Moments in Texas History ~ 6/7/2011

------------------------------------------------------------

Republic grants large tract to prospective colonizers

June 07, 1842

On this day in 1842, the Republic of Texas granted three million acres between the Llano and Colorado rivers to Henry Fisher, Burchard Miller, and Joseph Baker. The Fisher-Miller Grant, as the tract is called, was one of many colonization projects in early Texas that largely fizzled. The land was to be settled by one thousand families of German, Dutch, Swiss, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ancestry. When Fisher and Miller failed to colonize the grant within the allotted time, the Congress of the republic extended the deadline. Fisher got President Houston to appoint him consul to Bremen in 1843, and the next year he sold part of his interest to the Adelsverein, a German colonization society. In December 1845 both Fisher and Miller sold their remaining rights in the grant to the Germans. The Adelsverein managed to plant only a few colonists on the grant, however; only the settlement of Castell survived. Other colonists moved to Fredericksburg or New Braunfels and sold their Fisher-Miller lots.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Construction begins on future Fort Sam Houston

June 07, 1876

On this day in 1876, construction began on what was to become a permanent major military installation in northeast San Antonio. Citizens had long desired to secure a permanent military post. Over the years the army had leased many small areas of the city, most notably the Alamo and a plot where the Gunter Hotel now stands. A formal proposal made in 1870 was met with political opposition from Secretary of War Belknap. After his resignation in 1876 a contract for construction was let to the Edward Braden Construction Company. The quadrangular fort with only one entry gate was completed in 1878. In 1890 the post was designated Fort Sam Houston. Since that time Fort Sam Houston has grown to an installation of several thousand acres with hundreds of permanent structures. In 2000 it was host to many of the United States Army's major commands.
------------------------------------------------------------

Novelist dies after fistfight

June 07, 1979

On this day in 1979, Asa Earl Carter, part Indian, segregationist, politician, speechwriter, and novelist, died as a result of a fistfight in Abilene. Carter was born in Anniston, Alabama, in 1925. By the late 1950s he was in Birmingham, Alabama, where he hosted a radio show for the American States Rights Association and was a leader of the Alabama Council movement. Later he founded the North Alabama White Citizens Council. He was one of two writers said to be responsible for the words "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" uttered by Governor George Wallace. After an unsuccessful run against Wallace in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1970, Carter gave up politics and left Alabama. He adopted the pseudonym Bedford Forrest Carter and settled in Sweetwater, Texas, where he used the resources of the City-County Library to work on his first novel, Gone to Texas (1973). The highly successful film version starring Clint Eastwood is entitled The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). Carter wrote three other books, including the purported autobiography The Education of Little Tree (1976), before his untimely death.

posted by Jeff ~ 6.7.2011- Info from The Texas State Historical Association