Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Something a bit more modern today. Source is from All Things Music.

"China Grove" is a song from The Doobie Brothers' 1973 album The Captain and Me. It was written by original lead singer Tom Johnston, before he fell ill in 1975 and was replaced by Michael McDonald. The song is based on a real town in Texas with the same name. The connection is obvious given its real-life proximity to San Antonio, which is referenced in the lyrics. However, the rest of the song is largely a fictional account portraying China Grove as Texas' version of Chinatown. Notable is the mention of samurai, who in fact are Japanese, not Chinese.
The track was originally titled "Parliament" after the band's tradition of naming demos after whatever brand of cigarette Tom Johnston was smoking at the time. According to producer Ted Templeman, "Billy Payne played a keyboard thing on the bridge that sounded like an Oriental lick, so I told Tommy, 'Write something that sounds oriental.' So he came up with 'China Grove'."
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SONGFACTS
China Grove is a small town in Texas, about 10 miles from San Antonio in Bexar County. Did Doobie Brothers singer/guitarist Tom Johnston know this when he wrote the song? Sort of. Here's what he told us: "The words were written last, and they were made up around this whole idea of this wacky little town with a sheriff that had a Samurai Sword and all that sort of thing. The funny thing was that I found out in 1975 in a cab in Houston that there really was a China Grove, although what happened was in 1972, we were touring in Winnebago's, and we were driving into San Antonio. And there is a China Grove, Texas, right outside of San Antonio. I must have seen the sign and forgotten about it. And when I came up with the term 'China Grove,' I thought I was just making it up because of the words being about this crazy sheriff with a Samurai Sword."
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Johnston's lyrics were influenced by the oriental piano sound that Billy Payne came up with when they were working on the track. Payne was the pianist for Little Feat, and recorded with many other artists, including Elton John and James Taylor. Says Johnston: "the piano lick went, 'Dadadadun, dadadadadundun.' It was an Oriental sounding lick. And so, from there I took off and went to the place I ended up with lyrically. I must have seen that sign and forgotten it. And when the cab driver told me this in Houston, I said, 'You gotta be kiddin' me.' He said, 'There really is a China Grove.' I said, 'No, there isn't.' He says, 'Yeah, there really is. And it is right outside of San Antonio.' I said, 'That's weird.' And it turns out there's one in North Carolina, too."

Here's as link to China Grove: https://www.cityofchinagrovetx.gov/

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1949, Fannie Pearl Surratt was appointed sheriff of Montgomery County, Texas. Her husband, Hershel, who had been sheriff, died of a heart attack on July 22. She wore a cowboy hat, ankle-length skirt, and western-style collared shirt with a men’s tie. She carried a small pistol in a hip holster and a large pearl-handled chrome revolver in her waistband but was best known for the ax handle she used to smash pinball machines, then considered illegal gambling equipment. She served as sheriff for seventeen months.

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another entry from the T of T Facebook group:
This is one of those "knock me over with a feather" photos. Traces of Texas reader Keri Davila sent in this amazing snapshot, which is so good I can't hardly stand it.
This is Floy Blankenship and her dad John Blankenship (owner) on the banks of Clear Creek near Killeen in the early 1940's, before the government decided the land could be better used for Fort Hood. The building is made from old advertising signs.
There is simply no superlative that can adequately describe how good this photo is. Everything is absolutely perfect. The little girl, the dog, the signage .... astounding. It even has a near-perfect distribution of tones. What do y'all think?

[Hatchdog]

A little late to the party but I still have that Doobie Brothers album on my play list. In fact, around 1976 or so I went to a Doobie Bro’s concert in Spokane and was vey disappointed that Michael McDonald was the new lead singer. Never cared for his style. Thanks for the story about China Grove.

[Mr. Neutron]

There is simply no superlative that can adequately describe how good this photo is. Everything is absolutely perfect. The little girl, the dog, the signage .... astounding. It even has a near-perfect distribution of tones. What do y'all think?

It's a VERY COOL picture. But it's funny...... When I personally look at most photos, I look at the content or idea that is being shown. I don't "analyze" for tones and etc.; just look at it to appreciate it, laugh, marvel at the content, or whatever. My wife and daughter (the daughter lives in Buda) are both photgraphers They would analyze pictures for the more "technical aspects" of a photo. My wife pointed out that most older B&W photos show near total darkness in the shadowy/shade portions of th pic. She agreed with you Jake; someone did a very good job of snappin' the shutter on that one.

