| Summary: | Little known and offbeat moments of our history. A series of 250, 30 seconds vignettes telecast over KMOL-TV. Digitized videos from this series can be found in the Reflections on Texas Video Collection. . ~- - k LC 78-6911 ISBN 0-933164-42-4 © 1979, United Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved Produced by The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio jack R. Maguire, Executive Director Pat Maguire, Director of Publications and Coordinator of Programs This publication was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Houston Endowment, Inc., The Moody Foundation and the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Texas. Design and tflustration, Lynn Weiss Printed in the United States of America . . to Heighten Community Awareness of Our Past . · "Reflections on Texas" was originally conceived as KMOL-TV's commitment and contribution to our great country's bicentennial celebration . Initially intended to provide an overview of local history to heighten community awareness of our past, "Reflections" quickly evolved into a concept of focusing more on the little known and offbeat moments of our history . The series consisted of 250, 30-second vignettes telecast five times per day over an 18-month period . In the year that it took to produce "Reflections," the staff worked with hundreds of true Texans, shot over 60,000 feet of film, and devoted more than 6,000 hours to this ambitious project. A very special thank you must be extended to all those' involved with ''Reflections on Texas'' who put up with the equipment failures, inclement weather and creative blocks. All without a whimper! Jack Carroll, Executive Producer, Michael Bowie, Producer/ Photographer, SharonJones, Assistant to the Producer, Marina Pisano, Chief Wn'ter, Catherine McDowell, Researcher, Esther MacMillan, Researcher. Wn'ters: Jim Abbott, Dr. Jimmy Allen, Bonnie Chism, Ann Dwyer, Donald Everett, T. R. Fehrenbach, Terry Fitzpatrick-Ross, O'Neil Ford, Jamie Frucht, MarilynJones, Dorothy Kendall, Dr. Robert Krause, Jean Lange, Tim Laughter, Christa Lenk, Margie Mautz, Jim Maverick, Dick McCracken, Rex Preis and Terrell Maverick Webb. Music: William Beeley. Thanks to the staff of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, the staff of The Institute of Texan Cultures and the staff of the Witte Museum who provided information and illustrations to our researchers and writers. A special thank you also to five sponsors of ''Reflections'' who enabled this award-winning series to be brought into the lives of San Antonians: Frost Bank, Pioneer Flour Mills, Sears Roebuck & Co ., Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, and United Services Automobile Association. -~ KMOL-TV is very happy to be able to make the "Reflections on Texas" series available to The · University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio and through them to the school children and community of San Antonio and Texas. It is our sincere hope that our contribution to this country's bicentennial celebration will continue to enrich the minds and flourish in the lives of all peoples viewing or reading ''Reflections on Texas.' ' Edward V. Cheviot Vice President & General Manager KMOL-TV 4 v. A hundred and thirty years ago Samuel A. Maverick was rated one of Texas's largest landowners. Though not a rancher , he once took a herd of cattle in payment of a debt and put them on his place below San Antonio , where they thrived, multiplied and wandered away . The calves were not branded and neighbors said "they're Maverick's." Today a "maverick" still means an unbranded calf or an independent person. f Pennsylvania-born John Bowen was the first American postmaster of San Antonio , and the first under the Republic of Texas. He was born Ralph William Peacock but changed his name legally after the deathbed request of his half-brother. Bowen also owned Bowen 's Island, a peninsula in the San Antonio River, now the area of the TowerLife Building . In his day San Antonio had the only post office for miles around , and for his labors Postmaster Bowen received the incredible salary of twenty-five dollars a month. -·~ In the 1870's a mortally wounded cowboy begged not to be buried on the lonely range where he lay, but his friends had no recourse . Two of them, however, Pink Burdette and Jesse James Benton , immortalized him in a mournful song that became an instant hit. "Even the horses nickered it and the coyotes howled it ,'' recalled a cowboy of the 1880 's. The song? Oh, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie . Some early Texas travelers didn't travel light. Governor Alacron departed for east Texas in May, 1718, with 52 people, 28 mules laden with needful things , 219 horses and his silver service . On the return trip the cook , kitchen and silver were lost in a swollen creek . Alacron's diary says that only the cook was recovered . Cattle Drive. A vivid first-hand account by Mary Adams Maverick tells of the cholera epidemic of 1849 that swept San Antonio . ''Into every house came the pestilence- in most houses was death and in some families one-half died. All had symptoms. Men of strong nerve and undoubted courage shrank in fear. " According to the priests , in its six-week duration the cholera epidemic claimed 600 lives . Bats in the belfry - the saying goes when someone is slightly crazy. But in San Antonio it was bats in the Bat Cave on the northwest corner of Military Plaza. Built in 1850 as a jail and courthouse, the old building was infested with bats and soon nicknamed after its nocturnal inhabitants. In 1879 the building was used to store archives . The bats lost their home in 1889 when the Bat Cave was torn down, but on warm nights they still flitter over the plaza. -~ In 1915 conservationist Adina de Zavala noticed a coat of arms above the door of a dilapidated building in downtown San Antonio. Curious, she searched through archives and discovered it was the Spanish Governor's Palace, seat of the Royal Spanish Government after 17 30. Miss de Zavala started a campaign to restore the building , and a former San Antonio eyesore was transformed into a beautiful and interesting historic landmark. -~ R. C. Smith was a handsome man and a prominent mason of Hondo . He was nicknamed " Red" for his flaming long locks. Smith's hair tempted the Indians, and the Comanches ambushed and scalped him alive in 1864. He died from his injuries and he lies in the old Masonic Springs Cemetery east of Hondo . A unique feature of his gravestone is the Masonic Emblem carved upside down. Why' Nobody knows! As for his scalp , friends sewed it back on before they laid him to rest. 1. When the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, San Antonio businesses closed for a mammoth patriotic demonstration. As the young men marched off to fight the war , women spent hours rolling bandages and knitting socks . At home they baked with "cornserve" -a wheatless flour. There were 70,000 men in uniform at San Antonio's military installations, but none marched as proudly as the little boys of the city in their Pershing uniforms and Sam Brown belts. For them, 1917 was a year of adventure. Soldiers on Maneuvers, Fort Sam Houston. One of the most factual accounts of the last hours of the defense of the Alamo was related by a black man, Joe (also known as Jethro), Colonel William B. Travis's manservant. Joe , one of the few Texas survivors, was released unharmed by Mexican General Santa Anna , to carry reports of the defeat to Texas forces . Afterward, Joe was apparently re-enslaved, and a newspaper ad, a year later , offered a reward for a runaway slave , Joe , who had survived the Alamo and stolen a horse to escape. There is no evidence that either Joe, or the horse, was ever found . 