Immigrant Creates a Food Tradition
In 1892 when Adelaida and Macario Cuellar left their impoverished home in Mexico, crossed the Rio Grande, and were married in Laredo, they had dreams of working hard and finding success. They did not imagine that their family would eventually head a multi-million dollar food business. The Cuellars spoke very little English and worked on […]
Women Pilots of WWII Trained in Texas
When the United States entered World War II, the top brass, including General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF), had doubts about women’s ability to pilot large aircraft. In the summer of 1941 even before the United States entered the war, two famous women aviators Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran and […]
The Royal Air Force Trains in Texas
In March 1941 the United States and Great Britain established a secret operation to train Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots in six civilian U.S. aviation schools. The plan was instituted in order to locate the RAF pilots out of danger of constant aerial attacks during their training and the scheme remained a secret because of […]
Gainesville Community Circus
In 1930, when the Gainesville Little Theatre discovered a $300 deficit, the theatre board decided to solve the financial problem by organizing a burlesque circus using local residents as performers. The editor of the Gainesville Register was an authority on circuses, townspeople visited professional shows for inspiration and ideas, and every member of the show […]
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 […]
Scott Joplin, King of Ragtime
By the time he was seven, Scott Joplin was proficient on the banjo and had started experimenting with the piano at the house where his mother worked as a cleaner. Born about 1867 into a musical family—Joplin’s father, a former slave, played the violin for plantation parties and his mother, a freeborn African-American, sang and […]
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 […]