This Day In Texas History - September 19

[joe817]

1812 - Richard Fields, one-eighth Cherokee, was diplomatic chief of his tribe in Texas, sharing leadership with Chief Bowl. Fields was born around 1780 and was first noted in 1801 as an emissary of the Cherokee council to United States agents in Tennessee. He appeared as an interpreter on September 19, 1812, at the Council House treaty council in the Chickasaw country.

In 1814, during the War of 1812, he served as captain of a unit of Cherokee auxiliaries attached to Gen. Andrew Jackson's army. Fields appeared in Texas around 1820, at about the time Chief Bowl brought the Cherokees into the region; he was leader of one of several Cherokee villages in East Texas. Because of his skill and experience in diplomacy, Fields was chosen by the Cherokee intervillage council to negotiate a Spanish land grant for his people.

In late 1822 he led a delegation to San Antonio de Béxar to present the Cherokee request to Governor José Félix Trespalacios. Trespalacios and Fields agreed that the Cherokees would provide patrols to guard the Sabine against American incursions and against smuggling; in return, the Cherokees could remain on their East Texas land, and Fields's delegation was permitted to travel to Mexico City to petition the viceroy.

Fields's mission was to secure a grant of territory for the Cherokees, but Agustín de Iturbide's overthrow of the Spanish government and the resulting political turmoil in Mexico City spoiled that opportunity. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ffi05 ]

1835 - Archelaus Dodson, participant in the Texas Revolution, son of Obadiah and Sarah (Garrison) Dodson, was born in North Carolina on December 31, 1807. He left for Texas in 1826, and was living in Harrisburg in 1827. He married Sarah Bradley there on May 17, 1835; they had six children.

When the local committee of vigilance and safety learned of Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos's planned invasion of Texas and sent out a call to arms on September 19, 1835, Dodson joined other Harrisburg volunteers in forming a company under Capt. Andrew Robinson. Dodson was elected first lieutenant.

Sarah Bradley Dodson designed and, with help of other Harrisburg women, made the first tricolor Lone Star flag of Texas; when the company of Andrew Robinson, Jr., was mustered into the revolutionary army in 1835, she presented it to the members. The Robinson company participated in the siege of Bexar and did not return to East Texas until early 1836, still led by the Dodson flag. Dodson was among those detailed to ensure the safety of women and children beyond the Brazos River in the Runaway Scrape; he contracted measles from some of the sick children and was unable to participate in the battle of San Jacinto.

1845 - The Tehuacana Creek councils were meetings between Texas officials and Indian representatives. The first in the series began in the spring of 1843. On March 28, 1843, a number of Indian tribes including the Caddos, Delawares, Wacos, Tawakonis, Lipan Apaches, and Tonkawas went to a council on Tehuacana Creek near the Torrey Brothers trading post south of the site of present Waco.

Another council was held at Fort Bird on the Trinity River in September 1843. The Wacos, Caddos, and other smaller groups met with Texans and entered into a treaty of peace that was ratified by the Texas Senate, but the absence of the Comanches caused President Sam Houston to call another council to meet at Tehuacana Creek near the Torreys' trading post in McLennan County in April 1844.

The April council convened without the Comanches, but by October 7, 1844, negotiations began between Houston and a part of the southern Comanches, Kichais, Wacos, Caddos, Anadarkos, Hainais, Delawares, Shawnees, Cherokees, Lipan Apaches, and Tawakonis. The treaty of peace and commerce signed on October 9, 1844, was ratified by the Texas Senate on January 24, 1845.

A council met on September 19, 1845, and on November 15 a supplementary council convened at which the Wacos, Tawakonis, Kichais, and Wichitas agreed to the treaty of October 9, 1844. The last council ended on November 16, 1845.

