Texas history from the Texas State Historical Association
10/10/1835: First issue of Telegraph and Texas Register published
On this day in 1835, the Telegraph and Texas Register published its first issue at San Felipe de Austin. The earliest Texas newspaper to achieve a degree of permanence, it was founded by Gail Borden Jr., Thomas H. Borden, and Joseph Baker and became the official organ of the Republic of Texas. By December 14 the paper claimed a circulation of 500. The advance of Antonio López de Santa Anna’s force compelled the publishers to retire after issuing their paper on March 24, 1836. The press was removed to Harrisburg, and the issue for April 14 was being readied when publication was again interrupted by the Mexicans, who captured the printers and threw the press into Buffalo Bayou. During the summer of 1836 Gail Borden obtained a new press in Cincinnati and resumed publication of the Telegraph at Columbia, to which place the Congress of the Republic was summoned. The first Columbia number contained a copy of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. In 1837 the Telegraph was removed on board the Yellow Stone to Houston, the new capital. The paper continued under a variety of names and a series of editors until its final demise in 1877.
10/11/1915: Texas Woman’s Fair begins in Houston
On this day in 1915, the Texas Woman’s Fair, called the “first of its kind in the world,” opened near the Houston City Hall. For six days visitors viewed exhibits of needlework, canning, and artwork and heard tips about milk pasteurizing, sanitary baking, gardening, caring for livestock, and eliminating household pests. A better-baby show and contest at the Rice Hotel encouraged mothers to bring infants for weighing and measuring.
10/12/1980: Prolific tunesmith honored in hall of fame
On this day in 1980, songwriter Mickey Newbury was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Association International Hall of Fame. A native of Houston, Milton “Mickey” Newbury, Jr., earned the reputation of being one of the best tunesmiths of his generation. He penned songs for a diverse array of performers, including Andy Williams, Roy Orbison, Eddy Arnold, Ray Charles, Waylon Jennings, B. B. King, Joan Baez, Dottie West, Johnny Rodriguez, and many others. In 1968 Newbury became the first songwriter to ever score Number 1 hits on the easy listening, country, rhythm and blues, and pop-rock charts at the same time. His arrangement of a trio of Civil War songs known as “American Trilogy” became his best-known work and was favored by Elvis Presley as the closing number for his live shows.
10/12/1874: Future publisher joins Galveston News as office boy
On this day in 1874, fifteen-year-old George B. Dealey went to work as an office boy for the Galveston News. He worked for this publishing concern the rest of his life. Dealey was born in England but moved to Galveston with his family in 1870. He rose steadily at the News, whose founder A. H. Belo sent him to Dallas to found the Dallas Morning News in 1885; the two papers, which shared a network of correspondents, heralded the beginning of “chain journalism.” Dealey became a board member of both newspapers in 1902, vice president and general manager of the corporation in 1906, and president in 1919. In 1926 he bought the company from the Belo family. He was instrumental in the adoption of George E. Kessler’s plan for the city of Dallas in 1910 and was president of the Philosophical Society of Texas and founder and lifetime president of the Dallas Historical Society. The man the New York Times called the dean of American publishers died at his Dallas home in 1946.
10/13/1859: Alexander Gregg consecrated first Episcopal bishop of Texas
On this day in 1859, the Rev. Alexander Gregg was consecrated as the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. The diocese was actually organized in 1849 at a meeting in Matagorda, but several candidates had declined the position of bishop due to concerns about the young diocese’s financial status before Gregg finally accepted. Gregg, born in 1819 in South Carolina, had been serving as rector of a parish in Cheraw in that state. He was consecrated at the General Convention in Richmond, Virginia, and moved to Texas in January 1860. Gregg was a slaveholder and an ardent supporter of the Confederacy; with the coming of secession, he held that the church in the Confederacy must follow the government and separate itself from the church in the United States, though after the Civil War he favored reuniting them. Gregg also established the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. He died in Austin in 1893.
10/13/1845: Voters overwhelmingly approve annexation
On this day in 1845, the voters of the Republic of Texas approved an ordinance to accept annexation by a vote of 4,245 to 257. They also adopted the proposed state constitution by a vote of 4,174 to 312. The annexation of Texas to the United States had been a topic of political and diplomatic discussions since the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Although most Texans had been in favor of annexation and had voted for it as early as 1836, constitutional scruples, fear of war with Mexico, and the controversy of adding another slave state to the union prevented the acceptance of annexation by the United States until 1845.
10/14/1890: Future general and president born in Denison
On this day in 1890, Dwight David Eisenhower, general of the army and thirty-fourth president of the United States, was born in a two-story frame house in Denison, Texas. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Abilene, Kansas. Other presidents have had strong ties to the Lone Star State. Lyndon Baines Johnson was born near Stonewall in the Texas Hill Country, and George H. W. Bush and son George W. Bush have called Texas home for many years.
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