[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qys02 ]
1847 - Samuel H. Walker, Texas Ranger and Mexican War veteran, was detailed to the First Pennsylvania Volunteers, stationed at Castle San Carlos de Perote to counter Mexican guerrilla activities between Perote and Jalapa. In late 1846 or early 1847 Walker visited Samuel Colt. Colt credited Walker with proposed improvements, including a stationary trigger and guard, to the existing revolver. The new six-shooter was named the Walker Colt. In 1848 his remains were moved to San Antonio. On April 21, 1856, as part of a battle of San Jacinto celebration, he was reburied in the Odd Fellows' Cemetery in San Antonio. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fwa23 ]
1852 - J. H. S. Stanley, Houston photographer, advertised that he had "succeeded in taking pictures on glass," probably using the collodion process. He lived from 1850 to 1870 in Houston, Texas, where he made daguerreotype portraits. Though he was reported to be an amateur at the time he moved to Houston, he opened a portrait studio sometime after his arrival. A few years later his photographic work won praise in The Photographic Art-Journal and Humphrey's Journal. In November 1851 Stanley publicized his ability to take portraits and views on glass, ivory, or paper, "with duplicates to any required extent," indicating that he was experimenting with a negative-positive process at an early date. Despite his 1852 announcement, he made no mention of the glass-plate process in later advertisements.
1870 - The Kansas Daily Commonwealth made the earliest known printed reference to the Chisholm Trail, the major livestock route out of Texas. Cattle drovers followed the old Shawnee Trail by way of San Antonio, Austin, and Waco, where the trails split. The Chisholm Trail continued on to Fort Worth, then passed east of Decatur to the crossing at Red River Station. It followed the same route as modern U.S. Highway 81 from Fort Worth to Newton, Kansas. Although the Chisholm Trail was used only from 1867 to 1884, the longhorn cattle driven north along it provided a steady source of income that helped the impoverished state recover from the Civil War.
1871 - General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered Col. Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, the post commander of Fort Sill, that he personally arrested Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree in a tense confrontation on the front porch of the Fort Sill commandant. Sherman ordered that the three prisoners be returned to Fort Richardson and tried for murder in the civil courts in nearby Jacksboro. Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree were the leaders in the Warren Wagontrain Raid that left the wagonmaster and six teamsters dead. The Warren Wagontrain raid was not the most destructive of Texas Indian raids, but none held more significance for the future of the Plains Indians. It caused General Sherman to change his opinion about conditions on the Texas frontier, which signaled the end for his own defensive policy and the Quaker peace policy as well. Sherman ordered soldiers to begin offensive operations against all Indians found off the reservation, a policy which culminated in the Red River War of 1874–75 and the cessation of Indian raids in North Texas.
1909 - Major league baseball player and manager Michael Pinky Higgins is born in Red Oak.
1933 - In 1933 Tomball became a boomtown when, on May 27, drillers struck oil west of town on the property of J. F. W. Kob. On July 6, 1933, Tomball, popularly known as "Oil Town U.S.A.," was incorporated with a population of 665. With the discovery of oil, however, this figure tripled. Soon there were twenty-five to thirty oil and gas companies producing within a five-mile radius of Tomball.
1938 - The Houston Light Guards' Veterans Association conveyed their armory property located at 3816 Caroline Street to the state on May 27, 1938; it became the first state-owned armory. The armory was a social headquarters for Houston's economic, political, and social elite through at least 1910.
1941 - On this date in 1941, San Angelo Air Field was officially renamed Goodfellow Air Base (later Goodfellow Air Force Base) for Lt John James Goodfellow, Jr. World War One fighter pilot killed in combat Sept. 14, 1918
1942 - The first small-caliber ammunition was sent from The Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant on May 27, 1942. Also known as the Lone Star Ordnance Plant, is located on a 24,300-acre tract nine miles west of Texarkana, next to the Red River Army Depot. The plant was constructed at the beginning of World War II at a cost of $45.5 million and operated for the army by the Lone Star Defense Corporation, a subsidiary of the B. F. Goodrich Rubber Corporation, as an ammunition-loading plant for artillery shells, bombs, fuses, boosters, and other auxiliary ammunitions items. The contract for the plant was let on July 23, 1941. Production of aluminum nitrate was suspended in the spring of 1943, and in April of the same year the depot was consolidated with the Red River Army Ordnance Depot to form the Texarkana Ordnance Center. The plant continued to operate after the war, and in the early 1990s the base had a small number of military personnel and some 4,300 Civil Service employees.
1942 - Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Charge of the Pacific Fleet, pins the Navy Cross on Doris "Dorie" Miller, at a ceremony on board the USS Enterprise in Pearl Harbor. Miller, a cook on the USS Navy took charge of a Browning anti-aircraft machine gun and fired at the invading planes until he ran out of ammunition 15 minutes later, shooting down at least two enemy aircraft and saving countless American lives. Miller had received no prior training on the big gun. Doris Miller, known as "Dorie" to shipmates and friends, was born in Waco, Texas.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmi55 ]
1947 - Construction began on this date in 1947, on the Benbrook Reservoir in Tarrant County.
1957 – Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets, released their first single, “That’ll Be the Day” on Brunswick Records.
1959 - On this date in 1959, The Pasadena Tunnel was opened to traffic. Up til now, traffic from Houston to Pasadena on the other side of the Houston Ship Channel, had to take a ferry through ship traffic. The tunnel will alleviate long waits at the ferry crossing. The ferries from Galveston to Point Bolivar are still in operation.
1961 - Texas voters made John Tower the first Republican senator elected in the state since 1870. Tower, born in Houston in 1925, ran unsuccessfully for state representative in 1954 and served as a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1956. By 1960 he was sufficiently well known to be nominated at the state Republican convention to run against Lyndon B. Johnson for senator. Johnson easily won the election but resigned his seat when he was also elected vice president. Tower led the ensuing special election and won the runoff. In his twenty-four year Senate career, Tower influenced a variety of domestic and foreign policy issues, especially defense and banking. After Tower resigned from the Senate in 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed him chief United States negotiator at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in Geneva. Tower died, along with his daughter Marian, in a commuter plane crash in Georgia in 1991.
1965 - The Fifty-ninth Texas Legislature established the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures. The original mission involved developing and implementing a plan for the state's participation in HemisFair '68.
1997 - Central Texas was hit by multiple tornadoes that resulted in the death of 29 people.