175 Years of History special section from the Victoria Advocate

175 Years of History SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2021

2 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

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Table of Contents ADVOCATE HISTORY

The Victoria Advocate continues to record history after 175 years ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4

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Texas Legislature Resolution �������������������������������������������������������������4 Former paperboy recalls Advocate’s 100th anniversary ����������������6 Stop the presses �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������8 My life as the first female reporter ����������������������������������������������������8 Chief photographer reflects on grandmother’s long tenure at the Advocate �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������10

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Generations of Advocate employees offer insights into journalism ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������12 What could have been? �����������������������������������������������������������������������14 Tradition Gone By ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������16

VICTORIA HISTORY Map of Victoria’s History �������������������������������������������������������������������18

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Victoria’s interesting visitors ������������������������������������������������������������19 Victoria Advocate grew alongside historic churches ������������������20 The story behind the first Mexican American woman on Victoria’s school board �����������������������������������������������������������������������20

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VISD has grown from 41 families to 14,000 students �������������������21 Victoria County: Population growth over time ������������������������������22 Higher education: ‘It changes a town’ ��������������������������������������������22 Hints of history fill Victoria’s downtown ����������������������������������������23 From cotton to Caterpillar: Business history of Victoria boasts diversity of industries �������������������������������������������������������������������������24 Hurricanes, floods, droughts and snow: Victoria has weathered it all ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������24

1) State Rep. Geanie Morrison was active locally as early as 1979.

TEXAS HISTORY

2) ADVOCATE ARCHIVES Part of the keel of La Salle’s ship, the Belle, lifted from a tank of polyethylene glycol in 1999 at the Conservation Research Lab at Texas A&M. The solution was used to displace water in the wood while retaining the solution in the fibers so the wood wouldn’t shrink.

The European expedition that shaped the course of Texas ������26 The first shot of the Texas Revolution ��������������������������������������������28 Notable politicians from the Crossroads ����������������������������������������28 Reflecting on the Goliad Massacre �������������������������������������������������30 The Runaway Scrape ��������������������������������������������������������������������������30

3) KALI VENABLE | KVENABLE@VICAD.COM The Gonzales Memorial Museum is a Centennial Historical Memorial Museum that commemorates the Immortal 32 who died in the Alamo. The museum is open 10 a.m. - noon and 1-5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

4) ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO A group of reenactors gather for a photo at one of the first living history events of its kind at the Presidio La Bahía in Goliad, 1985.

5) ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO A printing press spare part is lowered onto a flatbed truck behind the Victoria Advocate building. Some printing press parts, along with other equipment, were removed from the building and transported to be recycled. The full Advocate printing press remains inside the building.

Congratulations on the 175th anniversary. One day you will be as old as me.

PRESIDIO LA BAHIA 217 US-183, Goliad, TX 77963 | (361) 645-3752 presidiolabahia.org | www.facebook.com/PresidioLaBahia

4 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

VictoriaAdvocate.com

Advocate History The Victoria Advocate continues to record history after 175 years

By John Roberts Today’s news is tomorrow’s history. The Victoria Advocate has been recording history for 175 years and it continues.

But it’s more than that, much more.

To me, it is a family business and mission-driven with a commitment to community journalism. That means local focus. Local involvement. Local issues.

Local solutions. Local stories. Sharing experiences with colleagues and engaging with many folks throughout our region has been special.

The Roberts/McHaney family has been served well with a solid foundation of my father Morris Roberts. He was editor of the Baylor Lariat, the college newspaper, a businessman and state representative and senator, the Advocate’s editor and publisher and finally chairman-of-the-

board. He managed the Advocate for a local ownership group, including himself, from 1942 until 1961 when he purchased all of the stock.

I remember my father saying that “community service is important.” And our family often has that discussion at meetings. We reinforce ourselves to ensure that we serve communities through local professionally written journalism.

A quote from Leo Lerner, founder of a newspaper chain some years ago near Chicago, speaks to me and what it is all about in reporting on communities. During World War II, he said to his staff that, “A fistfight on Clark Street is more important to our readers than a war in Roberts Europe.”

It is truer today than when Lerner made his statement. Today, 24/7 TV news channels, the internet, smartphones and social media reaches audiences about the larger world and more.

The 20th Century newspaper is a different animal than today and the Advocate is no different. The same mission goal is still there. We hold public officials and civic institutions accountable and to help people understand decisions being made in our communities. We tell stories about our neighbors who we don’t even know and give a platform where people can have a voice.

We’re not a newspaper anymore. We are a news organization. With challenges facing newspapers it has been tough.

But the outlook is good for the

Advocate. It is now part of a larger media group of five other newspapers in East Texas and a full-service digital agency.

This is still part of the our family under the banner of M. Roberts Media. Those other newspapers are Tyler Morning Telegraph, Longview News-Journal, The Marshall News Messenger, The Panola Watchman and Kilgore News Herald. Our organization has gained scale by adding these properties and has provided financial stability and efficiency.

As consumers (readers) change their habits and preferences, we adapt as well to meet their needs. More than half of our subscribers are digitally active. While that area is growing, we just can’t predict how readers will consume news and information 10 years and beyond. But whatever the future holds, the Advocate will be there to deliver.

Resolution distribution when Victoria became the headquarters for three stagecoach lines; sometime between 1859 and 1861, the WHEREAS, The Victoria Advocate present-day name was adopted; and is marking the 175th anniversary of its WHEREAS, Morris Roberts purchased founding in 2021; and the paper in 1942 with other leading citiWHEREAS, On May 8, 1846, the Texan zens and bought up all the stock 19 years Advocate made its debut, and that very later; eventually, he shared ownership day, it published an extra edition to notify with his son, John M. Roberts, and daughresidents of the battle of Palo Alto, the ter, Catherine R. “Kay” McHaney; Morris first engagement of the Mexican-AmeriRoberts remained active in the commucan War; the name was soon changed to Texian Advocate at the behest of pioneers; nity and the company and continued to in the early days, the paper was delivered serve as chair of the board until his death in 1991; and by horseback to readers in places as far WHEREAS, Parent company M. Robaway as Gonzales, New Braunfels, and erts Media has grown in recent years San Antonio; it gained a new means of State Rep. Geanie Morrison

By Texas House of Representatives

with the acquisition of newspapers in Longview, Tyler, Marshall, Panola, and Kilgore; while John M. Roberts is retired as president and publisher, Mrs. McHaney still serves as secretary-treasurer; the third generation is represented by the current president and publisher, Stephen McHaney, and chair of the board, Gordon McHaney; since the launch of its website in 1999, the Advocate has steadily developed its digital presence, and today, the second-oldest newspaper in Texas has subscribers all over the world; and WHEREAS, The Victoria Advocate has played a vital role in the lives of countless people over the course of its rich history,

serving as a valued source of information and connecting readers to their community, and its continued existence is a tribute to the enduring commitment to excellence of its owners and staff; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 87th Texas Legislature hereby congratulate the Victoria Advocate on its 175th anniversary and extend to all those associated with the paper sincere best wishes for the future; and, be it further RESOLVED, That an official copy of this resolution be prepared for the paper as an expression of high regard by the Texas House of Representatives.

g n i t a r b Cele . . . n o i t a Educ UHV and the Victoria Advocate know the importance that education can make in a community.

