This Day In Texas History - June 29

[joe817]

1832 -The battle of Velasco, a prelude to the Texas Revolution and probably the first case of bloodshed in the relations between Texas and Mexico, took place on June 26, 1832. Henry Smith and John Austin, in charge of Texans who had gone to Brazoria to secure a cannon for use against the Mexican forces at Anahuac, opposed Domingo de Ugartechea, commander of the Mexican fort at Velasco, who tried to prevent the passage of the vessel carrying the cannon.

The Texans numbered between 100 and 150; the number of Mexicans was variously estimated at 91 to 200. Ugartechea and his garrison were forced to surrender when their ammunition was exhausted. Sources differ about the number of casualties, but a conservative estimate suggests that Texan casualties were seven killed and fourteen wounded; three of the fourteen later died of their wounds. The Mexicans had five killed and sixteen wounded. The final surrender took place in camp at the mouth of the Brazos on June 29, 1832, in the form of a document signed by Texas representatives William H. Wharton and William J. Russell, and Mexican representatives Juan Moret and José Rincón, with final approval by Ugartechea and John Austin.

1880 - The Austin Teachers Association and the North Texas Educational Association met in Mexia. The 2 organizations merged and the Texas State Teachers Association was formed.

1852 – Fort Riley was established near Brackettville. The name was later changed to Fort Clarke.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qbf10 ]

1895 - On this date in 1895, a gang of cattle rustlers, led by Martin Mroz was lured from Juarez, Mexico onto the Rio Grande bridge at El Paso. When they reached to Texas side of the bridge, they were ambushed by three lawmen, and every member of the gang was killed. The lawmen included Duputy Marshall George W Scarborough, Texas Ranger Frank McMahon, and former El Paso police chief, Jeff Milton.

The ambush was likely the brain child of outlaw turned lawyer, John Wesley Hardin, who was having an affair with his former client's wife, Helen Beulah Mroz. Mroz was then lured onto the Juarez bridge by lawmen, friendly to Hardin. It wasn't long before Hardin himself would be killed in an El Paso bar by Constable John Selman whom Hardin had hired to kill Mroz, but since Mroz died in the shootout on the Juarez bridge before Selman could get to him, Hardin elected not to pay Selman. Bad mistake. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fha63 ]

1907 - Sculptor Elisabet Ney died in Austin. Franzisca Bernadina Wilhelmina Elisabeth Ney was born in Münster, Westphalia, in 1833. She and her husband, Edmund D. Montgomery, moved to Texas in 1872 and purchased Liendo Plantation in Waller County. After visiting Austin in the 1880s, Ney decided to resume her artistic career. During the next fifteen years she completed a number of portrait busts as well as statues of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, now in the state Capitol, and a memorial to Albert Sidney Johnston, in the State Cemetery. Copies of the Austin and Houston statues are also in the United States Capitol. In addition to her sculpting, Ney took an active role in artistic and civic activities in Austin.

1928 - The Democratic National Convention concluded in Houston. The convention, which nominated Catholic, anti-prohibition candidate Al Smith, was an important milestone in Texas politics. Brought to Houston at the instigation of civic leader Jesse Jones, the event was the first national convention held in a Southern state since the Civil War.

Women's temperance groups and the local Baptist church held all-day and all-night prayer meetings near the convention hall and insisted that God would intervene to prevent the "catastrophe" of Smith's nomination. Smith's strong anti-prohibition acceptance speech on June 29 further alienated many Democrats who eventually joined forces with Republicans to elect Herbert Hoover in November 1928. In Texas the massive defection of Democrats was attributed both to Smith's antiprohibition views and his Catholicism. The state gave Hoover a majority, the first time in history that a Republican presidential candidate had carried Texas.

1944 - Gary Busey, star of "The Buddy Holly Story", was born in Goose Creek, Texas. Raised in Oklahoma, Busey also co-starred with such greats as Willie Nelson (Barbarosa), Kris Kristoferson (A Star is Born), and Clint Eastwood (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot).

1949 - The residents of Dalworthington Gardens petitioned to have their community incorporated as a town. Dalworthington Gardens, one of the most unusual communities in Texas, is about twelve miles southeast of Fort Worth. It was established during the Great Depression as a subsistence homestead project under the authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act. The homestead program, administered by the Department of the Interior, was intended to help families through a combination of part-time industrial employment and subsistence agriculture.

The idea was to locate homestead projects near large industrial centers where city workers could live, grow gardens, and raise farm animals to supplement their regular food supplies. Dalworthington Gardens (the name is an admixture of the names of the three interested cities, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington) was one of five such projects located in Texas and the only one still in existence today. [ today, the city of Arlington surrounds it ]