This Day In Texas History - September 3

[joe817]

1558 - Guido de Lavazares, the first European known to have made formal claim to Texas soil, was a native of Seville who came to New Spain in the 1530s. A mariner of some note, he served as comptroller of the 1542 voyage of Ruy López de Villalobos from Mexico to the Far East. After returning to New Spain, he accumulated considerable wealth. From Veracruz he shipped eighty-two marks of silver for Spain on the ship Santa María de Yciar, one of three vessels wrecked on Padre Island by storm in April 1554. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fla85 ]

1746 - The Spanish province of Nuevo Santander, comprising the present Mexican state of Tamaulipas and part of trans-Nueces Texas, was founded by José de Escandón and named for his native province in Spain. Designated a province by viceregal order of September 3, 1746, the region was explored the following year by units converging from Texas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León, as well as those from Querétaro under Escandón's personal leadership.

The original plan of conquest put forth by the Marqués de Altamira, auditor de guerra of the New Spain viceroyalty, called for colonizing both sides of the Rio Grande. The San Antonio River was to be the northern boundary. La Bahía Presidio and Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga Mission were to be moved from the Guadalupe River to Santa Dorotea (the site of present-day Goliad) to serve as the colony's northern anchor. To link Nuevo Santander with the Province of Texas, two civilian settlements were planned: Villa de Balmaceda on the San Antonio and Villa de Vedoya near the mouth of the Nueces River. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/usnue ]

1836 - John Walker Baylor developed a fever and died on September 3, 1836, in Cahaba, Alabama, an unreported casualty of the battle of San Jacinto. He was possibly the only Texan to fight in every major battle of the Texas Revolution. After the attack on the Alamo began, Baylor was one of four or five couriers sent by William B. Travis to La Bahía to urge Fannin to come to his aid. His brothers George W., Henry W., and John R. Baylor became prominent as Texas Rangers, soldiers, and Indian fighters. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbacn

1888 - The Kansas City, El Paso and Mexican Railway Company of Texas was chartered on June 27, 1888, by a group of El Paso businessmen.T he company planned to build from Tenth Street in south El Paso to the Texas and New Mexico boundary where it was to connect with an affiliated company to complete a 160-mile-line to the coal fields near White Oaks, New Mexico. Construction began on September 3, 1888. To mark the completion of the initial 8.19 miles, which placed the tracks of the company at the foot of the Franklin Mountains just below South Franklin Peak, company officials arranged for two promotional excursions for El Paso residents.

1895 - William Carrol Crawford, the last surviving signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, died on September 3, 1895, while he was visiting his son in Erath County. Crawford and Sydney O. Penington represented Shelby County at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and there signed the Declaration of Independence. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fcr13 ]

1897 - Thomas Edward (Black Jack) and Samuel W. Ketchum were members of a gang of outlaws that terrorized Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas in the 1890s. Tom left Texas about 1890, possibly because of a murder or a train robbery, and went to work for cow outfits in the Pecos Valley of New Mexico.

By 1894 Sam had joined him, and the brothers began a career of crime, including killing a merchant near Carrizo, robbing post offices, and holding up stages, trains, and a railroad station. On September 3, 1897, they held up the Colorado Southern passenger train near Folsom.A posse caught up with them; Sam was wounded and captured and died two weeks later in the penitentiary at Santa Fe.

Two peace officers and another of the robbers were killed in the battle. Not knowing of the outcome of Sam's last attempt, Black Jack determined to make one more raid and tried, singlehanded, to hold up the Colorado Southern, again near Folsom, on August 16, 1899. Wounded by the conductor, he was picked up beside the tracks next day. On October 5, 1900, he was sentenced to hang. The sentence was carried out at Clayton on April 26, 1901. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fke38 ]

1916 - Jazz trumpeter Clyde Lanham Hurley, Jr., was born in Fort Worth on September 3, 1916. Influenced by early Louis Armstrong recordings, Hurley switched from piano to trumpet and worked with local bands. He attended Texas Christian University in Fort Worth from 1932 to 1936 (playing for all four years in the school jazz band) and joined the Ben Pollack Orchestra in 1937 when it was touring Texas.

