This Day In Texas History - July 27

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1841 - On July 27, 1841, Barnard E. Bee submitted a treaty of commerce, and the extradition of criminals to the United States secretary of state Daniel Webster. Barnard E. Bee served in Washington, D.C. as the Texas minister plenipotentiary to the U.S.

1844 - On this date in 1844, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, the youngest son of Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, arrived in San Antonio to negotiate the purchase of 75,276 acres of land for German settlement and colonization.

1861 – Texas Confederate troops captured Fort Fillmore near Mesilla, New Mexico, during the Civil War.

1870 - On this date in 1870, a charter was issue for the Southern Transcontinental Railroad. It was organized on October 31st with Texans George H. Giddings and James W. Throckmorton as members of the board. The company located it's main office in Marshall, and began surveying, but by 1872, it was acquired by Texas Pacific Railroad.

1870 - July 27, 1870, the Goliad County courthouse mysteriously burned, prompting allegations of purposeful destruction of Reconstruction deed records. War and Reconstruction drastically altered the county's wealth and economic base.

1888 - Randall County was organized. It had first been settled by Lincoln Guy Conner and his wife, who moved their cattle to the vast Palo Duro Canyon area in the Panhandle. The Conners bought their land for three dollars an acre, built a half dugout, and established a general store and post office. When the county was organized, the dugout was a polling place. The Conners’ daughter was the first white child born in the county. In the spring of 1889 Conner laid out the townsite of Canyon City. He donated town lots to anyone willing to build a home or a business. Over the next two decades he became one of the growing city’s most prosperous citizens.

1940 - Civil-rights activist Lonnie E. Smith attempted to vote in the Democratic primary in Harris County. Smith, an African-American dentist born in Yoakum in 1901, was denied a ballot under the white primary rules of the time. With the assistance of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (including the future United States Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall), Smith filed suit in federal district court seeking redress for the denial of his rights under the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth amendments by the precinct election judge. Following an unfavorable ruling in the district court, Smith's attorneys lodged appeals that ultimately reached the Supreme Court. The court's 1944 decision in Smith v. Allwright reversed the prior decisions against Smith by a margin of eight to one. Since that time, all eligible Texans have had the right to vote in the primary election of their choice. Smith later served as a Democratic precinct committeeman and an NAACP chapter president. He died in 1971.

1949 - Eight months after his election, Lyndon B Johnson is finally recognized by the Senate Rules Committee as the rightful Senator from Texas on this date in 1949. The delay was the result over a heated debate over alleged election fraud in the Democratic Primary.

1964 - On July 27, 1964, Edward Higgins White II, was selected as the pilot for the Gemini 4 space flight. He was born in San Antonio, Texas, on November 14, 1930. On June 3, 1965, during the mission, White became the first American to walk in space when he conducted an extravehicular activity which lasted nearly twenty-two minutes.