Moments in Texas History ~ 6/16/2011

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Northeast Texas community gets a post office

June 16, 1879

On this day in 1879, the post office at Caddo Mills was opened. The town is located at the intersection of State Highway 66 and Farm Road 36 near Caddo Creek in Hunt County. In 1870 I. T. Johnson and Henry King had built a gristmill a mile west of the present townsite. Shortly thereafter, a store opened and a community developed. Residents referred to it as Caddo Mills, after Johnson and King's gristmill. In the early 1880s Caddo Mills had 100 residents, three churches, and a school. The Katie Railroad reached the town in 1886. By 1892 the number of businesses had doubled and the population was 500. The Caddo Mills Banner began publication in 1897. The State National Bank opened in 1905. The town was incorporated in 1940, and by 1990 the population was 1,068.

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French Colonists arrive at La Réunion

June 16, 1855

On this day in 1855 some 200 French colonists arrived at the colony of La Réunion, located on the south bank of the Trinity River in central Dallas County within the present city limits of Dallas. La Réunion was founded as a utopian experiment by Victor Prosper Considérant, one of the leading democratic socialist figures in France. The 1855 arrivals landed in Galveston, traveled overland from the coast, reached Dallas in April, and arrived at La Réunion on June 16. Although many settlers left the colony soon after they arrived, new colonists kept the population fairly constant for about two years; the number of residents peaked at around 350 in the fall of 1856. La Réunion existed as a serious communal organization for only about eighteen months. Financial insolvency killed the colony.
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Founder of Sacred Heart Academy joins Dominican order

June 16, 1863

On this day in 1863, Mother Mary Agnes Magevney, future foundress of the Dominican Congregation of the Sacred Heart in Houston, joined the Dominican Sisters of Saint Mary's in Ohio. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1841, the child of Irish immigrants. The Magevney home was the center of Catholic worship for Memphis and the surrounding area, and every sacrament except confirmation and holy orders was celebrated there. Mary was attending St. Mary's Academy in Somerset, Ohio, when she joined the Dominican Sisters. In 1882 Nicholas Aloysius Gallagher, bishop of Galveston, made known to Mother Agnes the need for religious teachers in Texas, and in September she and nineteen Dominican nuns left Ohio to establish a convent and school in Galveston. Sacred Heart Academy opened in October 1882, and the fledgling school developed into a system that spread to southeast and central Texas, southern California, and Guatemala and continues to serve in those areas today. Mother Agnes died in 1891.

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posted by Jeff ~6.16.2011 The Texas State Historical Association