Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

2nd Lt. Margaret Stanfill, of Nassau Bay, TX, at the 128th Evac Hospital in Normandy prepares dressings for her patients on June 14, 1944. Margaret holds the distinct honor of being one of the first women to set foot upon the beaches of France after the invasion. And not only did Lieutenant Stanfill heroically rush to the shores of Normandy, but she was also one of the first nurses on the scene in the North Africa campaign. After North Africa, she followed Allied troops into Sicily. Margaret bravely risked her life in some of the most important battles of World War II to save the lives of American and Allied troops.
After the war Margaret returned to Texas. She married Wilson “Wick” Moore, who served in the Army Ordnance Corps in North Africa and Italy. The couple had one daughter and two sons. Margaret passed away on August 29, 2006, at the age of 86. She lies in rest at the Forest Park East Cemetery in Webster Texas.
Photo taken for Life Magazine.

[Shakey Jake]

The Texas Quote of the Day:
"I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved wining seven Tour de France races while on drugs. When I was on drugs, I couldn't even find my bike."
----- Willie Nelson
(Source: Traces of Texas)

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Lee Adami sent in this wonderful 1940s photo of LaNell Storey, Helen Storey and Katherine Keithley, Lee's mom. It was taken on the Dobie ranch in La Salle county. The ranch was owned by Jim Dobie, J. Frank Dobie's uncle, who was friends with Lee's grandfather. Lee says that these ladies were classic Texas women who "could dress for a hunt or go to San Antonio and dance in style at the Argyle."
Wonderful image, Lee! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Shakey Jake]

Shafter is on Cibolo Creek and U.S. Highway 67, at the east end of the Chinati Mountains eighteen miles north of Presidio in southern Presidio County. Its history is closely tied to silver mining. There is evidence that the Spaniards prospected for valuable ores in the area during the early 1600s, but Shafter became a mining town only after September 1880, when John W. Spencer, a freighter turned prospector, found silver ore there. The first mine produced $45 of ore per ton when first opened ($1,350 in today's money). The mines closed in the 1920's.

[Shakey Jake]

60 years ago today:
Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you."
-------- Nellie Connally, wife of Texas governor John Connally, to John F. Kennedy moments before he was assassinated, in one of history's worst-timed and most bitterly ironic comments ever. Today marks the 60th anniversary of that dark day in Dallas.

[CT_Shooter]

Today marks the 60th anniversary of that dark day in Dallas.

I've always thought this (rather old) computer analysis by Dale Myers to be believable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AlKUJHXYxQ

[Shakey Jake]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:
Every year Cuero, Texas hosts the Turkeyfest, which features a race between Cuero’s fastest turkey -- who is always named Ruby Begonia -- and the fastest turkey from Worthington, Minnesota, who is always named Paycheck. The winner earns the best title in the history of titles: The Traveling Turkey Trophy of Tumultuous Triumph.
Here's a circa 1910 photo of the driving of the turkeys through Cuero before the Traveling Turkey Trophy of Tumultuous Triumph ever got awarded. As many as 18,000 turkeys have participated in some years.

https://www.turkeyfest.org/

Jake

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1835, Texas lawmakers instituted a special force known as the Texas Rangers. Stephen F. Austin had hired ten experienced frontiersmen as "rangers" as early as 1823, but the 1835 legislation formalized the organization. The importance of the rangers has waxed and waned several times over the ensuing century and a half. They participated in many notable battles with various Indian tribes and fought ably in the Mexican War; they also were dispatched to restore order during various feuds, border disturbances, and civic upheavals. In the early twentieth century, however, numerous acts of brutality and debauchery committed by rangers, especially against Hispanics, were brought to light, in large part through the efforts of J. T. Canales, and in 1933 governor Miriam A. Ferguson fired all forty-four rangers for their partisan support of her opponent Ross Sterling. When the Texas Department of Public Safety was founded in 1935, it assumed responsibility for a greatly reduced force. In subsequent decades, however, the rangers have once again come to be recognized as the elite of Texas law enforcement. Legendary rangers are honored in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco.

[Shakey Jake]

Downtown Lajitas, Tx. Per Wiki:
The settlement is named after the Boquillas flagstone found in the area. "Lajitas" translates to "little flat rocks" in Spanish. It was inhabited by aboriginal Mexicans for many years. They were then removed from the area by the Apache and Comanche tribes in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first white settlers came to the area in the mid-1800s. William H. Emory also visited Lajitas in 1852. The community boomed when quicksilver was discovered 11 miles from the community at the end of the decade. It then became a port of entry when several cattle ranches and mining enterprises appeared in Coahuila and Chihuahua in Mexico and increased commerce across the Rio Grande River. The crossing was described as a smooth, rock bottom, and was best between Del Rio and El Paso. Farming along the floodplain caused an even further boom, causing Lajitas to build a store, a saloon, and a custom house in 1912. The store and saloon were operated by H.W. McGuirk, who also helped manage the mining company in Terlingua and funded the construction of a church. A post office was established at Lajitas in 1904 and remained in operation until 1939. McGuirk petitioned for it to be re-established when it was built sometime before 1901. It closed temporarily in 1910 and reopened six years later. He then sold the land to Thomas V. Skaggs, who became successful in the Lajitas Wax Company, which sold candelilla wax. Commerce was interrupted by Pancho Villa and his bandits, bringing John J. Pershing and his troops to establish a cavalry post there in 1916. A motel stood on the same land in the 1980s. The Lajitas area was then bought by Rex Ivey, Jr., who brought electricity to the community in 1949 and sold part of it to Walter M. Mischer, a Houston entrepreneur and owner of Mischer Corporation. He restored the community in 1976 with his corporation's subsidiary, Arrow Development Company. The population of Lajitas plummeted to only four when Terlingua's quicksilver mines closed. By the mid-1980s, Lajitas became a resort town with 15 businesses serving 50 people. The old church in the community was restored, and the community grew to have three motels, a hotel, a restaurant, a golf course, a swimming pool, an RV park, and an airstrip. The Lajitas Museum, which contained artifacts from the Big Bend area, was located just east of Lajitas. The old trading post also remained operational. The population remained at 50 in 1990 and grew to 75 from 2000 to 2010.

[Shakey Jake]

Per Traces of Texas:
Although Jimmie Rodgers is considered the father of country music, it took a Texan, Vernon Dalhart, to show the way. That's because it was Dalhart's 1924 recording "The Wreck of the Old '97" that was the first megahit in the history of recorded music. The song ----- a classic American railroad ballad about the September 27, 1903 derailment of Southern Railway Fast Mail train No. 97 near Danville, Virginia ----- sold seven million copies, a colossal number for a mid-1920s recording. The "B" side of the recording was "The Prisoner's Song." The recording was the biggest-selling non-holiday record in the first 70 years of recorded music and in 1998 was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Additionally, the Recording Industry Association of America named it one of the Songs of the Century. And it was the desire of the Victor Talking Machine Company to duplicate the sales success of 'Wreck/Prisoner' that led them to contract with Ralph S. Peer to go to the southern mountains in the summer of 1927 to facilitate the Bristol Sessions, arguably the single most important recording event in the history of country music. It was at the Bristol Sessions that Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family were discovered. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Dalhart's recordings are estimated to have sold 75 MILLION copies over the years. Despite this success, he was a night baggage clerk at Barnum's Hotel in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut when he had a heart attack in January, 1948. He never fully recovered and died from a second attack on 15 September 1948.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A ... xA5bG1R-ON