This Day In Texas History - April 11

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1689 - On this date in 1689, Alonso de Leon names the Medina river for an Italian astronomer (Pedro de Medina) whose navigation tables De Leon used.

1836 - Capt. James Smith arrived with his troops in Nacogdoches and entered the service of the revolutionary army as captain of cavalry of the Nacogdoches Mounted Volunteers on April 11. He had brought his troops from Tennessee to fight in the war for independence against Mexico.

1836 - Antonio López de Santa Anna decided to take possession of the Texas coast and seaports. With that object in view he crossed the Brazos River at present Richmond on April 11 and on April 15, with some 700 men, arrived at Harrisburg. He burned Harrisburg and started in pursuit of the Texas government at New Washington or Morgan's Point, where he arrived on April 19 to find that the government had fled to Galveston. The Mexican general then set out for Anahuac by way of Lynchburg. Meanwhile, the Texans, on April 11, received the Twin Sisters and with the cannon as extra fortification crossed the Brazos River on the Yellow Stone. A thirty-man artillery "corps" was immediately formed to service the guns, the only artillery with the Texas army, and placed under the command of Lt. Col. James Clinton Neill.

1838 - The keelboat David Crockett, reportedly the first large craft to navigate the Colorado River, arrived at the head of "the raft on the Colorado." Early in the nineteenth century, the river's slow current caused a logjam, or "raft," which by the late 1830s blocked the river ten miles above its mouth at Matagorda. The Crockett, which had averaged more than sixty miles a day, stopped at the head of the raft, where its cargo of cotton was unloaded and carried by wagon to Matagorda. Removal of the log jam in the 1920s caused the development of an enormous delta that reached across Matagorda Bay to the Matagorda Peninsula. In 1936 engineers dug a channel through the delta, but Matagorda gradually became landlocked.

1842 - Between 1838 and 1842, 18 newspapers were started in Galveston. On this date in 1842, The Galveston News was founded and remains today as the only survivor among the early newspapers. It also holds the honor of being Texas' oldest surviving business. The Galveston News is now published as The Galveston County Daily News.

1846 - The city of Tyler was authorized when the Texas legislature voted to establish Smith County and a corresponding county seat. The townsite, located near the geographic center of the county, was selected by a panel of commissioners appointed by the legislature and was named for President John Tyler in recognition of his support for admitting Texas to the United States.

1865 - Following the surrender of Lee, President Lincoln addressing a crowd outside the White House, suggested that some blacks should be given the right to vote. In the crowd for Lincoln's address, was John Wilkes Booth, an avowed racist. Originally Booth planned to kidnap Lincoln and hold him in exchange for Confederate prisoners, but with the end of the war, and the prospects of former slaves being given voting rights, Booth made up his mind to kill Lincoln. Three days later, on Good Friday, Booth entered the President's viewing box at the Ford theatre in Washington, then shot and killed the President. He fled, and was finally killed 12 days later in Virginia. Some evidence suggests that Booth fled to Texas, and opened a school in Bandera.

1868 - Thirty-five lawyers met in Galveston, Texas, to form a new Galveston Bar Association, the first permanent bar organization in Texas. This local bar organization served as the prototype of the Texas Bar Association.

1918, the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division went on parade in the city of Fort Worth for the first time. Fort Worth was home of Camp Bowie, the training center for the forming 36th. The four-hour event drew crowds estimated at 225,000, making it possibly the biggest parade in Fort Worth's history. Camp Bowie's greatest average monthly strength was recorded in October 1917 as 30,901. For about five months after the departure of the Thirty-sixth for France in July 1918, the camp functioned as an infantry replacement and training facility, with monthly population ranging from 4,164 to 10,527. A total of more than 100,000 men trained at the camp. Camp Bowie was located in the Arlington Heights area of Fort Worth(west side).

1921 - The Majestic Theatre opened on Elm Street in downtown Dallas. The five-story structure, designed by Chicago architect John Eberson in the Renaissance Revival style, was the flagship of Karl Hoblitzelle's Interstate Amusement Company chain of vaudeville houses. Among the stars who appeared there were Mae West, Jack Benny, Harry Houdini, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway. Fort Worth resident Ginger Rogers began her career at the Majestic, and Vin Lindhe was a member of a girls' trio that played there in 1927. The Hoblitzelle Foundation gave the theater to the city of Dallas in 1976. A year later it became the first Dallas building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Various local theatrical and musical groups have subsequently called the Majestic home.

1953 - President Eisenhower appointed Oveta Culp Hobby the first secretary of the new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The Killeen native had married former governor William P. Hobby in 1931. During her subsequent extraordinary career she took an active part in the family's communications empire, became an important figure in the Democratic party, headed the League of Women Voters, and organized the Women's Auxiliary Air Corps during World War II. In her thirty-one months as secretary of HEW, the agency greatly expanded the nation's hospital system, improved the administration of food and drug laws, increased grants for mental health, set up a nurse-training program, enlarged the rehabilitation program, and designed an insurance program to protect Americans against the rising cost of illness.

1970 - The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center oversaw the launch of the Apollo 13. The ship was debilitated by an explosion and returned to Earth with 15 minutes of power to spare.

2010 - Texas Stadium was an American football stadium located in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The stadium opened on September 17, 1971. It served as the home field of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys from 1971 to 2008 and had a seating capacity of 65,675. The stadium was demolished by a controlled implosion on April 11, 2010.