1850 - A mob of soldiers burned down the store of Fredericksburg merchant John M. Hunter, destroying all Gillespie County records up to that time. Hunter, the first Gillespie County clerk, had a violent temper and had clashed more than once with the soldiers at nearby Fort Martin Scott. On the night of June 30, Hunter had refused to sell whiskey to a soldier named Dole. When Dole became abusive, Hunter fatally stabbed him in the chest. Some fifty angry soldiers returned the next night, looking for Hunter, but the merchant had fled town. Several townspeople attempted to salvage the county records from the burning store, but the soldiers prevented them. Apparently neither Hunter nor the soldiers were punished. Hunter later built a new store on the same block; it opened in time to be used by the district court in October 1850.
1879 - John Jacob (Jake) Atz, baseball player and manager, was born in Washington, D.C. He is generally considered the greatest baseball manager in Texas League history. Atz signed as a playing manager of the Fort Worth Cats of the Texas League in 1914. He quit in 1916 but returned in 1917. He led Fort Worth to seven consecutive championships between 1919 and 1925 and remained there until 1929. Thereafter he managed clubs in Dallas, Shreveport, New Orleans, Tulsa, and Galveston. He held the following Texas League records: twenty-two years as a player and manager; eighteen years as manager of one club (Fort Worth); longest continuous service at one club (fourteen seasons with Fort Worth); and seven successive first-place finishes.
1885 - The first herd of 2,500 head arrived at Buffalo Springs, the headquarters of the sprawling 3,000,000 acre, XIT ranch. They had been driven from the Fort Concho area by Abner P. Blocker, who reportedly devised the XIT brand with his boot in the dust when Campbell sought a design that could not be changed easily. Although legend persists that the brand signified "ten in Texas" since the land covered all or portions of Dallam, Hartley, Oldham, Deaf Smith, Parmer, Castro, Bailey, Lamb, Cochran, and Hockley counties, that theory is doubtful; some speculate that it really meant "biggest in Texas."
1898 - The First United States Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the "Rough Riders" became the first United States troops to land in Cuba. The unit was nominally commanded by Col. Leonard Wood, an army surgeon who had won the Medal of Honor for an Indian fight ten years before, but in fact was led by Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt. This legendary aggregation of cowboys, Indian fighters, outlaws, Eastern aristocrats, and Ivy League athletes took part in the attack on Santiago de Cuba and wrote a gallant and bloody record during its brief existence. "We drew a great many recruits from Texas," wrote Roosevelt, "and from nowhere did we get a higher average, for many of them had served in that famous body of frontier fighters, the Texas Rangers. Of course, these rangers needed no teaching. They were trained to obey and to take responsibility. They were splendid shots, horsemen, and trailers. They were accustomed to living in the open, to enduring great fatigue and hardship, and to encountering all kinds of danger." Near the end of June Colonel Wood was promoted to command of the cavalry division's second brigade, and Roosevelt became in fact commander of the regiment. "We rendezvoused at San Antonio," one of the men wrote in later years, "Twelve hundred as separate, varied, mixed, distinct, grotesque, and peculiar types of men as perhaps were ever assembled in one bunch in all the history of man . . . and one—possibly two—Democrats." Roosevelt joined his regiment in San Antonio on May 16. The regiment also purchased its horses in Texas.
The Rough Riders were the first United States troops to land in Cuba. They raised their regimental flag over a blockhouse swiftly taken from the Spaniards. The regiment's baptism of fire came at Las Guasimas on June 24, when Roosevelt's men, well-armed with Krag-Jörgensen carbines, mauled a detachment of the Spanish army impeding the invasion force's penetration to the interior of the island. The Spaniards then fell back to and fortified San Juan Hill, which Shafter's corps assaulted on July 1. In this battle the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, with elements of the Ninth and Tenth United States Cavalry regiments, made the famed charge on San Juan (actually Kettle) Hill, seizing the Spanish fortifications and pushing the defenders back into Santiago de Cuba.
