This Date In Texas History - December 23

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1820 - Moses Austin arrived in San Antonio, to attempt to obtain a grant from the Mexican government to bring 300 families to settle a colony in Texas.

1835 - The Georgia Battalion of Permanent Volunteers which numbered 220 men, became part of James W. Fannin's provisional regiment in the Goliad Campaign of 1836. They presented themselves to Fannin when the unit landed at Velasco, Texas on this date.

1841 - President Sam Houston appoints George Washington Hockley Secretary of War. Hockley, was Chief of Staff of the Texas Army during the Texas Revolution. Houston also sent him with Samuel M. Williams in 1843 to arrange an armistice with Mexico.

1879 - The Roberts Rifles, made up entirely of African American citizens, organized in Nueces County. The company, the county's first since the Civil War, secured armaments through the adjutant general. The organizational meeting was called by Capt. George Wilson, a commissioned officer from Galveston; Evan M. Mack, a Corpus Christi brickmason, was elected the company's first captain. In 1880 the Roberts Rifles were one of nine "colored" and thirty-eight white units in the Texas militia.

1927 - On this date in 1927, two days before Christmas, four armed me robbed the Santa Claus bank in Cisco. Before the bandits were killed or captured, two young girls were kidnapped, three people were killed fierce gun battle, and seven were injured. In the battle on bandit was killed. Of the remainder, one was hung, one died in the electric chair, and the last served a prison sentence and was released.

1949 - Scott and White Memorial Hospital became a nonprofit hospital foundation. The Temple, Texas, hospital was established by Arthur Carroll Scott and Raleigh R. White in 1904. It started in a converted house and was moved shortly thereafter to a former Catholic convent, which became the nucleus of a collection of thirty-one buildings in the fifty-nine years the hospital remained at the location.

1950 - Lt.General Walton H. Walker died. He was commander of United Nations forces in Korea, a position he held until he was killed in a jeep accident.

1967 - Dallas Cowboy owner Clint Murchison Jr, announce plans to build a new stadium in Irving. The new stadium will seat 58,000 people and have a roof covering all but the actual playing surface. Later, it would be said, that the hole in the roof was put there so "God could watch his favorite team play football." It has since been replaced by the new football stadium in Arlington, reportedly to cost upward of $1 Billion Dollars.