On the other hand, I play guitar, and often analyze how music is made as I listen to it. My wife and daughter can only play the radio, to steal a saying from Billy Gibbons about his sister. I don't absolutely loathe Michael MacDonald, but Like Hatchdog, I think maybe he wasn't the right person to replace Tom Johnston for the Doobies.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1898, the Colorado County Feud began. This murderous quarrel between rival local factions was ignited when Larkin Hope, a candidate for county sheriff, was shot and killed by an unknown assailant. Jim Coleman, a family friend of Sheriff Sam Reese, was immediately suspected. He was never charged. Less than a year later Reese was killed in a gun battle on the Columbus Street where Hope had died. Stray bullets killed Charles Boehme and wounded a boy named Johnny Williams. Even though evidence suggests that Reese had provoked the fight, his sons vowed to get revenge. In five more gunfights between May 17, 1899, and May 17, 1907, five more men were killed, and several others wounded. Texas Ranger Bill McDonald was dispatched to end the feud. No one was ever convicted of the killings. The feud also had a direct effect on the economic well-being of Columbus. In 1906 the citizens voted to turn the administration of the city over to the county and Columbus remained unincorporated for twenty years.

More information can be found here:
https://www.geni.com/people/Sheriff-Sam ... 3908013932

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook group:
You see them everywhere along the back roads of Texas, the shells of old houses, remnants of someone's dream. Occasionally, if you have time or if you're curious or just when the mood strikes, you stop, get out, walk up to the fence, and ponder the existence of those who built the house and how they lived and what they loved and what became of them. You linger for awhile, lost in thought, then wistfully move on, a little sad because you don't know anything about the house but, glad, somehow, that you stopped.

Traces of Texas reader John Ramirez kindly sent in this photo of a house that was built by his great grandfather, Eduwigis Ramirez, just north of Geronimo, Texas. The house still stands on Harborth Road and is located on a 300 acre farm. John's grandfather, Juan Ramirez, was born there in 1903. Also still there, though not shown in this view, are the original barn and the horse stable.

Thank you, John! It must be nice to revisit what's left of this old house that your great grandfather built and to feel that connection to the soil and to the earth from which you sprung. What a time of reverie that must be for you. The earth turns and the galaxy rotates and the universe expands but this house abides.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Ronald Borman sent in this smashing photo of his mom, Mattie Sue Borman, at the Prince's Drive-In on Jensen Drive in Houston back in 1953 or 1954. Mattie Sue is the 4th from the left. HOW AWESOME IS THIS?
Thank you, Ronald! I love it!

[Shakey Jake]

In 1822, nine year-old Robert Hancock Hunter moved to Texas with his family. His account of what they encountered is utterly classic. Here it is, exactly as he wrote it, misspellings and all
"I, R. H. Hunter, was born May first 1813 in Ohio in a little town Circleville in Pickaway Planes. I was a bout 4 years old when Father moved to Missouri, & in April 1822 come to Texas & on the 7th day of April we landed in San Jacinto Bay. We came a round by water in a small boat or a scow.
As we were sailing a long the coast, we spide a small boat on the beach, & went in shore at the Mouth of the Mamantough. There we stade 5 or 6 days, & fixt up the little schooner & we corked her up tite, put in the old mast that was broke down, & pute in something to eat that day, & tied our little Scow be hinde & set sale for Galveston with all of our goods & chattels in the Scow. While out a peace, a south east gale blowed up, & we come on untill a bout 8 or 9 oclock, when our scow broke loos & went a shore, & we come on to the mouth of what is now cald Taylors Bayou. There we campt. (ed. note, Taylor Bayou is a few miles west of Port Aurthor) I Father & Jack our Saylor, went back to git the Scow. When tha got there, Old Yokham & a bout 30 men was there, & no scow, & the men all drunk on Pa's rum. He had a barrel of Rum on the scow, & he had to come a way the best he could, & got nothing. He lost every thing we had. Pa got back the next evening. He was gon two days, & we had nothing to eat. Jack kild an aligator, & rosted the tale, & we eat it, & not a drop of water to drink. Pa saved 4 trunks out of the scow, & in one of them was a bolt of domestic. Pa took it, & spread it out on the grass, and got it wet with due, & rung it in a bucket & that saved us untill we got to Galveston that evening.
When we got to Galveston we found 5 large emagrant ships laying at ancor in the harber. Capt John Roch & his big black ship was laying at ancor. He fiard a cannon to bring us too. When Pa came to Texas in 1821, he got acquainted with old man Anson Taylor on the Trinity & old man Taylor was on Capt Rochs ship, & knew Pa, & with his speaking trumpet cald us a long side & Capt Roch let down a chir & took us a board. Us little ones, was hungry. We had not eat anything for 3 days but the aligator tall. The Cook was at the Caboos a cooking. He had a pot of rice seting by. The old irishman ast us if we were not hungery, & we the children told him yesser. He gave us some spoons, & we piched in to the rice. Pa came around & seen us, children children what are you doing there. The old irishman hollered out, let them a lone, I put them thare. Tha are hungery let them eat. That rice et good. We stade with Capt Roch that night."
------- Robert Hancock Hunter, "The Narrative of Robert Hancock Hunter," 1860.
You can read the rest of the story here: https://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/Libra ... rmy=Texian
Shown here: Robert Hancock Hunter, bottom right, with his three brothers circa 1885. They are wearing campaign ribbons.

