Texas State Historical Association

Texas State Historical Association Mailing Address: PO Box 5428, Austin, TX 78763
Telephone: (512) 471-2600

Today is the last day of National Make-A-Will Month. At TSHA, we spend our days preserving the stories that keep Texas h...
09/01/2026

Today is the last day of National Make-A-Will Month. At TSHA, we spend our days preserving the stories that keep Texas history alive. We know that some of what matters most to a family isn't in a bank account, it's in a shoebox of photos, a grandmother's journal, or a home that's been passed down for generations.

Without a will, there's no guarantee those things stay together, or go to the people who'd actually treasure them. Right now, only 24% of American adults have a will in place.

TSHA has partnered with FreeWill and Trust & Will, two trusted, free estate-planning platforms, so you can decide who keeps your family's story. The process takes about 20 minutes. Learn more at: https://www.tshaonline.org/give-now/planned-giving

On this day in 1990, Texas blues musician Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash on the way to Chicago from a con...
08/27/2026

On this day in 1990, Texas blues musician Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash on the way to Chicago from a concert in Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wisconsin. Vaughan was born in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas on October 3, 1954. His exposure to music began in his childhood, as he watched his big brother, Jimmie, play guitar. Stevie's fascination with the blues drove him to teach himself to play the guitar before he was an adolescent. By the time he was in high school, he was staying up all night playing guitar in clubs in Deep Ellum, a popular entertainment district in Dallas. Vaughan moved to Austin in the 1970s, and by the early 1980s he and his band, Double Trouble, had a solid regional reputation. His career took off in the 1980s, and his work eventually garnered four Grammy Awards. Vaughan was killed at the height of his career. More than 1,500 people, including industry giants such as Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and Stevie Wonder, attended his memorial service in Dallas.

On this day in 1917, the Ninetieth Division of the U.S. Army was activated at Camp Travis, Texas. It was initially compo...
08/25/2026

On this day in 1917, the Ninetieth Division of the U.S. Army was activated at Camp Travis, Texas. It was initially composed of members from Texas and Oklahoma. It became known as the "Tough Ombres," "Texas' Own," or the Alamo Division. It adopted the monogram insignia T-O in France during World War I. The division set up headquarters in France in 1918 and saw action in Lorraine and in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne operations. After the Armistice the Ninetieth did occupation duty in Germany and came home in 1919 for demobilization. The division was reactivated at Camp Barkeley, Texas, in 1942. It fought on D-Day and in subsequent campaigns in Normandy, southern France, the Ardennes, the Rhineland, and Central Europe. Of its men in World War II, 2,963 were killed, 143,009 wounded, 1,052 missing, and 442 captured. The Ninetieth was on occupation duty in Germany until 1945, then was deactivated at Camp Shanks, New York, in December. The division was reactivated in 1947 as a part of the Organized Reserve Corps. It was not mobilized for Vietnam but has served in various humanitarian activities and played a major role in the Persian Gulf.

On this day in 1821, Juan O'Donoju met Agustín de Iturbide in Córdoba and signed a treaty granting Mexico independence f...
08/24/2026

On this day in 1821, Juan O'Donoju met Agustín de Iturbide in Córdoba and signed a treaty granting Mexico independence from Spain. The treaty ended the Mexican War of Independence, which grew out of political turmoil in Spain and Mexico in the early nineteenth century. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla formally began the rebellion with his famous grito on September 16, 1810, from the steps of his parish church in Dolores, a small town east of Guanajuato. Only in Texas, however, which in the summer of 1812 suffered an invasion from the United States under the leadership of José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara and Augustus Magee, was royal authority seriously threatened. In August 1813, Gen. Joaquín de Arredondo defeated the rebels at the battle of Medina and secured Texas for the Spanish crown. The struggle for independence broke down into a series of local revolts and guerrilla actions that did not seriously threaten royal authority in Mexico until 1820, when the formerly royalist officer Iturbide came to terms with insurgent leader Vicente R. Guerrero. By July 1821, when O'Donoju arrived to take over the colonial government, the royalists controlled only Mexico City and Veracruz.