1846 - The La Grange Intelligencer, a Fayette County weekly newspaper, began publication about January 25, 1844, with James Langley and William P. Bradburn as editor and publisher. The four-column, four-page paper carried the motto "Westward! the Star of empire takes its way." The yearly subscription rate was $6.50; political card insertions cost $4.00 and the announcements of candidates, $10.

A typical issue had exchange articles on the first page, editorials on the second, and personal items on the third; the fourth page was devoted to advertisements and court notices. William B. McClellan was publisher by August 1845. Smallwood S. B. Fields, who became editor about May 30, 1844, announced that he planned to devote a part of each issue to information on "Politics, Science, Agriculture, Religion, Foreign Affairs, Miscellaneous Items, and Domestic Matters" but kept the right to "animadvert freely" on government practice.

In policy the paper was against Sam Houston and for Edward Burleson for president in 1844; Fields engaged in an editorial war with Thomas Johnson of the National Vindicator. In the September 12, 1845, issue, Fields asked for the friends of the paper to support it with "corn, fodder, potatoes, meat, lumber, cattle, or anything from a dozen eggs to a stick of firewood" to keep it from closing. Evidently his appeal was in vain, for the final issue was published on September 19, 1846.

1883 - The University of Texas libraries began their existence in a 648-square-foot unlighted room on the topmost floor of what later became the east wing of the Old Main Building. Even though the university held its first classes on September 19, 1883, in the temporary state Capitol building and, subsequently, took possession of its new building on January 1, 1884, there is no record of a unit giving library service to the 206 enrolled students until March 7, 1884.

This is the date of the first documented book loan and the day after the appointment of an assistant librarian had been confirmed by the faculty. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lcu01 ]

1891 - Robert Franklin Bunting, pioneer Texas Presbyterian minister and chaplain of Terry's Texas Rangers, was born on May 9, 1828, at Hookstown, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. He earned an A.B. degree at Washington College (now Washington and Jefferson College) in 1849, M.A. and B.D. degrees at Princeton and Princeton Theological Seminary in 1852, and a D.D. degree at Hampden-Sydney in 1867.

He was appointed a missionary to Texas by the Presbyterian Church in 1852, and the next year he established churches at La Grange, Columbus, and Round Top. In 1856 he established the present First Presbyterian Church of San Antonio. In 1861 he served as commissioner from the West Texas Presbytery to the general assembly at Augusta, Georgia, which separated from the Northern church and founded the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America.

He returned as a commissioner to Southern Presbyterian assemblies in 1862 and 1864. From 1861 to 1865 Bunting was chaplain and regimental historian of the Eighth Texas Cavalry–better known as Terry's Texas Rangers. His ninety-five letters written while he was war correspondent for the Houston Daily Telegraph and Tri-Weekly Telegraph and the San Antonio Herald provide a history of the regiment.

Bunting also operated a private postal service for Texas troops throughout the war and founded and operated the Texas Hospital for Texas soldiers at Auburn, Alabama, in 1864. After the war he was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tennessee. He returned to Texas in 1869 to become pastor at Galveston, where he served until 1882.

He founded and, from 1876 to 1880 edited, the synod's weekly newspaper, the Texas Presbyterian. He was moderator of the Texas Synod in 1872 and state clerk from 1872 to 1883. Bunting left Texas to serve as pastor at Rome, Georgia, in 1883–84. Bunting died at Gallatin, Tennessee, on September 19, 1891, and was buried there.

1929 - Julius Myers, called the last American town crier to ply his trade, was born in New York City in 1868 and attended schools there. He moved to Texas seeking relief from respiratory trouble in 1882 and settled in Luling; in 1912 he moved to San Antonio. Myers was seen daily on the streets of San Antonio mounted on his horse, Tootsy, announcing current or future attractions with his megaphone.

With a decorative costume for each occasion, he advertised such events as sales and theater attractions, charity affairs, and sporting events. Because too many others were attempting to emulate him, a city ordinance in December 1927 ordered an end to such advertising. Friends of Myers petitioned city hall to except him from the ordinance, but to no avail.