As the Advocate celebrates 175 years of educating area residents about what’s happening in the Crossroads, UHV is approaching 50 years of helping students achieve their dreams through higher education.

To find out more about the difference an education can make, contact UHV at (361) 570-4848 or go to UHV.edu.

Hats Off To Victoria Advocate for 175 Years of Excellence!

Since 1846, the Victoria Advocate has kept our industry up to date on the latest retail food trade news and insights.

Thank you for 175 sweet years from your avid readers and loyal fans at H-E-B. We invite everyone to join the celebration with fresh custom cakes and goodies from our bakery.

©2021 HEB, 21-5140

1846-1860

6 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

BIG NEWS THEN

NOTABLE

PEOPLE THEN

■ Victoria establishes

post office

Victoria County built its first courthouse in 1849. The small wood frame and plastered brick building was constructed by building contractor Richard Owens. It was a two-story, rectangular building with a wood cupola and two-story wood porch, typical of the Vernacular Greek Revival style of the period.

The Victoria post office was established in 1846, the same year the town suffered a cholera epidemic. Victims died rapidly enough that proper burials became impossible, though significant efforts were made.

The increasing amount of freight arriving at Indianola and Port Lavaca destined for western markets led to the need for improved transportation. Railroad entrepreneurs were granted a charter in 1850, which founded the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad Company. The line was to connect San Antonio and Victoria to a suitable point on the Gulf between Galveston and Corpus Christi.

VictoriaAdvocate.com

■ RICHARD OWENS: Owens was

PHOTO AND DESCRIPTION COURTESY OF “300 YEARS IN VICTORIA COUNTY” EDITED BY ROY GRIME

This 1859 photograph is very likely the first taken of a street scene in Victoria, not long after the advent of the wet plate process of photography. It shows Main Street, looking north between Santa Rosa and Constitution streets. The two-story building with the sign was the old Heaton Bros. Drug Store.

POPULATION VICTORIA ADVOCATE NEWS THEN (1850) VICTORIA CALHOUN DEWITT GOLIAD JACKSON LAVACA REFUGIO

2,019 1,110 1,716 648 996 1,571 288

PUBLISHER/EDITORS: 1846-1853: Thomas Sterne and John David Logan, editors and publishers 1846-1847: John Henry Brown, editor 1851: Homer S. Thrall, editor 1853-1858: George W.

Palmer and John Jamieson, editors and publishers 1854-1855: William R. Scurry, editor 1858-1859: John Jamieson, editor 1859-1865: Samuel A. White, editor and publisher

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $3 in advance, $4 in six months or $5 at the end of the year.

Published weekly.

LOCATION: A small one-story frame building at the corner of Main Street and Goodwin Avenue.

a pioneer merchant and building contractor. He built Victoria County’s first courthouse, a toll drawbridge across the Guadalupe River and many brick buildings in Victoria.

He became mayor of R. Owens Victoria in 1852.

■ ALEXANDER PHILLIPS: A pioneer lawyer and legislator, Phillips represented Refugio County in the Eighth Congress of the Republic of Texas. He later moved to Victoria and served the district after annexation as a senator in the first three state legislatures from 1846 to 1850.

■ ALEXANDER LOWE: Lowe was born in Tennessee in 1819 and first came to Victoria County in 1844.

Lowe was a Mexican War veteran, local businessman and civic leader. His home in Victoria can A. Lowe be seen as part of the Old Victoria Driving Tour in Victoria.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF “PICTORIAL HISTORY OF VICTORIA AND VICTORIA COUNTY” BY LEOPOLD MORRIS

COST OF GOODS IN 1850’S IN TEXAS Coffee..........$1.20 per pound of beans, Eggs........ 20 cents per dozen, Beef..........9 cents per pound, Potatoes......... 40 cents a bushel

Former paperboy recalls Advocate’s 100th anniversary

KEEP HISTORY STRONG

By Geoff Sloan GSLOAN@VICAD.COM

During the Victoria Advocate’s 100th anniversary, Gilbert “Kupp” Kupfernagel, 88, delivered all the news that was fit to print with his neighborhood buds and his younger brother.

In 2021, he still reads the paper as it reaches its 175th anniversary.

Kupfernagel delivered the paper for two years in the late 1940s when the Advocate was located at 106 S. William St. for a 20-cent profit. On May 8, 1946, he and his paperboy friends were welcome for some of the centennial celebrations.

Kupfernagel’s journey to working at the Advocate began when he worked as a 12-year-old boy at a bowling alley at Aloe Army Air Field, which would later become Victoria Regional Airport. He saved up to buy a pre-war era bicycle, which he said was of higher quality than post-war bikes.

With that bike, he then took a job with the

At that time, he and other paperboys had newspaper alongside other boys his age to pay for the newspaper they would deliver. to deliver the Advocate and, for a time, the They would then earn back their expendiHouston Post. tures by delivering those papers to about As Kupfernagel would ride through Vic100 to 120 houses along their paper routes, toria, he said he would wave or say hello to he said. He delivered papers about 28 days folks along his paper route. a month.

“Most of the houses, no one had air con“It wasn’t very often we missed a house,” ditioning or anything,” he said. “So people he said. “And if we did, we sure lived out on the front porch.” heard about it. In those days, At that time, the Advocate Founded: May 8, 1846 we were businessmen. We published a weekday paper in bought the paper, and we sold the evening. He would deliver the paper.” the Post in the morning and then At the centennial celebration, the Advocate in the evening. On Kupfernagel said he and other weekends, he would deliver the paperboys received a cupcake Advocate in the morning. and a scoop of ice cream outOften on Saturday nights, Kupside the William Street Advofernagel said his father would cate location. He and the other allow him to go to a show at the paperboys were not allowed theater late at night. He would inside the building at that time. stay up late enough to delivery Kupfernagel A party for other members of the Advocate in the early hours the paper was held that day, too. on Sunday morning.

Each day outside the William Street location, paperboys like Kupfernagel, would roll their papers on the sidewalk, he said. They found a way to fold them so when they would toss a paper from their bike, the path would curve up to a house’s front porch.

A few of the other circulation workers he delivered with included Bobby Stolz, the Gentry brothers, route supervisor Francis Boldt and circulation manager Shelton Hall.

For larger Sunday editions, they would tie a string to hold the pages together, he said.

At that time, World War II caused supply shortages of various resources including newsprint paper. Because of the shortage, the 100th anniversary special edition could not be published on the May 8, 1946 anniversary, the Advocate reported that day.

In the time since the Advocate’s centennial, it has moved from 106 S. William St. to 311 E. Constitution St. in 1949. As of 2019, it is now at 101 W. Goodwin Ave., Suite 1200.

Subscribe to your Advocate, 361-574-1200, www.VictoriaAdvocate.com/subscribe

175th BIRTHDAY ✒

8 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

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Stop the presses Remembering the 171-year print run of the Advocate in Victoria

Since the inaugural edition of the Advocate was printed in 1846, the printing press at the heart of the Crossroads has taken only a few days off from dispensing local, state and national news during its 171-year run.

Charles Kulow, who worked the presses for 45 of those years, said there was nothing like it.