On August 7, following the capitulation of Santiago de Cuba, the regiment, suffering from malaria and yellow fever, was evacuated from Cuba with the rest of the Fifth Corps. In San Antonio, in addition to Roosevelt Park, Roosevelt Street and the Roosevelt Bar of the Menger Hotel, a favorite watering place of the regiment, are named in memory of their sojourn in Texas.
1940 - A special school for combat observers was formed at Brooks Army Airfield, seven miles southeast of San Antonio. Notable instructors and students that passed through Brooks included such aviation figures as Charles Lindbergh, Claire L. Chennault, Lester Maitland, and Jimmy Doolittle. The first mass paratroop drop in United States Armed Forces history took place at Brooks on Thanksgiving Day, 1929. The experiments at Brooks confirmed the practicality of tactical paratrooper warfare, which was used on many occasions during World War II.
1931 - Wiley Post flew around the world starting in New York via Newfoundland, England, and Germany, and then across Russia to Alaska (via Siberia) and back to New York City. He and his navigator Harold Gatty departed on June 23, 1931, and returned on July 1, covering the distance in eight days, fifteen hours, and fifty-one minutes. Wiley Hardeman Post, aviator, fourth son of William Francis and Mae (Quinlan) Post, was born near Grand Saline in Van Zandt County, Texas, on November 22, 1898. Before his death in a plane crash in 1935, Post became one of the best-known fliers in the world, mainly because of a flight around the world with navigator Harold Gatty in 1931 and a similar solo flight in 1933.
1941 - In a special election to fill the U.S.Senate seat vacated by the death of Morris Sheppard, Governor Lee O'Daniel defeated Congressman Lyndon B Johnson in a vary narrow election held on this date in 1941.
1941 - The municipal airport in Midland was leased to the United States government for a dollar a year, and construction began on July 17. It became known as Midland Army Airfield. Midland Army Flying School, popularly called the "Bombardier College," was initially designated an Air Corps Advanced Twin Engine and Bombardier Training Center as part of the Gulf Coast Training Command. On September 26, 1942, the base was formally redesignated Midland Army Air Field, and the school was named the Army Air Forces Bombardier School, one of a dozen bombardier-training schools. The first group of cadets, Class 42–6, arrived for training from Ellington, Texas, on February 6, 1942. Midland reached a peak base population of more than 4,000 and graduated a total of 6,627 bombardier officers before all training ceased on January 1, 1946. The base pioneered the use of the highly secret Norden bombsight and at one time operated twenty-three bombing ranges across West Texas. Personnel from Midland AAF helped establish the "West Texas Bombardier Triangle" of bases at Big Spring (1942), San Angelo (1942), and Childress (1943), and were instrumental in developing photographic and sonic methods of scoring bomb hits and analyzing bombing proficiency.
1959 - The state of Texas granted the first bus franchise in the South owned and operated by African Americans. The Acres Homes Transit Company served the predominantly black community of Acres Homes, nine miles southwest of downtown Houston. Living outside the city limits and without adequate public transportation, the residents petitioned the city hall for a permit to operate a suburban bus franchise. The AHTC had four buses that made forty-three round trips daily between downtown Houston and Acres Homes. When Acres Homes was annexed by the city, AHTC was bought by Houston Rapid Transit Lines.
1993 - On this date in 1993, Texas became the fastest-growing state in the nation. For the first time in more than a decade, Texas added more residents than California did in the preceding 12-month period. Texas' estimated population grew from 17,683,000 on July 1, 1992, to 18,031,000 on July 1, 1993, an increase of approximately 2 percent. This growth came shortly after the 1990 Census, which resulted in a three-seat gain for the state in the House of Representatives (from 27 to 30). Although immigration from south of the border has slowed amid the present national economic downturn, current population trends indicate that the Lone Star State could gain three or four additional House seats after the 2010 Census.