Enjoy these Texas history excerpts from the Texas State Historical Association.
https://www.tshaonline.org/home
1/25/1919: Death of “Cattle King” touches off family financial scandal
On this day in 1919, rancher C. C. (Lum) Slaughter died, precipitating a tangled family financial scandal. Born in 1837 in Sabine County, Lum Slaughter claimed to be the first male child born of a marriage contracted under the Republic of Texas. About 1877 he established one of the largest ranches in West Texas, the Long S, on the headwaters of the Colorado River, and around 1898 he bought almost 250,000 acres in Cochran and Hockley counties and established the Lazy S Ranch. Frequently titled the “Cattle King of Texas,” Slaughter became one of the country’s largest individual owners of cattle and land (over a million acres and 40,000 cattle by 1906) and was for years the largest individual taxpayer in Texas. Less than a week after his death, however, his younger brother, Bill, with whom he had had a long and strained financial relationship but who managed the Long S, was accused of fraud. Bill had attempted to sell his nephew Bob Slaughter’s new Western S Ranch on the Rio Grande in Hudspeth County to an “unknown company” from Mexico. Learning of the fraudulent negotiations, Bob, backed by his brothers, confronted and fired his uncle. Although he later filed a $3 million slander suit against his nephews, Bill Slaughter apparently never collected anything from it.
1/26/1945: Murphy earns Medal of Honor
On this day in 1945, Audie Murphy, the most-decorated soldier in United States history, earned the Medal of Honor by single-handedly repelling a German attack. The Texas native enlisted in the United States Army in June 1942. During World War II he received thirty-three awards, citations, and decorations. After the war he starred in numerous movies, wrote country-and-western songs, and pursued other business interests. Murphy was killed in an airplane crash in 1971 and was buried near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
1/26/1893: First piece of McDade pottery produced
On this day in 1893, Robert L. Williams produced the first piece of ware in the new McDade Pottery plant. The plant was the successor to a “jug shop” begun in 1853 in the vicinity of what is now Bastrop State Park. It was moved to McDade in the late 1870s, and Williams, who was experienced in ceramic processes and recognized the potential for McDade clay, bought the business in 1890. He built a new plant that covered three acres, complete with two brick beehive kilns, clay-grinding equipment, and a railroad siding. He continued the potter’s-wheel turning of specialty items and the production of food-storage vessels and housewares, but also added new products. Williams invented an extrusion press with assorted sizes of dies for the rapid production of flowerpots and other hollowware. The pottery business sold to nurseries and florists throughout Texas and also in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. In the beginning Williams had to accept produce in barter for the ceramics, and he began the McDade Mercantile Company to provide a market for bartered goods and to serve the McDade townspeople. The advent of electric and gas-flame heating and of cast-plastic substitutes for heavy ceramics reduced the demand for pottery products. The greatest blow to the business was the loss of the aggressive management of Williams, who died in 1923. The business was continued on a reduced scale by his son, Albert Payne Williams Sr., until World War II.
1/26/1839: Republic passes homestead law, sets aside land for education
On this day in 1839, the Congress of the Republic of Texas passed two important pieces of legislation: a homestead act and an act setting aside land for public schools and two universities. The homestead act, patterned somewhat after legislation of Coahuila and Texas, was designed to encourage home ownership. It guaranteed every citizen or head of family in the republic “fifty acres of land or one town lot, including his or her homestead, and improvements not exceeding five hundred dollars in value.” The education act was inspired by President Mirabeau Lamar’s determination to establish a system of education endowed by public lands, but failed to produce the desired results immediately because land prices were too low for this endowment to provide revenue. There was also some popular indifference on the county level to the establishment of schools, as evidenced by the fact that by 1855 thirty-eight counties had made no effort even to survey their school land. Nevertheless, Lamar’s advocacy of the program earned for him the nickname “Father of Texas Education.”
1/27/1839: Episcopalians organize in Texas
On this date in 1839, Rev. Caleb Smith Ives reported the organization of Christ Church, Matagorda, probably the first Episcopal church in Texas. Formerly, during most of the period of Mexican Texas, Protestants could not practice their faith openly in Texas, since the Mexican government required allegiance to the Catholic Church. In 1838 Robert Chapman and Caleb Smith Ives were invited to open schools in the new Republic of Texas. Ives conducted the first Episcopalian service in the republic at Christmas 1838, and reported the first organized congregation a month later.
1/28/1986: Catastrophic explosion kills Texas astronaut and her colleagues
On this day in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff. Seven American astronauts were killed, including Texas resident Judith Arlene Resnik. She was the second American woman astronaut. She had taken her first space flight in August 1984 aboard the orbiter Discovery.
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