This Day In Texas History - June 04

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This Day In Texas History - June 04

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1808 - Jefferson Davis, the first president of the Confederate States of America and a man with quite a few ties to Texas, was born in Todd County, Kentucky. Before becoming the political leader of the Confederacy, Davis was U.S. Secretary of War and a Mississippi representative and senator. He advised the annexation of Texas by the United States in 1844. He joined the army and in 1847, served as an officer under Zachary Taylor's force on the Rio Grande. While serving as U.S. Secretary of War in 1854, he proposed construction for a Texas railroad reaching the Pacific Ocean.(Texas & Pacific Railroad). After Reconstruction he was invited to purchase a homestead in Dallas. Then on July 8, 1875 Davis declined the offer to become president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.

1827 – Members of a group of colonists known as the “Old 300" received titles to land as part of Stephen F. Austin’s Texas colony.

1835 - At Harrisburg on June 4, 1835, William Austin, along with William B. Travis, signed a document protesting the Mexican enforcement of customs duties and other restrictions at Anahuac and pledged himself to overthrow Mexican authority there.

1836 - Juan Seguín accepted the Mexican surrender of San Antonio on June 4, 1836, and served as the city's military commander through the fall of 1837; during this time he directed burial services for the remains of the Alamo dead. He resigned his commission upon election to the Texas Senate at the end of the year. Seguín, the only Mexican Texan in the Senate of the republic, served in the Second, Third, and Fourth Congress. He served on the Committee of Claims and Accounts and, despite his lack of English, was chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. Among his legislative initiatives were efforts to have the laws of the new republic printed in Spanish.

1836 - George Washington Poe, commanded the artillery piece that fired a salute over the remains of Fannin's command at La Bahía. Poe was later named acting paymaster general on October 12, 1836, and charged with the responsibility for establishing a pay department for the Army of the Republic of Texas, which he based on that of the United States Army.

1845 - President of The Republic of Texas, Anson Jones, presented to the people of Texas the alternative of peace and independence with Mexico or annexation. The Texas Congress rejected the treaty with Mexico, approved the joint resolution of annexation, and adopted resolutions censuring Jones. The Convention of 1845 considered removing Jones from office. He subsequently retained his title, though his duties were merely ministerial. On February 19, 1846, at the ceremony setting up the government of Texas as a state in the Union, Jones declared, "The Republic of Texas is no more."

1845 - David Catchings Dickson was elected justice of the peace of Precinct Two in Montgomery County. He had moved moved to Texas in 1841. After his small beginning, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives (1849). He ran successfully for lieutenant governor with gubernatorial candidate Elisha M. Pease in 1853, but lost in his attempt to unseat Pease in 1855. In the latter election, though he was a Democrat, he was supported by the American (Know-Nothing) party. After another stint in the House, he commanded a local militia company during the Civil War. In 1866 Governor James W. Throckmorton appointed Dickson financial agent of the state penitentiary at Huntsville, where, in addition to his primary duty, he cared for the inmates during a yellow fever epidemic. When Throckmorton was removed from office as an "impediment to Reconstruction," Dickson retired to Grimes County. He had become quite wealthy over the years.

1866 - On this date in 1866, James W Throckmorton was elected Governor of Texas. The prior Governor, Andrew Hamilton, apparently fled to Mexico. After the end of the Civil War, Texas was under laws collectively called "reconstruction" part of which severely limited the voting rights of anyone who took up arms against the United States. Because the restriction applied to most male adults, the political fortunes of Texas and the rest of the South, changed for a generation. Texas remained under reconstruction until 1870.

1897 - Black leader Booker T. Washington delivered the first commencement address at Prairie View Normal Institute, the future Prairie View A&M University. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, was the leading advocate of black advancement through self-help and solidarity programs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His trips to Texas included an appearance at the State Fair and visits with prominent black families such as the Covingtons of Houston and the Watsons of Dallas. Washington inspired a generation of black Texas leaders, including Emmett Jay Scott and Laurine Cecil Anderson.

1908 - The Estacado and Gulf Railroad resulted from the initial attempt on the part of the citizens of Roby in Fisher County to get a railroad connection to their community. The line was chartered on June 4, 1908, and planned to build from Roby southeast to Coleman in Coleman County, for a distance of 100 miles. By November 1, 1910, the roadbed had been completed to Roby, but the tracks had been laid only to the east bank of the Clear Fork of the Brazos near Pledger, about five miles away. At that time the officials held a picnic to celebrate their progress, and the train carried people from McCaulley to the railhead on a flatcar with cane-bottom chairs. But in spite of the picnic, the line was abandoned in 1911. The engine and other equipment lay for a few years where the tracks had stopped and was sold for scrap or salvaged to be used on the subsequent Roby and Northern Railway.

1909 - The Lone Star Gas Company files for a charter to become the first gas distributor in Texas. By the end of 1909 Lone Star had begun the construction of what was then one of the world's longest pipelines, from Fort Worth-Dallas to Petrolia. The Petrolia field field turned out to hold the largest known reserve of natural gas in the state. The company changed its name to Enserch in 1975 to reflect the change in its business, which now included not only natural gas distribution and transmission but also exploration, resource recovery, and other aspects of the industry.

1913 - Brownsville photographer Robert Runyon arrived in Matamoros and began compiling a unique record of the Mexican Revolution along the Texas-Mexico border. He is best known for his coverage of the revolutionary conflict in northeastern Mexico between 1913 and 1916. He was the only professional photographer to record two 1915 raids across the United States border, the Norias Ranch raid and the train wreck near Olmito. Runyon also documented the buildup of United States military forces at Fort Brown with more than 2,000 images.

1937 - In San Benito (Cameron County), Baldemar Huerta, better known as Freddy Fender was born. He was the first person ever to have a No.1 hit song on both the Billboard's Country and Pop charts with his 1974 hit song, "Before the Next Teardrop Falls.". Freddy also has a hit with "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights". He died in 2006.

1971 - 2 funeral services were held today for Audie Leon Murphy, the most decorated combat soldier in United States history. One was held at Hollywood Hills, California, and the other at the First Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas. Murphy was buried with full military honors near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery on June 7.

1974 - The Cleveland Indians had "Ten Cent Beer Night". Due to the drunken and unruly fans the Indians forfeited to the Texas Rangers.(That's one way to win a baseball game! )
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