Linda M. Jamison, County Chair Posted in:
The 1936 Granite Centennial Marker located at the Southeast side of the Trinity River Bridge. Photo Courtesy of the Liberty County Historical Commission
In early 1818, French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars led by Generals Charles Lallemand and Antoine Rigaud founded a colony of refugees on the Trinity River somewhere between Moss Bluff and Atascosito. The colony was named Champ d’Asile, translated “Asylum Field.” Today, after decades of archaeological “digs,” the exact location is still in question and much debated. The French colonists were assisted by pirate Jean Lafitte and his men who were based on Galveston Island. Approximately 150 settlers, consisting of officers, a few women and children, orderlies, servants, and laborers of different nationalities were portrayed as wanting to establish a peaceful, agricultural settlement on the banks of the Trinity. However, it is questionable what the French officers really had in mi
To keyboards! Another media attack has been launched at the Alamo!
Hardly a fortnight goes by now between media-left cartoon treatments of the 1836 battle that serves as the crescendo of the Texas Revolution, the brief war that made modern Texas and changed North America. Politico’s latest is no exception, though at least this piece omits the customary John Wayne movie references.
Retired journalist Rick Casey’s recent attempt at Texas history, however, serves up the 1960 film for mockery, and by extension, for mocking interest in the battle and its most famous figures.
The book, like many scholars, witheringly ridicules John Wayne’s movie, which establishes the virtue and heroism of the Holy Trinity of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett.
Editor s Note: This story was originally published March 2, 2018.
Today is Texas Independence Day. You might be already in full celebration mode, plunging candles into pints of Blue Bell, swigging Pearl in a can and picking beans out of chili. If so, carry on, you’ve got this.
But if you’re the sort who of person who passes by an elementary school and you are all . “wait, IS that Texas flag upside-down?” Read on, we are here to help.
Texas is large. That feller in Van Horn might not have a thing in common with this lady in Port Arthur. The hippies in Austin might not ever see eye-to-eye with the ranchers in Dalhart. But there’s a few things all Texans have in common a shared terra firma and you should know these things.
Texans fought to the death for liberty over tyranny.
Thirteen days of glory all started 185 years ago on February 23, 1836, when the Mexican dictator, Generalisimo Santa Anna, showed up in a town called San Antonio de Bexar and began the siege against a small outpost called The Alamo. There, inside this small fortified old Spanish mission, were less than 200 men who were determined to make a stand for what would soon be the Republic of Texas. They were led by a young 26-year-old from South Carolina, Lt. Col. William Barret Travis. The small garrison included men whose names will forever be remembered in American folklore: Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett.