This Day In Texas History - February 28

[joe817]

1836 - Edwin Oswald LeGrand, delegate to the Convention of 1836, arrived the day before the the Convention of 1836 began, and began to lobby energetically for independence from Mexico. He was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

1845 - The United States Congress passed the annexation resolution on February 28, 1845, and Andrew Jackson Donelson proceeded to Texas to urge acceptance of the offer.(In 1844 President John Tyler appointed Donelson chargé d'affaires of the United States to the Republic of Texas. His duties were to present American propositions to President Anson Jones and to further the cause of annexation of the republic to the United States. Donelson performed both tasks with skill and diplomacy.) Word is dispatched to Texas with the offer. Britain is against Annexation, asking Mexico to recognize Texas if she does not join the Union(The British were opposed to annexation and even contemplated the use of force to prevent it. They did not wish to add Texas to the British Empire, but they did want to prevent the westward expansion of the United States, to reap commercial advantages from Texas trade, and to tamper with the American tariff system and the institution of slavery.). The bid fails, and within months Texans vote to accept the offer and join the Union. [For the full Story: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mga02 ]

1859 - Anson Mills submitted a street map of a settlement at the far western tip of Texas called variously Ponce's Rancho, Franklin, and Smithsville. He called the little community El Paso, and the name stuck. The city's downtown is still practically as he platted it.

1861 - Fort Chadbourne was on Oak Creek near what is now U.S. Highway 277 eleven miles northeast of Bronte in extreme northeast Coke County. The post was established on October 28, 1852, by companies A and K of the Eighth United States Infantry for frontier protection and named for 2d Lt. Theodore Lincoln Chadbourne, who was killed at the battle of Resaca de la Palma in the Mexican War. Much Indian activity occurred in the area during the 1850s, including a skirmish inside the fort in 1856. The fort was a defense for a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route from 1858 to 1861. It was surrendered to Confederate Col. Henry E. McCulloch on February 28, 1861. Chadbourne was occupied briefly by United States troops after the Civil War, but lack of water, wood, and adequate facilities forced its abandonment in 1868. The site, near the present town of Fort Chadbourne, is designated by a Texas historical marker near the old cemetery south of Highway 277.

1918 - The Texas Legislature voted to ratify the eighteenth amendment that provides that the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. Communion wine could still be produced.

1948 - The Girls Rodeo Association, forerunner of the Women's Professional Rodeo Association, was formed in San Angelo. The event followed the historic "all-girl" rodeo produced the previous fall in Amarillo. The founders, who met to organize and established goals, determined to raise the standards of cowgirl contests and to protect cowgirls from unfair practices. The WPRA is the oldest organization of women athletes in America.

1984 - Shareholders in the Dr Pepper Company accepted a buyout offer from a New York investment-banking firm, and Texas's preeminent soft-drink company went private. Dr Pepper originated in Waco in 1885.

[oljames3]

1836 was a leap year, so the seventh day of the siege of Alamo fell on February 29. For 2019, the 13th day of the battle is March 7, though we traditionally commemorate March 6.

[joe817]

1836 was a leap year, so the seventh day of the siege of Alamo fell on February 29. For 2019, the 13th day of the battle is March 7, though we traditionally commemorate March 6.

Thank you oljames!