1840 - The San Jacinto, a schooner of war originally known as the Viper, was built by the Baltimore firm of Schott and Whitney, was commissioned into the Texas Navy of the Republic of Texas on June 27, 1839. The ship carried a complement of thirteen officers and sixty-nine sailors and marines and was armed with four twelve-pound medium and one nine-pound long brass pivot cannon. On June 26, 1840, the San Jacinto sailed from its home port of Galveston for Point María Andréa, thirty-five miles north of Veracruz, with instructions to blockade the Mexican port and seize enemy ships.
On August 20 the San Jacinto rejoined Commodore Edwin W. Moore's fleet and remained with Moore until being detached to Galveston with dispatches for the government. In search of drinking water, the San Jacinto called at Arcas Island. Soon a violent norther appeared, but Lt. O'Shaunessy nevertheless went ashore, leaving Lt. Alfred G. Gray as senior officer on board. When the ship's anchor failed to hold, Gray displayed great ingenuity and seamanship in an attempt to save it, but even a piece of the ship's artillery used as an additional anchor could not save the San Jacinto from being swept ashore by gale winds. It finally ran aground and broke up on Arcas Island on October 31, 1840.. All hands and stores were saved.
1917 - The first Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Texas was instituted on June 26, 1917, in San Antonio. It was known as Fort Sam Houston Post No. 76 and was organized by Arthur W. Pigott, "father of the VFW in Texas." The permanent headquarters of the department has been in Austin since August 1946. In 1974 the Department of Texas consisted of twenty-eight districts with 421 active posts. Each district elected a commander, who, with other elected and appointed statewide officers, made up a council of administration which governed the finances and assets of the Department of Texas. A state convention was held each year at a designated city, and department officers were elected at that time; a midyear meeting was convened for the purpose of midyear reports. By 1993 the membership of the VFW in Texas had grown to approximately 121,000 in 535 posts, making it the largest veterans' organization in the state.
1918 - William Ruthven Smith received his second star on June 26, 1918, and assumed command of the Thirty-sixth Division at New York. At Bar-sur-Aube, France, he put the division through a rigorous precombat training course. Early in October 1918 the Thirty-sixth joined the Second Division at the front, after the Second had suffered severe casualties, and the two divisions spearheaded the French drive in Champagne. The Thirty-sixth drove the Germans from St. Étienne to the Aisne River. On October 27, in one of the most brilliant operations of the war, the Thirty-sixth dislodged the Germans from their position at Forest Farm.
Smith's leadership won him four decorations, as well as the esteem of his troops and the people of Texas and Oklahoma. After the armistice Smith led the Thirty-sixth to the Tonnerre area to await transportation home. To his credit, troop morale continued relatively high. His association with the Thirty-sixth ended at the Camp Bowie (Tarrant County),Texas, demobilization center in June 1919. Smith remained in the service in his permanent rank of colonel and eventually became a major general again. His postwar assignments took him to the Philippines, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, Fort Monroe, and Honolulu. He was superintendent of West Point from 1928 until his retirement from the army in 1932. Afterward he served as superintendent of Sewanee Military Academy in Tennessee until his death, on July 15, 1941.
1922 - WFAA, a "Radio Service of the Dallas Morning News," began broadcasting on June 26, 1922. WFAA in Dallas, operating on 150 watts, held many firsts in radio broadcasting in Texas. It was the first to carry programs designed to educate; first to produce a serious radio drama series, one titled Dramatic Moments in Texas History and sponsored by the Magnolia Petroleum Company; first to air a state championship football game; first to join a national network (1927); and first to air inaugural ceremonies, those of Governor Ross Sterling in 1931. The parent company, A. H. Belo Corporation sold the last of its radio properties in 1987, and WFAA radio ceased to exist.