The following March, however, indulgent officials permitted him to inform the city of baseball games, but he was not allowed to use his horse. Despite repeated protests by his family, advancing age, and failing health, he continued as town crier until his death, on September 18, 1929.

1942 - Bergstrom Air Force Base, on State Highway 71 seven miles east of Austin in Travis County, was activated on September 19, 1942, as Del Valle Army Air Base. It was constructed in the summer of 1942 on 3,000 acres leased from the city of Austin. The Chisholm Trail ran through the tract. The name of the base was changed to Bergstrom Army Air Field on March 3, 1943, in honor of Capt. John A. E. Bergstrom, who was killed at Clark Field, Philippine Islands, on December 8, 1941.

He was the first Austinite killed in World War II. The base was renamed Bergstrom Field on November 11, 1943, and became Bergstrom Air Force Base in December 1948. Initially, Bergstrom was the home of troop-carrier units. It was declared a permanent base after World War II and was at various times assigned to the Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command.

After July 1966 it was under the control of the Tactical Air Command and housed the headquarters for the Twelfth Air Force, which was responsible for all Tactical Air Command reconnaissance, fighter, and airlift operations west of the Mississippi River.

The economic contribution of the base in fiscal 1989 on a fifty-mile radius was estimated to be $343 million and on Central Texas, $533 million. On September 30, 1993, Bergstrom was officially closed. That year voters approved a bond issue for the construction of an Austin airport at the base.

1953 - Dave Stone, innovative radio executive and popular on-air personality, was born David Proctor Pinkston in Post, Texas, on November 11, 1913. After graduating from Slaton High School, Pinkston enrolled at Texas Technological College (later Texas Tech University) in Lubbock as a journalism major but soon found that journalism was not his field. He transferred to Draughon’s Business College in Brownfield, Texas, thirty miles away.

After graduation, he was hired as office manager and accountant for the Arizona Chemical Company in Brownfield and held that position throughout World War II. In 1933 Pinkston married Violet Marie Martin, and they became the parents of Carolyn Pinkston (now Graves) and James Pinkston. In late 1946 Dave Pinkston and his family moved back to Lubbock, where he joined the staff of KSEL, a new radio station, as traffic manager and bookkeeper. Like most other independent radio stations in those days, KSEL followed the usual practice of block programming, offering a variety of shows throughout the day that appealed to a broad range of listeners.

At that time, country music on KSEL was limited to the thirty-minute Western Roundup, heard each day from 3:00 to 3:30. As it happened, the deejay who hosted Western Roundup harbored a great dislike for country music. Passing Pinkston in the hall one day, he said, “Dave, I happen to know you got a lot of country records and you like country music and you can take that program.”

Despite Pinkston’s protests that he knew nothing about broadcasting, the station manager insisted on the change. Thus “Dave Pinkston” became “Dave Stone,” proved himself a natural on the air, and the program was soon so popular that it was expanded to a full hour. Stone became known to his listeners as “the man with the smile in his voice,” and he began getting offers from other area stations. The overwhelming success of the Western Roundup and the Western Jamboree on KSEL gave Stone the idea for a highly original business model: a radio station that played only country music.

He formed a partnership with a local realtor, Leroy Elmore, and applied to the FCC for a license. A station that played only one type of music was practically unheard of at the time, especially in small markets like Lubbock, and the FCC was reluctant to grant the license. They eventually relented, however, and the license became official in the late summer of 1953.

Construction began on studios and a transmitter tower at what had been a cotton patch on the southern outskirts of Lubbock, and KDAV went on the air on September 19, 1953. Today, it is generally agreed that KDAV was the first station anywhere to program, as Stone put it, “one hundred percent country music.” [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpi55 ]

[ELB]

Today, it is generally agreed that KDAV was the first station anywhere to program, as Stone put it, “one hundred percent country music.”

Did not have an inkling about that. Thanks for posting.