Welcome to episode 85 of the Hidden History of Texas, today I'm talking about one of the most Notorious Governors of Texas - James "PA" Ferguson. James Edward (Pa) Ferguson, Texas governor, was born in 1871 near Salado, which is in Bell County and is fairly close to where I am, to James Edward and Fannie (Fitzpatrick) Ferguson. Sadly, his father passed away when Pa was only four, and his mother, being a true strong Texas woman stayed on working the farm and he began working in the fields as a young boy.

When he was 12, he entered Salado College, which was a local preparatory school, but in a sign of things to come, was expelled for disobedience. At age 16 he left home for a life on the road and wandered throughout the Western states, where he did any type of job he could find.

Eventually he returned home to Bell County, where he tried farming and working on a  railroad-bridge gang. He did use this time to begin to study law and in 1897 he was admitted to the bar. He opened up a practice in Belton and then in 1899 he married Miriam A. Wallace. The couple had two children and since in those days lawyers weren’t as busy as they are today, he expanded his personal interests to real estate and insurance. He then turned his attention to banking and for several years was not only a member of the Texas Bankers Association but also associated with the Farmers State Bank of Belton.

In 1907 he moved his family to the larger town of Temple where he joined in the formation and establishment of the Temple State Bank. Needless to say, it was during this time period when he was involved with banking that he also took an active interest in county and local politics.

In spite of the fact that he never held a local office he was very aware of how local politics worked. He was a staunch opponent of prohibition and had fought against allowing what was known as the local-option out of Bell County.  He served as a campaign manager for Robert V. Davidson in 1910 and worked with Oscar B. Colquitt in his successful gubernatorial campaign in 1912.

Prohibition had been a major issue in the 1914 campaign, and there were candidates for the governor’s race on both sides of the issue. The prohibitionists held an elimination convention and pledged their support to Thomas H. Ball of Houston. The anti-prohibitionists tried to have their own convention, but Ferguson, even though he had been identified as an anti-prohibitionist, refused to publicly support it. As a result, the leaders at the convention was not able to eliminate him from receiving their endorsement and while they did not endorse him the other anti-prohibition candidates withdrew from the race. Due to his popularity Ferguson easily won the nomination by a majority of about 40,000 votes.

Ferguson proved to be one of the more captivating speakers and had a native ability to persuade people. He was a masterful public speaker. His most popular and talked about proposition was a law that would actually limit how much rent a landlord could charge. For the folks who were known as “tenant farmers” this proved to be very popular. It was not popular among landowners, and he tried to assure landowners that the law would prove to be beneficial to everyone. After his election he was successful in getting the law passed, but it was soon declared unconstitutional.

During his term the state began to provide aid to rural schools and there was enacted a relatively minor law that required compulsory school attendance. He was in favor of helping schools, and colleges were permitted to begin building programs. In order to pay for everything, educational appropriation bills were more generous than usual. Needless to say, these changes increased the ad valorem tax rate for state purposes advanced from 12½ to 30 cents.

The prison system increased its landownership and since Texas had many ‘prison farms’ the system benefited from the rising price of farm commodities. During World War I the system became self-sustaining and profitable.

In 1916 Ferguson's reelection seemed almost a certainty. The prohibitionists decided to support a relatively unknown Charles H. Morris of Winnsboro. The major issues of the campaign were prohibition, the tax rate, and certain  rumors concerning the Ferguson administration.

Regardless of the rumors, Ferguson was reelected by a majority of about 60,000 votes, but there was enough opposition to show that many Texans were not completely pleased with his administration. His second administration did little of consequence, except pass enough appropriation bills to force the tax rate to rise to the constitutional maximum of 35 cents.

This is when old Pa made a serious mistake. He got involved in a quarrel with the University of Texas.  Turns out the board of regents refused to fire some faculty members that the governor didn’t like. Well, he threw a Texas sized temper tantrum and vetoed almost the entire appropriation for the university. Needless to say, this generated a lot of news and interest, but it also sparked a desire from some members of the legislature to conduct an impeachment trial.

Remember how, I said that during the campaign there had been rumors about some issues with his administration? Well while preliminary investigations failed to uncover any charge that would merit impeachment, once he became embroiled in his dispute with the university, those old charges bubbled back to the surface. Coincidently at about the same time a number of new charges were made and on July 21, 1917, Ferguson was called before the Travis County grand jury. To the surprise of no one the grand jury announced that he had been indicted on nine charges.

Seven of the charges related to misapplication of public funds, one to embezzlement, and one to the diversion of a special fund. He posted a $13,000 bond and announced his candidacy for a third term as governor.

The speaker of the House decided to call a special session of the legislature, (remember the legislature in Texas only meets every 2 years) to consider charges of impeachment against the governor. While the speaker’s call was most likely not legal (only the governor can call a special session) Ferguson removed any doubt by himself calling the legislature to meet for the purpose of making appropriations for the University of Texas. This backfired-on Ferguson because the House immediately turned its attention to the numerous charges against him and ended up preparing twenty-one articles of impeachment.

After a three-week trial in the senate, he was convicted on ten of the charges. On five of them he was convicted of misapplication of public funds, of course 3 of those were related to his quarrel with the University. One of them stated that he had failed to properly respect and enforce the banking laws. And the third charged that he had received $156,500 in currency from a source that he refused to reveal.

