This Day In Texas History - July 2

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1731 - The site for the Church of San Fernando was selected on July 2, 1731, when Juan Antonio Pérez de Almazán, captain of the Presidio of San Antonio, laid out a central square for the villa of San Fernando de Béxar, as San Antonio was then called. He followed the instructions by the Spanish government for the newly arrived Canary Islanders. The church was to be located on the west side of the square, which may still be considered the center of San Antonio.

1835 - Julián Pedro Miracle was an officer in the army of Zacatecas. A Mexican liberal refugee in the confidence of Governor Agustín Viesca of Texas, he appeared at the General Council of the provisional government of Texas in 1835, representing Antonio Canales and other influential liberals in Mexico. Miracle gave to members of the council information relative to movements of the liberals in the interior of Mexico, stating that Mexican liberals would join with Texas in the revolution providing Texas did not declare independence. This information was presented to the General Council on December 5, 1835. In 1838 Miracle launched an expedition that seems to have been an attempt to reconquer Texas for Mexico. He left Matamoros headed northward on May 29 and on July 2 reached the Trinity River. On July 5, Vicente Córdova reached him with a communication from Gen. Vicente Filisola instructing him to join forces with all Indians who were hostile to Texans. On July 20 Miracle made an agreement with several chiefs for a concerted war on Texas, but he was killed on the Red River on August 20, 1838. The papers bearing evidence of his activities were found on him.

1843 - John Twohig, San Antonio merchant and banker, established a mercantile business in San Antonio, Texas, in 1830 and took part in the siege of Bexar in 1835. At the time of the Adrián Woll invasion of San Antonio in September 1842, Twohig blew up his store to keep ammunition from the enemy. Captured and taken to Mexico, he and fourteen other San Antonians held in Perote Prison cut a tunnel and effected their escape on July 2, 1843; Twohig was one of nine not recaptured. He returned to San Antonio, became a banker, and was widely known for his breadline for the unfortunate. This breadline, which he financed personally, was continued by his sister for several years after his death. In April 1853 Twohig married Bettie Calvert of Seguin. In the years prior to the Civil War he amassed a large personal fortune. His banking business declined because of the effects of the war, but soon recovered. In 1870 Twohig was among the 100 wealthiest men in Texas, with real property estimated at $90,000 and personal property worth an additional $50,000. He died at his home in San Antonio in October 1891.

1862 - Texas A&M University is the state's oldest public institution of higher education. The Eleventh Texas Legislature approved a joint resolution on November 1, 1866, accepting the terms of the federal government's Morrill Land-Grant College Act of July 2, 1862, which provided for the donation of public lands in a quantity equal to 30,000 acres for each senator and representative in Congress to a state for the establishment of at least one college "where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts."

1863 - The Fourth Texas Infantry was one of the three Texas Civil War regiments in the Texas Brigade of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. At Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, the Fourth Texas participated in the attack against the Union left flank and in the fighting for Little Round Top, losing 140 men (twenty-five killed, fifty-seven wounded, and fifty-eight captured), including Lieutenant Colonel Carter, who was mortally wounded.

1863 - Decimus et Ultimus Barziza was an officer in the Confederate Army. At the outbreak of the Civil War he volunteered for service in the Confederate Army and was soon elected first lieutenant in Company C of the Fourth Texas Infantry, which became part of Gen. John Bell Hood's famed Texas Brigade in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Barziza was promoted to captain and led Company C into the battle of Gettysburg. During the attack on Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, he was wounded and left behind when the Confederate troops were forced to retreat. Although feigning death, he was discovered by Union troops and taken prisoner. After a year in federal hospitals and the prison camp at Johnson's Island, Ohio, he was part of a contingent of prisoners sent from Johnson's Island to Point Lookout, Maryland. On the journey he managed to escape by diving through the open window of a train, near Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.

After his escape he made his way to Canada, where he was one of the first escapees to use a network set up by rebel agents and Canadians to send escaped Confederates back to the South via Nova Scotia and Bermuda. Barziza arrived at Wilmington, North Carolina, in April 1864, and was allowed to return to Texas to recover from the hardships of his escape. In February 1865 he published his war memoirs anonymously in Houston under the title The Adventures of a Prisoner of War, and Life and Scenes in Federal Prisons: Johnson's Island, Fort Delaware, and Point Lookout, by an Escaped Prisoner of Hood's Texas Brigade. Barziza settled in Houston, where he established a well-known law practice. He also became active in politics as a staunch Democratic opponent of Reconstruction. Decimus et Ultimus Barziza died after a lingering illness in his home at the corner of San Jacinto and Walnut streets in Houston, on January 30, 1882.

1889 - The Weatherford, Mineral Wells and Northwestern Railway Company was chartered on July 2, 1889, to build a line from Weatherford to Mineral Wells, twenty-five miles. The line was bought by the Texas and Pacific Railway Company in 1902 and extended eighteen miles from Mineral Wells to Graford in 1908. On January 1, 1988, the Weatherford, Mineral Wells and Northwestern was merged into the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company as successor to the Texas and Pacific. However, in the fall of 1989 the line was sold to the city of Mineral Wells, which leased it to the Mineral Wells and Eastern Railroad for operation on October 1, 1989. There was insufficient traffic to support the line, and when Mineral Wells withdrew its operating subsidy, the Mineral Wells and Eastern closed in May 1992.

1901 - The Blackwell, Enid and Texas Railway Company was chartered on July 2, 1901, to lay track from Vernon, Texas, to the north bank of the Red River, near the east line of Wilbarger County. In 1902 twelve miles of track was completed from Vernon to the Red River, where connection was made with the Blackwell, Enid and Southwestern Railway Company. The following year the line received $47,217 in passenger revenue and $152,917 in freight revenue. On June 30, 1904, the road was acquired by the St. Louis, San Francisco and Texas Railway Company, which operated it until the line was abandoned in 1957.

1942 - Laughlin Air Force Base is seven miles east of Del Rio. It was named Laughlin Army Air Field on March 3, 1943, Laughlin Field on November 11, 1943, and Laughlin Air Force Auxiliary Field on January 13, 1943. The base was closed in October 1945 and reopened as Laughlin Air Force Base on May 1, 1952. It is named for Lt. Jack T. Laughlin, the first casualty of World War II from Del Rio, who was killed in the crash of his B-17 in Java on January 29, 1942. The facility was opened on July 2, 1942, as a bombardment school, but its mission was changed in December. It was closed in October 1945, and the land was leased to local ranchers as sheep pasture. When the base was reopened in May 1952 its mission was to train F-84 fighter pilots. By 1957 the base had been assigned to the Strategic Air Command and provided a home for RB-57 and U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Laughlin-based U-2s provided the first conclusive evidence of the Soviet missile build-up in Cuba, and Major Rudolph Anderson, a U-2 pilot from Laughlin, was the only casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis.