This Day In Texas History - May 12

[joe817]

1858 - Iron Jacket (Po-hebitsquash, Pro-he-bits-quash-a, Po-bish-e-quasho) was a Comanche chieftain and medicine man to whom the Indians attributed the power to blow approaching missiles aside with his breath. His name probably resulted from his practice of wearing a Spanish-type coat of mail into battle. On May 12, 1858, the jacket failed to protect him, and he was killed on the bank of the South Canadian River in a battle with a combined force of Texas Rangers and Brazos Reservation Indians led by John S. Ford and Shapley P. Ross.

1865 - On this date in 1865, Union forces camped at Fort Brown, traveled up the Rio Grande to attack a Confederate encampment in what would later be known as the Battle of Palmito Ranch. The Confederacy under Robert E Lee had already surrendered on April 9th, and in Texas there was already an agreement that hostilities would cease. But in an effort to keep Texas ports open to Cotton exports as wells as imports of needed supplies. In the battle that ensued along the Rio Grande, 118 Union soldiers died. There are some reports that some of the shooting came from across the river in Mexico from those sympathetic to the Confederacy. On May 26th, General Kirby Smith surrenders his remaining forces and the fighted ceased. Private John Williams of the Union was the last man killed in the Battle, and likely the last man to die in combat during the Civil War.

1889 - The recently rebuilt Missouri Pacific Hospital was dedicated under its new name of St. Joseph's Infirmary. In 1930, the institution's name was changed to St. Joseph's Hospital. St. Joseph Hospital is the oldest hospital in Fort Worth

1903 - On this date in 1903, "The Eyes of Texas" was sung for the first time at Hancock's Opera House in Austin by a four-part male quartet from the University of Texas. Originally written as a prank directed at UT President (1899 to 1905) William Prather, the song quickly became a national favorite, and is often mistaken as the State Song of Texas. While attending Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, Prather often heard the school's president, none other than Robert E Lee, say to the students "The eyes of the South are upon you." So in 1899, as president of the University of Texas, Prather used his own adapted version of Lee's admonishment to the students, "And remember, the eyes of Texas are upon you."
It was John Lang Clair, roommate of Lewis Johnson, band director and in charge of the upcoming show, who was asked by Johnson to write a catchy tune for the show. Clair recalling Prather's address to the students the day before, put the presidents words to the popular tune "I've been working on the railroad". The tune was a hit, and played by the marching band the next day. Two years later, in 1905, the family of president Prather requested that the song be sung at his funeral. [fascinating! I didn't know that]

1913 - The National Alliance of Postal Employees, an organization formed to protect the rights and privileges of African Americans in the postal service, was projected at a Houston meeting attended by a number of black postal workers in the city, including Henderson native James S. Rutledge. From this meeting grew the Progressive Postal League, which led to the Chattanooga convention that founded the National Alliance of Postal Employees.

1918 - On this day, Mary Kathlyn Wagner, better known as Mary Kay, was born in Hot Well, Texas. When she retired in 1963, she and her son started Mary Kay Cosmetics, today the largest company of its kind in the world.

1926 – Commercial aviation began in Texas with inauguration of air mail service between Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago.

1942 - On this date in 1942, construction began on the prisoner of war camp that would later become the town of Country Campus, Texas. The camp was built to house up to 4,800 men, mostly Germans, and had facilities including housing, medical facilities, a barbershop, a bakery and a gymnasium. The POWs in the camp were leased out to work for local farmers. During World War II, Texas was home to twice as many POW camps as any other state. It was chosen for the amount of open space available and because it's climate was considered similar to that of North Africa, where many prisoners were captured. The state housed more than 78,000 POWs by the end of the war. There were 425,000 in 511 camps throughout the United States. After the war the camp was deactivated and donated to Sam Houston State Teacher's College and became Sam Houston Country Campus, with its buildings adapted to school use. The area got a post office in 1948 and reported a population of 1,000 people in 1949. The post office closed in 1964 and the population of Country Campus had dropped to 60 people by 1990.

1947 - Construction began on the Whitney dam along the Brazos River between Hill and Bosque counties NW of Waco.

1970 - On this date in 1970, Dallas native Ernie Banks, playing for the Chicago Cubs, hit his 500th homerun to a packed house in Chicago. After his retirement a year later, the Cubs retired his number 14, the first number retired by the Chicago Cubs.

2003 - In Texas, fifty-nine Democratic lawmakers went into hiding over a dispute with Republican's over a congressional redistricting plan.