[Shakey Jake]

A woman dressed in sailor's clothing on an Excelsior motorcycle in Houston circa 1918. I don't know who she is or why she's dressed like this unless it's just out of a sense of frivolity, which I would applaud. Any ideas?
Taken by prolific Houston photographer Harry Walker. Courtesy the University of Houston's digital archives.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1915, Mexican raiders attacked the Norias Division headquarters of the King Ranch, an episode in the "Bandit Wars" that troubled the Texas-Mexican border between 1912 and 1915. Norias is some seventy miles north of Brownsville. On the afternoon of the 8th, in response to a report about Mexican horsemen, Texas adjutant general Henry Hutchings and twelve Texas Rangers went to the ranch. Three customs inspectors and the Cameron County sheriff arrived at Norias by train and joined the first group, making a total of sixteen men at the headquarters. At dusk horsemen carrying a red flag began firing at the ranch house. The besieged men took cover and returned fire while the cook telephoned Kingsville for help. The raiders were variously reported to number from fifty to seventy. About two hours after dark the firing suddenly stopped and the raiders vanished. In the fight Manuela Flores, a ranch employee, was killed and four defenders were wounded. Five of the raiders were reported killed and perhaps a dozen wounded. The raid provoked outrage in the lower Rio Grande valley, and the United States Army increased its presence in the area.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1908, blues pianist Robert Shaw was born in Stafford, Texas. His parents had a Steinway grand piano and provided music lessons for his sisters, but Shaw's father did not permit the son to play. Years later Shaw told an interviewer that he would "crawl under the house" to catch the musical strains coming from the piano lessons, and he played the piano when the rest of the family was away from home. Reportedly, the first song he learned was "Aggravatin' Papa Don't You Try to Two-Time Me." By the time he was a teenager, Shaw would slip away to hear jazz musicians in Houston and at the roadhouses in the nearby countryside. In time, despite his father's opposition, he decided to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician. Shaw learned his distinct brand of "barrelhouse" piano playing from other musicians in the Fourth Ward, Houston, the center of black entertainment in the city. His career flourished in the 1920s and 30s, then suffered a thirty-year hiatus while he ran a grocery store in Austin. Shaw began performing again in 1967 and gained international recognition before his death in 1985.

[Shakey Jake]

