This Day In Texas History - April 12

[joe817]

1758 - Luís Antonio Menchaca and Andrés Hernández resolved a title dispute involving Menchaca's San Francisco ranch. Their compromise resulted in the oldest recorded private land grant in Texas. The grant, recorded in the General Land Office, consisted of a total of fifteen leagues and seven labores in present-day Karnes and Wilson counties, of which eleven leagues and two labores went to Menchaca and four leagues and five labores to Hernández. It is possible that this was the site of the first ranch in Texas. Hernández's ranch headquarters was in the same locale as Fuerte de Santa Cruz del Cíbolo.

1836 - Mexican forces under General Santa Anna captured Thompson's Ferry, on the Brazos River between San Felipe and Fort Bend. As Sam Houston's army retreated eastward, a rear-guard under Moseley Baker at San Felipe and Wyly Martin at Fort Bend sought to prevent the Mexicans from crossing the Brazos. At Thompson's Ferry on April 12, Mexican colonel Juan N. Almonte hailed the ferryman, who was on the east bank. Probably thinking that Almonte was a countryman who had been left behind during the retreat, the ferryman poled the ferry across to the west bank. Santa Anna and his staff, who had been hiding in nearby bushes, sprang out and captured the ferry. By this means the Mexican Centralists accomplished a bloodless crossing of the Brazos. The Texan forces at Fort Bend and San Felipe were forced to abandon their defenses and join the rest of Houston's army in retreat. But the Mexicans make a huge tactical error. 1,500 troops and four cannons are will remain to guard the ferry. Had they received word of Santa Anna's defeat just two days march ahead of them, they could easily have stolen victory from the Texans.

1844 - An annexation treaty was completed on April 12, 1844, and signed by Secretary of State John C. Calhoun, Isaac Van Zandt, and Van Zandt's assistant, J. Pinckney Henderson. President Sam Houston favored a "diplomatic act," but Anson Jones, the president elect, balked. Jones wanted annexation and thought that the threat of an alignment with England, connected with the cotton trade, was the key to achieving it. In June 1844 the United States Senate voted thirty-five to sixteen to reject the treaty.

1879 - Wheeler County became the first organized county in the Texas Panhandle. The Kiowas and Comanches, who displaced the earlier Apache peoples around 1700, dominated the area until the mid-1870s. By that time buffalo hunters had already established a settlement, called Hidetown or Sweetwater, in the area. The U.S. Army established Fort Elliott near Hidetown in 1875, and the first post office in the Panhandle opened there in 1878. The legislature established Wheeler County, named for Royal T. Wheeler, in 1876. Three years later, the residents of the area petitioned for county organization, which became official on April 12. The small camp of Sweetwater became the first county seat; it was renamed Mobeetie in 1880.

1919 - Broadway actress Ann Miller was born in Chireno (Nacogdoches Co). Miller stared in 40 movies and made numerous television shows. She had been a tap dancer since she was a young child. It was Ann who discovered Lucille Ball while visiting a San Francisco nightclub. Known as the "Queen of Tap", Ann Miller had her legs insured by RKO pictures for $1,000,000. She died in 2004 at the age of 80.

1927 - An F5 tornado touched down just northwest of Rocksprings, and began the violent march into the small town in the Western Hill Country. The tornado destroyed 235 of Rockspring's 247 buildings and killed 74 people, almost 1/3 of the population. Clearing Rocksprings, it continued southeastward for another estimated 50 miles. With the death toll at 74 dead and 205 injured, the Rocksprings tornado is to date, the third deadliest tornado in Texas history, behind the Waco tornado of 1953, and Goliad of 1902.

1987 - The Daughters of the Republic of Texas dedicated a bronze and marble plaque at the site where the original international boundary marker between the United States and the Republic of Texas still stands.

1991 - Following the Gulf War, the Department of Defense labeled Fort Hood a top fighting installation and stationed 12,000 additional troops there. In December 1992 the Fifth Infantry Division was inactivated and redesignated the Second Armored Division.

[ELB]

1987 - The Daughters of the Republic of Texas dedicated a bronze and marble plaque at the site where the original international boundary marker between the United States and the Republic of Texas still stands.

http://www.texasescapes.com/GeraldMasse ... -Texas.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[joe817]

Fascinating! Thanks for posting. I'd forgotten about that website. It's really neat.