Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1982, a marker was erected at the site of the Kishi Colony to honor Japanese pioneer Kichimatsu Kishi and the settlement he founded. The colony was one of at least three small Japanese settlements established on the Texas coastal plain during the early twentieth century. The community, about ten miles east of Beaumont in central Orange County, was founded by Kishi, a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War. He purchased the land in 1907, and in the following year he and other Japanese immigrants planted their first rice crops. Several, including Kishi, brought their families to the United States. The Japanese colony at Kishi eventually included thirty-two men, five women, and four children. Although the Great Depression led to the Kishi Colony's collapse, a few of the former immigrants remained in Southeast Texas. Many of their descendants still live in the area. More information can be found here:
http://hirasaki.net/Family_Stories/Kish ... /Kishi.htm

[Shakey Jake]

September, 1960: John Wayne in Liberty, Texas. He was there to dedicate the only true, uncracked replica of the Liberty Bell as cast as the original at Whitechapel foundry in England. The bell is still in Liberty today. Photo by Moon Young. Courtesy The Portal to Texas History

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook Group:
Most Texans are probably unfamiliar with Clydie Mae King, which is a pity because Clydie was one of the greatest Texas singers of all time. Clydie, who was born in Dallas in 1943 was a backup singer whose resume is unbelievable. She was one of the backup singers in Phil Spector's Wall of Sound in the early-mid 1960s and sang on countless hits. She was one of Ray Charles' Raelettes for three years. Clydie provided backing vocals for Humble Pie, which had great success in the United States, and she went on to become an in-demand session singer, working with B.B. King, The Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Dickey Betts, Joe Walsh, and many others. She sang on Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, which became a feature film. Along with Merry Clayton, she sang the background vocals on Lynyrd Skynyrd's seminal hit "Sweet Home Alabama." Clydie was married a few times, romantically linked to Bob Dylan ... just a really well-led life. She passed away in 2019 at the age of 75.

[Shakey Jake]

A "two-fer" today:
Traces of Texas reader Zada Owens generously sent in this humdinger of a tombstone, which is in her family cemetery just outside of San Saba and very close to the Colorado River. Hosea Lawless, murdered by a band of horse thieves at the age of 27. Hosea was born in Arkansas, the son of Ezekial and Tabitha Lawless. Zada said her mom passed away a few years ago and is buried about 10 feet from this marker.
Thank you, Zada. One of the best tombstones I've ever seen!

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1839, Reuben Ross, standing in for Alonzo B. Sweitzer, seriously wounded Ben McCulloch in a duel. The encounter and its aftermath exemplify the persistence (and absurdity) of the Southern code duello tradition in the Republic of Texas and the ineffectiveness of the antidueling law passed by the Congress of the republic in 1836. The bad blood between McCulloch and Sweitzer began during their 1839 race for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives and intensified during their subsequent involvement in the pursuit of Indians who had raided Gonzales County. After a lengthy exchange of insults, Sweitzer's friend Ross delivered a formal challenge to McCulloch, who refused to accept on the grounds that Sweitzer was not a gentleman. Ross, however, was an acceptable substitute, and the two faced off with rifles at forty paces in a field two miles north of Gonzales. Ross, a trained duelist, shot McCulloch in the right arm, a wound that left him permanently crippled. With honor apparently satisfied, Ross sent his personal surgeon to tend to McCulloch and expressed his regret at having "to meet so brave a man in a private encounter." McCulloch was indicted for "setting at nought the quiet and good morals of this community" by "wickedly, willfully, and maliciously" accepting Ross's challenge, but the district attorney chose not to prosecute. The violence continued, however, as McCulloch's brother Henry shot and killed an obstreperous (and reportedly intoxicated) Ross a few months later, and the quarrelsome Sweitzer died in a pistol duel with Robert S. Neighbors in 1841. Ben McCulloch went on to serve as a Confederate general during the Civil War and was killed in the battle of Pea Ridge.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1877, Charles H. Howard shot and killed Louis Cardis in a store in El Paso. The killing was merely the latest, though hardly the last, violent episode in a long dispute known as the Salt War of San Elizario. The trouble began in 1866 when a group of prominent El Paso Republicans, including Cardis, W. W. Mills, and Albert J. Fountain, sought to acquire title to the salt deposits at the foot of Guadalupe Peak, 100 miles east of the city, and to begin charging fees of the local Mexican Americans, who had for years collected salt there free of charge. The so-called Salt Ring fell apart in 1868, but the plan persisted, and in 1872 Cardis allied himself with Howard, a transplanted Missouri lawyer and a Democrat. After Howard became district judge in 1874, however, he and Cardis had a falling-out of their own. Howard filed on the salt lakes in the name of his father-in-law and set off a riot in September 1877 by arresting two men who had threatened to go for salt. After being held for three days by a mob at San Elizario, Howard agreed to give up his claim and leave the country, but sought out and killed Cardis instead. Howard was arraigned for murder, but in early December returned to San Elizario to press trespassing charges against a caravan of salt-seekers. There he was besieged by a mob. After five days and the deaths of two men, Howard gave himself up to save the lives of his party, but he and two allies were shot by a firing squad of men from Mexico. Although more violence ensued, no one was ever arrested or brought to trial. A congressional investigation attempted to get at the facts, but no positive action was taken except the reestablishment of Fort Bliss, which had been abandoned earlier in the year.

[Shakey Jake]

Braniff International Airways Flight 542, a Lockheed L-188 Electra.. On September 29, 1959, 23 minutes into the 41-minute flight from Houston to Dallas Love Field, the aircraft disintegrated in mid-air approximately 3.8 miles (6.1 km) southeast of Buffalo, Texas, killing everyone on board.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1878, Kiowa chief Satanta committed suicide by jumping out his prison window. Satanta was born around 1820, probably in what is now Kansas or Oklahoma. He first emerged as an orator at the Medicine Lodge Treaty council in October 1867, where he came to be known as the "Orator of the Plains," although that title may have been a tongue-in-cheek reference to his long-winded speeches rather than sincere praise for his speaking abilities. In 1871 Satanta and his fellow chiefs Satank and Big Tree were arrested for their part in the Warren wagontrain raid. Satank was killed while trying to escape. The trial of Satanta and Big Tree at Jacksboro was a celebrated event, primarily because it marked the first time Indian chiefs were forced to stand trial in a civil court. The jury convicted the two men and sentenced them to hang, but Governor E. J. Davis commuted the sentences to life imprisonment. Satanta was paroled in 1873, but was re-arrested for his role in the attack on Lyman's wagontrain in Palo Duro Canyon and in the second battle of Adobe Walls. He was imprisoned in the Texas State Penitentiary at Hunstville until 1878, when, demoralized over the prospect of spending the rest of his life in confinement, he took his own life. (See previous entry http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.p ... ta#p225188)

[Shakey Jake]

On the Throckmorton-Shackleford county line. Near the Clear Fork of the Brazos next to what used to be Camp Cooper. The post was founded by Col. Albert Sidney Johnston in January 1856 and became headquarters for four companies of the Second United States Cavalry under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee. This was Lee's first command of a fort. He remained in charge for fifteen months, from April 9, 1856, until July 22, 1857. Captains under his command included Earl Van Dorn and Theodore O'Hara.

[Shakey Jake]

The poignant photo of shoes left behind by Ruth Moment Armistead before she committed suicide by leaping from the UT Tower in Austin on September 30, 1971. This was taken by American Statesman photographer Ike Baruch.