This Day In Texas History - January 31
Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 3:29 pm
1827 - The Fredonian rebels fled when Mexican troops approached. The Fredonian Rebellion was a dispute between the Mexican government and the Edwards brothers, Haden and Benjamin. Haden Edwards received his empresarial grant on April 14, 1825. It entitled him to settle as many as 800 families in a broad area around Nacogdoches in eastern Texas. He arrived in Nacogdoches on September 25, 1825, and posted notices on street corners to all previous landowners that they would have to present evidence of their claims or forfeit to new settlers. This naturally offended the older settlers. Haden Edwards, José Antonio Sepulveda, and others were tried for oppression and corruption. As soon as Mexican authorities heard of the incident, Lt. Col. Mateo Ahumada, principal military commander in Texas, was ordered to the area. Ahumada enlisted Stephen F. Austin, who sided with the government, and Peter Ellis Bean, the Mexican Indian agent, headed for Nacogdoches. When the Mexican officers and militia and members of Austin's colony reached Nacogdoches on January 31, 1827, the revolutionists fled and crossed the Sabine River. [ http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... /jcf1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ]
1837 - Albert Sidney Johnston, future Confederate general, became senior brigadier general in command of the Texas Army to replace Felix Huston. A duel with Huston resulted; Johnston was wounded and could not take the command. On December 22, 1838, he was appointed secretary of war for the Republic of Texas by President Mirabeau B. Lamar, and in December 1839 he led an expedition against the Cherokee in East Texas.
1859 - William Menger opened his hotel, now a landmark, on Alamo Plaza in San Antonio. In partnership with Charles Philip Degen, he also operated a brewery on the site. The hotel is one of the best-known lodging houses in Texas. Its guests have included O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt. The building has been remodeled many times and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Menger continues to serve as a center for meetings and other social affairs.
1861 - Maj. Edmund Kirby (Seminole) Smith, refused Col. Henry E. McCulloch's demand that he surrender Camp Colorado to Texas secessionist forces. Nevertheless, when Florida seceded, Smith resigned from the United States Army and accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel in the Confederate States Army. Kirby Smith was almost the last Confederate general in the field, but in a hopelessly isolated situation, he finally surrendered to Gen. Edward R. S. Canby, on June 2, 1865.
1872 - A Reconstruction-era grand jury indicted Republican governor E. J. Davis for "willfully, unlawfully and feloniously [making] a false and untrue tabular statement" of the election results for the Third District congressional seat. Dewitt Clinton Giddings, the Democratic candidate, won the election by a majority of 135 votes over his Radical Republican opponent, William T. Clark, but the state returning board delayed certifying the election because Davis concluded that fraud had taken place and called for an investigation. Republican officials charged that local Democrats had used intimidation to keep blacks from voting. The board decided to invalidate the vote from Limestone, Freestone, Bosque, Brazos, and Washington counties, giving the seat to Clark.
1899 - Bull Town received the more refined name of Bovina when a post office was established. The community’s obvious connection to the cattle industry dates from its origin as the site of the Hay Hook Line Camp of the XIT Ranch in western Parmer County. In 1898 the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway steamed through the ranch, and cowboys unloaded feed at the XIT camp site. Cattle often gathered at the unfenced right-of-way, and the well-fed bovines lazed about the tracks, often causing delays for the railroad workers, who labeled the area Bull Town. The settlement’s more elegant alter ego, Bovina, boasted a cattle boom and, for a while, shipped a higher volume of animals than any other shipping point in the world. Those years of plenty continued beyond World War I.
1927 - The Texas Legislature followed the suggestion of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs honoring the Mockingbird as the official State Bird of Texas.
1938 - 12,000 San Antonio pecan shellers, mostly Hispanic women, walked off their jobs to protest a wage cut, beginning a three-month strike. The pecan-shelling industry was one of the lowest-paid in the United States, with a typical wage ranging between two and three dollars a week. In the 1930s Texas pecans accounted for approximately 50 percent of the nation's production.
1947 - Baseball great Nolan Ryan was born in Refugio, Texas.
1961 - The voters of Harris County approved a general obligation bond issue of $22 million for construction of the Astrodome, the first fully air-conditioned, enclosed, domed, multipurpose sports stadium in the world.
1837 - Albert Sidney Johnston, future Confederate general, became senior brigadier general in command of the Texas Army to replace Felix Huston. A duel with Huston resulted; Johnston was wounded and could not take the command. On December 22, 1838, he was appointed secretary of war for the Republic of Texas by President Mirabeau B. Lamar, and in December 1839 he led an expedition against the Cherokee in East Texas.
1859 - William Menger opened his hotel, now a landmark, on Alamo Plaza in San Antonio. In partnership with Charles Philip Degen, he also operated a brewery on the site. The hotel is one of the best-known lodging houses in Texas. Its guests have included O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt. The building has been remodeled many times and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Menger continues to serve as a center for meetings and other social affairs.
1861 - Maj. Edmund Kirby (Seminole) Smith, refused Col. Henry E. McCulloch's demand that he surrender Camp Colorado to Texas secessionist forces. Nevertheless, when Florida seceded, Smith resigned from the United States Army and accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel in the Confederate States Army. Kirby Smith was almost the last Confederate general in the field, but in a hopelessly isolated situation, he finally surrendered to Gen. Edward R. S. Canby, on June 2, 1865.
1872 - A Reconstruction-era grand jury indicted Republican governor E. J. Davis for "willfully, unlawfully and feloniously [making] a false and untrue tabular statement" of the election results for the Third District congressional seat. Dewitt Clinton Giddings, the Democratic candidate, won the election by a majority of 135 votes over his Radical Republican opponent, William T. Clark, but the state returning board delayed certifying the election because Davis concluded that fraud had taken place and called for an investigation. Republican officials charged that local Democrats had used intimidation to keep blacks from voting. The board decided to invalidate the vote from Limestone, Freestone, Bosque, Brazos, and Washington counties, giving the seat to Clark.
1899 - Bull Town received the more refined name of Bovina when a post office was established. The community’s obvious connection to the cattle industry dates from its origin as the site of the Hay Hook Line Camp of the XIT Ranch in western Parmer County. In 1898 the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway steamed through the ranch, and cowboys unloaded feed at the XIT camp site. Cattle often gathered at the unfenced right-of-way, and the well-fed bovines lazed about the tracks, often causing delays for the railroad workers, who labeled the area Bull Town. The settlement’s more elegant alter ego, Bovina, boasted a cattle boom and, for a while, shipped a higher volume of animals than any other shipping point in the world. Those years of plenty continued beyond World War I.
1927 - The Texas Legislature followed the suggestion of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs honoring the Mockingbird as the official State Bird of Texas.
1938 - 12,000 San Antonio pecan shellers, mostly Hispanic women, walked off their jobs to protest a wage cut, beginning a three-month strike. The pecan-shelling industry was one of the lowest-paid in the United States, with a typical wage ranging between two and three dollars a week. In the 1930s Texas pecans accounted for approximately 50 percent of the nation's production.
1947 - Baseball great Nolan Ryan was born in Refugio, Texas.
1961 - The voters of Harris County approved a general obligation bond issue of $22 million for construction of the Astrodome, the first fully air-conditioned, enclosed, domed, multipurpose sports stadium in the world.