This Day In Texas History - May 21

[joe817]

1542 – The Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto died of a fever and Moscoso Alvarado led his expedition into Texas.

1831 - William Barrett Travis, after arriving in Texas earlier that year, made his way to San Felipe de Austin and obtained land from Stephen F. Austin. He listed his marital status as single, although he was still married. He established a legal practice in Anahuac, a significant port of entry located on the eastern end of Galveston Bay. The purpose of the move there was to establish himself in an area where there were few attorneys while he learned the official language, Spanish.

1849 - C. F. Carl (Charles) Steinhagen, early Texas cabinetmaker and German emigrant, arrived in Galveston from Bremen aboard the Galliott Flora. He was a wheelwright by trade who made furniture for his family as a hobby. Steinhagen settled in Anderson, where he died in 1893. Ima Hogg, who collected many of his fine pieces of household furniture for the University of Texas Winedale Properties at Roundtop, described Steinhagen as "one of the most outstanding-if not the finest-cabinetmaker who came to early Texas."

1865 - In Houston on this day, by order of Gen. John B. Magruder, the Thirty-sixth Texas Cavalry divided its public property and disbanded.

1911 - Dictator Porfirio Diaz resigns, bringing temporary calm to revolution-torn Mexico.

1915 - Five Texas Rangers pursued a number of Mexican bandits from Pilares into the Mexican mountains to recover stolen horses and mules. After a running gunfight on May 23, the bandits escaped. The next day the rangers again went after the robbers. Caught in a narrow canyon by Mexican fire and greatly outnumbered, the rangers attempted to retreat. Rangers Trollingers, Cummins, and Craighead escaped. Rangers Sitters and Hulen, separated from the others and cut off from any escape route, were killed. Pilares is on the Rio Grande a mile from Quinn Creek and eight miles southwest of Gettysburg Peak and San Carlos in southwest Presidio County. In 1982 Pilares remained a small farming community on the Rio Grande and an unimproved road, dirt road. It is the only means in and out of the town.

1922 - The Houston Post broadcast a Sunday concert from the radio plant of A. P. Daniel, 2504 Bagby Street. This was one of the first commercial radio broadcasts in the Houston area.

1930 - Ten physical therapists organized the Texas Physical Therapy Association as a state chapter of the American Physical Therapy Association. Physical therapists, practitioners of a specialized health-care service performed for the rehabilitation of those disabled by pain or loss of motor function, had been active in Texas since the 1920s. Because Texas was such a large state, the new association soon divided into two districts, the northern and the southern. In 2003 Texas had thirteen districts with a total membership of about 3,600.

1943 - It was announced that a warship would be named for Leonard Roy Harmon, the first African-American to receive that honor. Harmon was born Jan. 21, 1917 in Cuero. He enlisted in the United States Navy in June 1939 and reported for duty on the cruiser USS San Francisco in October. He was promoted to mess attendant first class and took part in the battle of Guadalcanal, which began on Nov. 12, 1942. A kamikaze plane killed or injured 50 men on the San Francisco the first day of the battle. The next day, enemy gunfire killed nearly every officer on the bridge of the ship. According to The Handbook of Texas Online, "Disregarding his own safety, Harmon helped evacuate the wounded to a dressing station. He was killed while shielding a wounded shipmate from gunfire with his own body. For 'extraordinary heroism,' he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. On May 21, 1943, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox announced that a warship would be named in Harmon's honor. The USS Harmon, a destroyer escort, was launched on July 25, 1943."