wilderness Area. These areas were preserved from logging and development and now serve as islands of wilderness in Texas’ National Forests. In 1979, the Secretary of Agriculture had recommended the establishment of three wilderness areas totaling 10,712 acres. Texas congressman John Bryant sponsored legislation that would have set up ten wilderness areas in Texas covering 65,000 acres, but the bill went nowhere until citizen support expanded in the district of Congressman Charles Wilson, where three of the wildernesses lie. Wilson agreed to a compromise of five wilderness areas totaling 34,700 acres. That compromise was made possible by the willingness of lumber giant Temple-Eastex to trade some of its land inside Upland Island and Indian Mounds for Forest Service land outside.
Imagine a Republican President today signing a bill that creates wilderness areas.
From the Annals of Garage Bands – In 1966, ? and the Mysterians hit No. 1 on the US charts with “96 Tears.” The members of the band were living in Saginaw, Michigan but were originally from Texas. Their parents had been migrant workers who settled in Michigan after finding auto industry jobs. ? – the former Rudy Martinez, who legally changed his name to a punctuation mark and claims to be a space alien, has understandably managed to maintain an air of mystery ever since making a splash with “96 Tears” which essentially came out of nowhere to reach the top of the Billboard pop chart.
Critics regard “96 Tears” as the first garage-rock masterpiece and a “proto-punk” classic. The Mysterians formed in 1962 when four Mexican-American teenagers in Saginaw began playing instrumental music inspired by the surf bands such as the Ventures and legendary guitarist Link Wray. Taking their name from a Japanese science fiction movie, the Mysterians soon made the acquaintance of their own alleged alien—a young man in sunglasses who approached them after a gig at Michigan’s Mt. Holly Ski Lodge offering to manage the group. Identifying himself to the Mysterians only as “?,” he soon became the group’s lead singer and primary songwriter. It was a poem of his called “Too Many Teardrops” that became “96 Tears.”
From the Annals of the Collectors – In 2014, British rock-pop-prog star Phil Collins donated his expansive collection of Alamo and Texas Revolution-related artifacts to a new museum planned for the Alamo complex in San Antonio. The “Phil Collins Alamo Collection” section of the museum will house a number of rare items – including a rifle owned by former Congressman Davy Crockett, a fringed leather pouch carried by Crockett and an original Bowie knife which Jim Bowie had in his possession during the 1836 siege. Collins’ collection is believed to be the largest of its kind, with over 200 total items and is valued at as much as $100 million. Collins’ fascination with the Alamo began as a child and has obviously continued. The collection started more than 20 years ago when he received Alamo courier John W. Smith’s saddle receipt as a gift. That launched Collins on a worldwide search for artifacts which he documented in his 2012 book, The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector’s Journey.
From the Annals of the Tall Ships – In 1877, The Elissa was launched. She is the official Tall Ship of Texas and was originally designed as an iron-hulled, three-masted barque and built at the Clyde River shipyard of Alexander Hall and Company of Aberdeen, Scotland, for Henry Fowler Watt of Liverpool, England. After much renovation, she is a now a fully restored sailing ship that belongs to the Galveston Historical Foundation. Her overall length is 162 feet and draws 16 feet. Her gross capacity is 430 tons. She carries nineteen sails made of 12,000 square feet of a synthetic material that resembles canvas. The Elissa began her career as a British merchantman on December 19, 1877, when she carried a cargo of Welsh coal to Recife, Brazil, where she arrived on January 28, 1878. For the next ninety years, she was steadily employed as a tramp freight carrier traveling all over the world. The main United States ports she stopped at were New York, Boston, Savannah, and Pensacola. She also stopped at Galveston in 1883 and 1886. Her career included stints in Scandinavian waters hauling lumber and being used for smuggling operations in the Adriatic. Over the years she was converted to a motorized ship with most of her sailing rig removed.
In 1974 the Galveston Historical Foundation purchased her as a restoration project to complement the Strand Historic District. Galveston would once again have her in port. She was also one of the few surviving square-riggers in the world and the oldest listed in the Lloyd’s of London Registry of Shipping.
In December 1978 the ship began the voyage to Galveston when she was towed to Gibraltar. On June 25, 1979, she was towed out of Gibraltar and set sail for Texas. She arrived off Galveston on July 20. A dockside celebration was held in Galveston on August 4 to honor the arrival.
In the next three years the Elissa underwent a complete restoration, under direction of David Brink, which included extensive hull repair and new masts, yards, rigging, and sails, as well as a new deck and new deck houses. Restoration was largely complete by July 4, 1982, when she was formally opened as a tourist attraction. On Labor Day of that year, the Elissa also sailed again as a full-rigged ship on sea trials off Galveston in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Elissa by Don Scafidi available at http://www.elissa.org.
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