“We called it the ‘Miracle on Constitution Street,’” the now-retired operations manager said. “It was pretty remarkable.” The historic building at 311 E. Constitution St. in Victoria was built in 1949.

Kulow remembers fondly the more than 100-ton Cottrell 845, a then state-of-theart, 64-page offset printing press, and its quirks, tricks and occasional hiccups.

It was fitting that a job opening just two years after its installation in 1972 piqued Kulow’s interest to apply for a job at the Advocate.

“Part of it was getting to work with what really was one of the most modern presses for its time,” said Kulow, who had started working in print shops and as a pressman when he was 16 years old.

The new offset printing press, Kulow said, was a significant upgrade from the 48-page Goss rotary press the pressmen had just retired. That press put ink to paper by means of letterpress printing.

This method required that each line and column of copy be painstakingly organized by hand and, in addition to occasional ink bleed-through, hindered the pressroom in creating enough issues for the thriving newspaper business.

At peak performance, the pressman said the press was capable of printing about 50,000 pages an hour, which was an incredible feat considering the paper’s beginning.

The first 1846 issue, which informed locals about the battle of Palo Alto, the first battle in the Mexican War, was done with a similar letterpress method, although it was entirely hand-operated and time-consuming.

As technology has progressed since the installation of the offset, the page printing process, which used a special solution of water and ink on a thin aluminum plate inlay, has largely remained the same, Kulow said. The process of inlaying the copy onto the plates if now entirely digital.

As time passed, replacement parts became harder to find and purchase. This challenge was exacerbated by the fact that ownership of Cottrell, the press’s manufacturer, had changed hands more than a half-dozen times, which made purchasing certain parts a challenge.

“If you needed one part, it would likely need to be custom made. That’d cost you an arm,” he said. “If you needed 10 parts because something broke and then broke other parts? Well, that would likely cost you a leg or two.”

Kulow said the press could’ve likely run for 10 more years with proper maintenance, but the cost was simply too high.

So on the first Sunday of May in 2017, the Advocate was printed in Victoria for one last time, a moment that was not lost on the lifelong pressman.

“It really was something,” he said.

Employees gathered around one of the last issues to come off the press and signed their names, signaling the end of

an era. That issue remains framed near the entrance of the Advocate’s current offices on the 12th floor of One O’Connor Plaza in downtown Victoria.

Since May 2017, the Advocate has outsourced printing, in line with many newspapers across the county that are cutting costs and fighting a media landscape that is shifting every day, to a Gannett-owned press at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

My last name was Harsdorff when I went to work at the Advocate in 1970. I looked at the job as a learning opportunity, and my plan was to work there a year or so and then return to teaching.

Although publisher Morris Roberts thought it was time to hire a female news Linda Lees reporter, his managing editor Jim Rech cautioned me I could meet with some resistance from the all-male staff. That being said, we agreed to a six-month trial period.

My Uncle Fritz, a news editor in New Orleans, told me it wasn’t too late to change my mind.

Newspapers don’t pay, lead to alcoholism and can be habit forming, he warned.

I vividly remember my first day at work. Right

off the bat, someone commented he thought women belonged in the kitchen.

I found that I wasn’t totally alone. There were female proofreaders and there was the Women’s Department. Marge Alkek, librarian and Rech’s secretary, gave me a warm welcome.

I was reintroduced to the manual typewriter, and photographer Bob Roberts insisted I learn to use the old Graflex press camera, something he lived to regret since I quickly proved to be untrainable.

Assistant editor Tom Fite gave me a rundown of my responsibilities. I also received encouragement from Editorial Page Editor Roy Grimes, whose knowledge of area history was astonishing.

“Did you have an ancestor who was hanged and was he married to the infamous Sally Scull?” he asked.

“Yes and no,” I stammered, shocked that he knew about them.

Jim O’Brien, Henry Wolff, Jimmy Simons, Bruce Patton, Vince Reedy, Pat Witte and Del Girt rounded out the gang. Theirs was the daily grind of keeping the public informed. Little news

was left untouched right down to how many gallons of water the fire department used.

I was to have many memorable experiences as a reporter. One was the 1976 Longhorn stampede in Goliad. Within a split second all hell broke loose and some 100 steers went into a rampage. I ran into the street and was just about to shoot a photo of the oncoming herd when someone grabbed me from behind. I landed on my back in the grass looking up at a very angry Irish priest that I had known from my hometown of Woodsboro.

“Have you no sense girl?” Father Gregory Dean yelled at me.

There was a crowd of onlookers, and I know my face was beet red.

One incident propelled me to request a change in the Advocate’s dress code for female employees. At the time slacks were not allowed. Sent to get results at a youth rodeo, I had to climb a 15-foot ladder up to the judge’s stand, and I was wearing a short-skirted dress and heels. No way was that going to happen!

Much bigger changes were soon to follow.

The paper adopted the smaller tabloid size and computers came along. Soon other women were added to the staff. Marsha Moulder, Liz Conner, and present-day Advocate Managing Editor Becky Cooper were among the first.

That trial period of mine lasted 20 years. Along the way I interviewed people from all walks of life; such as the widow of a Confederate veteran, a dying child who broke my heart, a con man promoting a film based on a local attorney’s novel, Western novelist Elmer Kelton, Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, Willie Nelson, Luciano Pavarotti, Charlton Heston and former President George W. Bush before he ran for governor.

Looking back, those early years were golden.

I was lucky to have worked with those good ole boys when the Advocate ran on hot metal and hummed to the tune of Linotype and newswire machines. Only three of them survive. Just last year Wolff, known for his column “Henry’s Journal,” died and I felt like I had lost a brother. I miss him very much. Truth be told, I miss them all.

By Chase Rogers CROGERS@VICAD.COM

ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO The more than 100-ton, 100-foot-long Cottrell 845, a then state-of-the-art, 64-page offset printing press, was installed at the Advocate in 1972. The processes surrounding the press changed often during the press’s 39-year life, but it remained reliable throughout.

My life as the first female reporter

Serving You for 83 Years

April 1951

George George Hyak Hyak

Albert Dick

George Hyak

Bill Dick

Mary Dick Yamin

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Mary Hyak Dick

Albert Dick & Betty (daughter)

10 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

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Chief photographer reflects on grandmother’s long tenure at the Advocate

PHOTO BY EMREE WEAVER Portrait of Emily Buckert by granddaughter Emree Weaver in 2016.

into six weeks, which turned into parttime until she retired in 1991.

For over 30 years, she wrote a cookEmily Buckert, my maternal granding and recipe column. These cooking mother, was “two cups of sunshine,” as columns would eventually manifest into a stated in the headline of a feature about collection of three cookbooks called “The her in the Victoria Advocate in 1978.

Good Taste Collection.”

The story ran on the 10-year anniversary Sadly, my grandmother didn’t live to of her Good Taste column, which pubsee her granddaughter become the chief lished in the newspaper every Thursday photographer and photo editor at the and Sunday. newspaper she’d devoted many decades I’ve heard many stories about my grandof her life to. mother from current, long-time Advocate My grandmother, “GoGo” as I called her, employees. Like the time she made her never thought photography was worth famous chicken salad sandwiches (always pursuing professionally. When I was in with the crust cut off) for reporters workcollege, she insisted I become a doctor ing late one election night, yet instead of like my father. But despite her pleas, I chicken she used beef tongue. continued down my winding path to beMy grandmother worked at the Victoria come a creative professional.

