Sarah Bradley Dodson and Her Lone Star Flag RoadyGoat

1812

You're passing Bethel Cemetery near Bedias, the resting place of Sarah Bradley Dodson, the woman behind what many call the very first Lone Star flag. Born in Kentucky in 1812, she came to Texas as a child with Stephen F. Austin's colonists. In 1835 she married Archelaus Dodson, and when he enlisted in Captain Andrew Robinson's Harrisburg company at the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, Sarah pulled out her calico and went to work. Her design was a tricolor of three squares, blue, then white, then red, like a stretched French flag, with a single white star centered on the blue. Robinson's men carried it on the march from Harrisburg to Gonzales, and it flew through the siege of Bexar that December. By several accounts it was one of the flags flying at Washington-on-the-Brazos in March 1836, while Texas declared its independence. Sarah died of pneumonia in 1848 and was buried here, on land she had donated for this cemetery. Her grave then sat unmarked for almost ninety years, until 1935, when her descendants placed the pink granite stone that still stands here, dedicated during centennial celebrations at Bedias.

RoadyGoat → · 9.0 mi away

Bediasites: Glass From an Ancient Sky RoadyGoat

1936

Plow a field around Iola and Bedias and you might turn up a little piece of dark natural glass called a bediasite. These are tektites -- blobs of melted rock flung clear across the continent, roughly fifteen hundred kilometers, when an asteroid slammed into what is now Chesapeake Bay about thirty-four million years ago. They were the first tektites ever recognized in North America, identified by the University of Texas geologist Virgil Barnes in 1936. People still find them.

12.8 mi away

Leona, TX RoadyGoat

Leona, Texas, might seem like just another blink-and-you'll-miss-it spot on Highway 75 between Dallas and Houston. But this little Leon County community has quietly contributed more than its share to the world. While it may not boast a bustling downtown or towering skyscrapers, its soil has nurtured some truly remarkable individuals.

14.5 mi away

Kimbro, Truman

1918

(1918-1944) Madison County native Truman Kimbro was born in Cottonwood (6 mi. W), and attended school in nearby Center. Drafted into the army in December 1941, he arrived in Europe in October 1943 with the 2nd Engineer Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was among the allied forces that landed on Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion on June 6, 1944. Killed in December 1944 while placing anti-tank mines before advancing German troops, Kimbro was post-humously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He is buried in the U. S. Military Cemetery near Henri-Chapelle, Belgium.

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TX-21 - Driving the Camino Real

1690

Texas Highway 21 follows the route of El Camino Real de los Tejas across central and east Texas, designated a National Historic Trail in October 2004 by Public Law 108-342.

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Parten, Jubal Richard

1917

Jubal Richard (Major, J. R.) Parten, businessman, political activist, philanthropist, and university regent, son of Wayne Lafayette and Ella May (Brooks) Parten, was born at Madisonville, Texas, on February 16, 1896, the sixth of eleven children of one of the pioneer families of Madison County. He spent his youth in Madisonville and graduated from Madisonville High School as valedictorian in 1913. From 1913 to 1917 he studied government and law at the University of Texas and participated in the intercollegiate debate program. After passing the state bar exam, Parten left school and entered the second United States Army Officers Training School at Leon Springs. After earning his initial commission as a captain and becoming an instructor in field artillery, he served tours of duty at Camp Stanley, Texas, and Camp Jackson, South Carolina. On December 15, 1917, Parten married Opal Woodley, a University of Texas student from Shamrock. He left the army in January 1919 with the rank of major. That same month he joined his father-in-law, Edward L. Woodley, to form the Woodley Company, an oil-well-drilling firm in Shreveport, Louisiana, that was reorganized and incorporated in 1922 as the Woodley Petroleum Company. As head of Woodley, Parten was a pioneer of the American oil industry. His company made the discovery wells at the Haynesville field in northern Louisiana and at the El Dorado field in southern Arkansas in 1922. Woodley moved its offices from Shreveport to Houston in 1935. It was active in Smackover, Arkansas, at the giant East Texas oilfield , and at fields in west central Texas, eastern New Mexico, and western Canada. In 1931 Parten and Sylvester Dayson of Longview formed the Centex Refining Company, which later became the Premier Refining Company. Premier operated refineries in Longview, Baird, and Fort Worth, Texas, as well as Cotton Valley, Louisiana. As president of the Independent Petroleum Association of Texas from 1931 until 1934, Parten was a leader in the fight against the attempt by the presidential administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to impose federal regulations on the production of crude oil. His efforts contributed to the establishment in Texas of the Railroad Commission as the primary regulator of the state's oil industry. Long active in the affairs of the University of Texas, Parten was appointed in 1935 by Governor James Allred to the board of regents, of which he was chairman for his last two years of tenure, 1939–41. Parten's accomplishments included the recruitment and hiring of Homer P. Rainey as UT president and Dana X. Bible as head football coach. His most significant contribution, however, may have been his work with UT lands and the Permanent University Fund . Major Parten was instrumental in changing the oil leasing of UT lands from a closed to an open bidding process, which brought an enormous increase in revenue for the PUF. During World War II Parten served as the director of the Transportation Division of the Petroleum Administration for War. He was responsible for seeing that crude oil and oil products were delivered from the Southwest to the East Coast. Working with an expert team from the oil industry, he coordinated a delivery system of railroad tank cars, river barges, and pipelines that provided fuel for the allied invasion of Europe in June 1944. His most important contribution was his management of the construction of the War Emergency Pipelines ( see BIG INCH AND LITTLE BIG INCH ) from East Texas to New York and Pennsylvania. At the time, these were the largest-capacity petroleum pipelines ever constructed. In 1945 President Harry S. Truman appointed Parten chief of staff of the United States delegation to the Allied War Reparations Commission. Serving under Ambassador Edwin Pauley, Parten organized the delegation and participated in the negotiations in Moscow and later at the Potsdam Conference in Berlin. He and fellow delegate Luther Gulick coauthored the final report of the Un

