Texas Troubles
Newspapers around the country called it “the Texas Troubles” in 1860 when rumors—fanned by letters to Texas newspapers written by Charles R. Pryor, editor of the Dallas Herald—claimed that a mysterious fire on Sunday, July 8 that burned the newspaper office and all the buildings on the Dallas town square except the brick courthouse, was […]
Orphan Trains
A 1910 Victorian dollhouse is on display at the Heritage Village in Seguin. It belonged originally to five-year-old Alice O’Brien who arrived in Texas on an orphan train from New York City. She lived only nine months with her new family before the mother died and German immigrants Louis Dietz and his sister, Miss Mollie, […]
La Reunion, Dallas Commune
On June 16, 1855, residents of the area around the village of Dallas (population 400) declared a holiday in anticipation of greeting about 200 very foreign-looking immigrants from France, Belgium, and Switzerland. The newcomers, who spoke French and wore odd-looking clothing and sabots (wooden shoes) arrived after a twenty-six-day trip from Houston—some walking, others on […]
Don Martin De Leon, Empresario
Soon after winning independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico began issuing empresarial grants, contracts allowing men to bring settlers into Mexico’s northernmost state of Texas. Ironically, of approximately thirty empresarial grants issued between 1821 and 1832, only one went to a Mexican. Don Martín De León and his wife Doña Patricia De León were wealthy […]
Ladies Fought the Second Battle of the Alamo
The second battle of the Alamo began in the early 20th century as a disagreement between two powerful women over the proper way to preserve the Alamo, which had been allowed after the famous battle in 1836 and the slaughter of the men who fought there, to fall into an embarrassing state of neglect and […]
Lost Mission of San Saba
The Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission, built in 1757, is the only Spanish mission in Texas destroyed by Indians. So thoroughly was the destruction that it took another 235 years for archeologists to finally confirm the site on the banks of the San Sabá River about 120 miles northwest of San Antonio. Construction of […]
LAST BATTLE OF THE CIVIL WAR FOUGHT IN TEXAS?
Official Civil War records claim the battle at Columbus, Georgia, on April 16, 1865, was the last fight of the war and that the Battle of Palmito Ranch along the lower Rio Grande was a “post-Civil War encounter” because it occurred more than a month after General Robert E. Lee’s surrendered on April 9th. The […]
Lucy Kidd-Key, Tough Victorian Lady
Born into an old southern family in Kentucky in 1839 and given a genteel education in the classics and fine arts, the barely five-foot-tall Lucy Ann Thornton was a bundle of contradictions—a lady ahead of her time who believed women should be educated, also touted the need for women to hold home and family above […]
The Texas Navy
The Republic of Texas existed from March 2, 1836 until February 19, 1846 and during most of that time it boasted its own navy with a history as colorful as its government. As Texas settlers, unhappy with the Mexican government, prepared to go to war for independence from Mexico, officials of the interim government realized […]
Lance Rosier, “Mr. Big Thicket”
A Texas historical marker on FM 770, a few miles east of Saratoga in deep East Texas credits Lancelot “Lance” Rosier with being one of the individuals responsible for the creation of the Big Thicket National Preserve, a sprawling wonderland of biodiversity so unique that UNESCO designated the region as a Biosphere Reserve in 1981. […]