2. When New Dealers and President Roosevelt proposed seizure of oil pipelines and railroads in 1932 , Texans set their teeth. Without a word to Washington they opened some oil wells and let them gush out 600,000 barrels of oil. As Baggage Truck McGregor, Governor Ma Ferguson's representative. said: " Until hell freezes over , Texas will resist any effort on the part of the United States to interfere with its oil business .'' This action dropped the price of oil throughout the nation and scuttled the New Deal proposal. _ _5! Francois Giraud is probably best remembered as the builder of the old Ursuline Academy, but he was also a pioneer in the field of ecology long before the term came into popular usage. ln 1848 the young Frenchman became San Antonio's first engineer. In 1852 the farsighted Giraud persuaded city fathers to reserve land around San Pedro Springs as a municipal park. It became, after the Boston Common, the second oldest public playground in America. -~ ''That which we call a rose by another name would smell as sweet" - that's Shakespeare. But consider the names of San Antonio streets. The religious motif is apparent in Jesus Alley and Santa Rosa. Mother Nature is reflected in Flores. The earthy influence is evident in Crap Street. The one-block street bordering St. Joseph's Church was originally D-A-M-F-1-N-0. A stranger asked the name of the street many years ago and was told, "Damned if I know." The name stuck - and that's no rose. Buffalo-tracked paths, Indian trails, cow trails and wagon trails may have been responsible for San Antonio's zigzag streets, but only man could author the titles bestowed upon them. Alderman C. S. Robertson was considered the silver-tongued orator of the city council chambers in the old days. No one could stop him. The story is told that when one street was to be named , his fellow councilmen used his initials "C.S." and named it "Can't Stop." That's the name it bears today . It's located between Rudolph and Lamar, three blocks west of New Braunfels . ,. Francois Girand. In 1869 three French nuns, the first Incarnate Word Sisters here , came to San Antonio during a cholera epidemic to open the city's first civilian hospital. They had no money , spoke little English , and after a three-week ride from Galveston learned that the building set aside for them had burned down the day before . Not easily discouraged, two sisters started over and within a year opened the Santa Rosa Hospital. It was Texas's first nursing school and the largest Catholic medical center in the nation. Longhorn. In the 1860 's Longhorns outnumbered Texans 9 to 1. Wild, unpredictable and afraid of no man , the cantankerous critters were forced out of the brush one by one, and on the trails moved as a long line of individuals, not as a herd. These wily bovines kept Texas from bankruptcy after the Civil War, and made heroes out of the cowboys who drove them up the trails. f After the Civil War two young Polish immigrants with the same last name met at the Menger Hotel to flip a coin. They agreed that the loser would change the spelling of his name. Ed Kotula spelled with a "k" won, so Joe Kotula changed the spelling of his name to begin with a "c." Joe Cotulla went on to carve a ranching empire from Nueces valley brush country, and the town of Cotulla was later named after him. And if it hadn 't been for a coin toss, Cotulla today would be spelled with a "k." Carved into the intricate scrolls and delicate blooms of San Jose 's Rose Window is the bittersweet, romantic legend of Jose Huizar, an 18th century sculptor and surveyor who worked at the missions. Huizar's dream was to send for his Spanish sweetheart, Rosa, but en route to her lover, the beautiful Rosa was lost at sea. Brokenhearted , Huizar poured his grief and love into his work of the mission window and dedicated it to his lost Rosa. They say he never cut another stone. Rose Window. In the 1870's Judge Roy Bean , of "Law West of the Pecos" fame, had a dairy close to the site of Mission San Jose . The house possibly dates back to uno. Evidently the good judge watered his product , and once when a customer complained of having found minnows in his milk , the good judge explained. The minnows were there because his cows licked them up from the waters of the San Antonio River. In the early cattle outfits, black hands were equal in skill to white hands. One black cowboy, Henry Beckwith, nicknamed "The Coyote" due to his preference for riding and working the brush at night, had trained his horse to trail by smell just like a dog . The two of them chased down many an invisible maverick in the blind thickets of the brush . For sustenance, ' 'The Coyote'' drank black coffee laced with chili juice. With that kind of liquid fire in him , it's little wonder that he slept fitfully in small naps . Army Airplane, Fort Sam Houston. The world's greatest Air Force had its beginning right here at Fort Sam Houston. Benjamin D. Foulois soloed in the Wright Model Bat Fort Sam in l<JlO . Five yea rs later he organized the first aero squadron . One year later Foulois was the first American to fly in combat during General John Pershing's punitive expedition agai nst Pancho Villa in Mexico . back then it was the Army Air Corps. Now it's the United States Air Force , and it all started at Fort Sam Houston , Texas. 3. In the rip roaring years after the Civil War, Evangelist Dixie Williams denounced San Antonio as the wicked est city in the union. Gambling houses, saloons and palaces of sin tempted the cowboys, traveling salesmen and the local gentry seven nights a week. One plush bordelo boasted of a ten -thousand dollar gold bed . By 1911 an enterprising bawdy house owner had published the Blue Book. It was a guide to the Red Light District , listing the names and addresses of painted ladies and rating them A, B or C. ~ Ben Thompson was a walking contradiction , loyal, mild-mannered, a dandy , but reputed to be the killer of more than 20 men and hunted by the law in four states . He was the law in Austin where he served as town marshall, bringing the crime rate down drastically. On March 11 , 1884, while on a drinking spree in San Antonio , he and outlaw King Fisher were killed in Jack Harris's vaudeville theater. It was the most notorious double killing in the city's history at the time. ~ The first official policeman in San Antonio was appoi nted in 1846 . His title was quickly changed from "constable" to "marshall, " a handle that fit the rugged southwest. In 1875 the first police uniforms were authorized. Made of grey New Braunfels cloth, they consisted of a double-breasted coat and matching pants with a blue outer-seam stripe. Some policemen balked at wearing the new uniforms , but city council insisted and added that police shields must be worn on the outside of the coat . At last , San Antonians could tell the good guys from the bad guys . 4. These days it may be easier for Texans to marry than divorce , but in the pre-Republic period of Mexican rule, the reverse was true. The loving couple first appeared before an alcalde and signed a bond agreeing to marriage by a priest. In areas with infrequent priestly visits , this meant a delay , and the priest's fee could be as much as $25 - too expensive for some. Divorce, on the other hand , was swift and free. It was granted by simply tearing up the marriage bond before an alcalde. ·. Cigar Store Advertisement. A building at Round Top , Texas, is almost all that remains of a once thriving Texas industry, tobacco growing and cigar making . Frederick Ernst founded the cigar industry in Texas in the mid- 1880 's . Tobacco growing was a thriving business until Cuban employees in the early 1900's tried to form a union. Management denied them , and the Cubans rolled gun powder into the next batch of cigars. You might say the cigar industry in Texas went out with a blast . Samuel Morse made an offer Texans shouldn't have refused! As inventor of the telegraph, Morse offered his invention to the Republic of Texas in 1838. But he was totally ignored , his offer lost in the bureaucratic shuffle. Twenty two years later, in 1860, in a letter to Governor Sam Houston , Samuel Morse withdrew his offer. What would be the economic situation for Texans today if they had exclusive rights to the telegraph ? Well , look what happened to Western Union I ~ . Late in the night , two men riding Jim Bowie's horse left the Alamo. Juan Seguin and Antonio Cruz y Arocha, because of their knowledge of Mexican customs and language , were se lected by Colonel Travis to ride for help . Mexican soldiers moved slowly outside the walls and as the two passed near the enemy's camp to cross the rive r, they were challenged by Santa Anna 's soldiers. "We are countrymen," they replied and rode through the enemy ranks not knowing whether or not each breath might be their last. ·~ On November 9, 1881, the capitol building in Austin burned . Among the casualties were historical memorabilia and thousands of bats. Governor 0 . M. Robert's corn cob pipe was saved, though law books and 4 50 applications for pardon were not. A local newspaper rendered the following eulogy to the burned-out capitol. "The venerable edifice that bore such a startling resemblance to a large sized corn crib , with a pumpkin for a dome , is gone." Andrea Candelaria was the owner and operator of a small hotel near the Alamo said to be a meeting place for Texan leaders during the Revolution. By nature, a revolutionist herself. after witnessing the slaughter of over 700 colonists including her husband in 1831, legend says that Andrea entered the Alamo to care for the injured and dying Jim Bowie. Seven times wounded by bayonet trying to protect Bowie , Andrea Candelaria survived Texas's most heroic fight, but she is barely known to present generations. .M_ Along the banks of the Guadalupe River, German immigrants came in 1845 with a slow-rolling wagon train from Indian Point (Indianola) towards their goal , New Braunfels. Epidemics and sickness took a heavy toll on the long journey. Entire families died on the road, and the course along the Guadalupe was strewn with countless unmarked German graves. Of four thousand immigrants, not more than 1200 men, women and children survived to settle the lands promised to them when they left Germany. ··~ On March 9, 1731 , aweary band of men, women and children from the Canary Islands arrived at the Presidio of San Antonio de Bexar. Sent by the Spanish Crown to establish the first civil settlement in Texas, they founded the Villa de San Fernando. Although given free land and a daily cash allowance for the first year, they were allowed little personal freedom . Duties were minutely prescribed, but little or nothing was said about rights. 6. Spindletop. Environmentalists' complaints against the Texas oil industry are nothing new. In January , 1901, outside of Beaumont, Texas , Spindletop gushed out an incredible 200 foot column of oil. A neighboring farmer felt the black gold splatter his clothing and saw a lake of oil begin to form, a lake that would cover 100 acres before the well could be capped. He jumped on his horse and raced toward Beaumont. "It's oil," he yelled to astonished townspeople, "and the damn stuff's ruined my home and farm.'' The most imaginative early Texas exploration into a general market for cattle was the '' meat biscuit" formulated by Gail Borden Jr. in 1846. Boiling beef down to an extract, mixing it with flour, and baking the substance resulted in a product that resembled a light-colored sugar cake. Nutritious but tasteless, the biscuit was not a financial success , despite promotion in England , France and the United States. But in the process of its development , Borden discovered a way to condense milk in a vacuum. t An early Texas desperado was so persistent in his evil deeds that he managed to be hanged three times . Leaving the scene of Bill Longely's first hanging, a jubilant group of vigilantes fired a volley of shots at the swinging body, but fate was to intervene and a bullet cut the rope . The second time was in Giddings, Texas, in 1878. The rope slipped from the cross beam and Longely landed, unhurt , on his feet . The sheriff insisted , and the third time was indeed a charm. --- The first and only mutiny in the Texas Navy took place at New Orleans in 1842 aboard the ship San Antonio. While high ranking officers went ashore to enjoy the creole city, the crew was forced to remain on ship . When a Marine sergeant asked for shore leave and was refused by the ship's officer, he armed himself with a pistol and hatchet. A general fight broke out leaving two seamen wounded and the officer dead. Eight of the seamen finally got their shore leave - in a New Orleans jail. The first Polish settlement in America was founded on Christmas Eve, 1854 , at Panna Maria. The small band of immigrants had to suffer through a nine-week voyage to Galveston, then travel several hundred miles on foot to reach the oak tree where Father Leopold Moczygemba celebrated Mass. One night at supper, just as Father Moczygemba was assuring them the worst was over , Texas provided another bit of harsh, frontier reality. A rattlesnake fell from the rafters, straight into the soup. Poland was never like this. -~ In 1854 a group of German-Texans gathered daily for conversation and sociability. Thus began San Antonio's first social club. In 1857 the Casino Club was chartered with 109 members. The building on Market Street formally opened in 1858 with bar, reading room, lounge and a theater. Open daily for its male members, monthly entertainment was provided for families. Children had kinderballs and maskenballs, but the affair each year was the New Year's Ball with supper and champagne. ~ The famous poet and musician Sidney Lanier spent six months in San Antonio in 187 3 and produced a remarkable sketch of the city. He described it as a town of ''striking idiosyncracies, bizarre contrasts and the queerest juxtaposition of civilizations.'' He encountered not only a wide variety of nationalities, but a rare assortment of individuals. He once observed "If peculiarities were quills, San Antonio de Bexar would be a rare porcuptne. Santa Rita, No. 1. In the early 1900's The University of Texas consisted of 40 acres, a few thousand students and some run-down buildings. A young law student was destined to change all that. Ruford Richter· obtained, for a penny an acre, the drilling rights on some 400,000 acres of University land in west Texas. With his rig, the famous Santa Rita #1, he drilled the first of thousands of wells that were to follow, providing The University with over a billion dollars in black gold. From the golden sands of Araby to the San Antonio River is a long way, but that is how far San Antonio's early water system came. When the Spanish established the missions, they also introduced techniques of irrigation they had learned from the Moors and built seven major canals they called acequias. Some provided water for household use; others were for the farms and fields. In fact, San Juan and Espada Acequias still serve the fields. These acequias are among the earliest examples of planned water supply in use in the United States. -~- In 1745, a pile of rubble was converted into a dwelling that would house one of the two native Texans to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence. He was Jose Francisco Ruiz, also famous as San Antonio's first schoolmaster. The little house, rubble covered with plaster in a method typical of the Spanish Colonial Period, was originally at 420 Doloroso and is now located on the Witte Museum grounds. Once a pile of rubble, the historic Ruiz house has been recycled for posterity. ~'~ On the site of the old Carnegie Library once stood the home of the Irish empresario. John McMullen, who in the early 1800's brought many Irish immigrants to Texas with the promise of land grants. John McMullen was murdered in his house about 1853 by a Mexican boy he had adopted. His ghost is said to have appeared to his son-in-law in San Palricio, who rode hastily to San Antonio to find the slaughtered body. The ghost was said to haunt the house until it was pulled down to make way for the library. 