He moved to California with the band and in the spring of 1939 joined the Glenn Miller Orchestra. With Miller, Hurley was recorded playing perhaps the orchestra's most famous solo, the one for trumpet on Miller's "In the Mood." Hurley also took other fine solos, including appearances on Miller recordings of "Stardust," "Glen Island Special" (a tune written by Texan Eddie Durham), and "Rug Cutter's Swing," as well as on "One O'Clock Jump," recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1939.

In 1940 Hurley left Miller to join the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and the next year he signed on with the Artie Shaw Orchestra. During the rest of the 1940s he worked in Hollywood. He worked in the NBC television studios in the 1950s and later freelanced for various television, film, record, and radio companies. He was seen in many films, including The Five Pennies (1959) and The Gene Krupa Story (1959).Hurley died in Fort Worth on August 14, 1963.

1922 - Bessie Coleman (Brave Bessie or Queen Bess), the world's first licensed black female pilot, daughter of Susan Coleman, was born in Atlanta, Texas.in 1920 Coleman, acting on a lifelong dream of learning to fly, traveled abroad to attend aviation school in Le Crotoy, France, after she discovered that no American school would accept African Americans.

After studying for ten months in France she was issued a license on June 15, 1921, by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, giving her the distinction of being the first black person in the world to become a licensed pilot. Coleman's first American air show was at Curtiss Field, near Manhattan, on September 3, 1922. She followed the success of this show with exhibition flights all over the country, many of them in her native South. After several years of touring the East and West coasts, she traveled back to Texas and established her headquarters in Houston in 1925.

Her first performance in Texas took place in that city on June 19, 1925. Her daredevil stunts and hair-raising maneuvers earned her the nickname "Brave Bessie." She primarily flew Curtiss JN-4D planes and army surplus aircraft left over from the war. On April 30, 1926, she died during a test flight before a show sponsored by the Negro Welfare League in Jacksonville, Florida.

In 1977 a group of black female student pilots in Indiana organized the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club. In 1990 a street in Chicago was renamed Bessie Coleman Drive, and May 2, 1992, was declared Bessie Coleman Day in Chicago. In 1995 the United States Postal Service issued a thirty-two-cent commemorative stamp in her honor. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fcobq ]

1934 - Freddie King, blues musician, was born in Gilmer, Texas, on September 3, 1934. He signed with Cotillion in 1968 and recorded two albums, Freddie King is a Blues Master and My Feeling for the Blues. That same year he toured England. In 1969 he was one of the headlining acts at the Texas International Pop Festival. Like many blues artists in the late 1960s and early 1970s, King had close ties to rock-and-roll.

Musicians such as Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck recorded his songs, and King toured with Clapton in the mid-1970s. In 1971 he recorded the first major live album ever made in Austin at Armadillo World Headquarters, known sometimes as "the House That Freddie King Built." He regularly played at the club and returned periodically for fund-raisers. His recordings with Shelter Records brought him recognition throughout the state as a "top notch Texas bluesman."

1958 - San Angelo Field was designated as a site for United States Army Air Corps pilot training on June 21, 1940. The base, located in Tom Green County two miles southwest of San Angelo, opened in August 1940 as the home of the San Angelo Air Corps Basic Flying Training School. On May 27, 1941, the facility was renamed Goodfellow Field in honor of a former San Angelo resident and native of Fort Worth, John J. Goodfellow, Jr., who was killed while serving with the Twenty-fourth Aero Squadron in France during World War I.

The first class of aviation cadets arrived for basic flight training in BT-13 aircraft in January 1941. Members of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots began duty in June 1943. In September 1945 the mission was changed to primary flight training. The base was deactivated in May 1947.

Goodfellow Field was reopened in December 1947 as Goodfellow Air Force Base, a basic pilot-training school of the newly independent United States Air Force. The flight-training mission at San Angelo came to an end on September 3, 1958, with the graduation of the last pilot class. Almost 20,000 officers and cadets had been trained at the Texas base.[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qbg01 ]