This Day In Texas History - January 25

[joe817]

1834 - The first Baptist church meeting in Texas took place at Daniel Parker's home in present Anderson County. Parker, who came to Texas in 1833 to apply for a land grant, realized that a Baptist church could not be organized in Texas without breaking Mexican law. By 1841 they had established eight churches in Texas. Pilgrim Church had met in many different locations since 1834, and in 1848 the members voted to build a meetinghouse where Parker had been buried, at the present location of Pilgrim Church, 2½ miles southeast of Elkhart.

1839 - The President of Texas, Mirabeau B. Lamar, approved the adoption by the Texas Congress of the Texas national flag, the familiar red, white and blue Lone Star flag which is now the state flag. Also approved was the national coat of arms; a white star of five points on an azure ground encircled by olive and live oak branches. The national seal bore these arms encircled by the words Republic of Texas. In 1845 the designation was altered from Republic to State.

1845 - The US House voted to admit Texas into the Union. The bill will work its way through the Senate, but finally, on December 29th, Texas became the 28th State. By February 1846, government of the Republic of Texas will replaced by a governor and state officials.

1878 - The Denison Daily News printed the story of John Martin's January 2nd siting of "A Strange Phenomenon" while out hunting near his Denison farm. Unfamiliar with this type of reporting, the newspaper quotes Martin almost entirely. At one point, Martin refers to the phenomenon as being like "a large saucer" going through space "at wonderful speed." After it had stopped directly above him for a time, "It went as rapidly as it had come and was soon lost to sight in the heavenly skies." The newspaper summarizes "Mr. Martin is a gentleman of undoubted veracity and this strange occurrence, if it was not a balloon, deserves the attention of our scientists."

1905 The Texas legislature passed a resolution ordering the governor to purchase that part of the old Alamo fortress occupied by a business concern. It was further ordered that the governor should deliver the property thus acquired, with the property then owned by the state (the chapel of the Alamo), to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

1919 - Rancher C. C. (Lum) Slaughter died, precipitating a tangled family financial scandal. About 1877 he established one of the largest ranches in West Texas, the Long S, on the headwaters of the Colorado River, and around 1898 he bought almost 250,000 acres in Cochran and Hockley counties and established the Lazy S Ranch. Frequently titled the "Cattle King of Texas," Slaughter became one of the country's largest individual owners of cattle and land (over a million acres and 40,000 cattle by 1906) and was for years the largest individual taxpayer in Texas. Less than a week after his death, however, his younger brother, Bill, with whom he had had a long and strained financial relationship but who managed the Long S, was accused of fraud.

1934 - The Daughters of the American Revolution donated The O. Henry Museum to the city of Austin. Originally it was the home of writer William Porter (O. Henry).

1962 - Texas Instruments, still booming from its new invention, the microchip, announced a plan to build a new plant in north Dallas.

1965 - The worst dust storms in ten years cover west Texas from the Northern Panhandle to the Mexican border. One rain guage in Abilene recorded 3 inches of fine sand. [If you've ever been a dust storm, you know how unpleasant it is.]

1969 - Ground is broken and construction begins on the new 58,000 seat Irving Stadium, future home of the Dallas Cowboys. It will be imploded in the spring of 2010, with Kraft Foods sponsoring the event.