7. ~ Visitors to San Antonio in 1873 were intrigued by the tri- lingual traffic signs. At the Commerce Street crossing over the San Antonio River the sign read "Walk Your Horse Over This Bridge or You Will Be Fined." This was for the Eng lish-speaking and couched in terms of money. "Schnel les Reiten Uber disese Brucke ist verboten" was al l that was needed for the authority-respecting Germans. '' Anda despacio con su caballo. o teme Ia ley" to ld the Spanishspeaking to slow down his horse or ''fear the law." Each phrase was aimed at the temperament of the person reading. ~. When General Santa Anna was exiled from Mexico in 1866 . he set up residence in Staten Island . New York, and hired a young male secretary named James Adams. Adams noticed that the general had a habit of chewing on a strange tropical substance called chicle. When Santa Anna left New York . he gave Adams some of it. Adams mixed it with sugar and flavoring and a new product was made -chewing gum. ~ The old Beethoven Hall in San Antonio was built in 1895 for the Beethoven Mannechor, a popular chorus. Historian Alex Sweet recalls a conversation between a resident and a visitor one night when the Beethovens were singing. "Which one is Beethoven!" the tourist asked. "Don't know. " said the San Antonian . "I would know him if I was to see him , but I don 't think he 's up there . anyhow." 8. More than a hundred years ago rural residents of Gillespie County began building small sturdy houses in Fredericksburg so they could spend weekends there shopping, attending church and visiting at social functions. These unique structures, called "Sunday Houses," were usually only one room, but large families would add another room above with the stairs outside. City dwellers may head for the hills when the weekend comes, but hill country folk go to town! ,., LIBERTY OR DEA1'H . johanna Troutman's Flag. One of the t'arliest flags of the Tt'xas Republic was designed by a woman who never even visited Texas. In 1836 Joanna Troutman dt'signed a flag for the Georgia volunteers headed for Texas. Months later her new Texas flag flew over Goliad, proclaiming Texas indept'ndence from Mexico . A longtime supporter of Texas freedom, Mrs. Troutman designed the flag with the words "Whert' Liberty Dwells, There Is My Country," and like Betsy Ross before her . earned a place in hi sto ry . It was not with a sword but a simple needle and a bit of thread . Today the French Legation is an historical showplace in Austin and the reminder of a brief romance between La Belle France and the rugged Texans. In 1839, on the recommendation of Count Alphonse de Saligny, France became the first European country to recognize Texas. And in 1840 France signed a favorable trade treaty with the financially and militarily weak, infant republic. But the romance abruptly ended when Texas joined the Union in 184 '). Like a disappointed lover , Saligny went home to sulk . ·~ Early Anglo Texas settlers had to face one harsh frontier reality. They had to make almost everything they owned, including their homes. With little more than an axe and saw they built crude log cab ins ca lled dog-runs , houses named after the most popular user of the breezeway , never the most sanitary of places . The ave rage dogrun house provided shelter, not comfort. Rutherford B. Hayes, passing through Texas , wrote that he had slept in one dog-run house through whose sides a cat cou ld be hurled "at random." -~ In the early 1800's change was so sca rce that people rut large coms into eight pieces. hence the expression "two bits." The shortage became so acute that in 181 7 a silversmith minted the first Texas coins. These coins incorporated a symbol to become synonymous with this state, the lone star. These six cent coins were unearthed along the banks of the San Antonio River and arc va lued at more than $17.000 :tpiece. When H. Gruene settled on the Guadalpue, in the 18 70's , he patterned his empire after a medieval feudal state, complete with sharecroppers. They supplied the cotton for Gruene's gins and the San Antonio-Austin Road supplied the customers for his whiskey. But the boll weev il ate all the cotton and a new road diverted rhe customers , and Gruene began to wither on the vine. The fact so depressed one resident that he chose to end his life along with thar of his town . He hanged himself from the community water tower. -~ Time waits for no man. But so great was their respect for his ability that the Texans waited one full day for their guide, Hendrick Arnold, to return from a hunt before they would begin the Siege of Bexar in 183 5. He was again in great military demand, along with renowned guides Henry Wax Karnes and Deaf Smith, in the spy company at San Jacinto . In payment for his distinguished service, Hendrick Arnold became one of very few black freedmen who received tracts of land following the Texas fight for freedom. ~ As a young man, Don Pedro Jaramillo vowed to devote his life to healing the sick. And in 1881 he settled in Olmos, Texas, as an evangelist and curandero , or healer. At times, as many as 500 people waited at Los Olmos Creek for the healing prayers, herbs and poultices of Don Pedrito. His picture still hangs in many Mexican American homes in south Texas, his grave is still dressed with fresh flowers , and the suffering still pray that the lengendary curandero will ease their pain . 10. In the 1870's railroads were the biggest thing economically to hit the state since the cow. The good people of Dallas managed, by scrimping, to complete a line to Cleburne, a distance of 70 miles. The cream of Dallas society climbed aboard open flat cars for the inaugural run. A torrential downpour not only dampened the spirits of the passengers but also the consistency of the rather inferior grading. The train track and dignitaries slowly sank into the black ooze southwest of Dallas. Thus ended the first and last journey of the one-way rai lroad . A hundred years ago when a Texan drilled a hole in the ground he was looking for pure water, not oil. George Dullnig drilled over a dozen wells on his ranch along Salado Creek. But instead of water, he struck a messy , brownish liquid. His patience finally gave out when another well yielded natural gas. The brownish liquid sold for 20' a barrel, so it wasn't a total loss. Oil from the Dullnig Ranch put Texas in the U.S. petroleum statistics for the first time in 1889, producing a meager 48 barrels. No doubt George Dullnig would have traded it all for one pure water well. The legendary badmen of the west lived hard and died hard. Some met death with their boots on and guns blazing in bloody shootouts with lawmen. Others remained sullen and mean to the end, cursing the law and the hangman's rope. But not the outlaw named Green McCullough . When he was captured and led to a hanging tree in San Antonio , he openly admitted his guilt, and as the noose slipped around his neck , he addressed the crowd - some of whom he knew - with resignation and no hard feelings. "I've got to be hung," said the outlaw almost cheerfully, "and I'm glad I'm going to be hung by friends." -~ At the 19 32 Olympics in Los Angeles, a twenty-one-year-old country-bumpkin from Beaumont gave Depression-weary Americans something to cheer about. Mildred " Babe" Didriksen , the daughter of a Norwegian immigrant , re-wrote the record books in track. A powerful, versatile athlete, Babe became America's greatest woman golfer. She excelled at all sports and was so dazz ling that Grantland Rice wrote of her: "You are looking at the most flawless muscle harmony and physical coordination the world of sport has ever known.'' --~ In the early 1880's San Antonio 's first telephone operators were called " hello girls," although calls from saloons coming into rhe office at Houston and Soledad were handled by men. They saved the girls from "offensive contact." Boys and men worked the night shift , but by 1884 complaints of poor service and rudeness from the fifty subscribers resulted in women working 'round the clock.' A man from Philadelphia, traveling out west, disparaged the coon skin caps in vogue. Since he was a hatter by trade, he decided to make something better. Armed with a hatchet, a knife and some crude tools, he fashioned a floppy, bigbrimmed hat out of rabbit skin. Though everyone laughed, the hatter had the last laugh for that hat worked. Neither wind, nor rain, nor cold nights nor hot days could penetrate the hat. It even doubled as a drinking vessel for horses . The man and the hat go by the same name - Stetson. ·~ Teddy Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" were named by a San Antonio newspaper writer who received a reprimand for assuming this liberty , but the name stuck . Roosevelt liked it. This was no cowboy cavalry, but a conglomerate of Americans. There were millionaires from the East, some leaders of the 400 cotillion set and followers of the hounds , and men full of Western spirit, familiar with broncos and mustangs. They were a collection of individualists who were as much at home at the fabulous Menger Hotel as they were at the camp site. -~ Hot biscuits with cream gravy or honey have been a mainstay of Texas appetites for a century and a half. In fact, the Indians used the movements of honey bees to judge the whereabouts of white men's villages. They discovered that the hives of European-type bees were always about fifty miles in advance of the nearest settlement . And many a white settler would have traded the sting of an Indian arrow for the less permanent sting of a honey bee. Colonel Jack Hays, a famous leader of the Texas Rangers, was a captain at age 2 3, a colonel at 31 and retired at 34, leaving an unsurpassed record in Ranger history . So impressive was Jack Hays that in the gold-rush city of San Francisco, after leaving the Rangers, he was elected sheriff on the day he rode into town. He defeated the only candidate , a leading saloonkeeper who was "buying drinks" for the voters . Teddy Roosevelt on a Wolf Hunt. San Antonio's history as a Christian city began the day it received its name. But the Christian spirit did not always prevail, and in the 1800's Protestant ministers suffered persecution from desperadoes and disinterest by citizens. The first Protestant service in 1844 was held in the county clerk's office with approximately 15 people in attendance. San Antonio was described as ''overrun by a devilish set of men and gam biers.'' By 1846 Methodists and Presbyterians met in the courthouse on alternate Sundays. In this austere setting, no doubt there was many a sermon text on "judge not that ye be not judged." Today the streets around San Antonio's Municipal Auditorium are peaceful, but on August 25, 1939 , they were the scene of frightening violence. An angry mob of 8,000 people defied appeals to reason, police lines, tear gas and fire hoses to storm the Auditorium and break up a meeting of 100 communists. Smashing windows, tearing up seats and hurling rocks, they reserved their greatest anger for Mayor Maury Maverick , Sr., who had permitted the meeting under the constitutionally guaranteed right of assembly. When the crowd went home, when the debris had been cleared and reason returned to these streets, San Antonians reflected on that long, dark night. How could such a thing happen here? ~ "If I owned Texas and all hell, I would rent out Texas and live in hell," wrote General Phil Sheridan in 1866 following a long , hot and dusty trip from San Antonio to Galveston . In fact General Sheridan had a high regard for Texas. In 187 3 Sheridan was instrumental in settling the question of permanent Texas troops in San Antonio - a decision which was to make San Antonio a military capital. ~'~ Raucous and raging in a worn clay pot or simmering sedately in a fine china bowl, San Antonio's own chili con carne is a history lesson in itself. In 1838). C. Clopper, a south Texas settler, called it a sort of stew ''with nearly as many peppers as pieces of meat.'' In fact Texans designed a portable chili in the late 1840's- dried chili ''bricks'' that could be carried on horse or wagon and cooked anywhere. 11. By a strange twist of fate, William Barrett Travis died as a hero and not at the end of a rope. His trip to Texas and his stand with the Alamo defenders were the result of his trial for murder in South Carolina . Before sentencing , the judge gave Travis a choice: death or Texas. In so doing, unwittingly he carried out the unspoken death sentence against him. ·~ Eighteen-year-old Suzanna Dickenson was one of the three eyewitnesses to the massacre at the Alamo. She and her small child were allowed by Santa Anna to leave to recount the bloody tale , including the death of her husband, Lieutenant Almaron Dickenson . After her role at the Alamo , she led a turbulent life , supporting herself and her baby by taking in wash and running a boarding house in Houston. It was only after her fourth marriage to a furniture maker, Joseph Hannig , that she settled down happily in Austin. f Under the empresario system, Count Henri Castro, a French Jew , contracted to bring 700 families from a Rhenish province to Texas in 1844 . Spending at least $100,000 of his own money in the colonization of Texas, he died poor and neglected. His colony nearly suffered the same fate, barely surviving eighteen months of drought , locust and Indians. How did they survive? With Henri Castro's advice , "Begin your day with labor and end it with laughter." 12. Eltsabet Ney. Elisabet Ney came from Europe to become Texas 's first international artist. Her sculptures included Schopenhauer, Bismarck, Ludwig II , Stephen Austin and Sam Houston. But her lifestyle was a severe shock to Texans . She married her "best friend," Dr. Edmund Montgomery, in 1863, after eleven years of companionship, but insisted upon remaining "Miss Ney ." Elisa bet Ney's life reflected Texas's first woman libber. For lack of a gasoline engine not yet invented, Texas might have been the birthplace of aviation. In 1865, 40 years before the Wright Brothers, Jacob Brodbeck, a Fredericksburg schoolteacher, invented a man-sized machine operated by a giant spring. On the day of take-off, cheers exploded as the machine soared upward , treetop high. Inside the plane , a frantic Broad beck realized too late that the spring could not be rewound while it was running down. The plane crashed, but Brodbeck did fly! -~ Bigfoot Wallace was no myth. He was a giant of a man, 240 pounds, 6 foot, 2 inches with an armspread of 6 feet , 6 inches. He, along with Crockett and Houston, were influential in developing the legendary tall Texan image. A Texas Ranger, Indian fighter and spinner of tall tales, Bigfoot Wallace projected fantasy, adventure and realism , but one wonders , why did he call his rifle "Sweet! ips I" -~ Devil's rope. Wonder wire . Barbed wire by any other name would be as strong. John (Bet-aMillion) Gates, a wire salesman , proved that fact in 1877 when he constructed a wire corral on Military Plaza in San Antonio and challenged ranchers to bring their most ornery steers to test it. Incited to frenzy by burning torches, 25 longhorns couldn't break through . The disbelievers became converts, and orders for the wondrous wire exceeded supply . The rest is history. Barbed wire spread like mesquite . -c~;:-:;--- l'\\sseng£rs _\o~ .-. ~"". PRO,(.IHY, UtSfS"t;;t~ \.Ul\(i as P$l'f o!W \\11\i ~ f~nct · ,. '" ' -· •:--··'-!>~.-:~- . ~ -·--~ :4$ \lO NOT $[T ~,-.~.oN P,nu:.· 1 ' ,., . -~ ~®d$ ~t r~tma? \t .L'L-\.4'1-~·t.t." . Barbed Wrre Advertisement. •)'_~-·.- >~. . ·~ .·.- .;.:.- ,: . t.~-t" ,~#}/1 . ~.-"'~ ··'· ~ 1 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' ~f ' •' '•· -;~ . 