The Civil War pretty much bankrupted Texas and left the state impoverished. The only real asset that Texas had was its huge surplus of longhorn cattle that roamed the prairies freely. There was a problem, though: getting the cattle to hungry markets on the East Coast. This was made worse by the fact that Missouri and Kansas had closed their borders to Texas cattle due to the Texas fever they carried.
To meet that demand for beef, Joseph G. McCoy of Illinois sought provide Texas cattle. In 1867, McCoy convinced Kansas Pacific officials to build a siding in Abilene, Kansas, on the edge of the quarantine area, and began constructing pens and loading facilities. He notified Texas cowmen of the new cattle market, and that year, he shipped 35,000 head. The number of cattle shipped doubled each year until 1871, when 600,000 cattle were sent east.
Meanwhile, in 1867, O.W. Wheeler and his partners purchased 2,400 steers in San Antonio and planned to winter them on the plains before continuing on to California. While at the North Canadian River in Indian Territory, they stumbled upon wagon tracks. They followed them. The tracks belonged to Jesse Chisholm, a Scot-Cherokee who had been transporting trade goods to Indian camps south of Wichita since 1864. Originally known as the Trail, the Kansas Trail, the Abilene Trail, or McCoy's Trail, Texas cowmen began calling it the Chisholm Trail from the Rio Grande to central Kansas. The Kansas Daily Commonwealth first referred to the Chisholm Trail in 1870, and by 1874, the Denison, Texas, Daily News mentioned cattle being driven up "the famous Chisholm Trail."
Although the Chisholm Trail was used only from 1867 to 1884, in its brief existence it had been followed by more than five million cattle and a million mustangs ---- the greatest migration of livestock in world history.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Lilian Vaught was so kind as to send in this remarkable photo of the Ellersly Plantation in Brazoria Texas in 1895, a couple of years before it burned down. For quite a while it was considered the finest house in Texas. Per the TSHA:
Ellersly (Ellersley, Ellerslie) Plantation was established by John Greenville McNeel on land granted to him and his brother, George W. McNeel, by the Mexican government under Stephen F. Austin's first contract in 1824. It included one-half league on the Brazos River and one-half league on the San Bernard River. George died, and John Greenville built a prosperous sugar plantation in the area known as Gulf Prairie, on the San Bernard River eight miles from the Gulf of Mexico in Brazoria County. The plantation house was located in a grove of live oaks between two roads, and the entrance gates were flanked by hand-hewn oak posts topped by carved replicas of a spade, a diamond, a club, and a heart. The two-story house was constructed of slave-made bricks. It had twenty-one rooms, and galleries with pillars extended the length of the house on the west and south. The stairs and bannisters were made of mahogany, and the ceilings were plastered and decorated with intricate medallions. The fireplaces and mantels were made of marble, and the floors were carpeted. The furniture was either walnut or mahogany. Atop the house was a laboratory with a telescope. All in all, Ellersly was considered the finest home in Texas before the Civil War.
The plantation had an immense brick sugar mill that resembled a turreted castle and enclosed a double set of kettles. Outbuildings included a brick overseer's house, a cotton gin, a blacksmith's shop, and a hospital. The brick slave quarters lined a street leading off the main road; each consisted of two rooms with a double fireplace that accommodated two families.
Greenville and his family entertained often-dancing, fishing, hunting and riding. He had a stallion that cost $6,000. His brothers, Sterling McNeel, Pleasant McNeel, and Leander McNeel, lived on neighboring plantations. Ellersly was prosperous; in 1852, for example, it produced 408 hogsheads or nearly 149,000 pounds of sugar. In 1860 the census appraised J. G. McNeel's real property at $100,000 and his personal property at $216,400. He owned 176 slaves. The 1870 census reflected his losses during Reconstruction, however, for he was listed with no property.
After his death in 1876 his heirs sold the plantation to James Marion Huntington, who was married to Greenville's niece. After her death Huntington remarried. The main house burned in the 1890s, and the family moved into the old brick hospital. It blew down in the Galveston hurricane of 1900, and they moved into the overseer's house, The descendants sold the house and property to the Phillips Petroleum Company in 1974. The overseer's house burned in 1983.
Source: René Harris, "ELLERSLY PLANTATION," Handbook of Texas Online
Thank you, Lilian! I had no idea that this house ever existed!

[Shakey Jake]

182 years ago today the Comanches were defeated by Gen. Felix Huston at the Battle of Plum Creek. The sacking of Victoria and Linnville in August 1840 in what was then Victoria County was the strategic object of a great Comanche raid in 1840, the most terrifying of all Comanche raids in Southeast Texas. The attack originated as an aftermath of the Council House Fight in San Antonio in March 1840. By August the Penateka Comanches were able to accept the leadership of their remaining chief, Buffalo Hump, the others having been killed in the Council House Fight. In what became the largest of all southern Comanche raids, Buffalo Hump launched a retaliatory attack down the Guadalupe valley east and south of Gonzales. The band numbered perhaps as many as 1,000, including the families of the warriors, who followed to make camps and seize plunder. The number of warriors was probably between 400 and 500, though witnesses put the figure higher. The total included a good number of Kiowas and Mexican guides.

