This Day In Texas History - April 9

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1835 - James Smith, was a soldier, planter, and politician. He and Sam Houston were both colonels in the Tennessee militia in 1835. On April 9, 1835 Gen. Sam Houston introduced him, by letter, to business associates in New York as Colonel Smith. He wrote from New York to Sam Houston on November 28, 1835, that he was shipping 100 first-rate rifles to Natchitoches, Louisiana, and planning to bring well-equipped troops to Texas from Tennessee to fight against Mexico. Smith's wife and children arrived in Nacogdoches on January 1, 1836, along with his sister and brother-in-law, Andrew Hamilton. Smith arrived with his troops and entered the service of the revolutionary army as captain of cavalry of the Nacogdoches Mounted Volunteers on April 11.

1836 - On this date in 1836, General Santa Anna's army in pursuit of the Texas army under Sam Houston reached the Brazos River. Wishing to avoid a direct attack of the Texans at the river crossing, his men head South in search of Thompson's Ferry. The Mexicans arrived at the crossing on the morning of April 12 and spied a black ferryman on the east bank of the Brazos. Col. Juan N. Almonte, who spoke good English, hailed the ferryman. Probably thinking that this was a countryman who had been left behind during the retreat, the ferryman poled the ferry across to the west bank. Santa Anna and his staff, who had been hiding in nearby bushes, sprang out and captured the ferry. By this means the Mexican Centralists accomplished a bloodless crossing of the Brazos.

Twelve miles downriver, Martin and the Texans guarding the Fort Bend crossing learned that the Mexicans had crossed in force at Thompson's Ferry; outflanked and outnumbered, they had no choice but to abandon Fort Bend. Baker, also outflanked, was now obliged to end his dogged defense of the San Felipe crossing and join the rest of the Texans in their retreat. José Enrique de la Peña reported that after the battle of San Jacinto, 1,500 Mexican troops and four cannons were stationed at or near Thompson's Ferry under the command of Gen. Vicente Filisola. Peña asserted that if Filisola had force-marched his troops from Thompson's Ferry to San Jacinto, a mere two day's march, he might have undone the effects of the Texan victory. In 1936 the Texas Centennial Commission erected a monument at the ferry site.

1836 - President Burnet proposed the national standard, as well as the 1836 national flag for the naval service at Harrisburg. It was similar to the United States flag and showed thirteen stripes and a blue canton with a single white star. It was passed by Congress and approved by Houston on December 10, 1836, and remained in use until January 25, 1839.

1856 - Robert Edward Lee, army officer and commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War, spent several crucial years of his career in Texas. Soon after his arrival at San Antonio on March 27, 1856, he was assigned to command the two squadrons of the Second Cavalry at Camp Cooper on the Comanche reservation in present Shackelford County twenty-five miles north of Albany. On April 9 he arrived at his post, which for the next nineteen months he called "my Texas home." Camp Cooper was a lonely station. Rattlesnakes and wolves ranging about the post and neighboring wild Indians were ever present reminders of the frontier. But Lee adapted himself to his new work of supervising routine post life, of exploring the adjacent region for a new post site, and of keeping a watchful eye on the frontier.

1876 - The best known and probably most active vigilance committee in Texas was that of Fort Griffin. On the night of April 9, 1876, this group caught a man in the act of stealing a horse and promptly hanged him to a pecan tree, leaving below the swinging body a pick and shovel for the convenience of anyone who might wish to remove the gruesome spectacle. In the next three months the Fort Griffin vigilantes shot two horse thieves and hanged six others. Two years later they executed by firing squad a former sheriff of Shackelford County who had turned to cattle rustling. (Ft.Griffin is about fifteen miles north of Albany in northern Shackelford County, between Wichita Falls and Abilene).

1888 - Chicago Cubs pitcher, James "Hippo" Vaughn was born in Weatherford. During the 1910s and 20s, Vaughn pitch five 20 win seasons. But he is best remembered for dueling it out with Fred Toney on May of 1917, in the only 9-inning "double no-hitter" in major league history.