Nine of the charges can be described as violations of the law, while the obtaining of $156,500 from a secret source while not legal was absolutely not good policy for a governor.

He was removed from office by a vote of twenty-five to three and declared him ineligible to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit under the state of Texas. Fighting to the end Ferguson declared that the legislature constituted little more than a "kangaroo court," except that just a couple of months before the House and the Senate had refused to sustain charges against him. He believed that his  removal from office was far from certain when the legislature convened in special session. However, he underestimated the seriousness of his quarrel with the University of Texas.

He resigned his office the day before the judgment was announced and contended that it did not apply to him. The question was eventually carried into the courts, where the judgment of the Court of Impeachment was sustained.

While in many cases, being impeached and made ineligible to hold any office of trust or profit in the state would spell an end to a person’s political life; this was not the case for PA. In 1918 he sought the Democratic party nomination for the governorship but was defeated by William P. Hobby. In 1920 he was an unsuccessful candidate for President on his own American party ticket. In 1922 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate. Finally In 1924, unable to run under his own name, he ran his wife's campaign for the governorship against Judge Felix Robertson, the candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. The Fergusons beat Robertson and went to the Governor's Mansion for a third time. Two years later they lost a reelection bid amid new scandals concerning excessive pardons and political patronage abuses.   James Ferguson died on September 21, 1944, and was buried in the State Cemetery in Austin.

Next time I’ll take a look at Ma Ferguson as our look at some of the most notorious governors of Texas.

This is the Hidden History Of Texas

This is Episode 84 - Notorious Governors of Texas Edmund J. Davis and the first of our series of Notorious Governors of Texas. With all the politics in the news today, I’ve naturally been thinking about politics and politicians. One group that has always intrigued me are governors. Not presidents, or senators, or members of the house, but governors. They’re the ones who really give a state its identity, well at least in a way, because they’re most often the ‘face’ of the state. Here in Texas, our current governor seems to love making pronouncements about how his administration is going to fight this or that evil that might be encroaching on Texan’s freedoms. More often than not, it’s usually just a bunch of fluff that his advisors know will make his hard-core supporters emotional and get him on the evening news. After all he’s running for re-election and needs to make sure people don’t forget about him.

Naturally this got me to thinking about Texas governors in the past, so I started researching what I thought of the most notorious governors in the history of the state. These governors often gained notoriety due to the turbulent, defining political eras in which they served, such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Progressive era scandals.  So, today I’m going to start a series on these leaders from the past.

First is Edmund J. Davis: Union Army Officer and Reconstruction Governor of Texas. Davis was governor in the reconstruction period 1870 and 1874. He was a Republican, (not the type of Republican we have today, these were the anti-slavery, pro-union republicans). Since he was a Republican during Reconstruction, needless to say he was very unpopular with a large percentage of white Texans. They thought of him as a tyrant, because he believed in using the state police and he was adamant in enforcing what many considered to be radical Republican policies. Who was he, and how did he become governor?

As were many Texans at the time, he wasn’t originally from Texas. He was born at St. Augustine, Florida, on October 2, 1827, to William Godwin and Mary Ann (Channer) Davis. His lineage traced back to a Grandfather Godwin Davis, who had immigrated from England to Virginia and had fought and perished during the Revolutionary War.

His father, who lived in South Carolina, was a land developer and attorney in St. Augustine. As a young man Davis was educated in Florida, and at age 19 moved, with the family to Galveston, Texas, in January 1848. In Galveston he started a career working in the post office while he undertook the study of law. In 1849 he relocated to Corpus Christi, where he worked in a store and continued to read and study law and in the fall of 1849, he was admitted to the bar.

Between 1849 and 1853 he was an inspector and deputy collector of customs at Laredo. In 1853 he became district attorney of the Twelfth Judicial District at Brownsville. About 1856 Governor Elisha M. Pease named him judge of the same district, and Davis continued to serve as a state judge until 1861. As judge he accompanied the ranger unit of Capt. William G. Tobin, who was involved in the Cortina affair at Brownsville in 1859 On April 6, 1858, Davis married Elizabeth Anne Britton, daughter of Forbes Britton, a state senator and friend of Sam Houston. Now we have his personal story, but this is Texas and in Texas nothing is simple, particularly politics.

Davis was a Whig until the mid-1850s. OK, who were the Whigs? They were a major political party that was very active from 1834 to 1854. They were originally formed in order to oppose President Andrew Jackson's policies and his desire to expand executive power. (see power hungry president’s isn’t exactly anything new in American history). They supported Henry Clay’s "American System," and they believed in modernization, industrialization, protective tariffs, and a national bank. The fell apart by infighting over the expansion of slavery into new territories. This caused Northern "Conscience" Whigs to join the Republican Party and Southern "Cotton" Whigs to join other factions, such as the fledgling democratic party and some joined the “Know-Nothing” party.  

In 1855 after the Whigs fell apart, Davis joined the Democratic party. In 1861 even though the Texas democratic party was a strong advocate for secession and were pro-slavery, Davis supported Sam Houston and opposed secession.  He ran unsuccessfully to become a delegate to the Secession Convention. Once Texas voted to leave and announced it was seceding from the union, Davis refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, and the state vacated his judgeship on April 24.