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Carson, Christopher Houston [Kit]

1843

Christopher Houston (Kit) Carson, frontiersman, son of Lindsey and Rebecca (Robinson) Carson, was born on December 24, 1809, in Madison County, Kentucky. The family moved in 1811 to Howard County, Missouri, where Kit grew up illiterate. He ran away to Santa Fe in 1826, learned Spanish, and trapped from Taos to California and back in 1829–31. He became a veteran mountain man before he was twenty-one. As a free trapper for many different companies during the next ten years, he led an arduous life and became familiar with a vast area only partly within the United States. In 1842, after eight months as hunter for Bent's Fort in what is now Colorado, he visited relatives in Missouri. Carson was guide and hunter for John C. Frémont's first three explorations between 1842 and 1846 and became a national hero through Frémont's published reports. Carson's exploits in the Mexican War and subsequent overland transcontinental journeys with Edward F. Beale and George D. Brewerton caused him to be lionized in Washington, D.C. In 1854 he was appointed Indian agent at Taos, New Mexico, and learned to sign his name, C. Carson. In 1856 he dictated his concise and factual memoirs to his secretary, John Mostin. Though Carson's knowledge of Indian languages and customs made him an effective agent, he resigned his agency in 1861 and became colonel of the First New Mexico Volunteers. He fought the Confederates at the battle of Valverde in 1862. In 1863–64, under orders from Gen. James H. Carleton, Carson conducted a successful campaign against the Navajos but was not in charge of the "Long Walk," which transferred them to a reservation at the Bosque Redondo. Carson was brevetted brigadier general of volunteers and was in command at Fort Garland, Colorado, in 1866–67. He resigned his commission, moved his family to Boggsville, Colorado, and became Indian agent for Colorado Territory in November 1867. Although seriously ill, he conducted a Ute delegation to Washington, D.C., early in 1868. He died at Fort Lyons, Colorado, from an aneurysm of the aorta on May 23, 1868. From about 1836 to 1840 Carson was married to an Arapaho, Waanibe, by whom he had two daughters. In 1841 he married a Cheyenne, who soon divorced him. In February 1843, after conversion to Catholicism, Carson married Josefa Jaramillo in Taos, and by her he had seven children, of whom four left descendants. The couple also adopted a Navajo orphan. Josefa died after childbirth in April of 1868. Kit and Josefa were first buried in Boggsville in the Colorado Territory. Their remains were moved to Taos in 1869, as Carson's will stipulated. In Texas history Carson was connected with an international border incident in 1843 ( see SNIVELY EXPEDITION ). He made a hazardous ride from what is now Kansas to Taos and back in an effort to secure aid for a wagon train, which was ultimately saved by the intervention of United States Dragoons. A second Texas adventure was Carson's fight at the first battle of Adobe Walls on November 25, 1864, against a large number of Kiowas and Comanches. Aided by two howitzers, Carson made a demonstration of force that may have helped to produce a peace treaty in 1865. As trapper, explorer, Indian agent, and soldier, Carson fought hostile Indians innumerable times. He also had a variety of peaceable relations with friendly Indians and treated Indians as equals. Myth-makers in his own time made Carson a superhero by exaggerating his Indian fighting. Later myth-makers have tried to make him a supervillain by the same process. Carson was of short stature and unimpressive demeanor and was extraordinary in his willingness to volunteer for what he believed to be the common good. Although fearless, he had enough caution to survive. He was not a natural leader but acted as difficult circumstances demanded, though he remained modest and unspoiled by adulation. Kit Carson is one of the most deservedly durable of American heroes.

