1842 - At least thirty-two counties that were established by Texas law no longer exist. These defunct counties fall into five categories: (1) judicial counties; (2) counties established by declaration of the Constitutional Convention of 1868–69; (3) counties established by legislative act but never organized and later abolished by legislative act; (4) counties established outside the present boundaries of Texas; and (5) counties whose names have been changed. The so-called judicial counties had the same status as constitutional counties except that they were not represented in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. County seats were established; county courts were organized; county judges, surveyors, and land commissioners were appointed.
At the spring 1842 term of the Texas Supreme Court, in the case of Stockton v. Montgomery, judicial counties were declared unconstitutional, principally because the Constitution of 1836 specified that each county was entitled to at least one member in the House of Representatives. At its first session after the decision, the Republic of Texas Congress accepted the invalidity of the judicial counties but passed a law on July 18, 1842, that validated the acts of the surveyors and land commissioners of the defunct counties.The judicial counties were Burleson, Burnet, DeWitt, Guadalupe, Hamilton, La Baca, Madison, Menard, Neches, Panola, Paschal, Smith, Spring Creek, Trinity, Ward, and Waco. The Constitutional Convention of 1868–69, by declaration, attempted to organize Delta, Richland, Webster, and Latimer counties. Probably because of Texas prejudice against the radical Republican convention, the legislature never organized or legalized the counties, and three of them were never more than names.
1863 - The USS Clifton, a side-wheel steam ferryboat that saw action along the Texas coast during the Civil War. She captured the bark H. McGuin in Bay St. Louis near Gulfport, Mississippi, on July 18, 1863, and attacked Sibley's Brigade on a reconnaissance up the Atchafalaya River and Bayou Teche in Louisiana on July 28. She was captured by the Confederates at Sabine Pass, Texas, on September 8. The Clifton ran aground at Sabine Pass on March 21, 1864, while trying to run the Union blockade and was burned by the Confederates to prevent her capture.
1882 - Meyer Morris Gordon, founder of Gordon Jewelry Corporation, was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 18, 1882. His family moved to Texas in 1897 to Galveston, where Julius's cousin had settled earlier. He worked there three years and left after the Galveston hurricane of 1900. In 1916 he launched his first jewelry business as a partnership, McGaughon and Gordon, at 808 Preston Avenue in Houston. The growth accelerated; in one year in the 1970s the firm opened forty-one stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Between 1950 and 1982 it opened between 450 and 500 new stores. At one time Gordon Jewelry had 6,000 people on the payroll. At the end of the firm's fiscal year 1982, the chain operated 636 units in forty-four states and Puerto Rico; Gordon Jewelry was at that time the second largest retail jewelry chain in the world.
1902 - Esther Neveille Colson, Texas legislator, was born on July 18, 1902, in Bryan, Texas. Neveille Colson ran successfully for the Texas House of Representatives from the district her husband had served. In her tenure from 1939 to 1948 she promoted legislation to improve and fund juvenile corrections, education, and public roads, especially for rural areas. She was the first woman to get a constitutional amendment through the legislature and past a vote by Texas citizens; her bill (1946) ensured that road-use taxes would be directed specifically to the highway department for road construction.
She ran successfully for the Texas Senate in the Fifth District, comprising nine counties between Dallas and Houston, in 1948 and thus became the first female Texas representative elected to the Texas Senate. Her district encompassed more state facilities than any but the Austin area. She continued to champion the key interests of her east central Texas constituents-public roads and schools. In 1949 the legislature approved the Colson-Briscoe Act, allocating funds for statewide farm-to-market roads. With the help of federal funds this program enabled the Texas Highway Department nearly to double the number of paved rural roads in the state within two years. The Texas Highway Department completed the state's longest girder bridge near Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1954. Colson's constituents succeeded in having it named for her, in appreciation for the farm-road legislation and funding she had sponsored to move rural school transportation and mail delivery "out of the mud," as she put it.
