This Day In Texas History - January 13

[joe817]

Hi all,

It's been a while since I last posted these little looks back into Texas History. Having moved back into our house that has been finally restored after a fire that caused us to move out back in 2013, hopefully I can complete this one year commitment to the forum. For the newcomer every day(hopefully), I will be posting on that day(read that to be date), events in Texas' history that to me, is very interesting. Our heritage is the building block on what we are today. Let us come to truly understand the meaning, significance and history of Gregg Abbot's Tweet of "Come and Take It". I'll wager not all Texans Know this.

As always, I hope you enjoy this little look back into our past and, as always, comments are appreciated.


1829 - The town of Goliad was formed. Less than a decade later, Goliad would be the site of a massacre of Texas freedom fighters, at the hands of the Mexican army under Santa Anna.

1841 - The Republic of Texas passed an act returning the church of the Alamo to the Catholic Church. After Texas was annexed to the United States, it was declared that the Alamo was property of the United States, and in 1848 the United States government took over the building and grounds and until the Civil War used them for quartermaster purposes. For some time the Alamo was claimed by the city of San Antonio, the Catholic Church, and the United States government.
[ http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... /uqa1.html ]

1846 - U.S. President James K. Polk directed Gen. Zachary Taylor's army at Corpus Christi to advance to the Rio Grande. The Mexican government viewed that as an act of war. On April 25 the Mexican troops at Matamoros crossed the river and ambushed an American patrol. Polk seized upon the incident to secure a declaration of war on May 13 on the basis of the shedding of "American blood upon American soil." Taylor, reinforced by a large body of volunteers including regiments of Texans, seized Monterrey in September and declared an armistice with Mexican General Arista. Col. John Coffee Hays's Texas Mounted Rifles played a significant role in storming the city's defenses. Polk repudiated the armistice, so Taylor thrust south to Saltillo and east to Victoria. A second force under Gen. John E. Wool marched from San Antonio to threaten Chihuahua but ultimately joined Taylor. Gen. Stephen W. Kearny led another column from Fort Leavenworth to seize New Mexico. [for a fascinating read about the Mexican War, and what part Texas played: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... /qdm2.html ]

1847 - John Joel Glanton enlisted in Walter P. Lane's company of rangers for service in the Mexican War. The South Carolina native had arrived in Texas in time to serve in the Texas Revolution, and was a member of John Hay's company of Texas Rangers between the wars. He served with distinction in the invasion of Mexico under Zachary Taylor. Always a controversial figure, Glanton's career turned sinister after the Mexican War when he traveled to Chihuahua and became the leader of a band of scalp hunters. He and his gang seized and operated a river ferry controlled by the Yuma Indians. Finally, in mid-1850, they schemed to kill a party of Mexican miners who used the ferry, but before they carried out their plot, the Yumas attacked the ferry and killed Glanton and most of his men. Glanton himself was scalped.

1849 - Brownsville was made county seat of the new Cameron County. The 1850 census showed a population of 519, two-thirds of whom were from the states along the Atlantic seaboard; most of the remainder were Mexican, Irish, French, English, and German. In 1765 the community of San Juan de los Esteros (present-day Matamoros) was established across the Rio Grande. In 1781 Spanish authorities granted fifty-nine leagues of land on the northern bank of the river, including all of the site of Brownsville.

1869 - The last inspection of Fort Mason was carried out, and the fort closed on March 23, 1869. Fort Mason was located on Post Oak Hill near Comanche and Centennial creeks in the northern part of what was then called Gillespie County. During 1870 the state of Texas organized several companies of frontier forces. Fort Mason was reopened in September of that year as headquarters for Companies A and B, Frontier Forces. Capt. James M. Hunter, later county judge of Mason County, was in command for most of that year. During the next year the forces were disbanded or moved, and for the last time the fort was closed. [ http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... qbf34.html ]

1871 - José Antonio Navarro died. He was a leading Mexican participant in the Texas Revolution and one of three Mexican signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

1885 - English nobleman Joseph Heneage Finch died on his ranch near Big Spring, Texas. Finch was associated with the prince of Wales and his high-living social set in the 1870s. Exiled from England after going through a notorious divorce, he settled in Texas in 1883.

1891 - Louis Weisberg was born in Waco. The Texas chemist helped to develop the atom bomb.

1939 - Legendary Big Thicket outlaw Red Golemon was arrested for the first time. Thomas Jefferson Golemon was born in 1909 near Kountze, Texas. He disappeared into the Big Thicket, and stories began flowing connecting him with a series of robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes. His criminal career ended in April 1940 when the notorious "Red Fox of the Big Thicket," discovered at his parents' home in Hardin County, died in a barrage of gunfire.

1974 - The airport now known as Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport officially opened. Efforts from 1940 to 1965 to build and operate an airport between Dallas and Fort Worth had failed to satisfy the rival cities, which sometimes operated separate facilities. The FAA declared itself fed up, and in 1965 the Civil Aeronautics Board ordered the two cities to agree on a location for a regional airport. Construction began in December 1968. In 2000 D–FW was the third largest and fifth busiest airport in the world.

1997 - Willie Lewis died. He was a renowned black jazz clarinetist and bandleader. He was born in Cleburne, Texas, and grew up in Dallas.

[loktite]

Great to see you posting again, Joe!

mods : I think Joe's "This Day in Texas History" posts deserve their own subforum.

[joe817]

Thanks for the kind words loktite! They are appreciated.

[o b juan]

I have missed the daily histories you have posted.. Glad you are back

[puma guy]

Glad to see you're back. Sorry about your misfortune and I pray all is well again for you and your family.

[BigGuy]

Thanks for these. Glad they're back.