This Day In Texas History - August 17

[joe817]

1786 - On this day in 1786, frontier icon and Alamo defender David Crockett was born in Tennessee.
[ More: http://www.tshaonline.org/daybyday/08-17-003.html ]

1813 – The battle of Medina was fought on August 18, 1813, between the republican forces of the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition under Gen. José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois and a Spanish royalist army under Gen. Joaquín de Arredondo. This bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil took place twenty miles south of San Antonio in a sandy oak forest region then called el encinal de Medina. Occurring during a very confused and turbulent period of world history, the battle of Medina affected the destinies of Spain, Mexico, the United States, England, and France.
[More: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... /qfm1.html ]

1822 - On this date in 1822, Jose Felix Trespalacios became the first governor of the state of Texas (under Mexico).

1840, William Gordon Cooke was appointed colonel of the First Regiment of Infantry, the unit that laid out the Military Road from the Little River to the Red River. Fighting Indians and starvation along the way, Cooke explored and mapped much of north central Texas. He established Fort Johnson and Fort Preston on the Red River and Cedar Springs Post on the Trinity River; at this post were the first structures built by white men at the future site of Dallas.

1842 - The Telegraph and Texas Register announced the death of John Henry Moore. Like the famous announcement of Mark Twain's death, however, the news was exaggerated; Moore lived for thirty-eight more years. He was an early settler who was involved in numerous important events in early Texas. As a member of the Old Three Hundred, he received a land grant from Stephen F. Austin. He built a blockhouse called Moore's Fort at the future site of La Grange. He was an outspoken advocate of Texas independence, and fought against the Mexicans both in the Texas Revolution and afterward. Moore commanded the Texans in the battle of Gonzales (October 2, 1835). It was between the two Mexican invasions of 1842--in both of which he fought--that the newspaper announced his death.

1863 - According to a report read in the Confederate Congress on August 18, 1863, Texas had four gun factories making 800 arms a month, two powder mills, and a percussion cap factory. The gun factories were those of Billup and Hassell at Plentitude, Whitescarver and Campbell at Rusk, N. B. Tanner at Bastrop, and Short and Biscoe at Tyler. Powder mills were established at Marshall and Waxahachie. Cap factories were established at Austin, Houston, and Fredericksburg. A cartridge factory was set up in the old land office building in Austin. Arms were repaired at Houston, San Antonio, and Bonham. Cannon were cast at the state foundry at Austin and by Ebenezar B. Nichols at Galveston.

1891 - Movement toward establishing a third party in Texas began in the late 1880s and culminated with the formal organization of a Texas People's party in Dallas on August 18, 1891. The agrarian reform movement known as Populism found political expression in Texas as the People's party, which evolved from the Grange, the Greenback party, and the Farmers' Alliance into the most successful of the third-party movements in state history.

1899 - The criminal career of Thomas Edward (Black Jack) Ketchum ended. Tom and his brother Sam were members of a gang of outlaws that terrorized Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas. Tom was born in San Saba County, Sam in Caldwell County. Tom left Texas about 1890, and Sam joined him in New Mexico in 1894. There the brothers began a life of crime that included killing a merchant in Carrizo and robbing post offices, stagecoaches, trains, and a railroad station. On September 3, 1897, the gang held up the Colorado Southern passenger train near Folsom. On July 11, 1899, apparently without Tom, the gang held up the same train again. Sam was wounded and captured. He died two weeks later in prison. Tom, unaware of Sam's failed attempt, tried singlehandedly to rob the same train on August 16. He was wounded by the conductor and was picked up from beside the tracks the next day. He was sentenced to death and was hung at Clayton, New Mexico, on April 26, 1901.

1973 - the Manned Spacecraft Center was renamed the Lyndon B Johnson Space Center in his honor. Johnson passed away in January of that year.