The raiders first appeared at Victoria without warning on the afternoon of August 6, and upon crossing Spring Creek were mistaken at first for Lipans, members of a friendly group that often traded with settlers around the town. "We of Victoria were startled by the apparitions presented by the sudden appearance of six hundred mounted Comanches in the immediate outskirts of the village," wrote John J. Linn, who recorded the attack on Victoria and the burning of Linnville in his Reminiscences of Fifty Years in Texas (1883). The Comanches killed a number of slaves working in fields and also some Whites who were unable to reach Victoria. They captured over 1,500 horses belonging to area residents and to some Mexican horse traders who had arrived with a large herd. The Indians surrounded the town, but the settlers' defensive efforts apparently prevented their sacking the town itself. The attackers retired to Spring Creek at day's end and killed a White settler and two Black enslaved people before a group of Victoria men left for the Cuero Creek, Lavaca, and Gonzales settlements for help. The next day the Comanches killed a party of men returning to town, except for Jesse O. Wheeler and a companion, who reached safety.

With their spoils the Indians then left Victoria and thundered toward the coast. They camped the night of August 7 on Placido (now Placedo) Creek on the ranch of Plácido Benavides, about twelve miles from Linnville. There two wagoners were intercepted, of whom one escaped and the other was killed. Three miles from Linnville the raiders killed two Black men cutting hay. Tradition holds that Daniel D. Brown warned the citizens of the danger and that Mary Margaret Kerr Mitchell rode horseback across Prairie Chicken Reef with word of the attack on Victoria. Nevertheless, early on August 8, the Comanches surprised the town; most residents supposed them to be Mexican horse traders.

The Indians surrounded the small port of Linnville and began pillaging the stores and houses. They killed three Whites, including customs officer Hugh Oran Watts, who delayed escape to retrieve a gold watch; they captured Watts's wife of only twenty-one days, Juliet Constance, and a Black woman and child. The surprised people of Linnville fled to the water and were saved by remaining aboard small boats and a schooner captained by William G. Marshall at anchor in the bay. From their Gulf vantage point the refugees witnessed the destruction of their town. For the entire day the Comanches plundered and burned buildings. They tied feather beds and bolts of cloth to their horses and dragged them about in sport. They herded large numbers of cattle into pens and slaughtered them. One exasperated onlooker, Judge John Hays, grabbed a gun and waded ashore through the shallow water, but the Indians ignored him. When he returned to the schooner his gun was found to have been unloaded.

Goods valued at $300,000 were at Linnville at the time of the raid; many items were en route from New Orleans to San Antonio. Linn noted that in his warehouse were several cases of hats and umbrellas belonging to James Robinson, a San Antonio merchant. "These the Indians made free with, and went dashing about the blazing village, amid their screeching squaws and `little Injuns,' like demons in a drunken saturnalia, with Robinson's hats on their heads and Robinson's umbrellas bobbing about on every side like tipsy young balloons." After loading the plunder onto pack mules the raiders, attired in their booty, finally retired in the afternoon with some 3,000 horses and a number of captives, including Mrs. Watts, and encamped across the bayou near the old road.

By this time the men of Victoria had recruited reinforcements from the Cuero Creek settlement. On the morning of August 7 the combined forces joined volunteers from the Gonzales and Lavaca settlements under Adam Zumwalt and Benjamin McCulloch and skirmished with the Comanches about twelve miles east of Victoria on Marcado Creek and again on Casa Blanca Creek, two branches of Garcitas Creek. The Indians stole away with their captives and plunder but were defeated by volunteers at Plum Creek near the site of present Lockhart on August 12 (see PLUM CREEK, BATTLE OF). Although the Indians tried to kill their Victoria and Linnville captives during this final battle, Juliet Watts's corset prevented her arrow wound from killing her. She returned to the Linnville area, married Dr. J. M. Stanton, and opened the Stanton House, the first hotel in Port Lavaca, the new settlement established on the bay 3½ miles southwest by displaced Linnville residents.

