Category Archives: Today in Texas History

Today in Texas History – September 23

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From the Annals of Panic –  In 2005, Houston and the surrounding area was gripped in the midst of the worst traffic jam in the City’s history.  All freeways heading out of the City were turned into massive parking lots as residents fled from the oncoming Hurricane Rita.  The storm coming quick on the heels of devastating Hurricane Katrina threw officials and residents into panic mode resulting in the largest peacetime evacuation in U.S. history.  And it was mostly for naught – in Houston at least – as the storm veered eastward and came ashore south of Beaumont.  Sadly, the mishandled flight from the City killed almost as many people as Rita did. More than 100 evacuees died in the exodus. Drivers waited in traffic for 20-plus hours, and heat stroke impaired or killed dozens while 24 senior citizens were killed in a bus fire.  The evacuation exposed horrific flaws in the system and was largely mismanaged by the local governments as there was no effective plan to handle the amount of traffic generated by the call to evacuate.

Today in Texas History – September 22

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Josephine <i>Lucchese</i> Caruso

From the Annals of the Sopranos –  In 1920, soprano Josephine Lucchese Caruso of San Antonio made her operatic debut with the San Carlo Grand Opera as Olympia in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman at the Manhattan Grand Opera House.  Lucchese was born in San Antonio in 1893 and was the daughter of legendary bootmaker Sam Lucchese.  She trained entirely in the United States and primarily in San Antonio.  Lucchese toured in the United States and Europe for two decades giving both opera and concert performances and singing opposite such leading tenors as Tito Schipa and Giovanni Martinelli. Known in Europe as the “American Nightingale,” Lucchese was an operatic success at a time when it was considered impossible to achieve an international reputation without having first studied in Italy.

Today in Texas History – September 21

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From the Annals of Country Music – In 1968, singer Jeannie C. Riley because the first female recording artist to top both the Billboard Country and Pop charts with her monster hit Harper Valley P.T.A.   With her career-defining hit song, the 23-year-old Riley accomplished a crossover feat that no other woman would match for another 13 years until Dolly Parton scored with 9 to 5.  Riley had come to Nashville from her native Anson to pursue a singing career, but while working a day job as a receptionist she was noticed by the country-music producer Shelby Singleton.  Singleton thought her voice would be perfect for the protagonist in Tom T. Hall’s song about a small-town widow’s fight for her right to wear her skirts short and her heels high.  Singleton was right and Riley’s first single lit up the Pop and Country charts in mid-summer 1968.

Riley was not a one-hit wonder – at least on the Country charts.  She recorded 5 more top 10 singles but never again hit the top 40 on the Pop charts. Riley herself grew increasingly uncomfortable with her signature hit as she became a born again Christian espousing right wing rhetoric and in fact representing the hated values of the Harper Valley P.T.A.  Riley “socked it to” her fans by refusing to perform her biggest hit.

Today in Texas History

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From the Annals of the Republic –  In 1848, Sam Houston dedicated the Monument Hill cemetery just south of La Grange on a bluff overlooking the Colorado River. Those to be buried there had died in the Dawson Massacre and other conflicts between the Republic of Texas and Mexico in the years after independence.  On September 18, 1842, Capt. Nicholas Dawson and his fifty-eight volunteers fought a losing battle against 500 irregular Mexican cavalrymen and their two cannons. The Texans were slaughtered. A few escaped, and fifteen were carted off to Perote Prison.  Nine survivors from the brutal imprisonment were eventually released. The dead were later transferred to Monument Hill.

Photo from Texas Parks & Wildlife.

Today in Texas History – September 17

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From the Annals of the Civil War – In 1862, the Battle of Antietam was fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland.  The day was the bloodiest day in American military history with over 23,000 casualties on both sides.  The battle of Antietam was particularly hard on Texans fighting for the Confederacy. Over a thousand miles from their homes, the Confederate soldiers of Hood’s Texas Brigade would suffer the second-highest casualty rate of any unit during the Civil War. On the morning of September 17, the men of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Texas Infantry regiments were attempting to cook breakfast as the fighting opened. The meal was interrupted when the Federal army launched an assault on the Confederate left flank. Hood’s Brigade quickly formed and marched north, passing wounded and terrified Rebels streaming to the rear.  They entered the fighting in the vicinity of the Dunker Church where they were ordered forward in a counterattack. The Texans attacked the Union soldiers in a cornfield with initial success. But the attack was repulsed by intense artillery and musket fire.  The Texans attempted to continue their advance, but after suffering massive casualties Hood was forced to withdraw.  Over 550 of the brigade’s 850 soldiers had been killed, wounded, or captured. The First Texas Infantry suffered a casualty rate of 82% and lost their colors as well.

The technical victory for the Union at Antietam allowed President Lincoln to finally issue the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves in Texas and the other Confederate states.

Photo of Antietam Cornfield from the National Park Service.

Today in Texas History – September 16

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From the Annals of the Democratic Party – In 1922, the “Independent Democrats” met in Dallas to select Houston attorney George Peddy as a candidate for the United States Senate. The Independent Democrats were a splinter group from in opposition to the effective takeover of the party by the Ku Klux Klan.  The Democratic Party had nominated KKK candidate Earle Bradford Mayfield for senator in the primary.  Even worse, at the state Democratic convention in San Antonio it appeared to many that the Ku Klux Klan had gained control of the party.  This caused the anti-Klan Democrats to seek a candidate to oppose Mayfield in the general election. Peddy had campaigned for James E. Ferguson as the anti-Klan candidate in the primaries.  Unfortunately, Mayfield and the Klan forces succeeded in keeping Peddy’s name off the ballot.  Peddy ran a write-in campaign and captured one third of the vote.  Challenges to Mayfield’s qualifications to serve led to a Senate investigation and delayed his ascension to the Senate.  He was, however, seated in the Senate in December of 1923.

