This Day In Texas History - July 30

[joe817]

1864 - On July 30, 1864, Confederate troops commanded by John S. (Rip) Ford reoccupied the town of Brownsville and held it until May 1865, a month after the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Despite pleas of Union commanders to end the conflict, the Confederates in the area refused to surrender, and on May 13, 1865, they fought a skirmish with Union troops just outside of Brownsville. The battle of Palmito Ranch was the last battle of the Civil War. A few days later the Confederates in Brownsville agreed to a truce.

1867 - James Webb Throckmorton, first governor of Texas after the Civil War, was removed from office for being an "impediment to Reconstruction" On the grounds that the state of Texas did not support the Fourteenth Amendment, he refused to support it himself. He declined to increase protection for former slaves and to advocate Radical Republican policies. This "Tennessean by birth [and] Texan by Adoption" was a physician and politician who had a long and distinguished record of service to the state, the United States, and the Confederacy. He died at McKinney on April 21, 1894.

1880 - The battle of Tinaja de las Palmas (also known as the battle of Rocky Ridge), one of a series of skirmishes in the Victorio campaign, was fought on July 30, 1880, by Apaches and elements of the Tenth United States Cavalry. The site of the battle is in Hudspeth County fifteen miles southeast of Sierra Blanca, Texas. [ http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... /qft1.html ]

1921 - The first dial exchange of the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company was installed in Dallas on July 30, 1921.

1923 - Roy Mitchell, who had been convicting of killing 4 men and 2 women, was hanged behind the McLennan County courthouse in Waco. As he stepped onto the platform he said "Goodbye, everyone" and just before the trap door opened, he whispered "Take me home." This hanging was followed by the hanging of killer Nathan Lee of Angleton a month later. Lee was the last person publicly hanged in Texas, Mitchell the next to last.

1933 - On this date in 1933, five people were killed, 30 injured, when a tornado hit Oak Cliff, a community in south Dallas.

1941 – The US Army declared eminent domain over Texas’ Matagorda Peninsula, establishing a bombing and machine-gun range on the land during WWII.