13. • From San Antonio's Alamo Plaza to Sixth Street and Broadway, east to the Alamo ditch , was once known as the Irish Flats. It was settled by immigrants who fled Ireland in the grim 1830's. They worked and prayed , fiddled and danced , and told stories of Ireland . Progress has swept away the shady gardens and chalkstone cottages , but every St. Patrick's Day, the San Antonio River runs green with Irish spirit. -~ Perhaps made internationally famous by the late President Johnso n's informal entertaining on the Pedernales River, barbecue has long been part of Texas 's culinary heritage. Although it has come to mean almost any dish with a catsup or smokeinspired flavor , the name barbecue probably came from the spanish word, barbacoa, which originally didn't describe food at all. It was simply a grilllike arrangement of green sti cks on which to cook meat over an open fire . f A battle over chicken feed claimed one of San Antonio's finest citizens in the late 1830 's . When a local badman and his neighbor lady feuded over her chickens eating his horse's corn , the outlaw threatened to ' 'shear her bald headed'' unless a caballero would defend her. He posted the threat at Don Eugenio Navarro's store and when he found the notice torn down, shot Navarro through the heart. Mortally wounded, Navarro avenged himself by stabbing the murderer , ridding the city of a scurrilous citizen and saving a lady's honor at the same time. 14. Many of San Antonio's Chinese families came here not to work on the railroads but by military rescue. When the railroads were completed in the midsection of the nation, Chinese rail crews migrated south into Mexico seeking work. They aided Pershing during his attempt to oust Pancho Villa from the countryside. In 1917 when Pershing failed and Villa threatened the entire Chinese population of Mexico, most of the families were permitted to journey with Pershing to San Antonio , where they found jobs at Fort Sam Houston. Chinese Coolies Crossing River. For decades , strategtic bombing has been part of our military posture. But when Brigadier General Billy Mitchell , a World War I flying hero , proposed such ideas in 1925, he was denounced as a radical. Mitchell prophesied the attack on Pearl Harbor, but no one listened. Banished to Fort Sam Houston, he would not be silent, and in 1925 a court martial suspended him from rank and pay for five years. Billy Mitchell died in 1936. For this brave prophet , the vindication of history arrived too late. Mary Eleanor Brackenridge was an early champion of women 's rights - to receive education, to vote , to participate in the mainstream of society. She published a pamphlet on The Legal Status of Women in Texas. As vice president of First National Bank of San Antonio, she was the first woman bank director in the United States. Aware of social and economic conditions of the city , she dedicated her life to improving the welfare of women and children. Born in 1836 , Miss Brackenridge was indeed a woman ahead of her time . __5 1 In 1898 a young , black teacher from North Carolina, Artemesia Bowden, was named principal of St. Philip's Normal and Industrial School , a missionary-founded Saturday afternoon sewing class for black girls. The school would have remained small and insignificant but for her leadership. What started as a sewing class became, in 1 ')27, a junior college serving the needs of education-hungry blacks. On the strength of one woman 's vision , St. Philip's future was " sewed up. " ~ Before the 1880 's in the era of the open range , cattle branding was necessary to keep stock separated. Even after fences were built , theft was widespread and branding continued. But the famous western cattle brands weren 't the only ones in Texas. Spanish American ranchers used elaborate and decorative designs, sometimes covering the entire side of a steer. Their complicated curlicues made them hard for Texans to read, so they were called " Quien Sabes," meaning in Spanish : ' 'Who Knows.'' {;' ";:'; ~ ~ !i l:>. ~ ~ ;:; tl:l ;-:: ;:; ~ . '"" #II" • ·~' F F :81·. :i) F ~ F F F n't F 'Q : <0· ' F F '·?. '' F F F -~ F ·~· . ~ :~ \A' .{'V"' F :~·. No picture of life in the old southwest would be complete without the saloon . It was in the local watering hole that cowpokes and townspeople downed everything from Sarsaparilla to Red-Eye for any reason , or no reason at all. In 1839 a diarist named Frederick Maryatt wrote: "If you meet, you drink if you part, you drink; if you quarrel, you drink . Americans drink because it is hot they drink because it is cold." Some old Texas customs haven't changed. Bic Saloon, Shiner. Even in the pioneer aviation days of 1924 San Antonians were used to seeing aircraft overhead. But on April 23 of that year , the skies were filled with an unusual and colorful sight as the country's finest balloonists took off in the National Elimination Balloon Race . For the winning twoman balloon, which traveled 1, 100 miles in 44 hours, the race yielded $1,000 in prize money. 16. San Antonio's wheels of progress were not without violence in the early 1850's. Before railroads pushed into Texas, freight was moved by Mexican ox carts with huge wheels. As civilization flooded westward , the ox cans were joined by Anglo freight wagons pulled by horses or mules. There was fierce competition between the two , with the wagons offering faster , but more expensive hauling. It was not until after "the cart war ," in which more than 50 drivers were killed, that citizens hanged several aggressors to conclude the controversy. _5;! Remember vaudeville 's Dead-Eye Dick? He was none other than Ad Toepperwein from Boerne , Texas. No man in history has equalled his marksmanship . During a 10-day rifle shooting marathon in 1907 in San Antonio, Toepperwein fired 72,500 times at 2 1/4 -inch wood blocks tossed into the air and missed only nine . f . If you can find some flat lips , they could be valuable - especially if they meet a flat lid and are next to horseshoe handles . That would be a good sign that you 're holding a pottery vessel crafted by H. Wilson & Co. of Capote, near Seguin. Having entered Texas as the slave of a potter and preacher, Hiram Wilson opened his own pottery in 1872 to help fill a critical need for stoneware jugs , jars , churns and cisterns throughout central and western Texas. All thrown by hand , these historical pieces are collectors' items today. San Antonio in 1926 was a decade removed from the Great War and thousands of miles from the battlefields of France. However, this area became the locale for an epic film of World War I air power called Wings. The stars , Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen , came from Hollywood. But the planes, 45 of them, came from Kelly Field . From Fort Sam Houston 5,000 troops were marched to a recreated trench-cut battlefield at Camp Stanley. All converged to play their parts in a film that was to be the first recipient of an academy award . ·~ One of the entertainment spectaculars of San Antonio more than a century ago was the popular bullfight. The first bullring, looking much like the charreada arena , was just south of San Pedro Park near the springs. The restless Indian tribes frequently raided the aficionados during the fight, so the arena was moved closer into the downtown area. One of the highlights was a lady bullfighter, of whom it was written, "As well as bulls, the lady torreador also killed several men. " Bullfight Scene. James Bonham, one of the heroes of the Alamo, would have felt right at home in the college demonstrations of the 1960's. The son of wealthy South Carolinians, Bonham was sent to the University at Columbia in 1824, only to become a campus radical. After organizing a student rebellion over dormitory food and administration policies, Bonham was expelled in 1826. Ten years later, Jim Bonham would stage his final protest- a "fight-in" for Texas at the Alamo. james Butler Bonham. The Southern Pacific, an engine and two coaches, steamed into San Antonio on February 19, 1877, to mark the beginning of a new economic era . Next to a stampede, it was the first rapid transit system of the city. No longer would bad roads, stubborn mules and mud holes deter the shipping of commodities, and more travelers would be lured to San Antonio. 01 ' Dobbin had been replaced by the iron horse . Ben Milam and Jim Bowie, two of the most revered heroes in Texas history, were not above bending the law a little to acquire land . In the 1830's the Mexican government began selling off 11-league parcels of public land at dirt-cheap prices . But only Mexican citizens were supposed to be eligible . Bowie and many other Texans got around that by having Mexicans buy the land and transfer it to them . Corrupt officials looked the other way . Our history-book heroes were flesh and blood after all. -~· When Charles Lindbergh made his historic flight over the Atlantic in 1927, he became a hero . But his luck had almost run out two years earlier in a little known drama played out in the skies over San Antonio. Lindbergh, a flying cadet at Kelly Field, collided in mid-air with another training plane . Fortunately the Lone Eagle floated to safety , but only because his was the first unit to use parachutes. That's where he got the name "Lucky Lindy ." -~ In 1838 Samuel Colt was in a fix. He had invented the most significant weapon of his century, the Colt revolver, and nobody wanted it. The military thought it was too small to be effective, and it had to be dismantled into three parts for reloading, an almost impossible feat on horseback . But it shot five times , and Texans, eager for any edge in a brutal , hostile land, overlooked its faults and saved the Colt company from bankruptcy. Many a tall Texas tale has been told about the prowess of Texas lawmen, but none taller than this one . It seems that back in the thirties a riot broke out in an oil boom town, and the frightened citizenry appealed to the Texas Rangers . Gathered at the railroad depot, they gasped in disbelief as one Ranger calmly stepped off the train . "You mean the Governor sent only one Ranger? " someone asked. "Well," the big Ranger answered, "you've only got one riot , haven't you?" Lindbergh and His Airplane. . Colt Pistol Advertisement. 