Hello October!! Good to see you!!
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posted by Jeff - 10.1.2011 - the Texas State Historical Association
General Land Office opens
October 01, 1837
On this day in 1837, John P. Borden opened the General Land Office in Houston. John, with his brother Gail Borden Jr., had surveyed and laid out the town of Houston in 1836. As first commissioner of the new land office, John Borden faced the monumental job of compiling and preserving the many Spanish and Mexican land titles issued before the republic. He began with no funds or employees to assist him, yet by the end of 1837 he had successfully acquired documents from all over Texas. He also registered and surveyed new grants. In 1839 he moved the General Land Office to Austin and transported almost 5,000 pounds of documents by wagon. The military bounties, veteran donations, headrights, and homestead preemptions issued by Borden and successive commissioners amounted to more than 75 million acres granted to individuals.
Quicksilver mine goes bust
October 01, 1942
On this day in 1942, the Chisos Mining Company filed for bankruptcy. The company, a major quicksilver producer at Terlingua in southern Brewster County, was established in 1903. Founded by Howard E. Perry, a Chicago industrialist, the Chisos reported its first recovery in 1903, and during the next three decades became one of the nation's leading producers of quicksilver. Several factors contributed to the success of the operation. First, the property contained some of the richest ore in the quicksilver district; second, Perry engaged men of outstanding caliber to supervise the onsite operations (metallurgist William Battle Phillips and geologist Johan August Udden); third, quicksilver prices peaked during World War I, the period of the mine's maximum recovery; and fourth, an abundance of cheap Mexican labor was available. Production declined during the late 1930s, and the company filed for bankruptcy in 1942. The Esperado Mining Company purchased the Chisos assets and operated the mine unsuccessfully until the end of World War II.
The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville houses its first prisoner
October 01, 1849
On this day in 1849, the first prisoner, a convicted horse thief from Fayette County, entered the partially completed Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. The facility held only three prisoners in 1849, but by 1855 it housed seventy-five convicts, and by 1860, 182. In 1998 there were six prison units in Huntsville, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was responsible for more than 146,000 adult inmates at units throughout the state.
posted by Jeff - 10.1.2011 - the Texas State Historical Association
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