1895 - Howard Edward Butt was born in Memphis, Tennessee. While he was a child, his family moved to Kerrville, Texas, because of his father's tuberculosis. His mother, Florence Butt, opened a small grocery store there in 1905; Howard became manager of the store at the age of sixteen. After serving in the navy during World War I, Butt returned to Kerrville and in 1921 made the then-daring decision to operate on a cash-and-carry basis, rather than the customary charge and deliver. After several failed attempts to expand, he opened a successful store in Del Rio in 1926 and bought three more stores in the Rio Grande valley in 1928. He opened stores in Corpus Christi in 1931, Austin in 1938, and San Antonio in 1942. In 1946 he changed his company's name to H-E-B. At the time of his death, in 1991, there were more than 170 H-E-B supermarkets, and by the end of the twentieth century H-E-B was the largest privately owned grocery chain in the nation.

1913 - Federal forces in Mexico temporarily detained a group of American sailors in Tampico. Tensions were high in the port city because it had been under attack by rebels seeking to overthrow the government of Victoriano Huerta, and because U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had refused to recognize Huerta as the legitimate leader of Mexico. When the U.S. invaded Veracruz on April 21, rebel leader Venustiano Carranza accused Huerta of having provoked the invasion and the rebels stepped up their campaign against the government. The embattled Huerta resigned in July 1914, though he continued to entertain hopes of a comeback. In June 1915 he and Pascual Orozco Jr. were arrested in New Mexico and charged with conspiring to violate U.S. neutrality laws. Huerta died in El Paso in January 1916 of cirrhosis of the liver. Those living on both sides of the Rio Grande continued to feel the effects of the Mexican Revolution until 1920.

1919 - On this date in 1919, tornados in West and Northeast Texas kill over 60 and injure hundreds. Ector, Fannin, Henderson, Van Zandt, Camp and Red River Counties are hit the worst.

1941 - U.S. Sen. John Morris Sheppard of Texas died while still serving in office. Sheppard was born on his family's farm near Wheatville on May 28, 1875, to John Levi Sheppard, U.S. Representative from 1898 to 1902. In 1902, Sheppard ran for and won the congressional seat previously held by his father. In 1913, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he was a member of the majority Democratic Party and a supporter of President Woodrow Wilson. On April 4, 1917, the day the U.S. entered World War I, Sheppard introduced the prohibition resolution that would become the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.

1947 - One of the largest tornado's on record struck the Texas Panhandle on this date in 1947. The "Tri-State Tornado", was reported to be between one and two miles wide and traveled over 200 miles in three states. The tornado touched down 5 miles northwest of Pampa and passed just northwest of the town of Canadian. The town of Glazier was totally destroyed, killing 17 and 40 injured. Then, most of the town of Higgins was also destroyed, killing 51 there and injuring another 232. The tornado then passed into Oklahoma and eventually dissapated near the town of Leo, Kansas. The final totals across three states were 181 killed and 970 injured. 68 Texans died in the tornado. This was the fourth deadliest tornado in Texas history.

1954 - WBAP-TV in Fort Worth broadcast the first colorcast in Texas. At the time there were no more than 100 color televisions in all of Dallas and Fort Worth.

1954 - Actor Dennis Quaid was born in Houston. The younger brother of actor Randy Quaid, Dennis graduated from Houston's Bellaire High School, and then attended The University of Houston.


1965 - The Houston Astros played the New York Yankees in exhibition baseball in the Astrodome, the first event in the new domed stadium. The Astrodome, the first fully air-conditioned, enclosed, multipurpose sports stadium in the world.

1990 - John Henry Faulk, humorist and author, fourth of five children of Henry and Martha (Miner) Faulk, was born in Austin, Texas, on August 21, 1913. Faulk died in Austin of cancer on April 9, 1990.

2001 - Rep. Jaime Capelo, (D-Corpus Christi), announced his resolution to recognize the Texas-based hamburger chain as a Texas Treasure. Whataburger, with headquarters in Corpus Christi, is a family operated business that began in 1950.