This Day In Texas History - February 26

[joe817]

1747 - Joaquín Prudencio de Orobio y Basterra, captain of the presidio at La Bahía(near the site of present Mission Valley in Victoria County), led an expedition down the Nueces River to its mouth, where he arrived on Corpus Christi Bay.

1836 - Capt. James Austin Sylvester and his company of 50 Kentucky riflemen, left Nacogdoches on February 26 for Gonzales, where the Texas army was reorganized. Sylvester was appointed second sergeant and color bearer in the active army, but he still maintained his captain's rank in the reserves.

1854 - Camp Terrett, also known as Fort Terrett, on the banks of the North Llano River in eastern Sutton County, was established on February 2, 1852, by Lt. Col. Henry Bainbridge. It was named for Lt. John Terrett, who was killed in the battle of Monterrey in 1846. The camp was established to protect the settlements along the San Antonio Road from Comanches. It was abandoned by federal troops on February 26, 1854. The state of Texas erected a marker in 1936 at the site, twenty-six miles from Junction off U.S. Highway 290W. The old fort buildings are headquarters of the Noel ranch.

1862 - In Bastrop, Robert Allen recruited the Seventeenth Texas Infantry Regiment of John G. Walker's Texas Division, which he commanded until November 1863.

1871 - Brothers Clint and Jeff Smith, ten and eight years old respectively, were captured by Lipans and Comanches while herding sheep near their family's home on Cibolo Creek between San Antonio and Boerne. After an initial rescue effort failed, their father, Capt. Henry Smith, and Capt. John W. Sansom, a cousin, assembled a large body of Texas Rangers and local militia, who, along with a posse led by Capt. Charles Schreiner, pursued the Indians from near Kendalia to Fort Concho in West Texas. The rescue attempt was futile, however, and Clint and Jeff were not returned to their family for another five years.

1888 - A statue originally ordered from a catalog, the Goddess of Liberty, was raised into place atop the new Texas State Capitol Building in Austin. The Texas Capitol is the tallest State Capitol in US and taller than the US Capitol building in Washington. The statue now resides at The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

1908 - Frederick Bean Avery was born in Taylor. He graduated from North Dallas High School in 1926. "Tex" Avery is credited with creating Daffy Duck and developing Bugs Bunny into a wacky character. He also created the Droopy cartoons. His work included whistling wolves, bugged eyes, and melting admirers. Tex Avery was a major innovator in the cartoon industry in Hollywood.

1946 - Black activist Heman Sweatt, accompanied by a delegation from the NAACP, met with University of Texas president Theophilus S. Painter and other university officials to present a formal request for admission to the UT law school. The legal case resulting from this request, Sweatt v. Painter, was a landmark civil-rights decision, one of several that struck down the doctrine of "separate but equal" educational facilities. Sweatt finally registered at the University of Texas law school on September 19, 1950.

1949 - A B-50 Superfortress, the Lucky Lady II, took off from Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base. 94 hours and several mid-air refueling stops, and 23,452 miles later, Captain James Gallagher and his crew landed back at Carswell, after circling the earth non-stop. This was the first non-stop circumnavigation of the globe.

1977 - Members and supporters of the Texas Farm Workers Union set out on a 420-mile march from San Juan, Texas, to Austin to lobby for passage of a state law granting fieldworkers the right to vote on union representation. The marchers reached the Capitol on April 2, but the legislation died in subcommittee. Though TFWU, which ceased to exist in the 1980s, did not achieve its goal of winning collective-bargaining rights for farmworkers in Texas, it did force public attention on the substandard conditions under which farmworkers lived.

1989 - Tom Landry, the only Coach the Dallas Cowboys had ever had, was fired by the Cowboys' new owner, Jerry Jones, who named University of Miami coach Jimmy Johnson to succeed him. Jones and General Manager Tex Schramm flew to Landry's vacation home at Lake Travis to break the news. "It was a very difficult meeting," Schramm said. "It's very, very sad. It's tough when you break a relationship you've had for 29 years. That's an awful long time." Landry, took the Cowboys to a record five Super Bowls with two victories. Following the firing, Schramm resigned.

1998 - A Texas jury rejected an $11 million lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey for price drop after an on-air comment about mad-cow disease.

[ELB]

1949 - A B-50 Superfortress, the Lucky Lady II, took off from Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base. 94 hours and several mid-air refueling stops, and 23,452 miles later, Captain James Gallagher and his crew landed back at Carswell, after circling the earth non-stop. This was the first non-stop circumnavigation of the globe.


One does not simply...

STOP while refueling mid-air

[Jusme]

1949 - A B-50 Superfortress, the Lucky Lady II, took off from Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base. 94 hours and several mid-air refueling stops, and 23,452 miles later, Captain James Gallagher and his crew landed back at Carswell, after circling the earth non-stop. This was the first non-stop circumnavigation of the globe.


One does not simply...

STOP while refueling mid-air

It was a SUPER Fortress!!

[joe817]

Good one!

[oljames3]

Then, is the Superfort the Chuck Norris of bombers?!?!?

[equin]

I really enjoy these Texas historical tidbits.