This Day In Texas History - May 1

[joe817]

1718 - San Antonio de Valero Mission was founded by Franciscan father Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares at the site of present-day San Antonio. Four days later the nearby San Antonio de Béxar Presidio and the civil settlement, Villa de Béxar, were established. The mission, originally located west of San Pedro Springs, survived three moves and numerous setbacks during its early years. After a hurricane destroyed most of the existing buildings in 1724, the mission reached its latest site on the east bank of the San Antonio River. After the mission was secularized in 1793 it became the Alamo. Due to its rudimentary fortifications, the abandoned mission became an objective of military importance in the conflicts of the nineteenth century, and it changed hands at least sixteen times. Portions of the mission's structures have survived as part of the Alamo Battlefield Shrine.

1836 - The crew of the Texas Navy ship, Invincible was arrested in New Orleans and charged with piracy. However, the charge was not substantiated, and the crew was released.

1865 - On May 1, 1865, a passenger on a steamer heading up the Rio Grande towards Brownsville tossed a copy of the New Orleans Times to some Confederates at Palmito Ranch. The paper contained the news of Lee's surrender, Lincoln's death, and the surrender negotiations between Johnston and Sherman. Within the next ten days several hundred rebels left the army and went home. Those who remained were as resolute as their commanders to continue the fight in Texas.

1874 - John B. Jones is commissioned major in the Texas Rangers' Frontier Battalion.

1898 - the Panhandle community of Mobeetie was devastated by a cyclone. The community, considered the "mother city" of the Panhandle, developed from Charles Rath and Bob Wright's supply store on Sweetwater Creek at a buffalo-hunters' camp called Hidetown in 1874, and grew to 150 residents the following summer as a trading post for nearby Fort Elliott. Mobeetie became the seat of Wheeler County that same year. Throughout the 1880s it was the commercial center of much of the Panhandle, but it began a period of decline when Fort Elliott was abandoned in 1890. The town's troubles increased in 1898, when a cyclone took seven lives and leveled many of the buildings, including the Huselby House hotel and the townhouse of pioneer cattleman Robert Masterson. Another blow occurred in 1907 when a controversial election made Wheeler the county seat. In 2000 Mobeetie was a small community with some 107 residents.

1906 - Henry Bullock is born in North Carolina. He becomes the first black professor of arts and sciences at the University of Texas.

1915 - The sprawling LE ranch was purchased by John M. Shelton, an Amarillo cattleman. He bought the 221,062 acres for $3.50 an acre. Since his new range was divided by the Canadian River, Shelton sold the land south of the river to the Matador Land and Cattle Company and bought from the XIT Ranch its 111,000-acre Bravo Division, north of the river.
[for a fascinating insight into 19th century Texas cattle barons:
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... apl10.html ]

1980 - the Dallas Mavericks officially became the twenty-third member of the National Basketball Association, when owner Donald Carter's Dallas National Basketball Association, Inc., was awarded a franchise by NBA commissioner Lawrence O'Brien. Norm Sonju, the club's first general manager, had initiated the process of bringing professional basketball to Dallas in 1978, when he contacted Dallas mayor Bob Folsom.

1991 - Baseball great Rickey Henderson of Oakland broke the all time record for career steals. His achievement was quickly overshadowed by a 44 year old Texas Ranger Pitcher from Alvin Texas, Nolan Ryan who got his 7th no-hitter a feat no where nearly equaled in Major League history.