Advocate from 1944 until 1947, when she Just before I moved to Italy in 2012, I married my grandfather and spent the fol- showed her my very first website. She lowing years raising four children, Byron, seemed impressed with my work and for Phylis, Kai and Vivian, my mother. In 1960, the first time, perhaps, took an interest she got a call to come back to the newspa- in my photography. It was around that per to fill in while the society editor was time that she used to tell me all about the out for surgery, according to the foreword Speed Graphic cameras that Advocate in the red book of her “Good Taste Collec- photographers used in the 1940s, knowing how intrigued I was with film photogration.” She wrote that two weeks turned

By Emree Weaver EWEAVER@VICAD.COM

phy. And come to find out my grandfather even used to be an amateur photographer himself, developing his own black and white film in the bathroom of their home.

I like to think that I inherited the two best things from my grandparents: my grandfather’s eye for photography and my grandmother’s knack for cooking and entertaining. Though as a self-proclaimed amateur chef, I didn’t come to cooking as naturally as I thought I would initially. In my early 20s while in college, I managed to melt a pot trying to steam an artichoke, a memory that some of my professionally-trained chef friends still like to give me a hard time about.

Now, I enjoy making gourmet breakfasts, like creating my own variations of the classic “eggs Benedict,” and experimenting with flavors and variable dishes in the Italian cuisine that earned me the title of “Risotto Queen,” bestowed onto me by my Italian friends themselves.

Emily Buckert in March 1973.

I have fond memories from many occasions at my grandma and grandpa’s A-frame country home outside of Victoria.

She would cook my sister and I “sugar bread” on Saturday mornings while we watched cartoons and my grandpa read the Advocate at the kitchen table. We spent many Thanksgivings and Christmases there with nothing less than a full spread of all her holiday specialties.

To this day, the smell of yellow onions sautéing in a skillet reminds me of her infamous cornbread dressing.

The last time I saw my grandmother was on Mother’s Day in 2017, just before I left for my second three-month stint in Africa. She died that July while I was away, less than a year after my grandfather. I like to think I carry on her legacy through the art of cooking as a way to bring people together. And as a way to feel more connected to myself.

ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO

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12 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

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Generations of Advocate employees offer insights into journalism

By Elena Anita Watts EWATTS@VICAD.COM Vince Reedy, 87, started working at the Victoria Advocate as a sports writer in 1952, and he stayed for 47 years. When he retired in 1999, he was associate editor with a staff of 12 to 15 employees, including photographers.

Early in his career, the building at 311 E. Constitution St. was only one story. The reporters typed on manual typewriters, often pecking with just a couple of fingers, and everything was done on paper.

“By today’s terms, it was a lot of work,” Reedy said.

Eventually, a second level was added to the building, and the employees got electric typewriters, which they thought were “high tech.” Later, a huge backroom computer system to which each computer was hardwired came along.

The dramatic stories that stand out in Reedy’s long memory include Hurricane Carla, the collapse of the Denver Hotel, and the burning of the El Rancho Theater.

“Hurricane Carla was an eye-opener for all of us — even the old pros had not been through one like that,” Reedy said. “I couldn’t believe the devastation it caused, but things were different back then. The population was not as great. Recovery — electricity, water and repairs — happened a lot quicker.”

Marsha Moulder, 64, worked at the Victoria Advocate from April 1981 to September 2006.

When she started, Linda Harsdorff Lees was the only woman working in the newsroom.

Moulder started, and Becky Cooper soon followed. Lees was the only reporter who worked the day shift at that time. All the other reporters worked the night shift. Over time, that scenario reversed with just one reporter working the night shift and the others working during the day.

The copy desk was manned predominantly by men for quite a while, she said.

At first, Moulder sat between two smokers in the newsroom, but the smoke in the stereotypical hazy newsroom eventually cleared with new attitudes and laws about smoking.

Moulder started as a general assignment reporter, so in the first decade of her career, she covered meetings constantly.

She also was the agriculture reporter responsible for the Sunday ag page, which included typing up the Livestock Market reports that were faxed to her.

After about 10 years, she presented the newspaper leadership with a proposition.

She suggested the paper publish an agriculture tabloid, “South Texas Farm and Ranch News,” every other week, which would alternate with the Sunday page. They thought it was a good idea, and the tabloid became a labor of love for Moulder, who not only wrote the stories but also shot the photographs. Moulder earned her degree in ag journalism, so the fit was natural.

“I loved doing the ag page, and that’s why I stayed as Brandon long as I did,” Moulder said.

“I spent 99% of my time on agriculture. If I had been a general assignment reporter, I would not have stayed so long.Life just takes over. You get up and go to work, and the next thing you know, a lot of time has gone by.”

One memory that came to mind about her time with the Advocate is when Burt Reynolds sent her a dozen roses after an interview. Moulder interviewed Reynolds when he was in the area filming “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

“I met a lot of neat people going out and doing interviews, people I would have not met had I not been a reporter at the Advocate,” Moulder said.

Aprill Brandon, 39, worked in the newsroom from 2006 to 2011, and her humor column, “Life Happens,” published for many years after she left.

In an email, Brandon described the newsroom environment as stressful and loud.

“It was constant and unrelenting. But there was a lot of laughter and dark humor, too, and oh so many bad puns, all of which was used as a kind of pressure

valve,” Brandon said. “And because of that there was a lot of bonding. I met some of my best friends there, all of whom I’m still in contact with even though many of us have scattered to the four winds over the years.”

When Brandon arrived, she was the new kid, but by the time she left, she was the inappropriate grandma, she said.

“One, because journalism ages you and two, the newsroom got more diverse and younger, which was great,” Brandon said.

“Wildly talented journalists from all walks of life.”

Journalism, especially local journalism, is vital, she continued.

“Humans are messy and complicated and our systems are flawed,” she said.

“Journalists are the Walker ones who dive in and try to wrestle some sense out of the never-ending chaos. The pay tends to be low, the work grueling, the emotional toll significant sometimes.

And yet, they keep doing it. Because it’s important. Plus sometimes there’s pizza.”

Scot Walker, 53, worked from about 1993 until 2007, though he left for a different job for a couple of years during that time. He started as news editor but was promoted to assistant managing editor and then editor.

The biggest change during his tenure was the digital revolution. The internet came along and all newspapers had to figure out how to operate in a completely new environment, he said.

“The ways in which news and information were produced, distributed and consumed changed drastically in a very short period of time,” Walker said. “It was an interesting time. Readers’ expectations changed. They operated for years in an environment where they received the news once a day, and overnight, they wanted to receive the news 24 hours per day available immediately on the website.

It was a hard pivot to make.”

The print publication did not go away, so the digital version was added on top of what already had to be produced. There was no rulebook, and newspapers across the country were engaging in a lot of trial and error. The new product required different skill sets and talents.

“We were fortunate to have local ownership. The Roberts family was committed to do its best to serve the community, not just make a buck,” Walker said. “They wanted to do right by the residents, and that made a difference in the quality of the product that the readers received.”

