towns – Page 2 – Texas History Notebook

The Last Picture Show (1971)

The Last Picture Show was the 1971 film adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s novel of the same name. McMurtry’s 1966 release was the first of five books McMurtry wrote about life in Texas. Other McMurtry books related to “The Last Picture Show” are “Texasville,” “Duane’s Depressed,” “When the Light Goes Out” and “Rhino Ranch.” “Texasville” was also adapted to a film.

Swenson Ranches

Multiple sources credit Svante Magnus Swenson as being the first Swedish immigrant to come to Texas. He was born February 24, 1816 in Sweden to Sven Israelsson Swenson and Margareta Andesrsdotter Swenson, both of whom lived their whole lives in Sweden. He left his family and his home in Sweden when he was about twenty years old and came to America. S. M. briefly lived in New York before he relocated to the South. After he worked in New York as a railroad bookkeeper for a while, S. M. traveled to Galveston from New York in 1838. According to a biography of Swenson written by A. Anderson, the ship he traveled in experienced a shipwreck as it arrived in Texas, though the details are unknown. Swenson survived the ordeal and operated a mercantile business for a few years. It appears that for some time, he remained in the coastal area working for his own account before later joining in a partnership with a Dr. Long from Fort Bend County.

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.

Lufkin, Texas

The town of Lufkin, Texas was founded in 1882 as the Houston, East and West Texas Railway planned a stop on its line to connect Houston,Texas to Shreveport, Louisiana, per the Texas Almanac. The article continues to say that the railroad company’s president, Paul Bremond, named it for his friend Abraham Parker Lufkin.

James Kerr

James Augusta Kerr was one of the more interesting people in the early days of Texas. He was born September 24, 1790 in Boyle County, Kentucky to Reverend James Kerr II (1749 – 1811) and Patience Wells Kerr (1759 – 1799). He was the seventh child and second son of the couple’s ten children born over a twenty year period from 1777 to 1797. The father, James, was a farmer and a Baptist minister, more accurately described as a circuit riding preacher. A descendant, James Kerr Crain, writes that Patience, the youngest of a large group of children, had eloped with her husband to be after her parents objected to the relationship, but the union lasted until her untimely death. The mother, Patience, died in 1799 after taking ill on a horseback trip to visit one of their older children. Her husband preached the funeral, which was said to be the first Protestant sermon preached in the sparsely populated Upper Louisiana Territory. Rev. Kerr married a widow by the name of Phoebe Bonham one year after the death of Patience. The family moved to St. Charles County, Missouri in 1808 and Rev. Kerr passed away there in 1811.