By Bartee Halie W hile on patrol off the Mexican coast on March 20, 1836, the Invincible whipped an enemy man-of-war and seized an American blockade runner on the high seas. All in a day’s work for the Texas Navy. During the darkest hour of the Lone Star Revolution, Jeremiah Brown put to sea in a co...

By Bartee Haile The United States Supreme Court ruled on Mar. 15, 1896 that Greer County belonged not to Texas but the recently organized Oklahoma Territory. The questionable decision raised doubts about the justices’ impartiality and stole from the Lone Star State a million acres held since the Rev...

By Bartee Haile A   bill calling for the creation of Texas Canyons State Park was introduced in the Lone Star legislature on March 2, 1933, but national status for Big Bend would be a long time coming.   The first shot in the battle for Big Bend was fired a half century earlier by an El Paso editor,...

By Bartee Halie Two saddle tramps watched from the shadows of the Wichita Falls station on Feb. 25, 1896 as the Rangers boarded the one o’clock train for Fort Worth. With the state lawmen gone at last, the City National Bank was ripe for the taking. Times Record News Archives City National Bank empl...

By Bartee Halie Cal Farley C al Farley’s huge heart suddenly gave out on Feb. 19, 1967, while the founder of Boys Ranch attended chapel with his “cowboys.” The homespun humanitarian knew all about broken homes. Cal was just a boy himself, when his father walked out on his wife and six children. He h...

By Bartee Haile By the time their eighth child arrived on Feb. 11, 1889, the Hunts were running out of names as well as room. The couple called the boy Haroldson Lafayette Jr., never dreaming he would prefer to go by his initials and someday would be the richest man in America.   Tutored at home by ...

By Bartee Haile Just when Texans started to think the Spanish Flu had finally run its course, on Feb. 4, 1920 the State Health Department reported 2,514 new cases in the past 24 hours. The deadly strain of influenza that caused the worldwide epidemic at the end of the First World War was called the ...

By Bartee Haile N o one who saw Willie Shoemaker take that terrible tumble at Santa Anita Park on Jan. 23, 1968 would have believed the tough little Texan would ever ride in another horse race. Life had always been a struggle for Billie Lee Shoemaker since the day he was born at Fabens, Texas downri...

By Bartee Haile Four brothers busted out of the Graham jail on Jan. 14, 1889 and foolishly hightailed it for home. Recaptured the next morning over breakfast, they were back behind bars by noon. The Marlows were a tight-knit clan of footloose frontiersmen. Boone, Epp, Alf, Charley and George took af...

By Bartee Haile Woodward Maurice Ritter was born on Jan. 11, 1905 deep in the piney woods of East Texas at a wide spot in the road called Murvaul. Besides the finest voice in the musically gifted family, Woodward also had the best mind. Graduating at the head of his high school class in Beaumont, he...