This Day In Texas History - March 20

[joe817]

1721 - An expedition under the Marqués de Aguayo crossed the Rio Grande into Texas. Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo, was governor of Coahuila and Texas when the viceroy of New Spain accepted his offer to reestablish Spanish control of East Texas in the wake of the French invasion of 1719. Aguayo organized a force of some 500 men, which he called the Battalion of San Miguel de Aragón, with Juan Rodríguez as guide. Aguayo reached San Antonio on April 4 before proceeding to East Texas. A detachment under Domingo Ramón occupied La Bahía del Espíritu Santo on the same day. The expedition resulted in the increase in the number of missions in Texas from two to ten, the increase in the number of presidios from one to four, and the establishment of so definite a Spanish claim to Texas that it was never again disputed by France or by the French in Louisiana.

1836 -The battle of Coleto, the culmination of the Goliad Campaign of 1836, occurred near Coleto Creek in Goliad County on March 19 and 20, 1836. Originally called "the battle of the prairie" and "la batalla del encinal [oak grove] del Perdido [Creek]," it was one of the most significant engagements of the Texas Revolution. The battle, however, cannot properly be considered as isolated from the series of errors and misfortunes that preceded it, errors for which the Texas commander, James W. Fannin, Jr., was ultimately responsible.
[ For the full story: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qec01 ]

1836 - The battle of San Jacinto was the concluding military event of the Texas Revolution. On March 13, 1836, the revolutionary army at Gonzales began to retreat eastward. It crossed the Colorado River on March 17 and camped near present Columbus on March 20, recruiting and reinforcements having increased its size to 1,200 men. Sam Houston's scouts reported Mexican troops west of the Colorado to number 1,325.

1846 - The first skirmish of the Mexican War and the United States occurred at the Paso Real crossing on the banks of the Arroyo Colorado.

1888 - Coke Robert Stevenson, governor of Texas, was born on March 20, 1888, to Robert Milton and Virginia (Hurley) Stevenson in a log cabin in Mason County, Texas. His father was a schoolteacher and surveyor in various Hill Country areas, including Sutton County, where Stevenson finished his formal schooling (a total of seven years of three-month school terms). His father opened a general store in Junction, Kimble County, and as a teenager Coke went into the business of hauling freight between Junction and Brady. He studied history and bookkeeping by the light of campfires, sold the freight line, and went to work as a janitor for the Junction State Bank. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1928, and he was a member of that body from 1929 to 1939. He served as speaker of the House from 1933 to 1937, the first person ever to hold that office for two successive terms. Stevenson was elected lieutenant governor of Texas, and served from 1939 to August 4, 1941, when he became governor after W. Lee O'Daniel resigned to become United States senator. Stevenson was elected governor on his own in 1942. He was reelected in 1944 by an overwhelming vote, and his tenure from August, 1941, to January, 1947, was the longest consecutive service of any Texas governor up to that time.

When he left the Governor's Mansion in 1947, Stevenson returned to his 15,000-acre ranch at Telegraph, near Junction. His last political race, for United States senator in 1948, was the only one he ever lost, and it perhaps gave him more national attention than he had ever received before. That election, which he lost to Lyndon Baines Johnson by eighty-seven votes, may have changed the course of history, for Johnson went on to become president of the United States. The contest between Stevenson and Johnson was the closest senatorial race in the nation's history; after Stevenson appeared to be the winner, an amended return came in from Precinct 13 in Jim Wells County, a stronghold of George B. Parr, giving Johnson 201 votes and Stevenson only 2 votes; this decided the election in Johnson's favor, with a total state vote of 494,191 for Johnson and 494,104 for Stevenson. Stevenson contested the election, claiming there had been fraudulent votes cast in Duval County and in Precinct 13 in Jim Wells County. The dispute was carried all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but after the voting lists from Box 13 were lost or stolen and the Duval County returns were burned prior to the date set by law, the federal court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction in the case. Stevenson's plea to the United States Senate was refused, and he took the defeat with bitterness. He remained disenchanted with the Democratic party during his long retirement from active politics. For president he supported Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and Richard M. Nixon in 1960, Barry Goldwater in 1964, and Nixon again in 1968.Stevenson, a tall, quiet, pipe-smoking, Western-type man, died at the age of eighty-seven on June 28, 1975, in Shannon Memorial Hospital in San Angelo.

1890 - The Sherman, Denison and Dallas Railway Company began on March 20, 1890, as an extension of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad system in the state. The road was chartered to build from Denison through Sherman to Dallas, a distance of eighty miles. The capital was $100,000, and the business office was in Denison. The company laid ten miles of track between Sherman and Denison in 1890 but never extended it to Dallas, since the parent line already operated two lines between Dallas and Denison. The MKT purchased the Sherman, Denison and Dallas on November 11, 1891, and conveyed it to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas on November 18, 1891.

1935 - Texas Weslyan College (then known as Texas Woman's College), became coed and took on it's current name.

1941 - Morris Sheppard Dam, which holds back the waters of Possum Kingdom Lake in Palo Pinto County was completed on this date in 1941. Morris Sheppard himself, the "Dean" of the Senate, dies three weeks later

1955 - Harriet Wingfield Smither died. She had been the archivist of the Texas State Library for fifty-four years. Her scholarly editions included the Papers of Mirabeau Lamar, the Journals of the Fourth Congress, the Journals of the Sixth Congress, and the Diary of Adolphus Sterne. She retired in 1953 and was recognized by a resolution by the Texas State Library and the Texas Historical Commission.

1964 - The Houston Press was founded on September 25, 1911, and until its demise on March 20, 1964, it was the most colorful of the three twentieth-century Houston daily newspapers. It was a Scripps-Howard newspaper and had a general reputation for exposing the seamier side of life in Houston and for keeping Houston politicians on their toes. The Press style of journalism was established by its first editor, Paul C. Edwards, and that style flourished under later editors Marcellus E. Foster, 1926–36, who had founded and edited the Houston Chronicle, and George Carmack, 1946–64. The Press began publication on the corner of Capital and Bagby streets; in 1927 it moved to Rusk and Chartres streets. In 1963 it averaged a daily circulation of 90,000 and employed over 300 persons; however, it operated at a loss during the early 1960s. On March 20, 1964, president and publisher Ray L. Powers and editor Carmack announced to the assembled newspaper staff that it was preparing the last issue of the Press. The newspaper had been sold by Scripps-Howard to the Houston Chronicle for a price estimated in excess of four million dollars.