Referring to the importance of journalism, Walker said he cannot imagine how a community of any size can function and thrive without a source of good information.

Leaders need information, and people need information about the leaders.

“As a resident, you don’t have time to attend every meeting. You need a proxy to do that work for you — to inform you as a citizen,” Walker said.

People need to know what’s happening at the city council meetings, and they need information about candidates running in the next election. They need to know what crimes are happening in their neighborhoods, and they need to know how to connect to resources during recovery after a disaster. They need to know what production the community theater is putting on, and they need to know what new restaurant is opening. They need to know a lot for a good quality of life, Walker said.

“You need a strong, ideally, locally-owned and civic-minded source of news and information, and Victoria and the surrounding counties are blessed to have had local ownership by the Roberts and McHaney families,” Walker said. “I’m proud to have been a part of it for the time I was there.”

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14 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

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What could have been?

Looking back at Victoria Memorial Peter L. Scamardo II PSCAMARDO@VICAD.COM It’s a subject that comes up in conversation at every East-West game. How good would a team be with the best players from both squads?

It’s a question that might never have an answer. But for a period of 10 years, it was the reality.

Victoria Memorial was the lone public high school in the Victoria Independent School District between 2000 and 2010.

Brought about for a number of reasons outside of athletics, Memorial merged the Victoria High and Victoria Stroman campuses into one school, putting every Victoria public school athlete in one location.

Yet while teams found some success, Memorial was not the theoretical powerhouse as school spirit never seemed to manifest with the Vipers.

“It was a little chaotic, especially the first year because they kinda threw everyone in with it, especially for sports,” said Kelly Louth Morris, Memorial Class of 2004. “No one really knew what we were doing. In golf we just did our own thing, played golf and let them figure out the rest.”

Instead of building a new campus, the old Victoria High and Stroman campuses were used as the upperclassmen and underclassmen campuses, respectively.

Freshmen and sophomore athletes would have to catch a bus or hitch a ride

with friends in order to make practice on time at the senior campus.

“You walked the halls, and you still see the Stingaree,” said West assistant football coach Zach Mueller, VWHS Class of 2011.

“All they did was cover a Memorial mat and put it over the stingray. So everything was still there from the previous two schools, and I think Memorial was just like a cover up, and we all knew as athletes.”

The Viper identity also struggled to manifest. Instead of hiring new coaches, there were several carry overs from the old schools, and it was not an even split.

Wayne Condra, John Grammer and Mike Smith continued their head coaching positions in football, boys basketball and girls golf from Victoria High. Baseball coaches Ralph Escalona and Manuel Alvarado were the only real carryovers from Stroman.

Still, once the kids were at Memorial, the chance for competition was evident.

“Making varsity at Memorial was something big because you’re in competition,” said St. Joseph baseball coach Daniel Tunchez, Memorial Class of 2008. “For me, being able to make it in both basketball and baseball as a sophomore, I really took pride in that because I knew all the work I put in had paid off. It was making sure you worked hard because it’s just a matter of time before someone else takes your spot.”

Memorial golfers warm up in the fog prior to the start of the 2010 Memorial Spring Invitational golf tournament at Victoria Country Club. The fog caused the tournament to be delayed 1 1/2 hours.

The Vipers were not without success in athletics. The football team reached the state quarterfinals in 2002, and boys basketball made the state tournament in 2004, falling in the semifinals.

“It was interesting that it was the fourth year of Memorial that they went to the state tournament,” Grammer said. “At the beginning, you still had a lot of people that some were Raiders and some were Stingarees. These kids had played together all the way up, so that disunity was gone. We were Vipers.”

Girls golf had the highest accomplishment of all sports, winning the team state championship in 2004.

“It meant a lot to overcome what people thought maybe we couldn’t do because we were in Victoria,” Morris said. “Coach Smith was 100% the reason that I went on to play college golf, and I had the success that I did and our team was able to win the state championship because he was the glue that held everyone together.”

Golf did benefit when there were almost no carryovers from Stroman, but overall the athletes were there for the programs to have success.

“You had the cream of the crop, so you were able to have the best players from both schools,” Alvarado said. “Unfortunately there were some kids that didn’t

Lady Vipers win state golf tournament.

get enough playing time that if we were two schools they would’ve been starting at the other school.”

Athletics were not the reason Memorial split apart in 2010, but by 2009 it had already been announced that East and West were forming.

The news left people like Mueller and Patti Welder boys athletic coordinator Jaime Thomas, longtime friends, knowing they would soon be split apart. From that aspect, it was upsetting, but athletic-wise they saw it as a positive.

“School spirit in that first year was like no other experience in Victoria,” Thomas said.

“It rejuvenated the city. People were more excited about football, basketball. Even if they weren’t excited about any other game.

You knew the East-West game that the place was going to be pretty crazy.”

Still, there is some debate in football about what Memorial could have done if Victoria’s school district waited a little longer to split the school.

Both East and West made the playoffs in 2010, going three rounds and two rounds, respectively. East had most of the athletes, but West found success with a strong group of linemen. It’s worth wondering what those players could have accomplished on the same team.

Now, it’s just another what if.

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VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th, 2021 — 15

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Tradition Gone By:

An oral history of Victoria High and Stroman Peter L. Scamardo II | PSCAMARDO@VICAD.COM A sea of red and white. Basketball arenas packed to standing-room-only capacity. Championship effort on the baseball diamond.

Fans bleeding red and gold. Students filling the stands at every home game.

Colorful coaches teaching life lessons to their players through sports.

For over three decades, the rivalry between Victoria High and Victoria Stroman was a staple in the community, and these were just some of the sights one might see on any given night.

East baseball coach Wes Kolle, VHS Class of ‘97: “You grew up in the 80s watching those guys play, and that’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to be Stingarees and play on Friday nights at Memorial Stadium, and in the spring we wanted to play baseball at Riverside.”

Cuero girls basketball coach Amy Alkek Crain, VHS Class of ‘83: “It was one of those city rivalries. Whether it was football or basketball, that game was always penciled in on our schedule.”

West baseball coach Manuel Alvarado, Stroman Class of ‘85: Every time, it was Victoria High and Stroman going at it. It didn’t matter what your record was.

You’re looking forward to that game, and it brings out the best of Victoria.”

The Victoria High and Stroman rivalry was still going strong when the Advocate published its 150th anniversary issue in 1996.

Twenty-five years later, Victoria High and Stroman are no more. Mascots have vanished, and trophies have been thrown out in their consolidation into Victoria Memorial in 2000.

East vs. West is now the annual rivalry game, but many former players from Victoria High and Stroman have become coaches, both in the Crossroads and throughout Texas.

This story aims to paint a picture of those teams through their eyes.

FOOTBALL AND FAMILY

Victoria High football games had been an event for decades by the time Mark Reeve and his family arrived in town in 1990.

Five thousand fans filled the home stands — 10,000 for the Stroman game — in a sea of red that greeted the players as they marched down to Memorial Stadium.

Under Reeve, along with coordinators Wayne Condra and Leonard McAngus, the Stingarees experienced their most successful era. Despite never being loaded with Division I talent, the Stingarees won seven district titles between 1990-98.

