A 21-year-old nobody from Dallas surprised the sports world on Jun. 8, 1933 by coming within a single stroke of grabbing golf’s biggest prize – the U.S. Open Championship. Ralph Guldahl was born in Big D in 1911, a year before two legendary lions of the links – Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson – also drew...

Backed by a new crime-fighting attorney general, who campaigned on a pledge to clean up Galveston, the Texas Rangers finally got their wish and padlocked the Balinese Room on May 30, 1957. The combination nightclub-casino had been the crown jewel of two Sicilian brothers’ Island empire for three dec...

By Bartee Haile After the liberals walked out of the state convention on May 23, 1944, Texas Democrats officially went on the record opposing a fourth term for the White House incumbent. Deep-rooted disenchantment with the New Deal finally caused conservatives to turn against ailing FDR.   Criticism...

A boiling black cloud rolled into Goliad on May 18, 1902 rattling windows with earsplitting thunderclaps and pelting the historic town with huge hailstones. But the worst was yet to come from the killer storm. Asked to list the deadliest tornadoes in Texas history, many might name the terrible twist...

Texas History by Bartee Haile “White Lightning” climbed to the top of the country music chart on May 10, 1959 giving George Jones the first of ten Number One hits in a phenomenal career that spanned six decades. George Glenn Jones was born in 1931 on the southern edge of the Big Thicket at a wide sp...

When the last vote was counted on April 23, 1929, Dallas had a new mayor cut from a vastly different political cloth. J. Worthington “Waddy” Tate broke the mold for Big D’s elected leaders. A former druggist and retired railroad worker, he was not rolling in money nor did he belong to the upper crus...

As voters in ten Texas counties went to the polls on April 10, 1937 to pick a new congressman, the youngest candidate on the ballot spent the day in a hospital bed. After working his way through college at San Marcos and teaching school in Houston, Lyndon Baines Johnson joined the staff of Rep. Rich...

Texas History by Bartee Haile During the first week of April 1829, Sam Houston sent his teenaged bride home to mother, decided to resign as governor of Tennessee and prepared for a self-imposed exile among his boyhood friends, the Cherokees. Twenty years earlier, the 16 year old had rebelled against...

Kid Curry, the most dangerous member of the Wild Bunch, shot a total stranger and left him to die in the dust while passing through a West Texas town on March 27, 1901. Orphaned at an early age, the three Logan boys were raised by a loving aunt in Missouri. But Harvey, the oldest and least receptive...

This Week in Texas History By Bartee Haile Mannen Clements, Sr. decided to take a break from politicking on Mar. 23, 1887 and stepped into a Ballinger barroom for a refreshing drink. What he got instead was a deadly barrage of bullets. Including members of their extended family, the Clements were a ...