This Day In Texas History - August 5

[joe817]

1838 - Samuel D. Parr arrived at Point Bolivar and claimed a league of land there, thus becoming the first permanent settler in the area. Point Bolivar is at the western tip of Bolivar Peninsula, across from the eastern end of Galveston Island.

1840 - Near Hallettsville, a large band of Comanches begin killing and looting across Central Texas. Texas Rangers and a volunteer army defeated the Comanches on August 11 at Plum Creek near Lockhart. The Comanches attacks were in retaliation for the Council House Fight on March 19, 1840.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/btp04 ]

1848 - Before a central state penitentiary was established in Texas, local jails housed convicted felons. The Congress of the Republic of Texas defeated bills for a penal institution in both 1840 and 1842; in May 1846 the First Legislature of the new state passed a penitentiary act, but the Mexican War prevented implementation of the law. On March 13, 1848, the legislature passed the act that began the Texas penitentiary.

The law authorized gubernatorial appointment of three commissioners to locate a site and choose a superintendent and three directors to manage the institution. After the commissioners selected Huntsville, in Walker County, for the site, construction began on August 5, 1848, and continued for several years. Abner H. Cook supervised the construction and was the first superintendent of the prison. On October 1, 1849, the first prisoner, a convicted horse thief from Fayette County, entered the partially completed Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jjp03 ]

1870 - The International Railroad was chartered to build from the Red River near Fulton, Arkansas, to Laredo by way of Austin, TX. At Fulton the International planned to connect with a railroad building south from St. Louis.The charter was the most liberal ever granted by the Texas legislature. In 1870 grants of state land in aid of railroad construction were prohibited by the Constitution of 1869, and the charter granted to this road, at a rate of $10,000 a mile, bonds of the state to run for thirty years and to bear interest at 8 percent.

Work on the International Railroad began in December 1870 at Hearne, and by December 1871 the railroad had completed fifty miles. Palestine was reached on July 11, 1872, and Longview on January 31, 1873, giving the company 177 miles of main track. The International was consolidated with the Houston and Great Northern Railroad Company on September 30, 1873, to form the International and Great Northern Railroad Company.

1870 - Albert Samuel Roberts was born in Madison County, Virginia. He moved to Texas with his family in 1858 and settled in Webberville. On August 5, 1870, Roberts was commissioned a lieutenant in the Texas National Guard. In that capacity he was in command of the Austin Company of the Travis Rifles. This unit took over the Capitol in 1874 to prevent trouble with carpetbaggers at the inauguration of Governor Richard Coke and remained on guard to prevent any interference with the meeting of the legislature.

1873 - James R. Moss and a band of seven men fought the last "Indian fight" in Llano County, an area notorious for raids by Native Americans. Days before, a group of about 20 American Indians, most likely Apaches, had traveled along the South Llano River, stealing horses and raiding. On Aug. 4, Moss, his two brothers and five other men took to the trail, tracking the Indians. The group followed the Indians for 25 miles, overtaking them at the top of Packsaddle Mountain, where they had laid out 300-400 pounds of beef to cure on the rocks. Moss attacked, killing three Indians. Four of his band were wounded. The Packsaddle Mountain Fight ended nearly a decade of raids on Llano County. A granite plaque placed at the site on the one-year anniversary in 1938 commemorates the skirmish.[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/btp01 ]

1917 - The Simms-Sinclair No. 11 Sweet gushes in and becomes Goose Creek Oil Field's greatest producer.

1924 - In a memo dated August 5, 1924, to his father Edward Musgrove (Ted) Dealey(Publisher of the Dallas Morning News & board member of the Belo Corporation) insisted that the paper endorse Miriam A. Ferguson against the 1924 Ku Klux Klan gubernatorial candidate.

1940 - Frederick Albert Cook, physician, polar explorer, and infamous oil promoter, died in New Rochelle, New York. In 1918 Cook went to work as a geologist in the Texas oilfields, and in 1922 he organized the Petroleum Producers Association at Fort Worth. After investigating widespread charges of fraud committed by the PPA, a Fort Worth grand jury indicted 400 people, including Cook, who was convicted, sentenced to fourteen years and nine months in prison, and assessed a fine of $12,000. He was paroled from Leavenworth in 1930 and pardoned by President Roosevelt in 1940 as an act of mercy for a dying man.

1961 - The amusement park Six Flags Over Texas opened in Arlington. Celebrating Texas history, it was one of the first theme entertainment centers in the United States. The narrow gage steam railroad is still in operation.

[ELB]

I'm confused by this:

1873 - James R. Moss and a band of seven men fought the last "Indian fight" in Llano County,...

...A granite plaque placed at the site on the one-year anniversary in 1938 commemorates the skirmish.

How was it the "one year anniversary" if the plaque was placed in 1938 but the battle was in 1873? That would be...{fingers, toes} 65th anniversary maybe?


The link to the Texas Handbook sez:

Two markers commemorate the fight: a granite plaque placed at the battle site on August 5, 1938, by descendants of the participants, and a roadside marker ten miles from Llano, placed by the Llano County Historical Committee during the Texas Centennial activities of 1936.

[joe817]

Good catch ELB. I have no idea how that '1 year anniversary got there.