Unable to support the Confederacy in May of 1862 Davis fled Texas and travelled to New Orleans. From New Orleans along with John L. Haynes and William Alexander, he went to Washington. The men met with President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln recommended that the three would be given help so they could provide weapons to troops that they wanted to raise.  On October 26, 1862, Davis received a colonel's commission and authorization to recruit the cavalry regiment that became the First Texas Cavalry (U.S.).

The First Texas saw extensive service during the war. In January of 1863 they barely escaped capture when Galveston fell to Confederates. While in Matamoros in March of 1863 Davis was captured by Confederates. He had been there attempting to take his family out of Texas and also recruit men for his unit.

Needless to say, his capture caused diplomatic trouble between the Confederacy and Mexico. Finally Confederate Gen. Hamilton P. Bee in order to appease the Mexican governor Albino López released Davis. Davis crossed back into Texas and from November to December 1863 he took part in Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's unsuccessful Rio Grande campaign.

in an effort to disrupt the border trade Davis’s unit marched to Rio Grande City and seized cotton and slaves. On November 4, 1864, Davis was promoted to brigadier general and for the remainder of the war commanded Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds's cavalry in the Division of Western Mississippi. On June 2, 1865, he was among those who represented Gen. Edward R. S. Canby at Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith's surrender of Confederate forces in Texas.

After the war Davis participated in state politics as a Unionist and Republican. He served in the Constitutional Convention of 1866 and ran in the 1866 general election he ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate from his old district. He represented the border district and served as president of the Constitutional Convention of 1868–69. During this time, he made enemies among the white population by consistently supporting political programs that would have restricted the political rights of secessionists, expanded rights for Blacks, and divided the state. He also favored the ab initio theory, which held that all laws passed since secession were null and void.

He ran for governor in the election of 1869 against Andrew J. Hamilton, another Republican, and won in a closely disputed race. His administration was a controversial one. Its program called for law and order backed by a State Police and restored militia, public schools, internal improvements, bureaus of immigration and geology, and protection of the frontier. (Sounds vaguely familiar doesn’t it)

All of these were the subject of strong attacks from both Democratic and Republican opponents. They added to the controversy surrounding Reconstruction in Texas. Davis ran for reelection in December 1873 and was defeated by Richard Coke by a vote of two to one. Davis did not gracefully accept defeat, and he believed that the Republican national administration was partly responsible for his loss.

He refused to vacate office after losing a what he considered a fraudulent-ridden 1873 election to Democrat Richard Coke.

Here’s what happened. Democrat Richard Coke defeated Republican incumbent Edmund J. Davis with 100,415 votes to 52,141, a margin of over two to one.

Davis, a Republican, refused to leave, citing a Texas Supreme Court ruling (the "Semicolon Court" in Ex parte Rodriguez) that declared the election unconstitutional.

Davis occupied the lower floor of the Capitol with state troops, while Democratic supporters of Coke took the second floor.

He asked President Ulysses S. Grant to send in federal troops to help him stay in office. Grant refused and finally on January 19, 1874, Davis resigned, allowing Coke to take office and restoring Democratic control to Texas. This signaled the official end of Radical Reconstruction in Texas and initiated a long period of Democratic dominance.

From 1875 until his death Davis, contemporarily described as a "tall, gaunt, cold-eyed, rather commanding figure," headed the Republican party in Texas as chairman of the state executive committee. In 1880 he ran again for governor but was badly defeated by Oran M. Roberts. In 1882 he ran for Congress in the Tenth District against John Hancock, again unsuccessfully. He was nominated as collector of customs at Galveston in 1880 but refused the job because of his opposition to the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes. Supporters recommended him for a cabinet position under President Chester A. Arthur, but he received no appointment. Davis died in Austin on February 7, 1883, and is buried there in the State Cemetery.

This has been the Hidden History of Texas and the first in our stories of “notorious” Texas governors, Edmund J. Davis – see you next time, thanks for listening

There’s a phrase we use and hear a lot in Texas.

“Don’t mess with Texas.”

It’s supposed to refer to us having a feeling of independence, grit, and self-reliance.But when it comes to books, and who gets to read them, we Texans have a long, complicated history of messing with what our fellow Texans do.

Today, when we hear about book bans or library purges, it can feel like something new. Like a sudden crisis.

But the truth is far less comfortable.

Book censorship in Texas isn’t an anomaly.It’s a tradition.

And like most traditions, it tells us a lot about who has power… and who’s afraid of losing it.

Not a complete transcript.....

“The Quiet Texan Behind the Oval Office: Colonel Edward Mandell House”

Welcome to Episode 82 of the Hidden History of Texas, Yes, I took the holidays off and feel refreshed and ready to go here in 2026. I hope each and all of you had a wonderful holiday season. Now it’s time to get back into it.  

If you pay attention to the world of political news, then you’ve probably heard the name Steven Miller. If you haven’t, he’s a primary advisor to President Trump. There are some who think that Mr. Miller is the most powerful person in Washington. That he wields more power and influence inside the administration than anyone else. He is what some call the power behind the throne, and they are surprised that someone like this exists. However, it’s not rare at all, throughout history there have been men who were incredibly powerful but whom most people can’t name.

