This Date In Texas History - January 3

[joe817]

January 1688(exact date unknown) - Colonists at Fort St. Louis(at present day Inez, Texas) not felled by Indians, disease, poisonous snakes and malnutrition are finished off by Karankawa Indians. French Explorer Robert de La Salle founded the colony. La Salle explored much of the Rio Grande and parts of East Texas. His last expedition ended along the Brazos River in early 1687 when La Salle and five of his men were murdered by rivals in the group.

Although the colony lasted only three years, its existence established France's claim to possession of the region that is now Texas, and later supported the claim by the United States to the region as part of the Louisiana Purchase. For a fascinating read about French colonialism In Texas see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint ... 28Texas%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

1823 - Stephen F. Austin received a grant from the Mexican government and began colonization in the region of the Brazos River. Mexican officials approved Stephen F. Austin's plan to bring three hundred families into his colony. This group becomes known as the "Old Three Hundred."

1827 - Thomas M. Duke wrote Austin from Bay Prairie, that the Karankawa Indians had destroyed the Jacob Betts homestead. Betts was one of Austin's original "Old Three Hundred". As one of the Old Three Hundred he received title to a sitio now in Matagorda County on August 19, 1824. Betts was among those signing a treaty with the Karankawas at La Bahía. In 1836 Betts was among the men serving in Albert Clinton Horton's company, the Matagorda Volunteers, under James W. Fannin during the Texas Revolution.

1834 - Stephen F. Austin is arrested at Satillo for trying to start a revolution against Mexico. President Santa Anna simply would not approve state government for Texas, for which Austin had petitioned. Austin was arrested, under suspicion of trying to incite insurrection in Texas, and taken back to Mexico City. No charges were made against him, no court would accept jurisdiction of his case, and he remained a prisoner, shifting from prison to prison, until December 1834, when he was released on bond and limited to the area of the Federal District. He was freed by a general amnesty law in July 1835 and at the end of August returned to Texas by way of New Orleans.(Austin is considered to be the founder of Anglo-American, and his importance to the contributions of early Texas cannot be stressed. For a fascinating read into the colonization of Texas please see: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... fau14.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

1850 - Presidio County was established from Bexar Land District with Fort Leaton as the county seat. The area around the present town of Presidio on the Rio Grande, known as La Junta de los Ríos, is believed to be the oldest continuously cultivated farmland in Texas. The first Spaniards probably reached La Junta in 1535 when Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca crossed on his trek across Texas.

1867 - Gen. Joseph P. Kiddoo declared that the Texas Contract Law was biased against freedmen and prevented its enforcement. This law was one of the notorious Black Codes, a series of measures enacted by Southern legislatures to keep blacks in an inferior social position. During Reconstruction the codes tried to uphold continued legal discrimination. Thanks in part to Kiddoo, assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, the codes generally failed to accomplish their purpose.

1874 - Claude Marie Dubuis, second Catholic bishop of Texas, purchased the Green Bayou Place and additional acreage west of Galveston for St. Mary’s Orphanage.

1911 - The Slanton water well comes in, helping to transform semiarid west Texas into a breadbasket for the nation.

1932 - television and movie actor, Dabney Coleman was born in Austin. He attended the University of Texas before becoming an actor. Coleman has over 60 movies to his credit,

1961 - Lyndon B Johnson was sworn is as US Senator from Texas, then promptly resigns three minutes later. His election as Senator AND Vice President forced him to relinquish the Senate seat which he had won.

1962 - Ground was broken to begin the building of the Astrodome in Houston. It was the first fully air-conditioned, enclosed, domed, multipurpose sports stadium in the world.

1967 - Jack Ruby died in a Dallas, TX, hospital. He was convicted on March 14, 1964, of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The conspiracy debate continues to this day, if Ruby and Oswald acted alone.

1979 - Conrad Hilton dies in Santa Monica CA of Pneumonia. In 1919, when the oil boom hit Ranger, he moved to nearby Cisco to seek his fortune. He purchased the Mobley hotel, claiming that it was the only way he could get a place to sleep. Originally, rooms were rented to oil field workers for 8 hours at a time, thereby tripling the hotels revenue. Hilton went on to found an empire of Hilton hotels worldwide.

[seamusTX]

1874 - Claude Marie Dubuis, second Catholic bishop of Texas, purchased the Green Bayou Place and additional acreage west of Galveston for St. Mary’s Orphanage.

That orphanage was located near the current 69th Street and Seawall in Galveston. At that time, the city ended around 45th Street, and the Seawall did not exist. The orphanage was practically on the beach.

The 1900 storm utterly destroyed it, leaving only three survivors to tell the tale.

http://www.1900storm.com/orphanage.lasso" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

[joe817]

I added a little more information of the 1834 arrest of Stephen F. Austin, from the one liner posted earlier. A fascinating read, if you're interested into the origins of Texas Independence, and the planted seeds of Texas Revolution.

[Skiprr]

As a seventh-generation Texian who's earliest immigrant ancestor was William McFarland, alcalde of Nacogdoches prior to the revolution and a colonel in the revolutionary army of Texas, I love reading these entries.

How are you maintaining these data? Just wondering how--or if--new tidbits might be submitted...

[joe817]

Skiprr, please feel free to add to these tidbits of Texas history! I invite everyone to submit and add to this. This thread is for all of us, and to learn how we came to be as a Republic and a State.

I'm 5th generation Texas myself, and my wife is 6th(or 7th) gen, and is eligible for membership in the Daughter's of the Republic of Texas. Her aunt is a member and is a DAR. I'm doing my best(as well as our 2 daughters) to get her to submit her lineage to join.

I have saved to my favorites folder 17 websites that I check daily. Some give one liners, others give full pages of info on the incident that occurred on a particular date. I check them all daily. Most of the entries that go into some detail come from:

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . I just type in a date and several pages of hits come up. I have to admit, I arbitrarily pick and choose what interests me. Most hits are either births, marriages or deaths, so I look for events on that date.

In any event I welcome any and all addition you'd like to make, with my thanks.