Contemporary Texas History

07/19/2023

In July 1933, shortly after E.C. Brand was named State Banking Commissioner, Sweetwater in Nolan County fêted Brand, George Sheppard, State Comptroller, and Assistant Attorney General V. Earl Earp—all three from the county—with a special banquet celebrating their accomplishments. 📰: Nolan County News, July 20, 1933.

07/17/2023

In July 1933, Hollywood Studio MGM expressed an interest in a Brownsville-area site, Palm Grove. It was discussed that the site may employ up to 5,000 a day and that MGM may make a Tarzan and Poncho Villa film at the proposed site. This doesn’t appear to have ever materialized.

07/16/2023

Medal of Honor recipient Johnnie Hutchins (Handbook of Texas: bit.ly/43z0twJ) was born in Weimar and attended school at Eagle Lake. After he was killed in action, his mother bought a home for her and Johnnie’s brothers and sisters in Lissie in Wharton County. Hutchins’ family had been sharecroppers, and Johnnie worked on small watercraft in Houston before the war. A US Navy destroyer es**rt and a section of US Highway 90 are named in his honor today. 📰: Nov. 26, 1994 Dallas Times Herald.

07/16/2023

Marie McCraw Robinson was a Dallas attorney from a very prominent family. Her brother was TX Attorney General and Dallas County DA, and her father was a Dallas school board member and prominent businessman. Late in life, Marie’s fortunes turned. By the late 1970s, she was living as a widow in the family’s dilapidated mansion on Ross Avenue, tended to by the Visiting Nurses of Oak Cliff and retired from her law practice. Living on Social Security and sleeping on a mattress on the floor of her home …because she couldn’t climb the stairs, she posed for a United Way fundraising campaign poster in 1976, causing a bit of a stir in Dallas. 📰: Dallas Morning News, Oct. 25, 1976.

07/16/2023

Texas Gov. Dan Moody is shown cutting the ribbon for the first bridge between Anderson and Freestone Counties at Long Lake US 79/84. Prior to this, a ferry was required to cross. Undated photo but Moody was governor from 1927-1931. 📸: Palestine Herald Press, July 4, 1976.

07/15/2023

Jesse Abrams Thomas was a prominent Texas newspaperman, owning first the Leonard Graphic and later the Mineola Monitor. He served in the 29th & 30th Texas Legislatures representing Fannin County. He served on the school boards in Mineola and Leonard, and was a Texas Press Association President. A current and former president of the Association attended him on his deathbed.

09/26/2022

A reminder that the Civil War and Reconstruction weren’t that long ago: A Houston Telegraph excerpt in Flake’s Weekly Bulletin from Sept. 25, 1865 claiming many Freedmen were idol and their former masters were “their best friends.”

Similar rhetoric persisted for years.

05/02/2022

A key moment in LGBTQ+ psychiatric history occurred in Dallas in 1972.

In 1972, Dr. John Fryer risked his career to tell his colleagues that gay people were not mentally ill. His act sent ripples through the legal, medical and justice systems.

04/28/2022

Many of the strip centers of your youth are now historic.

Tom Thumb hasn’t been locally owned for years, but its roots have left it with some of the best spots for a grocery store inside the Dallas city limits.

03/20/2022

A great deal of historic residential architecture is disappearing across Texas.

There’s no mistaking what’s about to happen behind the shroud of tall curtained fencing that encircles both sides of an entire residential block of old North...

01/18/2022

As we reflect on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. today, reading them story of the night he came to Dallas provides an interesting look into the event itself and what transpired to get him there.

In their new book, Dallas 1963, Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis examine Dallas' culture in the early 1960s and the events that led to JFK’s death.