The question becomes, how on earth does a person rule a nation, a country without actually being the ruler? How does someone rule without ruling?

It’s important to understand that real power doesn’t always sit at the top. Many times, the real power is held by a person that many people are unaware even exists. Real power operates quietly, seemingly in the shadows, through trust and access. One such person’s name was  Edward Mandell House, and of course, he came from Texas.”  And at one point during World War I, he was one of the most influential men in Washington. He either shaped or helped shape American foreign policy. He was never elected to office. He held no cabinet position, and he most certainly did not have a public mandate to do what he did.

Who was Edward Mandell House?

He was born in Houston on July 26, 1858, to Mary Elizabeth (Shearn) and Thomas William House. He was the youngest of seven children. Thomas, his father, was one of the leading citizens of Texas. He was a wealthy merchant, a banker, and a landowner.  As did many wealthy children in that time period, Edward had a privileged youth.

Growing up he met many prominent people who visited his family’s large homes in Galveston and Houston. He also spent time enjoying life at his father's sugar plantation near Arcola Junction.  And like many Texas boys, he rode, hunted, and admired the gunfighters of the era.  He would often roam the flat, vast coastal plain near Houston.

After his mother passed away on January 28, 1870, his father sent him away to boarding school. First a school in Virginia and then to one in New Haven, Connecticut. He was not a serious student, but he made several connections that would serve him well in life. It was also there that he became intrigued with politics. He and his closest friend, Oliver T. Morton (the son of Senator Oliver Perry Morton of Indiana), became fascinated by the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 and the crisis that followed it. (If you think there are allegations of election fraud now, you should really look into how crooked elections have often been in our nation’s past) The two young men traveled to New York and Washington studying the events that were taking place. This might have been one of those moments in time when seeds of a person’s destiny are planted. This election and the intrigue that surrounded it and how political power is really wielded seems to have left a lasting impression on the young House.

In the autumn of 1877 while attending Cornell University, his father became ill and he returned to Texas to attend to him. In 1880 after the death of his father, he decided to remain in Texas and help manage the estate. In 1881 he married Loulie Hunter of Hunter, Texas. The young couple honeymooned and spent a year in Europe after which they returned to Houston.

A Return to Texas

It was during this time that House began to supervise his family's extensive landholdings which were spread throughout Texas. He moved his family to Austin in the fall of 1885 for two reasons. First, he wanted to escape the heat and humidity of Houston, (I can attest to that, I left Houston for the same reason) and he wanted to be closer to his cotton plantations. During the period of the late 1880s and early 1890s, he rose to a position of prominence in Austin society and expanded his business activities to include farming and land speculation.

With Austin being the state’s capital and House having extensive business holdings throughout the state he was drawn into state politics due to his friendship with then Texas Governor Hogg. In 1892 the governor was facing a formidable challenge for renomination and then reelection due to opposition from conservative Democrats and Populists. House stepped in and took control of and directed Hogg's campaign.

Using his business acumen, he established a network of contacts with influential local Democratic leaders, then managed to manipulate the electoral machinery, and finally bargained for the often-overlooked votes of African and Mexican Americans. His skills helped Hogg triumph in what was a bitter, three-way race. On July 20, 1893, Hogg rewarded House with the honorary title of "lieutenant colonel." The press soon shortened the title to "colonel." This campaign seemed to wet House’s appetite; however, he was more fascinated with the process of politics than with the substance.

He went on to build his own faction-"our crowd," he called it, which became a powerful force in Texas politics. He was an ambitious political operator, not politician, and he was skilled in organizing and inspiring others. He preferred to work mostly behind the scenes. By doing so, it helped him develop ties of loyalty and affection with his close associates. This also enabled him to use patronage (favors) to rally party workers behind his candidates. From 1894 to 1906 House's protégés served as governors of Texas. He and his associates managed the gubernatorial campaigns of Charles Allen Culberson, Joseph D. Sayers, and Samuel W. T. Lanham. He was particularly close to Culberson, and House directed the 1898 campaign that sent Culberson to the United States Senate. Over the years he served as a political counselor, often dispensing advice and controlling patronage for all three governors.

“House learned early that true power doesn’t need a podium, it simply needs proximity. It needs access”

Life in Washington

Remember how as a youth, House had become intrigued by the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 and that intrigue instilled in him some grand dreams. Tiring of being involved with state politics, he began to crave a place on the national level. (One thing to remember is that in those days the Democrats were the conservatives, and the Republicans were the moderate and liberals.) House was a fiscal or financial conservative, and he was irritated and discouraged when in 1904, the democratic nominee Alton B. Parker was defeated by Theodore Roosevelt. In the 1908 presidential election, he was further discouraged when Republican candidate William Howard Taft defeated democratic party candidate William Jennings Bryan. Rather than stay, House travelled to Europe where he tried to find peace of mind and dabbled in spiritualism.

After returning to the United States in time for the lead up to the 1912 Presidential election, House was living in New York. It was then that several of Woodrow Wilson’s allies, including William McAdoo, who knew of House’s political organization, met with him to gauge his support. House agreed to meet with Wilson and hosted him for a visit in late November 1911. The two men felt an immediate rapport, bonding over shared views and backgrounds, with House noting how pleasant Wilson was. As a result, a close friendship was formed that lasted for decades.

House used his network to help Wilson win the democratic nomination for president in the 1912 election. His influence secured the forty votes of the Texas delegation and the approval of William Jennings Bryan for Wilson's candidacy.

The election of 1912 was one of chaos and if you read most history books about that race you will see it described as a bitter contest between Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Williams Howard Taft, and Eugene Debs.

Roosevelt ran on what was called a "New Nationalism" platform that called for social insurance programs, reduction to an eight-hour workday, and robust federal regulation of the economy.

Wilson's platform was labeled the  "New Freedom" platform, and it called for tariff reduction, banking reform, and new antitrust regulations.

Incumbent President Taft ran an almost quiet campaign that emphasized his idea of "progressive conservatism".

Eugene Debs was a proud socialist and he spent most of his time denouncing the other three by claiming that Wilson, Roosevelt and Taft were all financed by different factions within what were called the capitalist trusts. He also maintained that Roosevelt in particular was a demagogue who only used socialistic language because he wanted to insure that the capitalist establishment had control.

Wilson won a close election, and this is when House as a person who is interested in real power, not flash, not headlines, but real power showed what he was capable of. He refused any official appointment but was responsible for the appointment of several Texans to cabinet positions. Thus, he was able to quickly and firmly establish himself as the president's trusted adviser and confidant. Since he had travelled extensively in Europe Wilson leaned heavily on House for advice on foreign affairs.

House was establishing the fact that real power grows where trust replaces accountability. Wilson trusted House and that was all that mattered

But what is that kind of power? What was the nature of House’s power?

House had what we refer to as Power Without Portfolio.

He had no official department; he wasn’t and didn’t need to be confirmed by the Senate. One important difference between then and today, he was never under any public scrutiny. Of course,

Welcome to Episode 81 - Texas Economy in the 1850s, Cotton, Tariffs, and Boomtowns. Today's show is a little shorter than most. I was really afraid I'd start to get political and lose my focus. TBH, I'm tremendously opposed to tariffs, especially when they affect agriculture and working folks. Anyway....Here's a partial transcript

Today, we’re traveling back to the 1850s—a decade of cotton, cattle, and booming ports, but also one of economic tension and national panic.

Imagine standing on the docks of Galveston in 1855. Sailors unload heavy bales of cotton destined for England, while merchants hustle to get imported tools, fine fabrics, and wine onto wagons bound for Houston and beyond. This bustling port was Texas’s economic lifeline, connecting rural plantations to global markets.

Cotton was king in East Texas, and thanks to low federal tariffs, planters could buy imported goods without breaking the bank. Meanwhile, settlers and ranchers across the state were doing the same, relying on affordable tools and supplies to carve out farms on the frontier.

During this decade, the United States had some of the lowest tariffs in its history. The Walker Tariff of 1846 and the Tariff of 1857 brought import taxes down to roughly 17–25%, depending on the product. For Texas, that meant cheap imports and profitable exports. Unlike the industrial North, which wanted protective tariffs to shield factories from British competition, Texans had little industry to protect. Low tariffs suited the state’s agricultural economy perfectly.

But 1857 also brought the Panic of 1857, a nationwide financial crisis. In New York and Philadelphia, banks failed, factories closed, and workers were laid off by the thousands. Across the Midwest, farmers watched wheat prices collapse.

Now, here’s the fascinating part: Texas largely escaped the worst of it. Cotton prices stayed steady, and the state’s rural economy—while affected by some credit shortages—remained stable. Newspapers at the time proudly reported that Texas’s soil and cotton shielded its citizens from Northern calamities, reinforcing the belief that the Southern economic system was stronger than the North’s industrial model.

Welcome to the Hidden History of Texas. This is Episode 80 – Texas Politics as the 1850s Begin. 

 I’m your host and guide Hank Wilson. Texas politics is a contact sport, and actually today’s Texas politics and politicians often seem like they still are set in 200 years ago. In fact, if you think about some of the laws that are being passed today, if you didn’t know better, you’d think that you had somehow traveled back in time to the 1850s. Currently there are portions of the political world that are trying to roll back civil rights. Racial animosity is at an all-time high. There is little tolerance for those who don’t think like the party in power wants you to think. Texas politics today are a mess and as they were in 1850.

What was Texas and America like in 1850? Frankly, as I mentioned, it was a mess, the country was mired in controversy after controversy, especially when it came to the issue of slavery. Texas itself, after lowering the flag of the Republic in 1846 struggled to find its footing. After the war with Mexico in 1848 the state government was bound and determined to make the Rio Grande river, especially the far western part, the state’s boundary. Well, this meant that most of Eastern New Mexico, including an area that reached all the way to Santa Fe would become a part of Texas. In fact, in 1848 the state legislature declared that part of Eastern New Mexico to be named Santa Fe County and the governor, George T. Wood, sent Spruce Baird there to set up a county government.  Needless to say, the proud people of Santa Fe, refused to accept the Texans and with the help of federal troops forced Baird and the other Texans with him to depart. Baird was only able to stay until July 1849 at which time he left the region

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. a major controversy was brewing between legislators from the North and those from  the South. Of course, this was over the issue of slavery and especially if it was to be allowed in the newly acquired territories that had recently been acquired from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican-American war. This necessarily drew Texas into the dispute on the side of the South, remember the early Anglo settlers of Texas were mostly southerners and their allegiance was to the south and to the slave owners....

