Dan Waggoner and His Descendants

Daniel Waggoner was born in 1828 in Tennessee to Solomon and Martha McGaugh Waggoner.  Daniel was the second of the siblings to be born in Lincoln County, Tennessee before the family moved to Missouri where most of the other siblings were born.  The family finally settled in Hopkins County, Texas.  Daniel married  Nancy Moore in 1851 in Hopkins County.  The following year their only son William Thomas Waggoner was born.  Nancy passed away in 1853.  Five years later, Daniel married Sicily Ann Halsell, daughter of Electious and  Elizabeth Jane Mayes Halsell.  Sicily was from a large ranching family, also of Wise County.  The couple had no children.

Continue reading Dan Waggoner and His Descendants

Law Officers Killed By The Barrow Gang: Cal Campbell (Victim 9)

Constable Cal Campbell was the last lawman to be killed by the Barrow gang.  The list of law officers who were victims of the gang is as follows:

Eugene Moore, Atoka, OK, 8/5/1932
Malcolm Davis, Dallas, TX 1/6/1933
Harry McGinnis, Joplin, MO 4/13/1933
Wes Harryman, Joplin, MO 4/13/1933
Henry D. Humphrey, Alma, AR 6/26/1933
Major Crowson, Huntsville, TX 1/16/1934
E. B. Wheeler, Grapevine, TX 4/1/1934
H. D. Murphy, Grapevine, TX 4/1/1934
Cal Campbell, Commerce, OK, 4/6/1934

Continue reading Law Officers Killed By The Barrow Gang: Cal Campbell (Victim 9)

NASA Comes to Texas

In the 1960s, the expansion of the United States space program was rightfully associated with President Kennedy.  However, it had begun during the presidential terms of President Eisenhower.  In January of 1960, President Eisenhower urged Congress to give a new civilian space agency full responsibility for the development of nonmilitary space exploration.  This article is intended to be an overview of the early days of the space program in Texas.  We would like to expand on this topic as we find more information.

Continue reading NASA Comes to Texas

Jack Lummus, Medal of Honor Recipient

Jack Lummus was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II.  According to a May, 1945 newspaper report based upon an interview with a fellow Marine, 1st Lt. Lummus was killed while leading an infantry and tank attack on the island on March 8, 1945.

Continue reading Jack Lummus, Medal of Honor Recipient

Alvis Edgar “Buck” Owens, Jr.

Buck Owens was born Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr. to Alvis Edgar and Macie Owens in Sherman, Texas in 1929.  He is said to have given himself the nickname of Buck after his favorite mule (alternately said to be a donkey or a horse in different accounts) when he was young.  His father, Alvis Edgar, Sr., was a sharecropping farmer in Grayson County, Texas.  In 1937, the family moved west to Arizona.  The family legend is that their trailer broke down near Phoenix, Arizona where they had other relatives, so they elected to settle there.  Similar to the stories of many other musical artists, Buck’s mother sang and played the piano at their home and in church.  Buck learned to play the guitar, mandolin and other instruments when he was a youth.  He dropped out of school at age thirteen to help the family survive and did all sorts of jobs to raise money.  As a young man, Buck began performing in honky-tonks to earn his living.  When he was about twenty, he married his first wife, the former Bonnie Campbell, a singer in a band both she and Buck played in called Mac and the Skillet Lickers.  Buck and Bonnie eventually moved to Bakersfield, California where Buck began to play around town and in the surrounding area. Buck and Bonnie would remain married for about five years.  He was married three more times.

Continue reading Alvis Edgar “Buck” Owens, Jr.