New Caney football coach TRAVIS REEVE, VHS Class of ‘94: “We really were the epitome of what a football family is, and I think guys genuinely cared about each other. I think it showed with the success we were able to have. Everybody was committed to being there for each other, working, fighting for each other. It’s resulted in a lot of lifetime relationships that have lasted over the years.”

New Caney offensive coordinator CHARLIE REEVE, VHS Class of ‘99: “The things that really stick out to me are discipline, dedication, character. All things that we kinda hung our hat on were the pillars of our program at Victoria High.”

The Stingarees’ culture was formed in the offseason Sting-Maker boot camp, a period of training and team bonding. Former Stingaree players, now coaches, still have their red headbands from boot camp training, Charlie Reeve said.

KOLLE: “They were talking and preaching ‘trust the process’ before it was a catchphrase, stuff you hear Nick Saban talking about. They were all about building the culture and trusting the process and working hard.”

West head football coach COURTNEY BOYCE, VHS Class of ‘96: “Everybody had a lot of respect for going to school there and playing sports. Our coaches had a great deal to do with that. They gave us a lot of confidence. If you’re confident I think you play better.”

Travis Reeve quarterbacked the Stingarees to the state semifinals in 1993, the furthest any Victoria school has gone in the UIL playoffs.

Mark Reeve left in 1999 to become head coach at Plano West, partly due to disagreements over consolidation. But Travis and Charlie Reeve both followed

Mark Reeve’s footsteps and are coaching together at New Caney after leading Cuero to a state championship in 2018.

MARK REEVE: “It’s not about wins and losses. I believe that a coaching staff can change a whole community through the kids that they coach. I think a lot of the coaches, some of them in Victoria now, some of them at other places, that’s the influence I’m hoping that they’re making and when I look at their program, that’s what I see, how much they care about the kids and what they’re willing to do to help build their character and their work ethic.”

RIVERSIDE CHAMPIONS

1985 was a banner year for Stroman High School.

The Raiders made their only football playoff appearance in the fall, but in the spring, baseball reached the mountain top.

Edward “Hodie” Garcia coached the Raiders from 1983 to 1988 and instilled a culture of discipline and hard work that was aimed to create success in the classroom, at work and on the baseball field.

It paid off when Stroman defeated Pasadena Rayburn 3-0 to win the Class 5A state championship.

ALVARADO: “We grew up playing Little League against each other and then got put together on one team. We busted our butt those years getting to the state championship. That’s something no one can ever take away from you.”

HODIE GARCIA: “We created something there at Stroman. The kids get the credit. All I had for them was a plan, and I made sure I stuck with the plan and then took it from there every day. We weren’t going to take back seats to anyone, and the kids, they took to that attitude.”

Stroman lost in the state semifinals the following year, but the ‘85 championship made Stroman the only Victoria school to win a title in baseball.

While the Raiders never found sustained success on the football field, members of the ‘85 team continue to carry on Garcia’s teachings.

ALVARADO: “At the end we’re just all friends and get along together. It’s gratifying to see former players and even rivals

being successful and seeing them loving the game and teaching the game and hopefully they can also be successful.”

KOLLE: “Coach (Michael) Yates has been with us since Day One at East. I remember my dad taking me to watch those Stroman Raider games in the 80s. It’s always fun to reminisce and go down memory lane and at the same time try to instill some of the lessons they learned as athletes into these current East Titan athletes.”

THE PLACE TO BE

When school was out for summer, anyone from Victoria High or Stroman could be found attending the Red & White Summer League, the brain child of longtime Stingarees boys basketball coach Mike Smith, one of the original organizers of the Texas Basketball Coaches Association.

About 600 people would fill up either gymnasium as Smith had made basketball a must-see event in the community.

Corpus Christi King boys basketball coach SEAN ARMSTRONG, VHS Class of ‘99: “He got everyone in town passionate about basketball because of summer league. Coach Smith was one of the first guys to do summer leagues in Texas with the Red & White League. So that was what you did during the summer.”

West boys basketball coach PAT ERSKINE, VHS Class of ‘82: We lived for basketball, and we lived for practice.

Some people say they really liked playing the games and the success that we had.

But we liked practice just as much as we liked the games.”

Smith coached the Stingarees from 1972 to 1998, winning 17 district titles and making 21 playoff appearances. The Stingarees reached the state tournament two times, but both times fell to the eventual state champion. Regardless, his former players continue to praise Smith for his impact on basketball and how it shaped them.

Erskine: “What made us just want to run through walls for him was that he made us believe in ourselves, believe that we could win. He taught us to ‘expect to win.’ That’s probably a life lesson in everything that we do. He always felt like

VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th, 2021 — 17

VictoriaAdvocate.com

if we were prepared, we had a chance to win at any cost.”

Concordia Lutheran girls basketball coach Steve Spurlin, VHS Class of ‘81: “It didn’t matter what records either Victoria or Stroman had. In any sport, it was a rivalry. We’d play with them. We knew them. We hung out with them, but when it was that game, that night, what sport, it didn’t matter. Throw everything out the window, it was gonna be rockin’ and rollin’.”

The Victoriadores, the cheerleaders and the Bleacher Creatures — about 200 football players — never missed a home game. In the 90s, the Stingarees played the Michael Jordan era Chicago Bulls theme music during player introductions, complete with spotlight and everything.

Everything possible to intimidate the opposing team.

MIKE SMITH: “It’s very gratifying because I’ve watched almost all these guys and their teams really remind me of our old teams, the way they play, the way they have discipline, the way they have unity.

Pat Erskine had a great team this year.

He did it like I would’ve done it. He made a family out of the group and made ‘em commit to each other, put the team first.”

A LEGACY ON THE COURT

One of the best basketball programs in Texas belonged to the Victoria Stingarettes.

Head coach Jan Lahodny created a culture that made her both feared and loved by her players. With three state championships in 1979, 1982, 1986 and eight state tournament appearances between 1975-96, it was a culture that had success on the basketball court and led to several alumni entering the coaching ranks throughout the Crossroads.

East girls basketball coach YULONDA WIMBISH-NORTH, VHS Class of ‘83: “When I went in, there was a history, there was a tradition of winning state.

That was the goal. That was the vision.

Once you got there, it was the expectation of you compete and you’re working to be the best in the state.”

Former St. Joseph girls basketball coach CARRIE HELDT MYERS, VHS Class of ‘89: “Every practice was intense.

Definitely taught you how to be a winner and not like to lose. If we were late to practice, there was punishment. I can recall running down the hallways to get to our fourth period athletics so that we’d be on time.”

CRAIN: “Coach Lahodny had really put our program and Victoria on the map. We

knew that each and every year we had the opportunity to get to state, and that was our goal. We knew how to get there. We knew that our coaches and Lahodny knew how to get there. We had good days. We had bad days, but we never questioned anything. It was always ‘We’re going to get after it.’”

Wimbish-North and Crain were on the ‘82 state championship team and both went on to win national championships at Texas and USC, respectively.

But the ‘89 state runner-up team is the one group from Lahodny’s tenure that has a reunion every year.

PATTY SMITH NORWOOD, VHS Class of ‘89: “There wasn’t just one good player on our team or one outstanding player. We worked as a team and as a unit.