This is not the entire transcript so for the entire transcript about Texas Politics as the 1850s Begin - contact me for a free PDF

This is episode 79 of the Hidden History of Texas, Central Texas Floods of the 2000s.

The Central Texas Floods of the 2000s damaged Lake Marble Falls

2002 Central Texas Floods

The summer of 2002 brought storm after storm, pounding San Antonio and the Hill Country with relentless rain. By July, creeks had swollen into rivers, and the city’s flood-control systems groaned under the pressure. Cars floated down highways, neighborhoods were cut off, and families had to be rescued from rooftops in San Antonio’s South Side. San Antonio International Airport recorded a staggering 9.52 inches of rain on July 1 alone, setting a new record for the month

Over the next week, rainfall totals in several counties reached between 25 and 35 inches, leading to widespread flash flooding. The Guadalupe and Blanco Rivers swelled beyond their banks, inundating communities and causing significant damage. The floodwaters claimed 12 lives, damaged approximately 48,000 homes, and resulted in an estimated $1 billion in damages. Twenty-four counties were declared federal disaster areas.

2015 Blanco River Flood (Wimberley & San Marcos)

The event was part of a larger weather system that affected Texas and Oklahoma, producing 75 tornadoes and widespread flooding. The Blanco River, which typically flows at 93 cubic feet per second, experienced a record-breaking crest of 44.9 feet at Wimberley, Texas, with a peak flow of 175,000 cubic feet per second as a result on the night of May 23, 2015, yes it was another Memorial Day Weekend flood, and the Blanco River transformed into a wall of water. Fueled by nearly a foot of rain falling in the Hill Country, the river rose over 40 feet in just a few hours.

In Wimberley, whole houses were lifted from their foundations and carried downstream like rafts, some with families still inside. In Wimberley the floodwaters rose more than 30 feet in less than three hours, overwhelming the Fischer Store Road bridge and sweeping away entire homes. The rapid rise of the river left little time for residents to evacuate, and the devastation was immense. In Wimberley alone, more than a dozen lives were lost, and the community was left to grapple with the aftermath

2025 – Kerrville & Central Texas Floods

On July 4, 2025, flash floods devastated Kerrville and surrounding Hill Country communities. Late on July 3, 2025, the remnant mid-level circulation of Atlantic Tropical Storm Barry became embedded within a broader mid-level trough already containing tropical east Pacific remnant moisture This system developed into a massive thunderstorm which stalled over Central Texas.

Flooding began on the morning of July 4, after significant rainfall accumulated across Central Texas. Six flash flood emergencies, which included the cities of Kerrville and Mason, were issued the same day. The Guadalupe River rose about 26 ft in 45 minutes. It surged an estimated 29 ft in the Hunt area, where more than 20 children were declared missing from a summer camp. July 5 saw more flash flood warnings for the Lake Travis area, which is part of the Colorado River watershed. In the span of a few hours, the equivalent to four months’ worth of rain fell across the Texas Hill Country region, with the highest rain totals being 20.33 inches. Over 135 people died in the flood

The Central Texas Floods of the 2000s, weren't the first floods to cause destruction in the region and in all likelihood they won't be the last. All we can do is try to prepare the best we can.

Lake Buchanan, built to help prevent floods in Central Texas

Central Texas – The Flash Flood Capital of the State - The Floods of 1957, 1981, and 1998

1957 - The Longest Drought In Texas History Ends With Massive Floods - Central Texas Flood (Hill Country)

Texas climate changes can often be considered extreme. The State is so large that one portion of it can suffer from flooding rains to extreme drought. In fact, parts of Texas are currently experiencing a drought, (as is most of the Western United States, but this book is about Texas, so…) The worst drought in Texas history was the 1950s drought, lasting from 1949 to 1957, and is considered the state's "drought of record". It was caused by prolonged periods of little to no rainfall, and as a result there was extensive agricultural losses, dried-up water resources, destructive weather event (tornadoes, windstorms, but no rain), and played a significant role in how the economic structure of the state began to shift away from the rural communities to its current model of mostly urban.

The environmental effects of the drought definitely laid the foundation for the devastation that was to follow during the flood.  Rivers and creeks dried up, reservoirs emptied, and the landscape was severely impacted. One interesting side effect was there were occasions when the State experienced destructive hail and multiple tornadoes. When the drought broke, it broke in a big way. They called it  "The Day of the Big Cloud".

The drought officially ended with a significant rain event on April 24, 1957, which brought 10 inches of rain within a few hours and marked "The Day of the Big Cloud". But that wasn’t the only water that fell from the sky.

