This Day In Texas History - March 13

[joe817]

1836 - Susanna Dickinson, wife of one of the victims at the Alamo, arrives at Gonzales, where Sam Houston is now organizing his troops. She brings horrible news of the fall of the Alamo and the death of Crockett, Bowie and Travis. General Sam Houston learning that the Mexican forces are now marching to his position, quickly orders the evacuation of Gonzales. Anything which cannot be carried is ordered burned or dumped into the river. Houston's army retreats eastward. Crossing the Brazos River near San Felipe they will briefly pause at Groce's plantation for more training.

1836 - Fannin(at Goliad) received Amon B. King's plea(commander of the garrison at Refugio) for reinforcements at 1:00 A.M. Mexican General Urrea and his advanced calvary units were quickly advancing on King's garrison. Fannin ordered William Ward and the Georgia Battalion and a portion of Peyton S. Wyatt's company to King's relief. Ward, Fannin's second in command, was wholly inexperienced like most of the Goliad garrison, so Fannin then sent John Sowers Brooks and Joseph M. Chadwick to ensure Ward's success; but their guides got lost in the dark and their force returned to Goliad. Sending Ward's detachment to Refugio meant placing one-third of the Goliad garrison-more men than Travis had had in the Alamo-without provisions, transport, or reserve ammunition, and without proper support, directly in the path of Urrea's advancing main army.

1842 - Fearing an attack on Austin by the Mexicans, President Houston ordered the government to return to Houston.

1848 - The Texas legislature passed a bill to establish a state prison. The law authorized gubernatorial appointment of three commissioners to locate a site and choose a superintendent and three directors to manage the institution. After the commissioners selected Huntsville, in Walker County, for the site, construction began on August 5, 1848, and continued for several years. Abner H. Cook supervised the construction and was the first superintendent of the prison

1849 - Frontier artist and military officer Capt. Seth Eastman and his companies established Camp Leona on the Leona River in southern Uvalde County. The outpost, which was soon renamed Fort Inge, was part of a federal line of forts in Texas. Army troops and Texas militia used the camp as a base while they provided protection for settlements and escorted supply trains and mail carriers. For most of its history Fort Inge operated as a one-company, fifty-man post. Notable officers through the years included captains John G. Walker and Edmund Kirby Smith, as well as William A. A. (Bigfoot) Wallace and his Texas Rangers. The presence of Fort Inge brought a greater sense of security to the Hill Country frontier, and by the late 1850s farmers had established the nearby community of Uvalde. Fort Inge was closed for federal service in 1869. Today Fort Inge County Park includes the site of the old outpost.

1857 - Jefferson McLemore was born in Tennessee. He moved to Texas in 1878 and worked as a cowboy, printer, and newspaper reporter. He published a newspaper in Kyle in the 1880s, and from 1892 to 1896 was a member of the Texas House of Representatives. He published the Texas Monthly Review and State Topics and Indianola and Other Poems. McLemore represented Texas as a delegate at large in the Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth U.S. congresses. He died in Laredo on March 4, 1929.

1922 - WRR Radio in Dallas went on the air. At the time only two frequencies were used nationwide, 619KHz for Market and Weather(M) and 833Khz for entertainment(E). By April 1, Texas had five stations operating, WRR (Dallas EM), WPA (Ft Worth E), WEV (Houston EM), WTK (Paris E), and WCM (UT Austin EM). Owned by the City of Dallas, WRR was original used to assist in fire fighting. Firemen would play music or tell jokes between fires, and the public would listen in. Later WRR became a classical music station in addition to broadcasting all city council meetings.

1943 - The Exell Helium Plant, in southern Moore County near the Potter county line, was the first World War II-vintage plant established in the Panhandle by the Federal Bureau of Mines. It came about as a result of the need for helium as a lifting gas in semirigid and nonrigid airships used to escort Allied shipping and in observation and barrage balloons. Today was the first day of production.

1956 - John Wayne's new film "The Searchers" premiered in theaters. One of the fans of the film was a drummer in Buddy Holly's band, Jerry Allison. In the film, Wayne repeatedly uses the classic line "Well, that'll be the day". Later, when Buddy Holly tells his drummer, he'd sure like to record a hit song, Jerry replied in a John Wayne drawl, "That'll Be the Day". Soon, they wrote, and recorded the song, which became a No 1 hit in 1957, launching Buddy Holly and the Crickets to Rock and Roll stardom.

1956 Evangelist and humanitarian Lester Roloff broke with the Southern Baptist Convention by delivering a sermon at Baylor University against denominationalism. Roloff, a Texas native, determined to preach at age eighteen. To pay for his room and board at Baylor University, he took his Jersey cow, Marie, with him and sold milk. After pastoring several different churches, he accepted the pastorate of Park Avenue (later Second) Baptist Church in Corpus Christi in the mid-1940s, which was henceforth his home base. There he organized the Baptist Ministerial Alliance, of which he was first president, and in 1944 launched his "Family Altar" radio program.