17. - Every western hero who ever stalked the silver screen is only a distillation of the original western hero, John Coffee Hays. He was a captain of the Texas Rangers at age 23 and for the next decade would fight Mexicans , Indians and outlaws with deadly enthusiasm. A Mexican General Oxle offered $500 reward for Hays. Texans gleefully replied "that was a lot of coin for a 5' 10" youth who weighed about 160 pounds. '' -~ In the 1880's when Carl Harnisch opened an eating establishment in San Antonio, he won instant recognition by protecting his food in glass cases. For 37 years this immigrant , who introduced the pound cake to America, operated the Harnisch Restaurant on Commerce Street. In an atmosphere of old world elegance , European-trained chefs and waiters unleashed the wonders of continental cuisine upon the palates of San Antonio. f The six-shooter wasn't the only device used in the winning of the West. In the 1870's , harnessing the wind to draw water to arid lands became common practice with the adaptation of the European windmill. The windmill opened up prime land to the homesteader and allowed expansion of the cattle industry into areas where lack of surface water had made ranching impossible. The gentle creaking of an isolated windmill is reassuring music to those who know the meaning of drought. 18. On Easter Eve in 1846 Indian campfires were aglow on hillsides around Fredericksburg. Frightened children asked if the Indians would attack. To soothe them, mothers explained that Easter fires were being built by the Easter Rabbit and his helpers to heat kettles for dyeing Easter eggs . On Easter morning children awoke to find colored eggs in nests of bluebonnets. Rabbit fires still light Fredericksburg hillsides every Easter. Armadillo. Legend tells us that the word ''gringo' ' evolved from the marching song Green Grow the Lilacs, sung by American soldiers during the Mexican War. From this, the Mexicans supposedly concocted " gringo" and applied it to all Englishspeaking Americans. Actually, the truth is somewhat less colorful. "Gringo" is derived from the Spanish word Griego or Greek. In Spain, for centuries, anyone speaking an unfamiliar language was speaking Griego or unintelligible gibberish. It was a Texas beauty that introduced the striptease to the stage more than a century ago. Her name was Adah Menken and as a stage-struck young girl who ran away from home, she ended up on Broadway in 1860. Cast in the title role of a play called Mazzepa, she stripped to apparent nudity and rode a horse off the stage. Actually , she wore skin colored tights , but the shock was so great and the illusion so good, the play was a scandal and hit simultaneously. -'~ The armadillo is rapidly becoming one of the unofficial symbols of Texas, but actually the armored creature didn 't arrive until the last century, migrating from South America. The first armadillo ever seen in San Antonio was hauled triumphantly through the city streets on January 22, 1879. It had been found by a woodcutter in Atascosa County and hundreds of citizens surrounded his wagon to just stare at the strange animal. The asking price for the beast was $50 . ·-·- Hollywood westerns depicted her as frail, young and pretty . Fresh off the stage from the East, she could charm a tough cowboy right off his horse . But on the Texas frontier, a schoolmarm had to be pretty tough herself. Working under primitive conditions, and often armed with little but McGuffy 's Reader, the schoolmarm taught as many as 30 children, of all ages and all abilities. For all her hard work, she was sometimes paid in baskets of food rather than cash. In a rugged, lonely frontier, the schoolmarm needed more than book learnin' to survive . She needed old-fashioned true grit. Helena is not exactly a ghost town , but it is a shadow of its former self. Back in the 1880's it was a boomtown , county seat of Karnes County . Helena was not a peaceful place to live, however . As a matter of fact, one gunfighter too many killed this town. A stray shot killed a young passerby who just happened to be the son of the area 's most powerful rancher. He vowed to kill the town and gave his land , far to the west , to the railroad . Karnes City and Kenedy were born and Helena went into a coma. _ _{! In 1883 over 300 north Texas cowboys went on strike for higher wages. After forming the Cowboys' Association, they informed the ranch owners that they wanted a raise from $30 to $50 a month. Unfortunately, their plan had one fatal flaw - strike headquarters was near the sinful city of Tascosa. After a couple of days in the dance halls and casinos , hunger overcame principle and all were home on the range once again . ~ Among the forty German intellectuals who founded the short-lived Bettina colony in 1847 was a brilliant young physician named Ferdinand von Herff. One day an old, blind Indian chief was brought to the colony where Dr. Herff surgically removed the cataracts and restored the Indian's sight. Sometime later, the chief rode back with grateful payment - Lena, a young Indian girl. Not wanting to offend the giver, Herff accepted the gift. Dr. Herff became one of San Antonio's most distinguished citizens, but never would his fee be paid with anything as bizarre or as attractive as Lena. 20. juan Seguin. In the Texas Revolution , in the state senate and the San Antonio mayor's office, Juan Seguin , a member of one of the city's oldest Spanish families, proved himself a brave and loyal patriot. Yet , sadly , his good name was clouded by suspicion and accusation from the so-called American families. In 1842 when the invading Mexican General Vasquez declared Mayor Seguin a friend , public opinion was aroused. A mob plundered and burned Seguin 's ranch. The mayor resigned, fleeing to Mexico with other refugees. There General Santa Anna forced him · to join General Woll' s invasion of San Antonio . Seguin died in Mexico in 1889. As historians lifted the cloud around Seguin, a lot of Texans had to ask : Was ever a hero treated so shabbily? By 1854 the German settlers had become an energetic and important core in San Antonio life . And in June that year the first German newspaper, a weekly called the Zeitung , appeared on the streets. It was ably edited by Adolph Donai, a staunch abolitionist . The story goes that an irate Texas Ranger once bounded up the steps of the paper's office ready to teach the editor a lesson. But Donai proved he was as effective with his fists as the printed word, and the Ranger came down the stairs with a new respect for an old saying: ' 'Never underestimate the power of the press. '' ·~ The idea of parking meters dates back to 1809 when the city, needing money to keep streets and plazas clean, established a hitching zone behind the church on Main Plaza. The cost was 25'. The fine for parking your horse outside this zone was two pesos. ··~ In the wild frontier days of San Antonio the most colorful entertainment in town was the wild and fiery fandango. In saloons , halls and even tents, passions and violence often erupted during the dance, but not even murder could stop the fandango dancers for long . One night, a tall American fell dead in the middle of a crowded dance floor. Another man lay wounded. The music was stopped, the corpse hauled off, the wounded man carried away. Then the dancers raced back to the fandango . It took a city council prohibition to do what death could not. In 1876 the last fandango establishment was finally shut down. . =--.:.:::-==-:_ __ .:.