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Shapira Hotel

1903

Russian-born Jewish immigrants Jake Shapira (d. 1903) and his wife Sarah owned a boarding house at this site which burned in 1903. The following year Sarah had this Victorian hotel built. The structure reflects Eastlake styling and features fishscale and diamond shingling. One of the most lavish buildings in the region, the Shapira Hotel was an early center of business and social activity. It was later operated by Clara Wills as the Wills Hotel. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982

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Madison County

1774

Madison County is located in central East Texas. Madisonville, the county seat and largest town, is near interstate Highway 45 about 100 miles northwest of Houston; the town is at 30°57' north latitude and 95°55' west longitude, close to the center of the county. Madison County includes 473 square miles primarily of post oak savannah, a mixture of post oak woods and grasslands. The northeast and south central parts of the county are in the Blackland Prairies region; the southeast corner of the county lies in the Piney Woods. Today, about one-fifth of the area is timbered, but early reports describe it as two-thirds timber and one-third prairie. It supported oak, cedar, elm, walnut, hickory, gum, pecan, ash, cypress, and pine. The terrain is undulating, with an elevation ranging from 213 to 364 feet above sea level. The rolling prairies drain to the waterways that form the county's boundaries: the Trinity River in the east, the Navasota River in the west, and Bedias Creek in the south. Numerous other creeks run through the county, notably the Caney, which bisects it. Several soil types are found in the county, which lies principally in the Claypan area. They range from black waxy to light sandy loam around creeks and lower lands, with dark chocolate mixed with sand on the prairie uplands. Almost the entire county is made up of soils with sandy surface layers and mottled yellow, red, and gray loamy subsoils. The northwest portion is surfaced by noncalcareous and calcareous cracking clayey soils and slightly acid soils with loamy surface layers and cracking clayey subsoils. Oil and gas are found in the county, as are lignite, sand, and gravel. Madison County has a mild climate, with an average growing season of 272 days. Its average annual rainfall is 41.50 inches, and temperatures range from a January minimum average of 40° F to a July maximum average of 94°. The territory in present-day Madison County was occupied by members of two Indian groups, the Caddoes and the Atakapans. The Caddoes were among the most advanced of the Texas Indians and were considered wealthy as well as friendly. They lived in large villages and constructed beehive-shaped houses. The Bidais, who were the principal residents of the area now known as Madison County, belonged to the Atakapan group. They, along with the Deadose Indians, themselves also Atakapans, occupied the Trinity River valley in the heart of the county. The main village of the Bidais was located at the confluence of the Trinity River and Bedias Creek. Closely associated with the Caddoes, the Bidais were agriculturalists, known for raising corn. They also depended largely on hunting, especially of deer. Though they were never a large group, they were decimated by epidemics and incursions by hostile tribes. The Kickapoos, migrants from the east who settled among the remnants of the Caddo confederacies, also resided in the area at one time; Kickapoo Creek still bears their name. Settlement of the future Madison County began in Spanish Texas . The first European explorers known to have reached the area were Luis de Moscoso Alvarado and Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle . Moscoso, a member of Hernando De Soto's expedition who continued on in 1542 after De Soto's death, eventually reached the southeastern part of the future Madison County and traveled along what became the La Bahía Road. La Salle is thought to have crossed southeastern Madison County in 1687, and some believe he was killed in Madison County, at a site just south of Madisonville. The La Bahía Road and the Old San Antonio Road , originally Indian trails, passed through what is now Madison County. The former led southwest to Washington-on-the-Brazos, Gonzales, and Goliad, diverging from the Old San Antonio Road at a point not far from where the two crossed the Trinity. The Old San Antonio Road, which forms a major portion of the county's northern boundary, continued through Bastrop on its way from Nacogdoches to S

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Madisonville, Texas

Music in Madisonville

Songs About Madisonville

Artists From Madisonville

Rivers & Roads in Song near Madisonville

History of Madisonville

Sarah Bradley Dodson and Her Lone Star Flag RoadyGoat

Bediasites: Glass From an Ancient Sky RoadyGoat

Leona, TX RoadyGoat

Kimbro, Truman

TX-21 - Driving the Camino Real

Parten, Jubal Richard

Carson, Christopher Houston [Kit]

Shapira Hotel

Madison County

Everything Near Madisonville