Salla Colorado County judge granted Jesse Robinson a divorce on Mar. 6, 1843, from his headstrong wife after ten tumultuous years of marriage. Eleven days later, the former Mrs. Robinson tied the matrimonial knot with a San Jacinto veteran who gave the fiercest female on the Texas frontier her legen...

T he Mar. 3, 1910, trial of Allen Brooks, a black man in his sixties charged with molesting a three-year-old white girl, was interrupted by a Dallas lynch mob hellbent on dispensing its own barbaric brand of justice. According to the “Handbook of Texas,” the last word on all things Texan, there were...

O n Feb. 23, 1942, the estranged wife of a Dallas newspaper columnist went on trial for the fatal shooting of her husband’s not-so-secret lover. Back in 1979, D Magazine talked a former employee of The Dispatch into reminiscing about Dallas’ gone but not forgotten tabloid that drove the establishmen...

The undefeated Miners of Texas Western gave the home crowd thrills aplenty on Feb. 14, 1966 by slipping past Arizona State 69-67 for their 19th consecutive victory. The miracle maker in El Paso was a former two-time all-state basketball star from Oklahoma.  Don Haskins played college ball for Hank I...

F ranklin Roosevelt stunned his cabinet speechless on Feb. 1, 1937, by introducing a radical plan to tame the hostile Supreme Court.   The vice-president was the first to speak.   “Before that law comes back up here for the Boss’ signature, many, many moons will pass,” predicted John Nance Garner of...

G ene Austin, the original crooner whose recordings sold 86 million copies in the '20s and '30s, lost his battle with lung cancer on Jan. 24, 1972. The popular singer and prolific songwriter was born Lemeul Eugene Lucas in 1900 in the north Texas town of Gainesville.  He did most of his growing up n...

T he Texas Congress picked Houston as the new capital of the Lone Star Republic over Matagorda and Washington-on-the-Brazos on Nov. 30, 1836. The Allen brothers had three years to convince skeptics that their humid heaven-on-earth should be the permanent seat of government.  The resourceful promoter...

G eorgians rallied at Macon on Nov. 22, 1835 in support of the valiant struggle for Texas independence, and at the end of the evening 32 volunteers stepped forward to form the nucleus of the famed and ill-fated Georgia Battalion. Despite the crude communications of the times, southerners managed to ...

L eading up to the 1998 execution of ax murderer Karla Faye Tucker, there were repeated references to the fact that a woman had not been put to death in Texas since Nov. 13, 1863.  Her name was Chipita Rodriguez and this is her sad but true story.  For more years than most folks could remember, Chip...

F ourteen-year-old Ginger Rogers danced circles around the competition at the Baker Hotel in Dallas on Nov. 9, 1925, to win first place in the state Charleston contest. Virginia Katherine McMath was born in Independence, Missouri – Harry Truman’s hometown – but like most “naturalized” Texans came to...