Category Archives: Texana

Buffalo soldiers

Posted on March 17, 2007 | Comments Off on Buffalo soldiers

My favorite stop on the trip was Fort Davis, the old cavalry-infantry base on the western edge of the unincorporated town of the same name that grew up beside it. The old fort, parts of which are being slowly rebuilt by the National Park Service, was staffed by a few uniformed re-enactors when we visited on Wednesday. It was the post-Civil War base of operations, from about 1867 to 1891, of the former slaves and Union veterans of the black 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry regiments. In 1992 they won a statue by Eddie Dixon of Lubbock at Fort Leavenworth, KS, where the 10th was organized in 1866. During their stay at Fort Davis, their separate companies were scattered all over West Texas, north and south and all along the border. There’s hardly a spot out there where the Buffalo Soldiers didn’t scout or fight or build at one time or another. So far, despite its unfortunate reliance on cliches, this seems to be the best non-fiction book about their work, including their littleknown participation at San Juan Hill in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt. This is the site of a Houston museum dedicated to them.

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Posted in Texana

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Home from the trail

Posted on March 15, 2007 | Comments Off on Home from the trail

Still a little dizzy from 6.5 hours on the road to get home from Fort Davis, but it was worth it. Time flies at 90 mph, which you can do on I-10 from about 20 miles east of Junction all the way to Balmorhea. The speed limit is 80 mph but, of course, no one drives the speed limit in Texas or anywhere else. Burns a lot of gas, though. It’s mostly flat land so not many curves to force you to slow down. We were surprised at the big windmills lining the ridges on the north side of the highway from about Ozona to Fort Stockton. Big three-bladed electricity generators, turning briskly last Monday in a stiff breeze, which continued, Lubbock-like, most of the time we were in the Davis Mountains, but finally settled down Wednesday night. So coming back the big windmills were turning more leisurely. More on the trip later.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana

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Happy trails to you

Posted on March 11, 2007 | Comments Off on Happy trails to you

We are off in the morning to Fort Davis, about a 6-hour drive, via the scenic, Hill Country route and on to Interstate 10 and farther west into the desert. Will visit the old home of the 9th and 10th Cavalry–including the famous black Buffalo Soldiers–when they were hunting Apaches and Commanches, with side trips to Alpine and Marfa. Two of our after dark side trips will be to McDonald Observatory and their visitor center with its nightly telescope tours of the solar system and beyond. Forecast so far is for two clear nights to see the panoply of stars overhead even without a telescope. Hope you have a pleasant week and stay tuned for an update long about Thursday night.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Texana

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Private road movie

Posted on March 10, 2007 | Comments Off on Private road movie

Just about 50 hours away now from the beginning of our Spring Break, private road movie to far West Texas. In which Mr. Boy, Mom and the geezer will pile into a rental sedan and hit the rodeo for Fort Stockton and beyond. Well, Fort Davis, actually, which is well beyond FS, but no longer on I-10. Rather well off the beaten track. Or so it was the last time I visited, in the late 90s. Even West Texas changes. So who knows what it looks like now? Weather forecast looks good: mild  days and chilly nights. Mr. B. is going to get his first taste of "…the stars at night are big and bright…"

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Sea King

Posted on March 8, 2007 | Comments Off on Sea King

Wooden-soled shoes? Probably never heard of them. They were Robert Creuzbaur’s invention, before he turned to a design for an underwater torpedo tube. The early Texas surveyor and draftsman, won a patent in 1863 for both his shoes and his torpedo tube, which he called an underwater cannon. It would be the chief armament of his Sea King, an iron-plated wooden gunboat whose underwater gun might sink the wooden warships blockading the Texas Gulf coast and the coastline of the rest of the Confederate States of America.

The Confederate Navy wasn’t impressed with his boat or his weapon. Their report to the Confederate Congress in 1862, "…by a number of eminent naval officers…stated ‘that nothing has been done to prove the alleged claims to the speed, invulnerability, and efficiency of the vessel in either or all of which we have no confidence.’"

So much for the early submarine. The same year, 145 years ago Thursday, saw the ironclads Monitor and Merrimac (also the Virginia) fight to a draw in Hampton Roads. By the time Creuzbaur got his shoe and torpedo tube patents, North and South were betting on iron ships, but not underwater cannons for sinking wooden ones. After the war, Cruezbaur moved to New York where, besides investing in the inventions of others, he faded into an obscurity not even Google can penetrate.

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Posted in Civil War, Texana

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Who will go with old Ben Milam?

Posted on March 2, 2007 | Comments Off on Who will go with old Ben Milam?

It seems like only yesterday when certain phrases spoken aloud were enough to gain a smile from an older Texan who knew the history well enough to have read and heard such phrases all his life. You can still see the smile if you pick the right person to ask "Who will go with old Ben Milam?"

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Posted in Texana

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Fly your flag

Posted on March 2, 2007 | Comments Off on Fly your flag

On this Texas Independence Day, it’s traditional to fly the flag. The question is, which one of the twelve?

UPDATE  Happy Birthday, Texas! Photos at the daily’s Web site from birthday events at the Capitol. Includes re-enactors in period dress, schoolchildren and dancers. Only the beer bellies on some of the re-enactors look out-of-place. But who knows? There were probably some fat ones in 1836, too.

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Posted in Texana

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