Texas history from the Texas State Historical Association
10/1/1942: Quicksilver mine goes bust
On this day in 1942, the Chisos Mining Company filed for bankruptcy. The company, a major quicksilver producer at Terlingua in southern Brewster County, was established in 1903. Founded by Howard E. Perry, a Chicago industrialist, the Chisos reported its first recovery in 1903, and during the next three decades became one of the nation’s leading producers of quicksilver. Several factors contributed to the success of the operation. First, the property contained some of the richest ore in the quicksilver district; second, Perry engaged men of outstanding caliber to supervise the onsite operations (metallurgist William Battle Phillips and geologist Johan August Udden); third, quicksilver prices peaked during World War I, the period of the mine’s maximum recovery; and fourth, an abundance of cheap Mexican labor was available. Production declined during the late 1930s, and the company filed for bankruptcy in 1942. The Esperado Mining Company purchased the Chisos assets and operated the mine unsuccessfully until the end of World War II.
10/1/1849: The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville houses its first prisoner
On this day in 1849, the first prisoner, a convicted horse thief from Fayette County, entered the partially completed Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. The facility held only three prisoners in 1849, but by 1855 it housed seventy-five convicts, and by 1860, 182. In 2018 there were six prison units and a prison transfer facility located in the city of Huntsville, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was responsible for more than 146,000 adult inmates at units throughout the state.
10/2/1835: Texas Revolution begins at Gonzales
On this day in 1835, fighting broke out at Gonzales between Mexican soldiers and Texas militiamen. When Domingo de Ugartechea, military commander in Texas, received word that the American colonists of Gonzales refused to surrender a small cannon that had been given that settlement in 1831 as a defense against the Indians, he dispatched Francisco de Castañeda and 100 dragoons to retrieve it on September 27. Though Castañeda attempted to avoid conflict, on the morning of October 2 his force clashed with local Texan militia led by John Henry Moore in the first battle of the Texas Revolution. The struggle for the “Come and Take It” cannon was only a brief skirmish that ended with the retreat of Castañeda and his force, but it also marked a clear break between the American colonists and the Mexican government.
10/4/1970: Janis Joplin dies
On this day in 1970, rock singer Janis Joplin died of an accidental overdose of heroin and alcohol. The twenty-seven-year-old native of Port Arthur had embraced the hippie counterculture at the University of Texas at Austin. She developed her musical skills at Kenneth Threadgill’s club and other Austin venues. Joplin’s four years of meteoric fame began when she joined Big Brother and the Holding Company in California in May 1966. Her bluesy rendering of such songs as Willie Mae Thornton’s “Ball and Chain” made her a national star, but her self-destructive manner of living led to her early death.
10/7/1883: Alamo survivor dies
On this day in 1883, Susanna Wilkerson Dickinson, survivor of the Alamo, died in Austin. The Tennessee native married Almaron Dickinson in 1829 and moved to Gonzales, Texas, in 1831. Susanna’s only child, Angelina Elizabeth Dickinson, was born in 1834. Her husband went off to serve in the Texas Revolution in October 1835. She joined him in San Antonio, probably in December, and lodged in Ramón Músquiz’s home, where she opened her table to boarders (among them David Crockett). On February 23, 1836, the family moved into the Alamo. After the battle of the Alamo on March 6, Mexican soldiers found her–some accounts say in the powder magazine, others in the church–and took her and Angelina, along with the other women and children, to Músquiz’s home. The women were later interviewed by Santa Anna, who gave each a blanket and two dollars in silver before releasing them. Legend says Susanna displayed her husband’s Masonic apron to a Mexican general in a plea for help and that Santa Anna offered to take Angelina to Mexico. Santa Anna sent Susanna and her daughter, accompanied by Juan N. Almonte’s servant Ben, to Sam Houston with a letter of warning dated March 7. On the way, the pair met Joe, William B. Travis’s slave, who had been freed by Santa Anna. The party was discovered by Erastus (Deaf) Smith and Henry Wax Karnes. Smith guided them to Houston in Gonzales. After the tragic events at the Alamo, Susanna lived a long and troubled life, marrying five times and sometimes making a living as a prostitute before achieving a measure of stability and prosperity with her last husband, Joseph William Hannig.
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