On this day in 1928, antisuffragist Pauline Wells died of heart disease in Marlin. Wells, the daughter of Emma Henrietta...
08/21/2026

On this day in 1928, antisuffragist Pauline Wells died of heart disease in Marlin. Wells, the daughter of Emma Henrietta Butler and Joseph Kleiber, was born in Brownsville in 1863. At the age of seventeen she married James B. Wells, who became a powerful South Texas political boss. Supported by her husband, she began working against the woman suffrage movement as early as 1912. Three years later she argued that suffrage was "identified with feminism, s*x antagonism, socialism, anarchy and Mormonism." In 1916 she became the first president of the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and in 1919 headed a drive by Texas "antis" to hold off ratification of a state constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote in the general election; their victory proved short-lived, however, as Texans soon ratified the federal Nineteenth Amendment.

August is National Make-A-Will Month. Here's a question worth asking: what actually happens if you don't have a will? Th...
08/20/2026

August is National Make-A-Will Month. Here's a question worth asking: what actually happens if you don't have a will? The real risk is losing control. Without a will, a Texas probate court decides who inherits what, using a fixed formula under the Texas Estates Code called intestate succession, not your own wishes.

Depending on your family situation, that can mean your spouse receives only a portion of what you own, a stepchild you helped raise receives nothing unless you legally adopted them, or property passes to distant relatives you weren't expecting to inherit it. Sorting this out through the courts takes time and adds legal costs that come directly out of what your family receives.

A will puts you back in charge of that outcome. TSHA has partnered with FreeWill and Trust & Will, two trusted, free estate-planning platforms, so you can put your own wishes in writing in about 20 minutes. Learn more at: https://www.tshaonline.org/give-now/planned-giving

On this day in 1866, President Andrew Johnson, declaring that "the insurrection in the State of Texas has been completel...
08/20/2026

On this day in 1866, President Andrew Johnson, declaring that "the insurrection in the State of Texas has been completely and everywhere suppressed and ended," officially ended the Civil War by issuing a proclamation of peace between the United States and Texas. Johnson had declared a state of peace between the U.S. and the other ten Confederate states on April 2, 1866. The last land battle of the Civil War took place at Palmito Ranch near Brownsville on May 13, 1865, more than a month after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse.

On this day in 1749, four Apache chiefs, accompanied by numerous followers, buried a hatchet along with other weapons in...
08/19/2026

On this day in 1749, four Apache chiefs, accompanied by numerous followers, buried a hatchet along with other weapons in a peace ceremony in San Antonio. The ceremony signified the Apaches' acceptance of Christian conversion in exchange for Spanish protection from Comanche raids, which had decimated the Apache population. Five years later Giraldo de Terreros established San Lorenzo, the first formal mission for the Texas Apaches, in the jurisdiction of San Juan Bautista in Mexico. When the Apaches revolted and abandoned the mission less than a year later, the missionaries argued in favor of a new mission closer to Apache territory. Construction of the ill-fated mission of Santa Cruz de San Sabá, in the heart of Apachería, began in April 1757; on March 16 of the following year, a party of 2,000 Comanche and allied Indians killed eight of the inhabitants and burned the mission buildings. The image is of the painting Lipan Apache encampment in Texas Hill County, by George Nelson.

Join us on Zoom on Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 7:00 PM for the next Texas Talks presentation featuring Elizabeth Hansen,...
08/17/2026

Join us on Zoom on Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 7:00 PM for the next Texas Talks presentation featuring Elizabeth Hansen, Managing Director of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI).

Elizabeth will share TAMI's work to discover, preserve, and provide public access to Texas's cinematic history, including a look at the statewide Texas Film Round-Up preservation program and a curated selection of archival film clips.

Registration is FREE and open to everyone. The registration link is in the comments.

Happy Birthday, Davy! On this day in 1786, frontier icon and Alamo defender Davy Crockett was born in Tennessee. He bega...
08/17/2026

Happy Birthday, Davy! On this day in 1786, frontier icon and Alamo defender Davy Crockett was born in Tennessee. He began his military career as a scout in the Tennessee militia in 1813 and was elected to the Tennessee legislature in 1821. After a turbulent political career, during which he split with President Andrew Jackson, a fellow Tennessean, and acquired a national reputation as a sharpshooter, hunter, and yarn-spinner, Crockett grew disenchanted with the political process and decided to explore Texas. He set out in November 1835 and reached San Antonio de Béxar in February 1836, shortly before the arrival of Antonio López de Santa Anna. Crockett chose to join Col. William B. Travis, who had deliberately disregarded Jackson sympathizer Sam Houston's orders to withdraw from the Alamo, and died in the battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836. No matter how many fabrications gathered around him, the historical David Crockett proved a formidable hero in his own right and succeeded Daniel Boone as the rough-hewn representative of frontier independence and virtue.

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