Twenty-three settlers are known to have been killed in the Victoria-Linnville raid, including eight Blacks and one Mexican. There is evidence that this raid also was part of a scheme among Mexican Centralists to punish the citizens of Victoria and Linnville for providing Mexican Federalists a port and site for the short-lived provisional government of the Republic of the Rio Grande. The captured horses and plunder were evidently received by Centralist generals Valentín Canalizo and Adrián Woll and used in an invasion of Texas. Although this was the last great Comanche raid into the coastal settlements, Linnville never regained prominence and soon vanished in the wake of Port Lavaca's growth. The Victoria battle is commemorated by a historical marker on De León Plaza in downtown Victoria near the site of the Round Top House, the fortified home of colonist Plácido Benavides, which served as an improvised citadel against the attack. The site of Linnville is 3½ miles northeast of Port Lavaca on the bayfront, just off Farm Road 1090 in present Calhoun County.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1906, black soldiers of the Twenty-fifth U.S. Infantry allegedly attacked citizens of Brownsville. The event resulted in the largest summary dismissals in the history of the United States Army. The soldiers, newly arrived at Fort Brown from the Philippines and Nebraska, confronted racial discrimination from some businesses and suffered physical abuse from some federal customs collectors. A reported attack on a white woman during the night of August 12 so enraged the citizens that Maj. Charles W. Penrose, after consultation with Mayor Frederick Combe, declared an early curfew. Just after midnight on the thirteenth, a bartender was fatally shot and a police lieutenant was wounded. Various citizens claimed to have seen soldiers running through the streets shooting, even though it was dark. Several civilian and military investigations presumed the guilt of the soldiers without identifying individual culprits. When suspects were not forthcoming, the army inspector general charged a "conspiracy of silence." On November 5 President Theodore Roosevelt discharged "without honor" all 167 enlisted men garrisoned at Fort Brown. This action fueled political and "due process" arguments for more than sixty years. In 1972 the Nixon administration awarded honorable discharges, without back pay, to the soldiers involved. The only surviving veteran, Dorsie Willis, received a $25,000 settlement.

[Shakey Jake]

A retrospective from T of T facebook group:
Traces of Texas reader Tory Roberts was nice enough to send in this wonderful photo of his Great Grandfather, John Alton Roberts, at his filling station in Meadow, Texas back in 1935. Per an attached note: " No water, no electricity. Windcharger for radio and lights. Gas was 15 cents for regular, 18 cents for Ethyl. Lived in back part of the station. Flats fixed 15 cents- 25 cents. New pavement finished Lubbock to Brownfield." All of that is pretty awesome stuff. And if you know that "Meadow" is pronounced "Med-ah" you can consider yourself a real Texan.

[Shakey Jake]

About two centuries ago, a Mexican boy named Jose Villarreal and a companion were captured by Comanches on a raid. The two escaped, finding their way out of the hostile wilderness by following the North Star. Decades later, in 1851, Villarreal, a blacksmith, built a simple iron sundial that was placed over an arched stone doorway of “El Fuerte,” the oldest structure in San Ygnacio, Texas and part of the Trevino-Uribe Rancho. According to local legends the sundial, which keeps Mexico City time, was Villarreal’s tribute to the celestial body that had guided him and his companion to freedom. The photo that I am posting of the sundial was taken in 1936, but the sundial and the fort still stand and recently underwent a significant restoration. The Treviño–Uribe Rancho is a historic fortified home at the junction of Trevino and Uribe Streets in San Ygnacio, which has a fascinating history. With a construction history dating to 1830, it is one of the oldest surviving buildings from the period of Spanish-Mexican settlement of the north bank of the lower Rio Grande. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1786, frontier icon and Alamo defender Davy Crockett was born in Tennessee. He began his military career as a scout in the Tennessee militia in 1813 and was elected to the Tennessee legislature in 1821. After a turbulent political career, during which he split with President Andrew Jackson, a fellow Tennessean, and acquired a national reputation as a sharpshooter, hunter, and yarn-spinner, Crockett grew disenchanted with the political process and decided to explore Texas. He set out in November 1835 and reached San Antonio de Béxar in February 1836, shortly before the arrival of Antonio López de Santa Anna. Crockett chose to join Col. William B. Travis, who had deliberately disregarded Jackson sympathizer Sam Houston's orders to withdraw from the Alamo, and died in the battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836. No matter how many fabrications gathered around him, the historical David Crockett proved a formidable hero in his own right and succeeded Daniel Boone as the rough-hewn representative of frontier independence and virtue.

[Shakey Jake]

Doctors and misc. officers of the Bolivar Quarantine Station on Pelican Island circa 1910. When the federal government replaced state administrations in processing immigrants at the turn of the century, efforts began to redirect the flow of immigration from the Northeast to Texas. Pelican Island became federal property, and the government constructed an immigration center and quarantine station there. Galveston became a sort of "mini Ellis Island" at this time, and between 1906 and 1914 many Czechs, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, English, Poles entered the U.S. and began their lives as citizens right here. It was demolished in 1972.