orried the war might cut off their supply of cheap labor, the Texas Dirt Farmers Congress appealed to the federal government on Jul. 22, 1941 to reopen the border with Mexico. Texas did not always have such a significant Mexican presence as today. In fact, at the end of the nineteenth century, less ...

illian Knox, once the prime suspect in the staged suicide of her timber tycoon husband, was back in the news on July 15, 1939 following her arrest in Los Angeles on warrants out of Dallas and Shreveport. The Big D district attorney announced that the notorious “Lady Bountiful,” the nickname bestowed...

wo years after fellow Texans spurned him in the only ballot-box loss of his career, Sam Houston gave his first and last speech in a comeback campaign for governor on July 9, 1859. As one of just two southern senators that opposed repeal of the Missouri Compromise and extension of slavery to the west...

n a July 3, 1925 editorial entitled “The Circus Comes to Dayton,” the Temple Daily Telegram criticized the carnival atmosphere surrounding the Scopes “Monkey Trial” and dismissed the emotion-charged debate over evolution as a “useless discussion.” The new law that high school biology teacher John T....

estifying in front of a legislative committee on June 25, 1951, the mayor of Texas’ “sin city” defended his much-maligned constituents with the curious logic, “The people of Galveston ought to be commended for not being hypocrites!” The island was wide-open decades before Sam and Rose Maceo appeared...

am Snead was determined to beat the Texan, who only the week before had embarrassed him at the U.S. Open, in the final round of the Western Open on Jun.14, 1937. Ralph Guldahl was born in Big D in 1911, a year before two legendary lions of the links -- Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson – also drew their fi...

resident Franklin Delano Roosevelt mixed policking with pleasure on a reelection campaign swing through Texas on June 11-12, 1936. The first stop on FDR’s Lone Star itinerary was Houston, where the mayor proclaimed a holiday in eager anticipation of the unprecedented visit. All public buildings and ...

wenty-eight year old King Vidor released his fourteenth motion picture on Jun. 3, 1923.   Talent, hard work and a little luck turned the star-struck Texan into one of Hollywood’s finest film makers. The Galveston native, who survived the 1900 hurricane as a boy of six, was mesmerized by the newfangl...

allas Stoudenmire resigned under pressure as city marshal of El Paso on May 27, 1882 and promised to get help for his drinking problem. After his recovery from four near-fatal Civil War wounds, the Alabaman emigrated to Texas and gave farming a half-hearted try.   Deciding sod-busting was not for hi...

panish authorities banished Father Juan Manuel Zambrano from provincial Texas on May 22, 1814, but the combative priest stood his ground and forced his earthly adversaries to rescind the order. Gov. Manuel de Salcedo succeeded in sending Zambrano into exile in 1807.   After three long years of isola...