Bill Lang was an aviator in WWII. Bill was the son of prominent Dallas architect William J. Lang, Sr. and the grandson of Otto H. Lang, both of whom were well known in the area. The Lang name had long been associated with the architectural firm Lang and Witchell, a company that designed many of the buildings that still stand in Dallas.
Category: biography
Collin McKinney
Collin McKinney was a early settler in North Texas. He was born in 1766 in New Jersey to a Scottish couple, Daniel and Mercy McKinney, making him 10 years old at the height of the American Revolution. Near the end of the war, the family first moved to Virginia and then again on to Kentucky around 1780.
Creed Taylor
It is hard to imagine reading about any of the key events surrounding the Texas Revolution and the times surrounding it without encountering the name of Creed Taylor. Taylor was the son of a family of early Texas settlers. Despite his youth, he is thought to have taken part in the following battles: the “Come and Take It” battle in Gonzalez, the Battle of Concepción, the Grass Fight, the Siege of Bexar, the Battle of San Jacinto and others.
Burleson, Texas
The town of Burleson (32°32′9″N 97°19′38″W) now sits along the border of Tarrant and Johnson counties. It was originally founded by a rancher and minister by the name of Henry Carty Renfro. Born in 1831, Renfro came from a Tennessee family who had originally settled in Cass County, Texas when he was about 20 years old. In 1853, he entered Baylor University when it was located at Independence, in Washington County. One of his mentors there was Rufus C. Burleson, a religiously conservative professor who had become President of the university in 1851.
Henry Weidner Baylor
There were a number of early Texans who had the last name of Baylor. Henry W. Baylor was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1818 to John Walker Bledsoe Baylor and Sophie Marie Weidner Baylor. He studied medicine and liberal arts at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, founded in 1780, making it one of the oldest universities in the United States. About 1839 he came to visit his brother John Robert Baylor who had relocated to Texas earlier in the year. They joined the forces of Col. John H. Moore to fight Comanches for a time before Henry established a medical practice in La Grange, Fayette County. After going on several campaigns in pursuit of marauding Indians, he interrupted his medical practice to enlist in Company E of Col. John Coffee Hays‘ First Mounted Riflemen, First Rgt., where he served as a surgeon during the Mexican-American War. After his initial enlistment period was up, he reenlisted with Hays in the Second Rgt. where he was chosen as Captain. This unit served under U. S. Gen. Zachary Taylor and operated between Vera Cruz and Mexico City before returning to San Antonio for the duration of his enlistment.
Continue reading Henry Weidner Baylor
Texas History Notebook 