1916 - Horace Seaver Carswell, Jr., Medal of Honor recipient, was born on July 18, 1916, in Fort Worth, Texas. In September 1934 Carswell arrived at Texas A&M, majoring in agriculture and assigned to the cavalry for his required military science course. He planned to play football but failed to make the team. Carswell transferred to Texas Christian University (TCU) after the end of his first year. At TCU, he played both football and baseball. His football teammates included TCU All-Americans Sammy Baugh and Davey O’Brien. Carswell enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps as a flying cadet at Dallas on March 26, 1940. After completing his primary flight training at the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he attended the Primary Flying School at Randolph Field near San Antonio and then the Air Corps Advanced Flying School at nearby Kelly Field. On November 16, 1940, he received his commission as a second lieutenant in the Air Corps Reserve.
Promoted to major on April 23, 1944, Carswell also departed that day for his next assignment with the 374th Bombardment Squadron, 308th Bombardment Group in Chengkung, China. Carswell joined the 374th Bomb Squadron in May 1944 and was assigned to the group headquarters staff and then as the operations officer. After three months of combat experience, Carswell was assigned as the commander of a detachment of B-24Js (radar-equipped bombers used for low-altitude missions) at Liuchow. On October 15 Carswell’s B-24 crew experienced success in a night sweep over the South China Sea when it sank two enemy warships.
On October 26 at about 5:15 PM, Carswell’s B-24J and a new crew departed for the South China Sea in sea-sweeping operation. Piloted by Carswell, the B-24 encountered a Japanese convoy consisting of twelve ships.Surprised by the attack, the Japanese failed to return fire. Carswell ordered a second bombing run after circling and leaving the area for about thirty-five minutes. From 600 feet, Carswell directed bomb drops on a tanker. Two of the three bombs dropped were direct hits. The enemy force returned fire and scored a number of key hits to the aircraft—destroying two engines and the hydraulic system, puncturing one gasoline tank, and ripping numerous holes in the bomber.
Carswell’s skills as a pilot prevented the bomber from plunging in the sea; he then directed the aircraft into a climbing direction toward the China shore. After reaching the coastline, Carswell found it difficult to maintain altitude. At 11:15 PM, he ordered eight crewmembers to bail out; two were killed after their parachutes malfunctioned. The bombardier, whose parachute was damaged, refused to jump, and the copilot remained with Carswell on the bomber. Carswell sought to control the aircraft in the hopes of reaching a base or attempting a crash landing, but the plane crashed into a mountainside. Carswell and his two comrades were killed. For his “supreme effort to save all members of his crew,” Major Carswell was recommended for the Medal of Honor.
On February 27, 1946, two-year-old Robert Ede Carswell, with his mother and Mr. and Mrs. Horace S Carswell, Sr., by his side, was presented his father’s posthumous Medal of Honor by Maj. Gen. Albert Hegenberger in a ceremony at Goodfellow Field in San Angelo. Major Carswell also received the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart. In 1948 the Fort Worth Army Air Field was renamed Carswell Air Force Base (now the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth).
1917 - Camp MacArthur, a World War I training camp named for Gen. Arthur MacArthur on July 18, 1917, was on the northwestern side of Waco. Construction began on July 20, 1917, and in September of that year 18,000 troops arrived from Michigan and Wisconsin. The campsite proper covered 1,377 acres, although the entire tract of land reserved for the camp's use encompassed 10,699 acres. Facilities at the camp included a base hospital, administrative offices, and a tent camp, supplemented by 1,284 buildings.
Troop capacity was 45,074, although the average strength of the force stationed at MacArthur during any given month did not exceed 28,000 troops. Among the units trained at the facility were the Thirty-second or Red Arrow Division, which saw combat in France in 1918. The camp was ordered salvaged on January 3, 1919, and materials from it were to be used in the construction of United States-Mexican border stations. The camp was officially closed on March 7, 1919, and the grounds became part of the city of Waco. A historical marker was placed at the former site of the camp headquarters in 1966.