__~--- Most people are aware that six flags have flown over Texas , but for a brief time there was a little known seventh flag that men died for . In 1812, two soldiers of fortune and a rag-tag army invaded Texas to liberate it from Spanish rule . Jose de Lara , a Mexican rebel and Augustus Magee, a West Point graduate, actually captured San Antonio and renamed the state The Republic of the West. They were defeated by the Spanish at the Battle of Medina River, but for almost a year a little known solid green flag Hew over the Alamo. _51 Legend tells us that long ago the Indians of the southwest suffered a bitterly cold winter and severe drought. With no crops , they would surely face starvation. One night, to appease the Great Spirit with a sacrifice, a little Indian girl burned her dearest possession, a doll. Miraculously, the next morning beautiful bluebonnets had sprung up among the ashes. The drought lifted, the crops grew. The bluebonnets , born of a little girl 's love , signaled the rebirth of life. __.M_ On a pleasant evening in 1915 a young bachelor officer strolled over to the Fort Sam Houston Officers' Open Mess to join some friends . Before the evening was over, Second Lieutenant Dwight David Eisenhower had surrendered his heart to a pretty, young girl from Denver, Mamie Doud. Eisenhower's courtship strategy was swift and direct and on July 1, 1916, they were married. There would be grander addresses in the brilliant future of the newlyweds, including 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue . But none was as special as 688-B, Infantry Post , Ike and Mamie Eisenhower's very first home. 22 . On a quiet June afternoon in 1901, Karnes County Sheriff Harper Morris, tracking a horse thief, stopped at the ranch of Gregorio Cortez. Speaking Spanish, Cortez denied any guilt. Morris misunderstood, guns were drawn and Cortez killed the sheriff. Fleeing, the handsome, young vaquero covered 520 miles in ten days, eluding a small army of Rangers and posse members. Captured, he was tried for three murders, but convicted of only one. The governor pardoned him in 1913. In the cantinas, Mexican-Americans sang El Comda de Gregorio Cortez - the heroic victim of Anglo injustice. Just as the American War for Independence had its Lexington and Concord , the Texas War for Independence had its Gonzales. When the Mexican commander, Ugartechea , ordered the citizens of Gonzales to surrender its small, brass cannon, the Texans angrily hoisted a petticoat flag made from a silk wedding dress, daring the Mexicans to "Come and take it ." On October 2, 1835, in what was the first shot of the Texas Revolution , the townspeople loaded the cannon with iron scraps and fired at Mexican troops, driving them back to San Antonio. From Gonzales, the shot heard 'round Texas 'roused the fight for liberty. At the turn of the century, when feathers were the height of fashion, the Hot Wells Hotel was the site of San Antonio's Ostrich Farm. On Sunday afternoons genteel ladies would come out to select plumes for their latest coiffures. The unsuspecting birds would run to the fence to greet visitors who paid a 2 )C charge . The children were entertained with ostrich cart rides and the gentlemen with races. But alas, the new style of beads and ribbons outmoded feathers and the farm closed around 1920. -~- During the two years that Medina Dam was under construction, 1, 3 50 laborers lived in campsite barracks with their families. The campcity had electricity, a hospital, movies and baseball teams . A steady stream of whiskey peddlers, gamblers and prostitutes tried to separate the workers from their pay - $1.25 for a ten-hour day. Medina was completed in 1912. It was the largest dam in Texas, but not before 70 men, women and children had died of accidents, sickness and violence . -:~ In the early 1900 's when Hollywood was still a citrus grove, an imaginative Frenchman came to San Antonio to make movies. Gaston Melies moved his film company into the famed Hot Wells Hotel in 1911. Using the picturesque south side of the city, they produced over 60 popular and exciting one reelers . For one of his films, Melies rounded out his company of players with extras recruited from the Peacock Military College. They were to play soldiers in The Immortal Alamo. That brief film became the first of many dramatic movies to recreate that fateful moment when a few brave men fought for Texas liberty. - ) 1- " I - w ) 4 ~' ·-, ', ' Did you know that a man from Bexar County wrote the words to the song, The Eyes of Texas? John L. Sinclair wrote it in 1903 for a minstrel show in Austin. He received the idea from the president of The University of Texas who closed his speeches to the student body by saying, "The eyes of Texas are upon you." The famous song has united Texans in times of war, at sporting events and other spirited occasions. t In 1528 Cabeza de Vaca and remnants of the Narvaez Expedition were washed up on the Texas coast and enslaved by the Karankawa Indians. The Spaniard eventually became a respected medicine man, healing the natives as he traveled inland. In 15 3 5 he performed primitive surgery, removing an arrowhead from an Indian and closing the incision with deer bone. Fortunately, the patient lived. If Cabeza de Vaca had botched the operation, it would have cost him his life. ·~ In the 1870's photographers were something of a rarity in small Texas towns. Everyone wanted a portrait - especially the outlaws. One Texas Ranger went on an undercover picture-taking mission to capture the most wanted desperados on photographic glass. The talkative Ranger always took an extra shot and copied names and information on the back. After a three-month tour, 15 Rangers moved out with snapshots in one hand and pistols in the other. Over a hundred outlaws were shot again, but this time in an entirely different way. 24. When Sam Bass drifted into Texas in 1870, he was a seventeen-year-old horse thief, but he was destined to become a legend and Texas's first "beloved" outlaw. He maintained a Robin Hood image by robbing only the rich, mostly corporation payrolls carried aboard trains . It was Sam Bass that introduced train robbing to Texas. But in 1878, Ranger John B. Jones brought the outlaw's shortlived career to an abrupt halt outside the freshly robbed bank in Roundrock . At 25, Texas 's notorious outlaw had lived fast and died young. A hundred years ago there were two things that would draw a crowd in any Texas town -a hanging or the arrival of the traveling dentist. These itinerate tooth tuggers would set up shop on Main Street and in no time draw a crowd of spectators and patients alike. With nothing more than a shot of red -eye for the pain, even the bravest of men were entertaining . One home remedy book of the time promised relief from the toothache by picking the offending tooth with either a coffin nail or the middle toe of an owl. A young opera singer from Texas changed his name and style to become the first star of country music . His real name was Marion Slaughter, and he was recording light opera in 1916 when hillbilly music began to catch the public ear. Adopting a rural accent, and the names from two Texan towns, he became Vernon Dalhart, superstar. His first record was The Wreck of the Old 97 and it sold more than 25 million copies. Unfortunately, he never copyrighted any of his songs and died without a song on the charts or a penny in his jeans. ~ After World War I when quicksilver was discovered in Big Bend, a New Yorker showed up in Terlingua hoping to make a fortune from some unwitting rancher. At the first ranch he visited, he found no quicksilver and almost no grass, only acres of century plants which he thought were a new kind of giant asparagus. The rancher assured him that this was the only place in the world that produced 12-foot stalks of asparagus, but Texans would not eat the stuff. Visualizing a vast n
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