Without that unit we wouldn’t be successful and I think that created a bond with her and with us that just kept going.”

MYERS: “The majority of us played together at Crain Middle School, and then we added the girls from Howell, so we always had a rivalry with them. But once you put us together, it just took us to a new level. We’re as close today as we were back in high school.”

LAHODNY: “They know that the most important thing is that a coach has to love her players. The players will do anything for them. I used to run ‘em like dogs, but I’d still have a lot of fun with them off the court, and I think they take that same approach.”

LOST TRADITION

The party ended in 1999 when the Victoria Independent School District announced that Victoria High and Stroman would consolidate into Victoria Memorial after the 1999-2000 academic year.

In one fell swoop, all the championship trophies and banners were thrown away, and the Stingaree and Raider mascots were covered up to make room for the Vipers. It’s a decision that doesn’t sit well with alumni to this day.

MYERS: “Losing our home school was hard. The last time we met, we went over to the high school and took pictures with the Stingaree on the floor. My parents were Stingarees. I was a Stingaree. My brother was a Stingaree. It’s just hard growing up in this town to see that it’s not there anymore.”

ALVARADO: “I feel bad for Stroman and Victoria High. A lot of good memories were made across the years in sports and other areas, too. Kids growing up now

have no recollection of how good those teams were. It was a great rivalry.”

WIMBISH-NORTH: “We can tell them about it, but they don’t see anything. They don’t even know the rich history that girls basketball was something even before I got to Victoria High. But there’s nothing that these kids could go and even see to know the history of girls basketball in the city of Victoria.”

LEGACY CONTINUED

Memorial lasted only 10 years. The old campuses have been converted. East and West are now the Victoria public high schools.

Smith and Lahodny are still coaching as the girls head golf coach and assistant girls basketball coach at East, respectively.

There may be no trophies or banners for future students to look back on, but the stories

remain. Be it former players of Mark Reeve, Hodie Garcia, Mike Smith or Jan Lahodny, former Stingarees and Raiders continue to coach in the Crossroads and throughout Texas, passing on the lessons to the next generation of players.

CRAIN: “The lessons I try to pass onto the kids is just what can you do daily to help yourself be a better student. Be a better friend; be a better teammate? You get the opportunity to teach these young ladies at a young age. I think they’ll take with them for the rest of their lives.”

TRAVIS REEVE: “We need coaches that are willing to put in the time and effort to pore into kids’ lives and make an effort. A lot of the guys that have come from Victoria are doing that at their respective places and it’s a lot of fun to see.”

18 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021 n Victoria, much of Texas history began in and around town and dates back further than the almost 200 years since Victoria was founded by Martin de Leon.

Monumental figures in Victoria’s history and the events they led are marked by large signs across town.

Those signs share information and visuals about the significant people and events at the places they are located.

Visitation to those historic spots is available anytime of day.

In Victoria’s long history, here are some of the most important moments and people that made Victoria what it is today.

VictoriaAdvocate.com

I

1 9 87B 87B 77B

2

77B 59B 77B 87B

7

59B

6

77B

8 11 5 77B 4 3 10

9 1850

59B

STEAMBOATING AND THE GUADALUPE RIVER (1850) – The Ward Brothers began the first regular steamboat operation in the 1850s. Cattle trade along this route between Texas, New Orleans and Havana was quite active in the pre-Civil War days.

ABRAHAM LEVI (1822 TO 1902) – Abraham Levi established a dry goods business in Victoria by way of New Orleans. He opened a bank in 1850 THE MACARONI LINE (1882 TO 1884) and grew to be a trusted member of the – A line of train track was completed community. He represented some of the July 4, 1882, connecting Victoria to 10 founding Jewish members of Victoria.

Rosenberg and the rest of the country.

Italian workers were brought to help MEMORIAL SQUARE (1824) – Many Victoria pioneers were complete the train line, and the name laid to rest in Memorial Square along with immigrants who “The Macaroni Line” became never reached their destinations. Members of Fannin’s Goliad common locally. command were brought to Victoria for burial as well as soldiers from the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. Remains were reinterred at Evergreen Cemetery.

4

1882

5 1824

1725

1

PRESIDIO LA BAHIA AND THE MISSION ESPIRITU SANTO (1725 TO 1726) – The arrival of French ship La Belle, which sank in 1686 in Matagorda Bay and was led by Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle, on Garcitas Creek in 1685, marked the establishment of the first European settlement in Texas. In April 1689, Alonzo de Leon, of Spain, located and destroyed the settlement. In 1721, the first Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahia Presidio was built atop La Salle’s settlement but would only last until 1726 before moving.

59B

87B

1822

1809

3

JOSÉ MARÍA JESÚS CARVAJAL (1809 TO 1872) – A protege of Stephen F. Austin and a descendent of San Antonio’s settlers, Carvajal was the official surveyor for what would become Victoria and Martin de Leon’s colony in Texas.

8

87B

1846

59B

VICTORIA ADVOCATE (1846) – The Texian Advocate was the first Texas newspaper published west of the Colorado River with its inaugural issue released May 8, 1846. The newspaper would later change names, and the number of print publication days to become a daily newspaper, The Victoria Advocate.

A VISIT THROUGH VICTORIA HISTORY

1789

ROUND TOP HOUSE AND THE GREAT COMANCHE RAID (1840) – Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump led a party of between 400 and 700 warriors down the Guadalupe River Valley into Victoria on Aug. 6, 1840, attacking Victoria. Many residents survived the attack by taking refuge in Placido Benavides’ home, the “Round Top House.”

11

1902

7 1840

2

MARGARET WRIGHT, “THE MOTHER OF TEXAS” (1789 TO 1878) – Theresa Robertson Wright earned a reputation for courage during the Texas Revolution by secretly aiding fleeing soldiers who had survived the Goliad Massacre. Sam Houston praised her in an 1857 speech in Victoria, calling her the “Mother of Texas.”

1835

6

STREET OF 10 FRIENDS (1835) – Cultivating relationships and forging alliances were important to Martin de Leon.

The Street of 10 Friends, or La Calle de los Diez Amigos, pays homage to a cadre of influential figures of the day.

MITCHELL SCHOOL (1902) – Originally designated on the site of Memorial Square, the Victoria Independent School District built Central High School. It was renamed after J.D. Mitchell in 1922 and has sustained many fires.

Source: The city of Victoria

VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th, 2021 — 19

VictoriaAdvocate.com

Victoria History Victoria’s interesting visitors

By Elena Anita Watts EWATTS@VICAD.COM Famous celebrities and national political figures have visited Victoria, and the Victoria Advocate has been there to cover it all. From an internationally-renowned opera singer and celebrated movie star to a vice president and first lady of the United States, the icons have graced the small town with their talents and wielded their influence.

In 1984, Brooke Shields visited Victoria during spring break from Princeton University for a photo session for the New York Times Magazine. While in town, she visited the Victoria Livestock Show.

“There was a stampede at the Victoria Livestock Show Saturday night, but the cattle were calmly standing or lying around. What created the pandemonium was the appearance of model and film star Brooke Shields,” wrote Marsha Moulder in her March 11, 1984, article titled “Appearance by Actress Hit at Show.”