1917 - CAMP BOWIE (Tarrant County). Construction of Camp Bowie began on July 18, 1917. The camp, in the Arlington Heights neighborhood about three miles west of downtown Fort Worth, was established by the United States War Department to give training to the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division. The site encompassed 2,186 acres. The camp was named for Alamo defender James Bowie. Cavalrymen of the First Texas Cavalry guarded the camp during its raising. Although classified as a tent camp, it required much construction to accommodate a division of men. The Thirty-sixth Division remained at Camp Bowie for ten months. Camp Bowie's greatest average monthly strength was recorded in October 1917 as 30,901. On April 11, 1918, the Thirty-sixth went on parade in the city for the first time. The four-hour event drew crowds estimated at 225,000, making it possibly the biggest parade in Fort Worth's history.
For about five months after the departure of the Thirty-sixth for France in July 1918, the camp functioned as an infantry replacement and training facility, with monthly population ranging from 4,164 to 10,527. A total of more than 100,000 men trained at the camp. Shortly after the Armistice on November 11, 1918, Camp Bowie was designated a demobilization center. By May 31, 1919, it had discharged 31,584 men. The heaviest traffic occurred in June, when it processed thousands of combat veterans of the Thirty-sixth and Ninetieth Texas-Oklahoma divisions. The demobilization having been concluded, Camp Bowie was closed on August 15, 1919. After the camp closed it was quickly converted to a residential area, as builders took advantage of utility hookups left by the army.
1929 - Darst Creek field was a linear-shaped oil-producing area on the Gulf Coastal Plain in eastern Guadalupe County. Its discovery was made by the Texas Company No. 1 Dallas Wilson on July 18, 1929. Its orderly development was primarily the work of Humble Oil and Refining Company (later Exxon Company, U.S.A.), Gulf Production Company, and Magnolia Petroleum Company, as well as the Texas Company (later Texaco). The original field produced from an average depth of 2,650 feet in a trap along a sealing fault in Edwards limestone of the Lower Cretaceous. On July 18, 1929, the Texas Company brought in the No. 1 Dallas Wilson with initial production of 1,000 barrels of oil per day. In the seventh decade after major companies recognized the need to preserve the reservoir by voluntary proration, the cumulative total from the original Darst Creek field combined with those of Darst Creek-Edwards field and Darst Creek-Buda field was 158,710,523 barrels of oil.
1955 - Thelma Joyce White, civil-rights plaintiff, was born January 10, 1936, in Marlin, Texas. She attended the local public schools and in May 1954 graduated as class valedictorian from Douglass High School, the city's segregated school for African Americans. Shortly after graduation White applied for admission to Texas Western College, the local branch of the University of Texas. Since the university system still maintained a policy of racial exclusion for black undergraduates, her application was rejected. In March 1955 lawyers acting in her behalf filed suit in federal court, seeking her admission to Texas Western.
Some two months later, while the case was pending, the United States Supreme Court issued a supplementary ruling confirming its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision striking down segregation in schools. Responding to White's suit and the court ruling, the University of Texas Board of Regents voted on July 8 to permit TWC to accept black students. White's attorneys, including Thurgood Marshall, refused to abandon her suit, and on July 18 Federal District Judge Robert E. Thomason issued a declaratory judgment in her behalf, permanently enjoining the UT system from denying her or any other African-American student the right to study at Texas Western.
1966 - Bobby Fuller, rock-and-roll performer, was born Robert Gaston Fuller in Goose Creek, Texas, was found dead at the wheel of his car in front of his Hollywood apartment. Though authorities ruled his death a suicide (later changed to "accidental"), many friends believed that he may have been murdered, and they pointed to obvious oversights and errors committed during the police investigation.
His career, though short-lived, influenced many of his contemporaries—both American and British—as well as future musicians who would cover his music. The Clash, for example, recorded "I Fought the Law" in 1978. Numerous reissues and compilations were released in the 1990s and into the 2000s. A tribute CD, Our Favorite Texan: Bobby Fuller Four–Ever, was released in Japan in 1999. Fuller is an inductee in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and is in the West Texas Music Hall of Fame.
