Save Texas History

The GLO Archives Education Team was back in the classroom last week, sharing map-based teaching strategies with Lubbock-area social studies teachers.

They provided a six-hour seminar on using maps and other GLO Archives resources in their teaching of social studies.

Learn more at:
https://www.glo.texas.gov/archives-and-heritage/save-texas-history/education

On June 26, 1832, Texas colonists successfully forced the surrender of the Mexican garrison at Fort Velasco.

What one writer deemed the "Boston Harbor of the Texas Revolution," this clash over a shipment of cannons became a defining moment in the lead up to the Texas Revolution.

Learn more here:
https://www.tshaonline.org/texas-day-by-day/entry/412

The layout below depicts Houston Heights, Houston’s first suburb.

This map shows the 1890s development of a 1,756‑acre planned community built on high ground to avoid flooding and disease.

Its design centers on a 150‑foot‑wide boulevard modeled after Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue.

Read more:
https://medium.com/save-texas-history/mapping-houston-heights-houstons-first-suburb-14b46390686b

This week in 1919, Texas women took a step towards equal voting rights.

Notable suffrage leaders like Jane McCallum and Minnie Fisher Cunningham worked together to help women achieve the right to vote in primary elections in 1918.

Texas was the first southern state, and the ninth in the nation, to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.

Watch the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7JB8LVY-RU

On this day in 1819, a provisional Texas government headed by filibusterer James Long declared independence from Spain.

Though he had 300 men under his command, he was driven from Texas by the end of the year.

Long returned to Texas and captured La Bahía in October 1820, but he surrendered after four days.

He was taken prisoner and sent to Mexico City, where he was shot and killed while imprisoned.

Read more:
https://www.tshaonline.org/texas-day-by-day/entry/559

June 19, 1865, marked a pivotal moment in Texas history.

On this day, General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, declaring that “...all slaves are free," signaling the end of slavery.

This week, Commissioner Buckingham had the pleasure of meeting Jocelyn Narcy, the fourth-grade grand prize winner of our 2026 Save Texas History Essay Contest.

Congratulations and thank you to Jocelyn, Lizzy LaGrone (the seventh-grade grand prize winner), and all of the other Texas students who submitted their wonderful essays about our state's history!

Read the winning essays here:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/477baaec9f794b8fb86d246d00e351dc?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

The Texas State Historical Association held its first annual meeting in Austin on this day in 1897. They recently held their 130th meeting.

At the 1941 annual meeting, they ran an auction for donated books, artifacts, and works of art to raise funds for the association's activities.

Read more:
https://www.tshaonline.org/texas-day-by-day/entry/1012

On this day in 1863, Mother Mary Agnes Magevney, joined the Dominican Sisters of Saint Mary's in Ohio.

Mary Agnes led a group of twenty Dominican nuns from Ohio to Texas, the first group of Dominican Sisters to serve the Catholic Church in the state.

They opened Sacred Heart Academy in Galveston in 1882, which grew into a system that continues to serve Texas, California, and Guatemala today.

Read more:
https://www.tshaonline.org/texas-day-by-day/entry/613

Have you ever heard of Texas’ ghost counties? The map below provides a record of Texas's changing political geography.

Published in 1939 by the Works Project Administration, a New Deal project to combat the effects of the Great Depression, the "Map of Defunct and Ghost Counties in Texas" details at least 32 historical counties that were abolished, absorbed, or renamed.

Learn more:
https://medium.com/save-texas-history/map-of-defunct-and-ghost-counties-in-texas-452107c3f06c