Texas history from the Texas State Historical Association
9/18/1848: Sam Houston and other dignitaries dedicate Monument Hill cemetery
On this day in 1848, Sam Houston and other notable Texans gathered a mile south of La Grange at Monument Hill, the chosen site for a military cemetery. Those to be buried there had died in the Dawson Massacre and other conflicts that beset the Republic of Texas as Mexico continued to contest the fact of Texas independence. Six years earlier, on September 18, 1842, while an army of Texans under Mathew Caldwell defeated the much larger forces of Mexican general Adrián Woll on Salado Creek near San Antonio, Capt. Nicholas Dawson and his fifty-eight volunteers fought a losing battle against 500 irregular Mexican cavalrymen and their two cannons. The Texans were slaughtered. A few escaped, and fifteen were carted off to Perote Prison, from where only nine survivors were eventually released. The dead were buried in shallow graves and, in 1848, moved to Monument Hill. The day was again solemnly commemorated ninety-one years after the massacre. On September 18, 1933, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas dedicated a new vault at the site, which had fallen into disrepair and abuse before they moved to rescue it.
9/20/1865: Texan flies in first airship?
On this day in 1865, pioneer aviator Jacob Friedrich Brodbeck may have made the first flight in an airplane–almost forty years before the Wright brothers–in a field about three miles east of Luckenbach. The Württemberg native settled in Fredericksburg in 1847. He had always had an interest in mechanics and inventing; in Germany he had attempted to build a self-winding clock, and in 1869 he designed an ice-making machine. His most cherished project, however, was his “air-ship,” with a propeller powered by coiled springs. The 1865 model featured an enclosed space for the “aeronaut,” a water propeller in case of accidental landings on water, a compass, and a barometer. The machine was said to have risen twelve feet in the air and traveled about 100 feet before the springs unwound completely and the machine crashed to the ground. Another account, however, says that the initial flight took place in San Pedro Park, San Antonio, where a bust of Brodbeck was later placed. Yet another account reports that the flight took place in 1868, not 1865. All the accounts agree, however, that Brodbeck’s airship was destroyed by its abrupt landing, although the inventor escaped serious injury. After this setback, his investors refused to put up the money for a second attempt, and he embarked on a unsuccessful fund-raising tour of the United States. Brodbeck returned to Texas and lived on a ranch near Luckenbach until his death in 1910.
9/20/1967: Hurricane Beulah wracks Texas coast
On this day in 1967, Hurricane Beulah, the third largest hurricane of the twentieth century, struck South Texas. It battered the state for two days. The storm hit Brownsville with winds estimated at 140 miles an hour, moved northwest across South Texas to the vicinity of Alice, then turned southwest, crossed the Rio Grande between Zapata and Laredo, and finally blew itself out in Mexico. Tornadoes spawned by Beulah did extensive damage to South Texas and northeast Mexico. On September 28, President Johnson declared twenty-four counties in South Texas a disaster area. Official estimates in these counties set the number of dead at 18, the injured or sick at 9,000, and the number of homes destroyed or heavily damaged at 3,000. Property damage was estimated at $100 million, crop damage at $50 million. Some 300,000 people were evacuated during the storm and subsequent flooding.
9/22/1931: Texas passes law restricting cotton acreage
On this day in 1931, the state legislature passed the Texas Cotton Acreage Control Law of 1931-32. The Great Depression had hit the Texas economy, in which “Cotton [was] King,” hard; cotton prices had already begun to slump during the late 1920s due to reduced consumption and steady production. The law restricted the amount of cotton planted in 1932 and 1933 to no more than 30 percent of the land in cultivation during the preceding year, and barred farmers from planting cotton on the same land for two successive years after 1933. Many large cotton farmers, especially in South Texas, feared that enforcement of the law would force them to lay off many tenant farmers, seriously increasing unemployment in that region. Planters were also angry that legislators failed to address the need to find alternative crops and jobs for displaced workers. Many cotton farmers planned to evade or even openly disregard the cotton acreage act. A few other southern states passed similar but weaker acreage laws, but collectively they had little effect. A federal judge declared the Texas Cotton Acreage Control Law unconstitutional in February 1932.
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