This Day In Texas History - April 1

[joe817]

1813 - Spanish governor Santísima Trinidad de Salcedo surrendered the city of San Antonio to forces under José Bernardo Maximiliano Gutiérrez de Lara, commander-in-chief of the filibustering Gutiérrez-Magee expedition. Gutiérrez intended to set up a republican government in Texas and use Texas as a base for operations designed to liberate Mexico from Spanish rule. The scheme ended in August with the defeat of Gutiérrez's successor as head of the provisional government, José Álvarez de Toledo, but the indefatigable Gutiérrez went on to become involved with such filibusters and revolutionaries as Louis Michel Aury, Francisco Xavier Mina, and James Long, among others.

1833 - General Santa Anna, who had once fought on the side of Spain against the Mexican Revolution, was inaugurated as President of Mexico. A revolution in Texas soon required his attention, and the Mexican army was brought under his command to expel Texians engaged in the uprising.

1833 - With Sam Houston and Stephen Austin in attendance, the Second Convention calling for Texas to separate from Coahuila meets at San Felipe on this date in 1833. Austin will be sent to Mexico City with the petition, but will be imprisoned there for inciting insurrection.

1837 - Houston is made the Capitol of the Republic of Texas.

1866 - The first cattle drive to northern markets on the Chisholm Trail occurred. And by the year's end 260,000 cattle had been driven up this route.

1898 - Controversial journalist William Cowper Brann was fatally shot in the back by Tom E. Davis on a Waco street. Brann managed to pull his own gun and kill Davis. Earlier in the decade Brann's newspaper, the Iconoclast, had launched a series of vitriolic attacks, especially on Baptists, Episcopalians, blacks, women, and anything British. He also went after nearby Baylor University, which he called "that great storm-center of misinformation." Brann was subsequently kidnapped on one occasion and beaten on another, and his supporters had a deadly gunfight with Baylor partisans. Davis, who killed Brann, was an irate supporter of Baylor.

1917 - The King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin, died in an New York City hospitial. Born in Texarkana, his "Maple Leaf Rag" sold over a million sheets of music in 1899, a smash hit for its day. His music was featured in the 1973 hit movie "The Sting" staring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, for which the film score received an academy award. Released as "The Entertainer", the theme song from the movie also was a big hit on Billboards Top 100.

1922 - The Sons of the Republic of Texas was founded on this date in 1922.

1923 - Texas Gov. Thomas Mitchell Campbell died in Galveston. Campbell was born in Rusk on April 22, 1856.
He got a job in the Gregg County clerk's office, studying law at night, and in 1878, he started his own law practice in Longview. At the urging of his friend, former Gov. James Stephen Hogg, he ran for governor and was elected in 1906. During his two terms of office, he initiated reforms that included railroad regulation, lobbying restrictions and pure food and drug laws. But his most significant legislation regarded prison reform. Campbell's administration terminated the contract lease system for inmates and called for humane prisoner treatment.

1932 - Actress Debbie Reynolds was born in El Paso. She starred in dozens of movies including "How the West was Won", Pepe, and "Singin' in the Rain". She played the title roll in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", for which she won an Academy Award.

1995 - Following a dismal 1994 season without Nolan Ryan, retired Texas Ranger picture Nolan Ryan, announced on this date in 1995, in a live interview on WBAP in Fort Worth, that he was coming out of retirement and would be joining the Texas Rangers at spring training. The story became breaking news for 3 hours as far away as New York, before the media learned that they had been duped by an April Fools gag cooked up my WBAP's infamous Hal Jay and his good friend Nolan Ryan.

[treadlightly]

William Cowper Brann is an interesting character. He bought The Iconoclast from William Sidney Porter, then a bank teller in Austin. Porter had moved there from San Antonio where his satire had set the German community against him.

Brann's over-the-top style got a large readership. Depending on whose figures to believe, I've heard between 100,000 paid subscribers to two million. Most of his deliveries were by mail, and the far reach of his anti-Baylor screed had the attention of local Baptists.

I don't have references in front of me, but I think he originally ticked off the Baylor faithful with attacks on Baptist speakers. Here's a Brann quote I found on a Baylor blog in which Brann slams both the Tyler Telegram and a religious leader, Talmage:

“The Tyler Telegram humbly apologizes for having called that wide-lipped blather-skite, T. DeWitt Talmage, ‘a religious fakir.’ Next thing we know our Tyler contemporary will apologize for having inadvertently hazarded the statement that water is wet. …The Iconoclast will pay any man $10 who will demonstrate that T. DeWitt Talmage ever originated an idea, good, bad or indifferent…. The man who can find intellectual food in Talmage’s sermons could acquire a case of delirium tremens by drinking the froth out of a pop bottle.”

That blog post is dated April 1, 2013, but as far as I see it's not a joke. For reference, https://blogs.baylor.edu/texascollectio ... nt-page-1/

The ironic thing is Baylor tolerates an organization called The Noze, whose writing and antics at times rival Brann. In 1965 the group is thought to have burned a wooden bridge on campus. They were kicked off campus in 1999 for racial slurs in an African American Culture Survey, a parody of a report about study abroad programs. A few years back their main web site made local news for really boisterous obscenities, shortly after which Baylor President Ken Starr became a member.

Brann's tombstone was pockmarked with bullet strikes over the years and finally stolen in 2009. I don't think it's resurfaced.

[joe817]

Fascinating story! Thanks for posting.

[n5wd]

Joe817 - thaks, again, for taking the time to post these fascinating tidbits of our state's history.

[treadlightly]

Let me add my appreciation as well - this day in Texas history posts are a highlight of the day. Please keep them coming.

One thing I'd forgotten about Brann is the reporting that actually got him killed.

Baylor President Burleson, sometime in the 1890's, took in a 14 year old Venezuelan girl as a housekeeper. She was soon enough with child, speculated by a member of Burleson's family. Brann jumped on the story with both feet. Baylor dad Tom Davis jumped Brann with a six shooter. Reports from the time say that when Davis shot at Brann from behind, Brann turned and drilled Davis with all six from his sidearm - or so the story goes. Not sure if transfer bars were the rage in the 90's, or if Brann carried with all six chambers charged.

Waco police escorted Brann to the city jail, where his boots began overflowing with blood. That's when they realized he'd been shot three times. Brann died that day, I think. Davis lingered a while and expired.

President Burleson's family was eventually cleared of the rape, although I'm not sure what science was behind that.

My information comes from what I remember of Brann and the Iconoclast by Charles Carver.

Last I looked there is a State historical marker at the spot of the gunfight, roughly opposite the suspension bridge over the Brazos River in Waco. Also last I looked, there is a label taped behind the marker, a bit of geocaching, with the coordinates to something interesting. I won't spoil the fun on that, though.

[joe817]

Thanks everybody for the kind words. It's fun researching and then trying to decide which are of the most interest to people. Sometimes it's not easy!