This Day In Texas History - January 30

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1857 - The Supply was used from 1855 to 1857 to transport camels from Africa for use in transportation on the Great Plains. The vessel, a United States storeship, was fitted up in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the lower deck was walled in and divided into stalls. The camel deck, sixty by twelve by ten feet, had windows for ventilation and a hatch for loading. The animals were brought aboard by a car set on a flatboat. The Supply set sail from New York to Tunis May 20, 1855. It left Tunis on February 15, 1856, with some sixty-five camels and Egyptian dromedaries and arrived at Indianola, Texas, on May 13, 1856. Because of rough water at Indianola, the Supply had to transport its cargo to the Fashion, a lighter, for unloading. Between July 1856 and January 30, 1857, the Supply made a trip from Indianola to Smyrna for an additional load of forty or fifty camels.

1862 - Maine native Leonard Pierce arrived in Matamoros, Mexico, to take up his post as United States consul. As the Civil War raged to the north, Matamoros became a center of Confederate commerce. Texans shipped cotton from the unblockaded port, while Unionist refugees fleeing Texas collected in the town. Pierce's principal responsibilities were the care of refugees from Confederate territory and the military enlistment of Union sympathizers. During his service he relocated about 700 refugees and sent about 300 men to enlist in the Union army. These men served in the First and Second Texas Cavalry regiments, which were eventually merged into the First Texas Volunteer Cavalry.

1876 - Meansville was three miles southeast of the site of present-day Odem in south central San Patricio County. One of the first settlers in the area was William Means, who arrived before the Civil War. Means was elected county sheriff in 1862 and served until 1867. The night of January 30, 1876, precipitated a series of events that brought the community to an ignominious end. Three of Means's sons on a spree in the Bee County town of Papalote shot up a general store, then fled to their father's ranch. A posse gave chase, with the aid of San Patricio county sheriff Ed Garner, and in the confrontation that ensued at the Means's place Means was killed. His sons swore vengeance. On a Sunday in August of the same year, the Means boys ambushed the unarmed Ed Garner in church, gunning him down in front of his family and neighbors. The community lived in fear of further violence. In 1879 Texas Rangersqv arrived to help persuade the Means clan to move on, and oral tradition has it that the founding family cleared out of the county with all their worldly possessions packed in twenty-three wagons. All that remains of the community today is the Meansville Cemetery, which has been restored by the Odem Historical Society and the San Patricio County Historical Commission.

1886 - A group of Dallas businessmen chartered the Dallas State Fair and Exposition as a private corporation. Later it became known as the State Fair of Texas.

1890 - Louis Jordan is born in Fredericksburg. He becomes an All-American football player and the first officer killed in World War I.

1905 - Chester William Nimitz, who guided Allied forces to victory in the Pacific in World War II, was born in Fredericksburg, Texas, on February 24, 1885, the son of Chester Bernard and Anna (Henke) Nimitz. His father died before he was born. During his early years his grandfather Charles H. Nimitz, a German immigrant, former seaman, and owner of the Nimitz Hotel, served as the father figure whom Nimitz credited with shaping his character and values.

In 1890 Chester's mother married her late husband's younger brother, William Nimitz, who managed the St. Charles Hotel in Kerrville, where Chester eventually became chief handyman. Young Nimitz, with little prospect of a college education otherwise, determined to seek appointment to the United States Military Academy. On learning that no such appointment was immediately available, he applied for the United States Naval Academy instead. He graduated seventh in his class of 114 at Annapolis on January 30, 1905. He died on February 20, 1966, and was buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, California. In 1964 a local citizens' group established the Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial Naval Museum in the old Nimitz Hotel in Fredericksburg. The project evolved into the state-supported Admiral Nimitz Center and thence into the National Museum of the Pacific War.

1925 - The first all woman State Supreme Court convened to hear court procedure reviewed by Chief Justice C. M. Cureton and to determine if a writ of error would be granted in the case of W. T. Johnson et al. v. J. M. Darr et al. The case focused on whether trustees of the fraternal organization Woodmen of the World (Darr et al.) were entitled to two tracts of land in El Paso. Soon after the All-Woman Supreme Court began its work, the state's first woman governor, Miriam A. Ferguson, took office. The novelty of an all-woman court, believed to have been the only such court to exist in the country, and the election of a woman to the state's highest office, gave some distinction to the role of women in Texas politics. It was some thirty years later, however, before Texas women were allowed to serve on juries. And it was not until 1982 that a woman was named to serve full-time on the state Supreme Court, when Gov. William Clements appointed a woman to fill an unexpired term on the court.

1915 - Rice and Baylor play basketball in the first competition of the fledgling Southwest Conference.

1951 - Children's television heros Hopalong Cassidy and his trusted horse Topper, appear in at the Houston Fat Stock show parade. Topper was originally a movie double for his horse Nappy, who had been injured earlier.

1958 - The first two-way moving sidewalk was put in service at Love Field in Dallas, TX. The length of the walkway through the airport was 1,435 feet.

1982 - Blues singer Sam (Lightnin') Hopkins died of cancer. Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas, in 1912. During the early 1960s he played at Carnegie Hall with Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, and by the end of the decade was opening for rock bands. He was also the subject of a documentary, The Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins, which won a prize at the Chicago Film Festival in 1970. Hopkins recorded a total of more than eighty-five albums and toured around the world.