Showing posts with label Fort Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fort Brown. Show all posts

Friday, April 20, 2018

1969 Fort Brown and downtown Brownsville, Texas aerial views

 1969 August aerial photo Brownsville, Texas
 Immaculate Conception Cathedral (top left- E Jefferson and 12th St) and Market Square / Town Hall (right center) with Fire Station No1 on E Adams and 10th (bottom right) 
 Texas Southmost College Library and Gorgas building and many Fort Brown buildings (top center) with Immaculate Conception Cathedral at bottom center
 Fort Brown Motor Hotel surrounded by Horseshoe Lake with Jacob Brown Memorial Center at center.  The infamous Casa de Nylon (bottom left) and Customs - right center
 A closer look at Market Square / Town Hall and surrounding buildings
 From top center to right - King Mart and International Bridge to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico.  There are many recognizable buildings downtown-- no need to name them all.
 Entrance to Matamoros and El Jardon Hotel at bottom center.
Coca Cola building, Methodist Church, Cameron County Courthouse / Post Office across the street from The Majestic Theater on E Elizabeth and 10th
The Vivier Opera House and Goodyear Tires Servive buildings are gone from E Levee and 10th as is the Sinclair gas station (top center).  They called that tall building the Pan-Am Bank at the time maybe ... It is now used for Cameron County offices

Please send any corrections or add your additional comments below 

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

1967 - Hurricane Beulah Storms through Ft Brown Motor Hotel

 TSC archives slide image
 View from behind hotel and what appears to be heavy damage to top section (next three slide photos courtesy of Mel & Del Trevino) 
 View from E Elizabeth (now University Dr)  Looks like rolled up carpets on grass
 View from Holiday Inn parking lot.  Those are carpets hanging from balcony rails
archival postcard/brochure image?
Jose Zuniga --Mom and dad wanted to go to a shelter. I didn't want to go. So we stayed home. It felt like airplanes were flying around the house... It broke a branch off a mesquite tree, bended other trees and the yard was flooded..


Mrp Mimms --And then after it was over, crop-dusters sprayed the city with pesticides for the Mediterranean fruit fly infestation. I can still smell it. It's a wonder any of us survived the aftermath.


Carol Lee Davidson-- I worked at Mercy hospital then. The nuns had us prepare the hallways. And cafeteria for people seeking shelter that lived in Matamoros or Las Prietas in Brownsville. I was shocked at the number of people that showed up. We ended up turning away quite a few because we just didn't have the vacancy.

Norma Cardenas-- My family was living in Edinburg during Beulah. However, my mom's family all were living in Brownsville. Since I was in 10th grade, my mind was concerned with school things--namely watching football games. Brownsville got major wind damage, but Hidalgo County got more flooding than wind. Since we found out that Edinburg was going to be out of school for over a month, we decided to try to make it to Brownsville to both visit relatives and catch a game. Normally it takes around 45 minutes to an hour to get there from Edinburg, but Beulah flooding made us have to Take so many detours to reach Brownsville that it took us over 2 hrs. To get there! We got quite an eyeful of damage during our journey that it seems like just yesterday


Peggy Paris --I remember hearing about an I beam being picked up on one side of the Ft.Brown resaca, bent in a perfect U and deposited on the other side.
(visual aid for Peggy Paris story)

Kim Tipton -- I remember putting tape on the windows and opening windows on opposite sides of the house. Our cat had some cute kittens who would climb up a chair back and pounce on my father who was sleeping on the floor.
Belinda Rangel I remember we were our kitchen when the back of house just fell to ground , we were evacuated and taken to Hanna High school

Friday, September 9, 2016

Early 1900s ~ 1st Illinois Cavalry at Fort Brown - Brownsville and Port Isabel Postcards

