1857-1861
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1857 7/29/1857 Thomas J. Rusk, first Texas Senator to the United States Congress, and president of the Texas constitutional Convention of 1845, commits suicide near Nacogdoches by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
1858 1/9/1858 Anson Jones, last president of the Republic of Texas, shoots himself in Houston's old Capitol Hotel (now Rice Hotel).
1858 1/22/1858 Several Texas counties - Archer, Hardin, Kimble, Mason, Menard, Stephens, and Zapata - are founded.
1858 9/29/1858 A huge 84 pound loggerhead turtle was caught in Buffalo Bayou.
1859 2/1/1859 The Menger Hotel opens for business in San Antonio.
1859 6/5/1859 Herman Lehmann is born in Loyal Valley, Mason. He is captured as a child by Apaches and adopted by them, living with them for nine years.
1859 7/13/1859 Juan Nepomuceno Cortina shoots Brownsville city marshal Robert Shears, which sets off the Cortina Wars.
1859 8/3/1859 The Comanches are moved out of Texas and north, into Indian Territory.
1859 12/19/1859 Mirabeau B. Lamar dies at his plantation, near Richmond, West Virginia. He served as Vice President and then President of the Republic of Texas, and is remembered as the "Father of Texas Education".
1860 1/26/1860 Company A, 2nd U.S. Cavalry, skirmishes with Comanche Indians on Kickapoo Creek.
1860 2/6/1860 Railroad bridge completed connecting Virginia Point and Galveston Island
1860 3/12/1860 Columbus "Dad" Joiner, who finds the East Texas Oil Field, is born in Lauderdale County, Alabama.
1860 5/7/1860 Julius Real, who stages the legislative 'Whiskey Rebellion of 1911' to keep Texas wet, is born in the hill country.
1860 6/28/1860 Southern Democrats nominate John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President, who had supported Texas' annexation.
1860 8/12/1860 The first child born in the Governor's Mansion is Temple Houston, the youngest child of Sam and Margaret Houston.
1860 11/12/1860 Cattleman Henry Black registers Muleshoe Brand in Fannin County.
1860 12/18/1860 Texas Rangers attack Comanche hunting camp, and rescue Cynthia Ann Parker.
1861 1/21/1861 Gov. Sam Houston submits the secession resolution to the Texas legislature.
1861 2/1/1861 The Texas Convention votes to secede from the Union.
1861 2/13/1861 Robert E. Lee leaves Fort Mason on his way back to Virginia, to lead the South in the Civil War.
1861 2/16/1861 Local secessionists in San Antonio force Gen. David Twiggs to surrender all U.S. Union equipment at the Alamo to the Confederacy, for which he was dismissed from the US. Army and branded "for treachery to the flag of his country."
1861 2/18/1861 Evacuation of United States military posts in Texas begins, as Texas secedes from the Union.
1861 2/23/1861 Texas voters approve secession from the Union by popular referendum, with 44,300 for, and 13000 against.
1861 3/5/1861 Texas votes to join the Confederacy, and replaces its Governor, Sam Houston, because he would not swear allegiance to the Confederacy.
1861 3/16/1861 Sam Houston refuses to take an oath to the Confederacy, and is removed as governor of Texas.