Texas history from the Texas State Historical Association
11/5/1960: Johnny Horton dies
On this day in 1960, singer Johnny Horton died in a car accident in Milano, Texas. Though he was born in Los Angeles in 1925, Horton grew up in East Texas and graduated from high school in Gallatin. He attended junior college in Jacksonville and Kilgore and eventually went to Seattle University. He worked in the fishing industry in California and Alaska but embarked on a country music singing career in 1950. In 1955 Horton joined the Louisiana Hayride under the stage name “The Singing Fisherman.” Recognized for his honky tonk sound, he scored his first hit “Honky Tonk Man” in 1956 and achieved his first number-one country recording with “When It’s Springtime in Alaska” several years later. The singer had crossover appeal on both country and popular-music radio stations and songs such as “The Battle of New Orleans” attracted a wide audience.
11/5/1806: Border between Texas and Louisiana declared Neutral Ground
On this day in 1806, the United States and Spain signed an agreement establishing the Neutral Ground. After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 the United States and Spain were unable to agree on the boundary between Louisiana and Texas. In 1806, in order to avert an armed clash, Gen. James Wilkinson and Lt. Col. Simón de Herrera, the American and Spanish military commanders respectively, entered into an agreement declaring the disputed territory Neutral Ground. The boundaries of the Neutral Ground were never officially described beyond a general statement that the Arroyo Hondo on the east and the Sabine River on the west were to serve as boundaries. Ownership of the strip was awarded to the United States by the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1821.
11/6/1528: Castaways begin amazing journey
On this day in 1528, some eighty survivors of the Narváez expedition washed up on an island off the Texas coast. The castaways included Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three other men: the slave Estevanico, Alonso Castillo Maldonado, and Andrés Dorantes de Carranza. These “four ragged castaways” became the first non-Indians to tread on Texas soil and live to tell their remarkable story. Cabeza de Vaca, born about 1490 in Spain, recovered from an almost fatal illness shortly after landing on the coast and then traveled the Texas coast and interior as a trader with native groups, including the Karankawas. The Indians revered him as a medicine man. He eventually rendezvoused with the three other survivors, and their journey ended when they arrived at the Spanish outpost of Culiacán near the Pacific Coast of Mexico in 1536. Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his amazing odyssey in his Relación detailed valuable ethnographic, geographic, and biotic information on Texas. He died in Spain in the mid-1550s.
11/7/1972: Two key Texas amendments passed
On this day in 1972, Texas voters passed the Texas Equal Rights and the Constitutional Revision amendments. The Texas Equal Rights Amendment, granting women and men equal legal rights, resulted from a fifteen-year campaign spearheaded by Hermine D. Tobolowsky and the Texas Federation of Business and Professional Women. A few months after its passage, women legislators employed the new amendment in preparing several laws to halt discriminatory practices. Successful bills included one prohibiting sex-based discrimination in processing loan and credit applications and another disallowing husbands from abandoning and selling homesteads without their wives’ consent. The Constitutional Revision Amendment recognized the need for a new state constitution. As a result of the amendment, the Sixty-third Legislature convened as a constitutional convention on January 8, 1974. The convention carried out the first thorough attempt to draft a new constitution for Texas since the Constitutional Convention of 1875. After seven months, however, it ended, on July 30, 1974, having failed by three votes to produce a document to submit to the voters. In 1975 the legislature did approve a new constitution in the form of eight amendments approved by the normal amendment process. The Bill of Rights remained unchanged, but the eight amendments went before the voters on November 4, 1975, in a special election. They were all defeated.
11/7/1835: The Consultation takes a step toward the Texas Declaration of Independence
On this day in 1835, at San Felipe, the Consultation adopted the Declaration of November 7, 1835, a statement of causes for taking up arms against Mexico preliminary to the Texas Declaration of Independence. The document declared that the Texans had taken up arms in defense of their rights and liberties and the republican principles of the Mexican Constitution of 1824. Among other assertions, the declaration stated that Texas was no longer bound by the compact of union, that Texans would not cease to carry on war against the Centralist troops in Texas, that the Texans had the right to establish an independent government, and that Texas would reward with lands and citizenship those who volunteered their services to her in the struggle.
11/8/1852: The circus comes to town!
On this day in 1852, the first recorded mention of the distinctive Mexican circus in Texas appeared in the San Antonio Ledger. Though the performing groups may have been in Texas prior to this date, this newspaper report marked the first documentation of the circuses in the Lone Star State. The Mexican circuses evolved over the years from sixteenth-century performers called voladores (flyers) and Spanish minstrels and jugglers to include maromeros (acrobats) by the seventeenth century and dramatic performers in the eighteenth century. By the time they got to Texas, the Mexican circuses had incorporated Italian, English, and American influences, including the English clown. Carpas (tent circuses) proved popular into the twentieth century throughout the Rio Grande Valley and South and Central Texas, and several companies made San Antonio their home base. The carpas, often family-based, delivered commentary on Tejano social life and influenced the development of Mexican-American theater.
11/10/1967: The President’s Ranch Trail is dedicated to LBJ
On this day in 1967, the President’s Ranch Trail was dedicated at Wimberley. The trail is a ninety-mile route through Hays, Blanco, and Gillespie counties. It extends from the LBJ Ranch, located on Ranch Road 1 near Stonewall, to San Marcos. The route touches places important in the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson, including the Lyndon B. Johnson Birthplace, Boyhood Home, and Ranch; the Johnson family cemetery; Lyndon B. Johnson State Historical Park; the Pedernales Electric Cooperative in Johnson City, which was brought into being under Johnson’s influence in the United States Senate; the First Christian Church in Johnson City, to which Johnson belonged; the Hye Post office, where he mailed his first letter; the Albert post office, general store, and school building; and his alma mater, Texas State University, in San Marcos, where his student dwelling is also located.
11/11/1918: World War I ends
On this day in 1918, World War I came to an end. The armistice found the two most prominent Texas units on active service in France. The Ninetieth Division was fighting its way through the Meuse-Argonne, while the Thirty-Sixth Division was resting behind the lines after suffering heavy casualties in the same offensive. A total of 198,000 Texans saw service in the armed forces during the course of the war. Five thousand one hundred and seventy-one Texans, including one nurse, died in the armed services; 4,748 of the dead served in the army. More than a third of the total deaths occurred inside the United States, many of them as a result of the influenza epidemic of 1918. Four Texans were awarded the Medal of Honor. In a trend that would become even more marked during World War II, military camps were established in Texas to train men for service and the state was the main location for pilot training for military aviation.
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