Photo of George Petty from the Legislative Reference Library.

Today in Texas History – September 15

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From the Annals of Freedom – In 1829, President Vicente Guerrero of the Republic of Mexico issued the Guerrero Decree which abolished slavery throughout Mexico except in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The decree was not known in Texas until October 16.   Ramón Músquiz, who headed the Department of Texas, withheld its publication because it violated colonization laws which guaranteed the settlers security for their persons and property.  Nonetheless, news of the decree aroused fear in Texas that slavery would be outlawed.  Texas petitioned Guerrero for an exemption.  On December 2, Agustín Viesca, Mexican minister of relations, announced that no change would be made respecting the status of slavery in Texas.  The Guerrero Decree was a root cause of the Texas Revolution as many Texas colonists believed that slavery would ultimately be outlawed and were willing to fight to preserve the institution.

Today in Texas History – September 14

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From the Annals of the Assassins –  In 1859, Indian Agent Robert Simpson Neighbors was assassinated by Edward Cornett. As a Federal Indian Agent for the Comanches, he employed the “field system” which involved actually visiting the Indians in their homes, and learning their language and culture. This was unique for its time and likely criticized by white settlers as Neighbors spent much time far beyond the then frontier.  However, in the opinion of many historians, Neighbors exercised greater influence over the Indians in Texas than any other white man of his generation.  As with Sam Houston he was one of the few white men to bother to learn Indian languages and almost uniquely would travel to the heart of the feared Comancheria.  Despite many relocations of the tribes, white settlers and renegade bands were still in conflict.  Neighbors was dedicated to protecting the “surrendered” tribes from attacks by the settlers.  As a result, Neighbors had become hated among white Texans because of his support for the tribes.

The events leading to his death concerned the Penateka Comanches who were settled on the Comanche Indian Reservation on the  Clear Fork of the Brazos River near present day Throckmorton.  Neighbors alleged that the Army officers from Fort Belknap and Camp Cooper near the reservations, failed to give adequate support to him and his resident agents, and adequate protection to the Indians and settlers alike.  With some justification, the Army and settlers believed the reservation Indians were committing continuing raids on white settlements.

John R. Baylor, the former Comanche agent, led the opposition to Neighbors and the reservation policy.  Baylor blamed Neighbors for his dismissal and resented him bitterly.  With the aid of federal troops, Neighbors managed to protect the Indians on the reservations, successfully thwarting an attack in May of 1859 by Baylor and 250 marauders.  The raid convinced Neighbors that the Comanches would never be safe in Texas and in August he succeeded in moving 1420 Indians, without loss of life, to a new reservation in the Indian Territory.  Attacked while returning to Texas, Neighbor’s party headed for Fort Belknap.  Neighbors proceeded to the nearby village of Belknap the next morning to “wind up his accounts as superintendent of Indian affairs”, where while speaking with two men, he was shot in the back by Edward Cornett.

Today in Texas History – September 9

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From the Annals of Big Government –  In1966, President Lyndon B, Johnson signed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the Highway Safety Act. The two bills made the federal government responsible for setting and enforcing safety standards for cars and roads. “In this century,” Johnson said before he signed the bills, “more than 1,500,000 of our fellow citizens have died on our streets and highways; nearly three times as many Americans as we have lost in all our wars.”  Detroit’s refusal to make safer cars was notorious and consumers had little choice at the time as foreign cars were almost non-existent on US roads.   “Safety is no luxury item,” the President declared, “no optional extra; it must be a normal cost of doing business.”

Detroit managed to eliminate some of the safety standards in the original bill.  Older readers will recall the decades long fight car makers put up against installing air bags.   However, the impact of the NTMVSA was noticeable.  All cars now had seat belts for every passenger, impact-absorbing steering wheels, rupture-resistant fuel tanks, door latches that stayed latched in crashes, side-view mirrors, shatter-resistant windshields,  windshield defrosters, lights on the sides of cars and other protections.   It is almost impossible to estimate the number of lives that was saved by these acts.

The Acts passed without a single negative vote in Congress – something that is unimaginable in today’s world.

Today in Texas History

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From the Annals of the Indian Wars –  In 1874, Lt. Francis D. Baldwin and three army scouts captured the Kiowa Indian known as “Tehan.”  Tehan was a white captive of the Kiowa Indians taken when he was a child, perhaps between five and ten. The Indian name Tehan was their version of Texan likely from the Spanish which many Indians spoke on some level.  He was adopted by the Kiowa medicine man Maman-ti and became a respected and fierce warrior.  He was in striking contrast to the Kiowa with his red hair, fair skin, and thick neck. Tehan was about eighteen when the Red River War broke out in the summer of 1874. He was among those who fled the Wichita Agency in late August and camped near the upper Washita River while traveling west toward Palo Duro Canyon.  While looking for stray horses, he was captured by Baldwin. Although Tehan pretended to be grateful for his “deliverance,” his captors took no chances and kept a rope tied about the prisoner’s neck to prevent any escape attempt.  Tehan escaped during a subsequent skirmish with the Kiowas.  He rejoined his adopted tribe, sporting a suit of clothes the troops had given him.  In later years several men claimed to be Tehan.  His actual fate will likely remain a mystery.