This Day In Texas History - June 24

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1699 - San Juan Bautista Mission was founded on St. John's Day, June 24, 1699, on the Río de Sabinas, some twenty-five miles north of Lampazos, Nuevo León, Mexico, with 150 Indians of various Coahuiltecan bands. It lasted only a few months at this site, then was reestablished on January 1, 1700, at the site of present-day Guerrero, Coahuila, thirty-five miles down the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras. The new site, five miles from the Rio Grande, was strategically located near a series of crossings providing access to Texas. From 1700 to 1716 the San Juan Bautista settlement was the most advanced on New Spain's northeastern frontier. As such it served as a base for exploration beyond the Rio Grande. In every respect San Juan Bautista was the mother of the Texas missions.
In 1716 it launched an entrada in the charge of Domingo Ramón—who later commanded the first Texas presidio—to reestablish the East Texas missions abandoned in 1693, and followed up with supply expeditions. Governor Martín de Alarcón launched his founding expedition to San Antonio from San Juan in 1718, after spending the winter there. At that time Father Olivares moved San Francisco Solano to the San Antonio site, where it became Mission San Antonio de Valero, later known as the Alamo. Soldiers of Presidio de San Juan Bautista provided escorts for travelers and supply trains to Texas, joined Indian campaigns, and played a vital role in exploration. In 1731 they escorted the Canary Islanders on the last leg of their journey to San Antonio. A historical study published in 1968 awakened interest in Guerrero, and it became the focus of architectural, archeological, and ethnographical investigations funded by the Mexican government and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The San Juan Bautista site was partially excavated, and the San Bernardo ruins were stabilized.

1813 - John Sutherland Menefee, merchant, soldier, and public official, was born in Anderson County, Tennessee, on June 24, 1813. In 1830 the family moved to Jackson County, Texas. Menefee was elected captain of a militia squad and participated in the battle of Sandy Creek against local Indians in the summer of 1832. In 1835 he opened a mercantile business in Texana in partnership with Robert Mills and George Sutherland. Menefee joined the Texas army on February 29, 1836, and fought at San Jacinto as a private in Moseley Baker's company. He was honorably discharged from service on May 31, 1836, and was thereafter an active member in the Texas Veterans Association. In 1842 he once again joined the army and became captain in a company commanded by Clark L. Owen, when the incursion of Mexican general Adrián Woll threatened a renewal of hostilities. Menefee died in Jackson County on November 4, 1884, and is buried in the family cemetery on the Navidad River near Edna. In 1936 the Texas Centennial Commission erected a monument at his grave, and he is also cited as an early pioneer settler on the Jackson County marker on the courthouse grounds in Edna.

1851 - Fort Belknap, a United States Army post three miles south of Newcastle in Young County, was founded on June 24, 1851, at the site of present Newcastle by Bvt. Brig. Gen. William G. Belknap. After the commanding officer, Capt. C. L. Stephenson, Fifth Infantry, found no water in shafts dug sixty-six feet deep at the location of the water tower now in Newcastle, he moved the fort two miles south, where adequate water was found in springs by the Brazos River. The present well was dug in 1857 under the direction of Capt. Gabriel R. Paul of the Seventh Infantry. The first buildings were jacals. Some were later replaced with stone. Fort Belknap was the northern anchor of a chain of forts founded to protect the Texas frontier from the Red River to the Rio Grande. It was a post without defensive works. From it troops pursued raiding bands of Indians, and on occasion mounted expeditions from the fort carried the war to the enemy on the plains as far north as Kansas. The fort gave confidence to citizens, who came in such numbers that surrounding counties were organized. Fort Belknap became the hub of a network of roads stretching in every direction; the most notable of these was the Butterfield Overland Mail route from St. Louis to San Francisco.
In early 1861, believing that war was imminent, Gen. David E. Twiggs ordered Col. William H. Emory to gather all federal troops and move them north to Fort Leavenworth. On February 9, 1861, General Twiggs, in San Antonio, surrendered all United States forts and military equipment in Texas. Although it was abandoned before the Civil War, the fort was occupied from time to time by state troops of the Frontier Regiment under Col. James M. Norris. Major Starr, with troops of the Sixth United States Cavalry, reoccupied Fort Belknap on April 28, 1867. When Fort Griffin was founded in Shackelford County, Fort Belknap was abandoned for the last time, in September of 1867.
Fort Belknap was a four-company post. Among the companies stationed there during its existence were some from the Fifth United States Infantry, the Second United States Dragoons, the Seventh United States Infantry, the Second United States Cavalry, and the Sixth United States Cavalry.

1880 - William John Marsh, musician and teacher, was born on June 24, 1880, in Woolton, Liverpool, England. He moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1904 and worked in the cotton business. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1917. Marsh was professor of organ, composition, and theory at Texas Christian University. During his career as composer, teacher, and performer, Marsh published more than 100 works, mainly classical and sacred. He composed "O Night Divine," a Christmas song; The Flower Fair at Peking (1931), a one-act opera, reputedly the first opera to be composed and produced in Texas; the official Mass for the Texas Centennial, which was performed in Dallas with several thousand singers; and the state song, "Texas Our Texas" (1924), which John Philip Sousa once described as the finest state song he had ever heard. He died in Fort Worth on February 1, 1971, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. In 1985 a Texas Historical Marker was erected in his honor near the gravesite.

1892 - The North Galveston, Houston and Kansas City Railroad Company was chartered on June 24, 1892. The railroad was planned to connect the Gulf Coast with Kansas City. In 1893 the railroad built sixteen miles of track between Virginia Point and North Galveston. That year the railroad also went into receivership and was sold to Isaac Heffron on May 17, 1894. Heffron resold the line to some of the original stockholders on that same day. On January 30, 1895, the line became part of the Galveston, La Porte and Houston Railway Company.

1896 - Hampson Boren Gary, soldier, public servant, and diplomat, was born in Tyler, Texas, on April 23, 1873. After graduation from the University of Virginia (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1894, he practiced law in Tyler. He was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Fifth Infantry on June 24, 1896, and later organized the Smith County Rifles. During the Spanish-American War he was captain of Company K, Fourth Texas Volunteer Infantry Regiment. After the war he served in the Texas National Guard as colonel of the Third Texas Infantry Regiment. Gary was a member of the Texas House of Representatives, 1900–01, and the board of regents of the University of Texas.

1903 - The Wichita Falls and Oklahoma Railway Company was chartered on October 23, 1903, to build a road twenty miles from Wichita Falls to a point in the northwest corner of Clay County on the south bank of the Red River, near the mouth of Cache Creek. The Wichita Falls and Oklahoma was the first of a group of feeders that the Colorado and Southern built for the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway. Twenty-two miles of track was built from Wichita Falls to Byers, Texas, and placed in service on June 24, 1904. The entire line was abandoned on October 19, 1942, and the track removed the following year.