 1st Illinois Cavalry at Fort Brown - Brownsville, Texas
 1st Illinois Cavalry Camp - Point Isabel
 1st Illinois Cavalry Camp, Point Isabel, Texas
1st Illinois Cavalry Soldiers at Depot, Brownsville, Texas
1st Illinois Cavalry, Kitchen Line, Brownsville, Texas
General James Parker at Brownsville, Texas Fort Brown Headquarters

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Abner Doubleday: Inventor of Baseball was in Brownsville, Texas

1917 Ft Brown 3rd Calvary vs 64th Motor Company (photo) Daily Ranchero 23 October 1969 clipping and inset of Abner Doubleday
While the true story as to who invented baseball is still in question—Abner Doubleday’s name is still associated with the creation of the game in 1839. 

Doubleday was stationed in the Valley with Zachary Taylor’s U.S. Army during the Mexican War—once in Port Isabel (1846) and again at Brownsville’s Fort Brown in 1848.  

It is not known whether Doubleday organized a game while stationed here— but we can always speculate that maybe he did?  Abner was long gone when the game found a diamond in this city…

The first Brownsville amateur baseball team was formed in 1868—this is when the real reporting of the game started in the Brownsville Ranchero. 

It was on a Christmas Day when the inaugural game pitted the Rio Grande Club of this city against Club Union de Matamoros. It was advertised as the championship of the border. 

The boys from the other side of the river put-up 49 crooked numbers on the board with the city squad crossing the plate 32 times. As time progressed, both cities added more teams, but it was not until the turn of the century that baseball became the king of sports in this region.   

The Brownsville Herald credited John D. Hill, who came to the city to get into the rice business, with giving the sport a push in 1903.  Hill’s son, Frank, was a college pitcher at Kentucky, and after watching an Army team take on local civilians, he decided that the family should organize a local team.

By 1904, when the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway came into town, a city team was in place.  The squad won all its games that year, including one over a strong team from Corpus Christi, and it declared itself the South Texas champion.

In 1910, Brownsville joined Corpus Christi, Beeville, Laredo, Victoria and Bay City in the professional Southwest Texas League.

Sam Bell was the first manager of the Brownsville Brownies, and local pharmacist W.G. Willman was named the secretary.  One manager who went on to bigger things was also in the league—famed University of Texas coach Billy Disch managed the Beeville Squad.

1910 Brownie
The Brownies won their first game of the season, a 2-1 decision over Corpus Christi on Jacinto day in 1910.  The team finished the year with a 68-47 record, good enough to win the second half and set up a playoff against Victoria.

The teams split their games in Brownsville, then divided the next two in Victoria.  To accommodate large crowds—by some reports, between 8,000 and 9,000 fans, the series was moved to Corpus.

Brownsville took the next two games and the first league pennant.  Among the players on the team was pitcher John Taff, an Austin native who appeared in seven games for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1913.

The Southwest Texas League lasted two seasons, but Brownsville went on to field teams in three more leagues—the Texas Valley (1938), Rio Grande Valley (1949-1950) and Gulf Coast (1951-1953).

Saturday, September 26, 2015

1900s Fort Brown and Brownsville area photos from William Hornaday Collection online


 Fort Brown administration building No.4  later used as Brownsville Police headquarters
 Fort Brown barracks were along International Blvd from E Adams to Jefferson St
 The one and half story brick buildings were by Gorgas Drive where UT-RGV bookstore is.   Seven others faced parade grounds from May St 
 This entrance to Fort Brown was where E Elizabeth ended on what id International Blvd today
 Fort Brown cemetery located on property where Ft Brown Motor Hotel was built.  Headstons were removed in 1909 and remains transferred to National Cemetery in Alexandria, LA.
 Look-out tower on edge of Rio Grande
 Back of Fort Brown on Rio Grande
 Area behind Fort Brown where artillery barracks were located - farther back from Calvary barracks.  This was where Brownsville Compress was later built.
 Clearing area behind Fort Brown for garden
 Fort Brown garden
 Fort Brown garden
 Cactus field in South Texas
 Cock fight near Rio Grande
 Boat ferry crossing and water carriers near Rio Grande
 Construction of jacal homes along Rio Grande
 Man making straw hats 
read caption on photo - no info about that - sorry


