This Day In Texas History - June 14

[joe817]

1830 - Stephen F. Austin, in a June 14, 1830, letter to Thomas F. Leaming, wrote that he was considering the advantages of Swiss and German immigrants because they were opposed to slavery and did not have the Anglo-American mania for speculation.

1841 - Joseph Eve(Kentucky legislator, judge, and chargé d'affaires of the United States to the Republic of Texas), following Secretary of State Daniel Webster's instructions obtained the ratification of the boundary line surveyed by a joint commission of the Republic of Texas and the United States. Both parties agreed that the line was the Sabine River and, from near the southeast corner of what is now Panola County, the thirty-second parallel north to the Red River. Eve sought to negotiate a new commercial treaty with the Texas government, but disagreement over certain provisions of the convention prevented its acceptance by either side. Further negotiations were soon dropped with the renewal of American interest in the annexation of Texas. He greatly admired Sam Houston and sponsored the annexation of Texas. He toured Texas from Galveston to the new capital, Austin, and was favorably impressed with the productivity of the land. He was fully confident that Mexico could never reconquer Texas.

1875 - Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederate States of America is invited to serve as the first president of Texas A&M, but he declines.

1877 - Henry Ossian Flipper, engineer, the first black graduate of West Point, the eldest of five sons of Festus and Isabella Flipper, was born a slave at Thomasville, Georgia, on March 21, 1856. He attended school at the American Missionary Association, and in 1873, as a freshman at Atlanta University, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy. Although Flipper was the fifth black accepted to West Point, he was the first to graduate. He graduated fiftieth in a class of seventy-six on June 14, 1877, and accepted a commission as a second lieutenant.

As an officer in the Tenth Cavalry, Flipper served at forts Elliott, Concho, Quitman, and Davis, Texas, and at Fort Sill, Indian Territory. He first reached Texas on his way to Fort Sill, where he supervised the drainage of malarial ponds. Flipper's Ditch is now a national historic landmark. He later constructed a road from Gainesville to Fort Sill after a troop of the Fourth United States Cavalry got drunk and deserted the lieutenant assigned to do the job. Flipper also installed a telegraph line from Fort Elliott to Fort Supply, Indian Territory, scouted on the Llano Estacado, and assisted in the return of Quanah Parker's band from Palo Duro Canyon to the Fort Sill reservation in the winter of 1878–79.
[ This is a fascinating read: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ffl13 ]

1881 - The Laredo Times was founded. In 1926, the paper became the first English-language paper on the border to include a Spanish section.

1886 - Conger Neblett was born in Corsicana. In 1926 she married Jack Hagar, a Bostonian who had come to Texas because of his interests in oil and real estate. In 1935 the Hagars moved to Rockport, where Connie Hagar spent the rest of her life as an amateur bird-watcher and gained the respect of professional ornithologists in Europe and the United States. The "Texas bird lady" added over twenty new species to the avifauna list of the state and was the first to report numerous species of migratory birds, including several that were thought to be extinct. She died in 1973 and was buried in a spot overlooking the wildlife sanctuary that bears her name.

1897 - The first carload of tomatoes ever shipped from Texas rolled out of Craft on June 14, 1897. Craft, formerly known as Independence, is on U.S. Highway 69 two miles south of Jacksonville in northern Cherokee County.

1907 – A posse pursuing Mexican-American folk hero Gregorio Cortez found him hiding in the home of a friend, Martín Robledo, in Belmont. The lawmen, led by Gonzales County sheriff Robert Glover, opened fire, but Cortez escaped - he was captured 10 days later after an acquaintance led the posse to him. He continued running for the next 10 days, still pursued by a posse sometimes as large as 300 men. The San-Antonio Express called the Battle of Belmont, as it came to be known, "a tale of bravery unsurpassed on the part of the officers and of desperation on the part of the Mexicans." The actual story, according to folk historian Américo Paredes, was somewhat less romantic.
[for the full story: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco94 ]

1920 - Sul Ross State Normal College, the future Sul Ross State University, began operations. The school, located at Alpine in Brewster County, was authorized by the Thirty-fifth Legislature in 1917. Sixty-seven students enrolled in the first class. They studied education and liberal arts subjects leading to teacher's certificates and junior college diplomas.

1929 - The Majestic Theatre, located at 224 E. Houston Street in downtown San Antonio, first opened on June 14, 1929. It was one of the last atmospheric theaters designed and built by John Eberson for theater magnate Karl St. John Hoblitzelle of Interstate Amusement Company. The two men had previously collaborated on building Majestic Theatres in other cities, including Houston and Dallas. The $3 million San Antonio building housed an auditorium, with a seating capacity of more than 3,700, that was the largest movie house in the South and the second largest in the nation. The Majestic, with the latest lighting and sound equipment, a 3,500-gallon artesian well, and elevator access to balcony and mezzanine areas, was also the first fully air-conditioned theater in Texas.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/klm07 ]

1941 - Sheppard Field (Later renamed Sheppard Air Force Base), was opened just outside of Wichita Falls. In 1945 the base reached its peak strength, 46,304, the largest concentration of American air corps troops in the world.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qbs06 ]

1958 - Elvis Presley returned to Fort Hood, TX, for ten weeks of advanced tank training.