This Day In Texas History - July 17

[joe817]

1797 - Philip Nolan receives a passport to go to Mexican Texas.

1821 - Spain ceded Florida to the United States. In exchange, the United States dropped all claims to the areas now located in Texas. When the United States purchased Louisiana from France, the western boundary of French territory was uncertain, extending perhaps as far as the Rio Grande River. It was the French Explorer LaSalle that explored the Mississippi River and much of Texas. Just days later, Spanish rule in Texas ended as Mexico secured its independence (July 21, 1821).

1835 - On this day in 1835, at the Lavaca-Navidad Meeting, an assembly of Jackson Municipality colonists gathered to discuss the growing list of grievances against the Mexican government of Antonio López de Santa Anna. The group met at William Millican's gin house, located on the Job Williams league some four miles northeast of Edna in Jackson County. The resolutions discussed, written, and ratified at the meeting in many ways anticipated the Texas Declaration of Independence, issued the following March. In 1936 the state of Texas erected a marker on the site of Millican's gin. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mjl01 ]

1865 - Greenville S. Dowell, a Virginia native born in 1822, and a group of local physicians formed the Galveston Medical Society. A few months later, in November, the trustees of Soule University organized Galveston Medical College, the first medical school in Texas.

1938 - On this date in 1938, Galveston born Douglas Corrigan lifted his plane off from an airport in New York, bound for California according to the flight plan he filed. Instead, he landed the next day in Ireland, giving him the title "Wrongway Corrigan".

1941 - Midland Army Air Field was a World War II United States Army Air Forces bombardier-training base on U.S. Highway 80 halfway between Midland and Odessa in Midland County. It was originally named Sloan Field for Samuel A. Sloan, who leased 240 acres of pastureland in October 1927 to establish a privately owned landing field and flying school. Sloan Field was designated an Army Airways Station in May 1930. In July 1939 the field was sold to the city of Midland. Using both WPA and municipal funds, runways were improved and landing lights were installed in 1940. After the outbreak of war in Europe and the fall of France in 1940, local officials successfully campaigned to have the field made a training base for the expanding army flying-training program. On July 1, 1941, the municipal airport was leased to the United States government for a dollar a year, and construction began on July 17. Midland Army Flying School, popularly called the "Bombardier College," was initially designated an Air Corps Advanced Twin Engine and Bombardier Training Center as part of the Gulf Coast Training Command.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qbm02 ]

1945 - On this day in 1945, Clara Driscoll died in Corpus Christi. She was born in 1881 in St. Mary's, Texas. After almost a decade of study and travel abroad, she returned to Texas at the age of eighteen. From 1903 to 1905 she worked with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to acquire and preserve the Alamo by personally paying most of the purchase price. In 1906 she married Hal Sevier in New York City; in 1914 they moved to Austin, where he founded the Austin American and she directed construction of Laguna Gloria, a fine Italianate mansion located on the Colorado River. When the marriage was dissolved in 1937, Clara legally resumed her maiden name. During the next decade much of her time, energy, and money were devoted to historic preservation and civic betterment. In 1943 she presented Laguna Gloria to the Texas Fine Arts Association to be used as a museum.