In Lampasas, on May 12th, on Mother’s Day heavy rainfall overwhelmed Lampasas, particularly its Sulphur Creek watershed, breaching levees and sending a surge of floodwaters through the heart of town. The flood inundated 68 downtown blocks: destroying 38 homes and five businesses, severely damaging 46 houses and 47 businesses and affecting about 90% of the downtown area. Total damages were estimated at $4.5 million  Worse than the economic losses, five residents lost their lives during the Lampasas flood  The event proved a turning point for the town; afterward, officials implemented new and substantial flood-control measures which have come in handy even in today’s world. The massive amount of rainfall turned Hill Country creeks into torrents of raging water that swept through Llano, Burnet, and Lampasas counties with a fury born of years of pent-up skies. Dozens perished as flash floods tore through towns and carried homes away like driftwood. The flood was both a tragedy and an ending. While the flood broke the back of the 1950s drought, but at a terrible human cost. Almost 25 years later Central Texas would once again see heavy flooding, this time in Austin.

1981 Austin Flood (Shoal Creek & Onion Creek)

It was a summer storm that seemed ordinary at first, but by the night of May 24, 1981, Memorial Day Weekend, Austin was drowning.

Shoal Creek is the largest of Austin’s north urban watersheds, encompassing approximately 8,000 acres (12.9 square miles). About 27% of the watershed is over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.[1] Its length is approximately 11 miles. It runs parallel to and between Waller Creek to its east and Johnson Creek to its west.

According to the National Weather Service Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, on May 24,1981 Shoal Creek reached its record highest crest ever recorded at 23.11 feet. This record crest led to the deaths of 13 people and $36 million in damages.

Shoal Creek burst its banks, turning streets into rivers that carried cars away like driftwood. Downtown stores filled with water, entire blocks of North Lamar were gutted, and homes along Onion Creek were swallowed in the flash floods.

Thirteen people lost their lives that night, caught in the sudden, violent rise of the water. For Austin, the flood was a wake-up call: even in a growing, modern city, nature could still claim the upper hand in an instant.

In addition to the flooding, the storms also knocked power to the National Weather Service station as well as local television and radio stations, leaving thousands of people and first responders without ways to communicate with each other. The hilly terrain, coupled with the heavy rain events that tend to happen in the month of May have given Central Texas an infamous meteorological nickname: Flash Flood Alley and in 1998 that moniker would be borne out with disastrous consequences.

1998 October 1998 Texas Flood

The October 1998 Texas Flood event took place over parts of South and Southeast Texas. For two days, October 17 and October 18, 1998 the rain never let up. The storm brought over 20 inches of rain to some parts of Southeast Texas and causing over $750 million in damages. 31 people died as a result of the storm, most of them by drowning.

The storm was created when a very strong upper-level trough approached from the Western United States and collided with very warm, moist air which had been sitting over Southern Texas for the past few days. This caused dew points in the area to be in the mid 70s that weekend. Also, an area of very warm and moist air was present nearby due to Hurricane Madeline, which was sitting off the west coast of Mexico. On October 16, the storm was being forecast by the National Weather Service to produce a significant amount of rain and was only missing one ingredient for it to be a disastrous storm. The missing ingredient was a cold front, and guess what, one was moving steadily towards Texas.

And it was a short 4 years later that the area was hit again by torrential rain and more flash floods and I'll talk about those floods in the next episode

1935 -  A Very Wet Year in Texas and I don’t mean because prohibition had ended, but there were 3 major floods that ravaged the state.

They say that April showers bring May flowers and while that is true, in Texas too many April showers can be an indication of floods to come and that was especially true in the year 1935. Central and South-Central Texas experienced heavy rains that Spring which greatly affected Austin, San Antonio and lesser cities like San Marcos, Junction, Uvalde and D'Hanis.

In May, San Antonio received 14.07 inches of rain in May and over 8 inches in June. That amount of rainfall caused the downtown area to flood and the town of  D'Hanis reported that 20-24 inches of rain in just 2 Hours and 45 Minutes. The biggest problem with that amount of rain in that short of time, is that once the ground is soaked the water has no place to go except to run off.

Central Texas is a vast region of Texas that contains the Texas Hill Country, it’s a beautiful, hilly area on the Edwards Plateau known for its limestone bedrock, springs, canyons, and rare plants and animals. The Hill Country is characterized by its "rolling to hilly grassland," which formed as the plateau eroded over millions of years, exposing the hard limestone beneath. This region blends rural landscapes with growing towns and cities and is a significant source of water from the underground Edwards Aquifer.

There are several major rivers in the Texas Hill Country including the Colorado, Guadalupe, Frio, Nueces, and Pedernales Rivers, along with several tributaries like the Llano, San Marcos, and Comal rivers. Spring fed rivers, such as the Lampasas and the Blanco. These rivers are known for their crystal-clear waters, scenic beauty, and are popular for activities such as tubing, kayaking, and fishing, with several notable outfitters offering services on their waters.

 It is also an area that with heavy rains is prone to severe flooding. In 1935 during the months of May and June that was born out in floods, one was the Blanco River Flood, and the other took place in Austin on the Colorado River. then in December, the city of Houston suffered one of the most catastrophic floods in Texas history.