Biographical Sketch

William Deming Hornaday was born near Plainfield, Indiana on February 4, 1868. He demonstrated an early interest in journalism, and contributed anonymous items to local county newspapers from a young age. As a teenager, Hornaday began selling articles to a series of newspapers across the Midwest and West, including the Fowler (Indiana) New Era, the Columbus (Ohio) Republican, the Denver Times, theSan Antonio Times, and the Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial Appeal. Hornaday moved to Texas in 1889, and found a position as city editor for the San Antonio Express from 1891 to 1895. He would later rejoin the staff of the Express as the paper's Austin correspondent for political and legislative matters from 1899 to 1917. In 1891, Hornaday married Marjorie Rochow, with whom he would have four children.
In 1895, Hornaday began an extended connection with Mexico, initially by editing and publishing the Industrial Journal, a trade newspaper printed in English and Spanish and distributed from Mexico City. He also served as the publicity director for the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (National Railways of Mexico), an important government-run railroad running from Mexico City to the cities of Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad Juárez on the U.S. border. These associations established Hornaday's reputation among publishers as an expert on Mexican business and politics, and he wrote hundreds of articles on the subject for a number of newspapers and trade journals. At the onset of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, he served as a war correspondent for a syndicate of U.S. newspapers. In this capacity, Hornaday interviewed several of the conflict's seminal figures, including Francisco "Pancho" Villa, Porfirio Diaz, and Emiliano Zapata.
By 1917, Hornaday secured a position with the University of Texas as the Director of Public Lectures and Publicity (changed in 1921 to Director of Publicity). Much of this job entailed publicizing university programs, projects, and employees through the state and national press, usually via press releases and news articles furnished by Hornaday's office. During 1938, for example, the publicity office distributed approximately 80,000 column inches to a variety of newspaper publications in Texas alone. Hornaday's most famous article was a 1923 piece adapted from a scientific bulletin from the Bureau of Economic Geology, which publicized potential oil deposits under university-owned lands in West Texas and ultimately resulted in the development of the highly profitable Big Lake oilfield. He would serve the university in this position for 21 years. In addition, Hornaday was a lecturer for the Department of Journalism from 1917 to 1935. Hornaday also founded and managed the Student's Clipping Bureau, a newspaper article aggregation service that employed female students.
Throughout his career with the University, Hornaday continued to publish articles with newspaper outlets across the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He also published more technical pieces with specialized journals like Technical WorldMoody's Magazine, and the Tractor and Gas Engine Review. The articles spanned a variety of subjects, but most often concerned themes of agriculture, scientific or technological innovation, commerce, and international conditions. A number of articles resulted from his extensive international travels to Europe, East Asia, and the Pacific Islands, which included two world tours in 1913 and 1921-1922.
After retiring from the University of Texas in 1938, Hornaday continued to publish articles and travel. In December 1942, he suffered a stroke and died in his Austin home.
Sources: "In Memoriam: William Deming Hornaday." http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/2000-2001/memorials/SCANNED/hornaday.pdf. Accessed July 2, 2013; Steussy, Nella Mae. "W.D. Hornaday first told the world about the U.T.'s oil." Daily Texan, October 8, 1939.

Monday, August 10, 2015

1909 ~ Ft. Brown barracks burn October 15

 Fort Brown Barracks tinted postcard

Brownsville Herald October 15, 1909
Three years after the Brownsville Raid Fred Tate, John Scanlon, R.B. Creagar and Vicente Crixell all came out to help put out the fire engulfing the barracks at Fort Brown.  Mayor Combe got in on the fun too.  If you want to really know what happened without really knowing what happened you can start by trying to read between the scratch lines of these digitized newspaper microfilm scans.  It's a researcher's nightmare or challenge.