1928 - The Democratic National Convention opened on June 26, 1928. In the winter of 1927 Jesse H. Jones traveled to Washington, D.C., with a certified check for $200,000 to enter Houston's bid for the Democratic National Convention to be held the following summer. In what is generally recognized as a conciliatory move, the national committee accepted the city's offer. Even then the nomination of Al Smith-the Catholic, Tammany Hall-backed New York governor who aggressively opposed prohibition-seemed likely, and national party officials in the East felt the need to appease the Protestant, prohibitionist South, which had not hosted a national convention since the Civil War. Al Smith remained in Albany but faced little competition from other candidates.
At the first roll call, Smith received 724 2/3 votes, ten short of the number (two-thirds of the total) required for nomination. Ohio then switched its votes to Smith, and other states followed suit. Texas, the notable exception, cast its forty votes for Jones. Former Texas governor Oscar B. Colquitt publicly argued that Smith sought to nullify a provision of the Constitution only because it "happened to be out of harmony with his personal opinions," and that "to nullify this part of the organic law will bring contempt for other parts of it." Although 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.
The most heated controversy centered around prohibition and its enforcement. Texas governor Daniel J. Moody, Jr., was expected to pursue a floor fight for a "bone-dry" plank on prohibition. The convention ended on June 29. During the final moments a telegram from Smith accepting the nomination was read to the delegates. Many of the dry delegates were stunned by the party's stand on prohibition and immediately questioned the appropriateness of their candidate. The nominee's message read, "It is well-known that I believe there should be fundamental changes in the present provisions for national prohibition. . . . I feel it to be the duty of the chosen leader of the people to point the way which, in his opinion, leads us to a sane, sensible solution of a condition which, I am convinced, is entirely unsatisfactory to the great mass of our people."
The candidate's remarks prompted many anti-Smith Democrats eventually to join forces with Republicans and 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. The election had severely divided the Democrats and left them facing a struggle for control as the 1930s began.[This is much longer than I would have liked, but this is really interesting.]
1941 - Reese Air Force Base was a center for undergraduate pilot training for the United States Air Force fourteen miles west of Lubbock. The history of the base dates to June 26, 1941, when the War Department announced that a flying installation would be built on 2,000 acres that had been offered by the city of Lubbock. The base was probably originally named Lubbock Army Air Corps Advanced Flying School. The first class of students, Class 42-E, arrived in February 1942. Two name changes followed: first to Lubbock Army Flying School, on February 6, 1943, and then to Lubbock Army Airfield, on April 26, 1943.
Aircraft flown from the base during World War II included the T-6 Texan, the AT-17 Bobcat, and the AT-9 Jeep. The base was closed on December 31, 1945, after graduating more than 7,000 pilots. Some barracks were converted to veterans' housing, and the National Guard, Air Reserve, and Naval Reserve units took over other buildings. The base was reactivated on October 5, 1949, as a multiengine pilot-training base. The installation was called Lubbock Air Force Base until November 5, 1949, when it was renamed Reese Air Force Base in honor of 1st Lt. Augustus F. Reese, Jr., a native of nearby Shallowater, who was killed in action during World War II.
1942 - Majors Field was a flight-training command center for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. The site, in a wooded area six miles southeast of Greenville, Hunt County, was one of 149 areas inspected and approved by Civil Aeronautics Administration engineers in late 1941 as a training center for army pilots. They chose Greenville partly because the local Rotary Club had prepared the year before to finance a municipal airport, and partly because of the political influence of Sam (Samuel Taliaferro) Rayburn, a graduate of nearby East Texas State University. The field opened on June 26, 1942, and was named in memory of Lt. Truett Majors, the first Hunt County native to die in the war. Majors Field, located on a 2,000-acre site, was the home of up to 5,000 pilots, support personnel, and civilian employees, under the command of Col. Herbert M. Newstrom. In addition to training United States Army pilots, the field was the training site for the Mexican 201st Air Squadron, the only Mexican force that saw action overseas. The training center was closed soon after the defeat of Germany; by July 1945 it was all but deserted.