This can turn into a raging river with enough rain

Welcome to Episode 76 - When it floods it destroys – 1908 Trinity River - 1921 San Antonio. Today I'm looking at one of the more silent disasters that can hit a state and that is flash flooding and flooding in general. If you don't mind how about visiting my sponsor Ashby Navis & Tennyson Digital Publishers great audiobooks, mobile apps, and video games.

Picture a dry creek bed or a street that looks calm and harmless. Then, suddenly, heavy rain falls—sometimes miles away—and all that water rushes downhill at once. In minutes, what was once dry ground can turn into a roaring river.

That’s a flash flood.

Unlike regular floods, which rise slowly over hours or days, a flash flood lives up to its name: it happens fast, often with little warning. Walls of water can sweep through canyons, streets, or neighborhoods, carrying debris, cars, even parts of buildings.

A flash flood is nature reminding us just how quickly things can change. One moment calm, the next moment a surge of unstoppable water. It’s powerful, dangerous, and one of the hardest types of flooding to escape—because it gives so little time to react.

1908 Trinity River Flood (Dallas)

Stretching from a few miles south of the Red River the Trinity River runs for 710-miles. As the river ran through Central Texas, the Caddo people called the river the Arkikosa and as it neared the Gulf Coast it was known as the Daycoa.

In 1687 French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, named the river Riviere des canoës ("River of Canoes") and then in 1680 Spanish explorer Alonso de León named it, "La Santísima Trinidad" ("the Most Holy Trinity").

However, in 2022, language preservationists from the Caddo Nation determined their ancestral language lacked the letter “R” sound. So that means that the original Caddo name, Arkikosa was likely a corruption or misspelling of the word Akokisa. That word was actually taken from the language of the Atakapa people who lived in the woodlands along the Gulf Coast.

The river passes through the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth and is and was a major waterway in the region.

Anyway, about the flood….

In the spring of 1908. rain had fallen for days, soaking the earth until it could hold no more. By late May, the Trinity River was no longer a river, it was a roaring, unchained sea. On the morning of May 24, the people of Dallas awoke to a sight they would never forget: the river had swallowed nearly a third of their city.

Homes in the bottoms lay under brown, swirling water. Families scrambled to rooftops with what little they could carry, waiting for boats to pull them to safety. The wooden bridges that once connected Dallas to Oak Cliff were gone, swept away like twigs. With rail lines drowned and telegraphs silenced, the city stood alone, an island cut off from the world.

At its height, the Trinity surged more than fifty feet above normal. The flood took lives, at least a handful, records from that time period are scarce, so there may have been many more who lost their lives. We do know that thousands were left homeless. Livestock drowned in the fields, businesses were ruined, and the muddy water lingered long after the rain had stopped, reminding everyone of the river’s power.

Yet out of the wreckage came resolve. Dallas leaders saw clearly that the Trinity could not be ignored or left to its own wild course. Within a few years, levees would rise, the channel would be straightened, and a grand new bridge, the Houston Street Viaduct, would span the river, a promise that Dallas would never be humbled in the same way again.

13 years later, South Texas would experience much the same from the San Antonio River and its tributaries.

1921 San Antonio Flood

For 23 straight hours the rain came not from San Antonio’s skies, but from the Hill Country beyond. On September 9, 1921, torrents fell upstream, and the unsuspecting city slept as the water gathered strength. By dawn, the San Antonio River and its tributaries were raging walls of water. Streets became rivers. Entire neighborhoods disappeared under the flood, and families clung to treetops or roofs in desperation.

A thousand acres of the city were flooded. A three-quarter square-mile area of downtown was covered by two to twelve feet of water.

Floodwaters ripped through the city’s predominately Mexican West Side neighborhoods, killing more than eighty people. Many of them in the  neighborhoods along San Pedro and Alazan creeks and their tributaries.

Meanwhile a wall of water crashed into the central business district on the city’s North Side, wreaking considerable damage.  The wall of water swept through the streets and tore through structures, including city hall, police headquarters, and hospitals. The flood inundated downtown with up to twelve feet of water in some areas.

Despite at least 500 rescues, many by soldiers mobilized from nearby United States Army posts, more than 200 souls were lost, swept away in what became one of Texas’ deadliest floods.

In the aftermath, the city vowed never again to be caught unprepared, but it took nearly three more years for flood prevention plans to be finalized and for $2.8 million in municipal bonds to be approved so work could start. The city hired Samuel F. Crecelius, retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to supervise the overall project. Olmos Dam finished in 1926. Downtown, floodwaters would be diverted into a straight path to avoid the politically sensitive Great Bend, also known as the Horseshoe Bend. Floodgates at both ends of the Great Bend would seal it from floodwaters. The bypass channel was completed in 1930. The city’s response to this disaster shaped its environmental policies for the next fifty years, carving new channels of power. Decisions about which communities would be rehabilitated and how thoroughly they were made in the political arena, where the Anglo elite largely ignored the interlocking problems on the impoverished West Side that flowed from poor drainage, bad housing, and inadequate sanitation.

To this day, San Antonio’s West Side, while not being as ignored as it was then, often goes underserved in favor of services being diverted to the wealthier North Side of the city.

Next episode we’ll move the calendar up to 1935 a few years after the great depression and while the world was recovering, 1935 proved to be a very wet and disastrous year for many in Texas. I’ll see you then.