Texoso

Richard Clayton Ware, Texas Ranger

Richard Clayton “Dick” Ware was born November 11, 1851 near Rome, Georgia to Benjamin Franklin Lafayette Ware and Mary Jane Price Ware. Ware is the Texas Ranger traditionally credited for giving outlaw Sam Bass his fatal gunshot wound in Round Rock, Texas in July, 1878.

Southwestern University

Southwestern University stakes its claim to be the oldest university in Texas. It is the product of the combination of four church related institutions including Rutersville College which received its charter from the Republic of Texas on January 24, 1840. The other schools were also chartered long ago: Wesleyan College of San Augustine (1844), Soule University of Chappel Hill (1856) and McKenzie College of Clarksville (1860). Southwestern’s charter was approved February 6, 1875 to be the combination of the four earlier institutions.

Horton Foote

Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was born March 14, 1916 to Albert Horton Foote, Sr. and Harriet Gautier Brooks Foote in Wharton, Texas. His name Albert is a Foote family name and the name Horton was his grandmother’s maiden name. Horton was in third generation of the Foote family to be born in Texas. His great grandfather S. D. Foote had come to the state in the 1800s.

Michel Branamour Menard

Michel Branamour Menard was the founder of Galveston, Texas and wa a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. He was born on December 5, 1805 in La Prairie, Canada to Michel B. Menard and Marguerite de Noyer Menard. His parents were of French heritage.

Short Line Railroads – I

Railroads in Texas began to be organized in the mid to late 1800s. For many years they were without federal regulation. In addition, the federal government promoted and helped to finance the first transcontinental railway system that was completed in 1869. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a federal agency created in 1887 to oversee the national rail system and to act against alleged abuses and monopolistic practices. The ICC was allowed to have more broad powers generally extending to national infrastructure and regulation of commerce involving national transportation systems. The ICC was dissolved in the 1990s and railroad regulation was passed on to the Surface Transportation Board, an independent federal agency, in 1992.