This Day In Texas History - May 2

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This Day In Texas History - May 2

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1837 - Henry Martyn Robert was born in Robertville, South Carolina. As an engineer, he was involved in most of the major river and harbor improvement and fortification projects undertaken by the U.S. government in the later nineteenth century. After the Galveston hurricane of 1900 he served as consulting chairman of the board of engineers to design means of protection against future tidal waves. The result was a seawall that successfully saved the city of Galveston in two subsequent hurricanes, in 1909 and 1915. Robert also became this country's leading parliamentarian. Robert's Rules of Order, first published in February 1876, remains in print in 2001 as an authoritative reference work on parliamentary procedure.

1871 - Gen. William T. Sherman left San Antonio on May 2, 1871, accompanied by Maj. Randolph B. Marcy, inspector-general of the army, two aides, and seventeen mounted black troopers of the Tenth Infantry. He traveled north through forts Concho, Griffin, and Belknap, and by May 17 reached Fort Richardson(now present day Jacksboro), the northernmost outpost on the Texas frontier. The party had seen no Indians, and Sherman was convinced that the Texans' reports were unjustified. He set on the expedition to investigate complaints against Indians from the Fort Sill Reservation.

On May 15 over a hundred Kiowas, Comanches, Kiowa-Apaches, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes from the Fort Sill Reservation crossed the Red River into Texas. The next day they allowed General Sherman's small column to pass unmolested not a half-mile from their hidden position. Indian informants later testified that Maman-ti's magic had predicted that an attack on the second group of whites to pass would be successful. Historians have speculated that the Indians recognized the first party as soldiers and decided to await a less well-armed prey. On May 18 the Indians attacked a wagon train belonging to a freighting contractor named Henry Warren traveling on the Butterfield Overland Mail route. They killed the wagon master and six teamsters and allowed five to escape.

1874 - Governor Richard Coke appointed John B. Jones to command the newly raised Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers. Jones, a veteran of the Civil War, was well suited to execute the governor's mandate to put an end to Indian raids on the frontier and to enforce the laws of Texas in the interior.

The new battalion was successful in suppressing Indian incursions against white settlements. Jones reported to Gen. William Steele that during the first six months of the battalion's service more than forty Indian raiding parties had been reported on the frontier, of which the rangers engaged fourteen. During the second six months Jones's men had only four Indian fights, and after May 1875 only six raids and one small battle were reported. During this period Jones reported an estimated thirty-seven Indians killed; the battalion lost two killed and six wounded. In the seven years of its service under his command the battalion was also responsible for the quelling of considerable civil unrest as well as the return of much stolen property recovered from the Indians.

1917 - General John J. Pershing was in command of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. After notification on May 2, 1917, that he would be in charge of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe, he left for Washington, D. C., after only two months in the Fort Sam Houston command. In Europe he avoided trench warfare and generally fought independently of Allied forces.[for a fascinating read of this General's presence in Texas:
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpe80 ]

1922 - Founded by local newspaperman Amon G. Carter and Harold Hough, who served as chief engineer, announcer, and program director, Fort Worth radio station WBAP first aired on May 2, 1922. Carter already owned one of the largest newspapers in Texas, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Hough worked as circulation manager. Carter, who initially invested only $300 to start the station, used WBAP to expand his powerful presence in the news media throughout the twentieth century. Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce at the time, gave the station its call letters—an abbreviation for “We Bring A Program.” WBAP began broadcasting with only 10 watts of power but eventually increased to 50,000 watts.

Throughout its long history, the station has distinguished itself in a number of areas. It was the first radio station to air regularly scheduled newscasts, livestock market reports, weekly church services, a rodeo, and it was the first to have an audible logo signal, the cowbell. WBAP became the first station in the American Southwest to broadcast a baseball game and football game. On January 4, 1923, WBAP aired the first known broadcast of a barn dance program, featuring fiddler and Confederate veteran Capt. M. J. Bonner playing square-dance songs. This format proved so popular with audiences that other stations across the country quickly copied it, including WSM in Nashville, which debuted its Grand Ole Opry barn dance program in 1925. During the earliest days of World War II, WBAP became the first American radio station to send a war correspondent to Europe. WBAP’s television station went on the air on June 20, 1948, with a performance by the Flying X Ranchboys—the first musical performance on television in Texas.

1942 - Childress Army Air Field, a World War II bombardier-training school under the Central Flying Training Command, occupied an area of 2,474 acres 2½ miles west of the Childress city limit. Construction of the field was announced on May 2, 1942, and began immediately thereafter. The base produced the first classes qualified in both precision bombing and dead-reckoning navigation. In 3½ years Childress graduated thirty-five classes of bombardier-navigators; its 4,791 graduates made a tenth of the total World War II air force bombardier production.

The first "All-American Precision Bombing Olympics" was held at Childress in May 1943 with seven air fields participating. Such meets were held there and at other training bases at three-week intervals thereafter until April 1944. A special practice feature was skip-bombing on Lake Childress. A redeployment program for veteran bombardiers was instituted at the field to give retraining in line with development of bombing techniques. The War Department also established a prisoner of war camp at the base. Childress was renamed the 2,512th Army Air Forces Base Unit on July 1, 1944. After the field was closed on December 21, 1945, it was given to the city and transformed into a municipal airport.

1992 - Richard von Weizsaeker, the president of Germany who was in Houston on a state visit, commended the German musical tradition exemplified by the Boerne Village Band. German immigrants to Texas had a profound influence on the development of music in the state. Acclaimed as "the Oldest Continuously Organized German Band in the World outside Germany Itself," the Boerne Village Band was organized in 1860 by Karl Dienger to complement the Boerne Gesang Verein (singing club). The band practiced in barns during the difficult Civil War period. After the war it continued to practice and play at various events in and around Boerne. During World War I and World War II the band was less active but remained organized, and it has flourished since 1945.
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