Today in Texas History: French Expedition Fizzles in El Paso
The expedition was organized by fraudulent promoter Parker H. French in New York. French promised “fast and safe” passage to the California gold fields for $250 a passenger
This Day in Texas History: Texas Radical Republican in Haymarket Massacre
This Day in Texas History: Texas Radical Republican in Haymarket Massacre May 04, 1886 On this day in 1886, Albert Richard Parsons, a labor organizer from Texas, was implicated in the infamous Chicago Haymarket Massacre. The brother of Confederate colonel William Henry Parsons, Albert served in Parsons’s Brigade, a unit of Texas cavalry commanded by…
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This day in Texas History: Virginia Point Benefits from Galveston Island Bridge
This day in Texas History: Virginia Point Benefits from Galveston Island Bridge February 06, 1860 On this day in 1860, the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad completed its bridge from Virginia Point to Galveston Island. Virginia Point, on the mainland west of Galveston, was an outlying part of Stephen F. Austin’s Coast Colony. The bridge…
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This Day in Texas History: Texas Jack Omohundro Dies
This Day in Texas History: Texas Jack Omohundro Dies June 28, 1880 On this day in 1880, John Burwell Omohundro Jr., better known as Texas Jack, died. Omohundro, born in Virginia in 1846, traveled to Texas while still a teenager and worked trailing cattle. He served as a scout and spy under Gen. J. E.…
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This Day in Texas History: “Bandit Queen” Marries for the Last Time
This Day in Texas History: “Bandit Queen” Marries for the Last Time June 05, 1880 On this day in 1880, Myra Maybelle (Belle) Shirley Reed, the “Bandit Queen,” married her second, or possibly third, husband, Sam Starr, in the Cherokee Nation. Belle Starr was born near Carthage, Missouri in 1848. During the Civil War her…
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This Day in Texas History: Chisholm Trail Debuts in Print
This Day in Texas History: Chisholm Trail Debuts in Print May 27, 1870 In its edition for this day in 1870, the Kansas Daily Commonwealth made the earliest known printed reference to the Chisholm Trail, the major livestock route out of Texas. Cattle drovers followed the old Shawnee Trail by way of San Antonio, Austin,…
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This Day in Texas History: Texas Brigade Rallies Around General Lee
This Day in Texas History: Texas Brigade Rallies Around General Lee May 06, 1864 On this day in 1864, in one of the most moving incidents of the Civil War, Confederate general Robert E. Lee ordered the celebrated Hood’s Texas Brigade to the front, and they in turn ordered him to the rear. During a…
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This Day in Texas History: Jones Appointed Commander of Frontier Battalion
This Day in Texas History: Jones Appointed Commander of Frontier Battalion May 02, 1874 On this day in 1874, Governor Richard Coke appointed John B. Jones to command the newly raised Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers. Jones, a veteran of the Civil War, was well suited to execute the governor’s mandate to put an…
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This Day in Texas History: Port of Saluria Prominent in Civil War
This Day in Texas History: Port of Saluria Prominent in Civil War April 25, 1861 On this day in 1861, 500 Federal troops stranded at the port of Saluria in Calhoun County were forced to surrender to Confederate colonel Earl Van Dorn. Saluria, at the eastern end of Matagorda Island, was founded in the 1840s…
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