This day in Texas History: Davy Crockett Loses Election, Heads for Alamo

This day in Texas History:
(from the Texas State Historical Association archives)

Davy Crockett Loses Election, Heads for Alamo
January 09, 1836

On this day in 1836, after losing his bid for a fourth term as a Tennessee representative to the U. S. Congress, Davy Crockett wrote a letter stating his intention to go to Texas.

This, his last extant letter, praises Texas as “the garden spot of the world,” with the “best land and the best prospects for health I ever saw.” With high optimism for his political future, he wrote that he fully expected to take part in writing a constitution for Texas.

“I am in hopes,” he wrote, “of making a fortune yet for my self and my family, bad as my prospect has been.” Crockett could not foresee his fate at the battle of the Alamo, which occurred just two months later.

Davy Crockett