This Day In Texas History - January 10

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1836 - Peyton Sterling Wyatt, and the men under his leadership, totalling about 71 men strong, relieved Phillip Dimmit and his force at Goliad. Sam Houston ordered Wyatt and his force to remain at Goliad until relieved. Most of the men who had traveled with him remained and were killed at the Goliad Massacre or at the battle of the Alamo.

1836 - The schooner-of-war Independence, was purchased in New Orleans for the first Texas Navy. The ship was commissioned into Texas service under the command of Capt. Charles E. Hawkins and first appeared in Texas waters on this date. She carried seven light cannons, six six-pounders, and a long nine-pounder pivot gun. Through March 1 the Independence cruised between Galveston and Tampico and destroyed "a considerable number of small craft, with all material on board that could be used to the injury of Texas." When Hawkins was promoted to commodore, the Independence became the flagship of the Texas fleet. By March 12 he had returned his ship to New Orleans for refitting. While it was patrolling out of Matagorda soon after the fall of the Alamo, the Independence skirmished indecisively with the Mexican ships Urrea and Bravo, which were supporting the army of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna, but was forced to withdraw to Galveston, new home port of the Texas Navy. After the battle of San Jacinto President David G. Burnet and his cabinet and the captive Santa Anna sailed on board the Independence to Velasco, where the Treaty of Velasco was negotiated and signed. In early June 1836.

1836 - Villa de Guerrero, located 5 miles north of the Rio Grande served as the staging area for Antonio López de Santa Anna's army, marching on San Antonio de Béxar , as the new site was strategically located near a series of crossings providing access to Texas.

1880 - After several attempts to name their new post office, citizens of a community in Travis County were at their wits end. With each name submission, they learned that their choice for a name had already been selected by another town. Finally after the six failures, the citizens wrote the Post Office "Let the post office be nameless and be danged!" On this date in 1880, the U S Post Office agreed, and so it was - Nameless, Texas.

1901 - The Texas oil boom was set off when the Lucas gusher blew 100 feet high at the Spindletop oilfield south of Beaumont, producing 100,000 barrels of oil per day.The discovery of the Spindletop oilfield had an almost incalculable effect on world and Texas history. Many of the major oil companies were born at Spindletop or grew to major corporate size as a result of their involvement at Spindletop, including Texaco, Gulf Oil Corporation, Magnolia Petroleum Company, and Exxon Company, U.S.A.

1954 - two leading figures in Texas aviation, Edgar Tobin and Thomas Elmer Braniff, died in a plane crash near Shreveport, Louisiana. Tobin, a San Antonio native, became an ace after shooting down five enemy aircraft while flying with Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker's "Hat-in-the-Ring" squadron during World War I. Braniff, a native of Kansas and co-founder with his brother Paul of Braniff Airways, pioneered airline service to Texas and the Southwest.

1967 - Barbara Jordan is sworn in as the first black woman ever to become a Texas state senator. Jordan will go on to a very active and distinguished career in Texas and national politics, eventually becoming a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.