An Aug. 2, 1982, article, “Bush Touts GOP Record” by Tom E. Fite, reported news about a visit made by then-Vice President George Bush to support Joe Wyatt’s candidacy for Congress.

Fite wrote, “Vice President George Bush told a cheering crowd estimated at 1,000 people in the Victoria Community Center Sunday afternoon that the Reagan administration is on the right track — the track

Luciano Pavarotti

President Ronald Reagan promised he would follow — in formally kicking off the campaign of former U.S. Rep. Joe Wyatt Jr. of Victoria for Congress from the 14th Texas District.”

In an interview with Billy Jurkesh, a spectator, Fite continued, “He brought along his sons, Bryan, 5, and Joe, 4, and stood for approximately an hour in temperatures that already were well past 90 for a glimpse of the vice presidential limousine as it whisked Bush, his wife and his local welcoming party members from plane side to a private reception at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Tyng.”

Charlton Heston made his way to Victoria in 1986 to speak at the Victoria College Lyceum series.

In an article, “Heston Thrills Lyceum Audience,” which published Oct. 13, 1986, Linda Harsdorff wrote, “Charlton Heston, a veteran actor who has played numerous great men in film, thrilled a Victoria audience Sunday night by touching on inspiring moments in the lives of extraordinary historical figures. His lecture for the Victoria College Lyceum series went beyond mere quotations of history-makers, however. The basis of his talk was the pursuit of excellence.”

With help from Joe Milam, larger-thanlife Luciano Pavarotti was booked two years in advance for a performance in Victoria in 1978.

FILE PHOTO

Linda Harsdorff wrote in “Pavarotti Arrives for Concert Here” on April 22, 1978, that, “A very charming, witty man is world famous opera star Luciano Pavarotti, who arrived in Victoria Friday evening 24 hours in advance of the concert he is to give here Saturday night. Billed as the world’s greatest tenor and the prince of tenors, Pavarotti will sing at 8 p.m. at the Victoria College Auditorium in a performance that promises to be an historic high point for the Victoria Fine Arts Association.”

She continued that, “It isn’t often this city plays host to a personality with the international fame such as that of Pavarotti’s.

However, during a news conference held at Totah’s Restaurant Friday night, the singer revealed he is unaccustomed to performing in small cities the size of Victoria.”

The Bronte Club, the oldest women’s literary club in Texas, made it possible for first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to visit Victoria in 1940. After a parade, Roosevelt addressed a crowd at the Smith-Fischer Hall with her presentation, “The Mail of the President’s Wife.”

In a Dec. 5, 1940, article, “’I’ll Vote for Eleanor’ Says Advocate Reporter After Seeing First Lady,” Sticks Stahala wrote, “The moment Mrs. Roosevelt entered the room her very presence disarmed all fears, for never have we met a person who could make you feel so quite at home and with all

Charlton Heston with Winston Zirjacks

the graciousness for which she is only too well known.”

Stahala continued, “Instead of the large woman we had expected to see there stood an elegant, slender person — tall, yes, but slender. And our first words were a guttural something about ‘...how slender you are.’”

In 2008, former President Bill Clinton visited Victoria to campaign for his wife, Hillary Clinton, during her bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election. The venue for his speech changed more than once and ultimately, he ended up in the back of a white pickup truck outside where he addressed a crowd of approximately 6,000.

In a Feb. 21, 2008, article, “6,000 people show up to see former president in Victoria,” Aprill Brandon wrote, “Although the large crowd that had gathered downtown to hear Clinton speak was diverse, the cheers of the supporters reached deafening heights at certain points. Chants of ‘Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry’ erupted spontaneously throughout the evening.”

This is just a sampling of the esteemed visitors who have made appearances in Victoria for different purposes. Victoria has a rich history, and these occasions just make it that much more interesting.

FILE PHOTO

20 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

VictoriaAdvocate.com

Victoria Advocate grew alongside historic churches distinction of having the first resident pastor in the Republic of Texas after reestablishment of church authority.”

The Victoria Advocate and some of Another Advocate article that published Victoria’s oldest churches have grown up March 28, 1965, stated, “One of the first together, in a sense. St. Mary’s Catholic acts of Don Martin DeLeon, after he Church, Palestine Missionary Baptist brought his little colony to the banks Church and First Presbyterian Church, of the Guadalupe and established the all located in Victoria, are three of these frontier outpost of Nuestra Senora de historic churches that have seen a lot of Guadalupe de Jesus Victoria, was to erect life alongside the local newspaper. a temporary chapel to provide for the According to a May 12, 1968, Advocate spiritual needs of the settlers.” article, “St. Mary’s Parish, which develThe article continues that, “St. Mary’s oped from the first crude chapel in VictoCatholic Church can trace its earliest ria, was the second parish so established origins to that little chapel, making it the in Texas in the post-mission era. Only San oldest church in Victoria County and one of Fernando Parish in San Antonio preceded the oldest in Texas. The story of St. Mary’s, it. Hence, St. Mary’s in Victoria has the then, is essentially the story of Victoria.”

Palestine Missionary Baptist Church was established in 1869, along with other early churches around the same time, by the Rev. Mitchell Harrison.

In a Feb. 28, 2004, article, “Churches were his legacy,” Janet Whitehead Jones wrote, “Black Baptist churches in the Mount Zion District, including Palestine Missionary Baptist St. Mary’s Catholic Church CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Church in Victoria, got an

By Elena Anita Watts EWATTS@VICAD.COM

Loyal members followed the church important gift this year, access to the Bible owned by the Rev. Mitchell Harrison, wherever it went, including the 2000 block a former slave who started several Black of North Navarro Street in the 1960s, churches in South Texas.” according to the article. This is the same The article continues, “George Meador location where the church is today. of Missouri City, great-grandson of the The Victoria Advocate and these churchfirst Palestine pastor, had the book refures not only share long, storied histories, bished recently and lent the book to the they also share integral roles in the develVictoria Regional History Center at the opment of the community of Victoria.

Victoria College/University of Houston-Victoria Library.

“Not only did he start Palestine in 1869, he is credited with preaching a circuit and organizing Mount Zion Missionary Baptist in Edgar, Providence Baptist in Gonzales, Minnehula in Goliad, Mount Olive and Gideon, both in Edna, and the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist District Association, which he served as moderator for 29 years,” according to the article.

First Presbyterian Church of Victoria was organized Oct. 2, 1841, and celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2016.

In an Oct. 8, 2016, Advocate article, “Celebrating 175 Years,” Jennifer Preyss wrote, “The red brick structure, once located between Liberty and Goodwin streets in downtown Victoria, opened in 1923. Now it’s a parking lot.”

“It was the second location for First

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO The First Presbyterian Church building was Presbyterian Church of Victoria, which turns 175 this year,” the article continues. occupied from 1873 to 1923.

The story behind the first Mexican American woman on Victoria’s school board

By Ciara McCarthy CMCCARTHY@VICAD.COM Natalia Rojas remembers evenings spent at Victoria school board meetings, watching her mom advocate for equal education for Latino students in the 1980s.

Usually, she and her siblings were the only kids in the audience. The other school board members, all men, didn’t typically bring their kids with them.

Rojas’ mom, Theresa Gutierrez, was the first Mexican American woman elected to Victoria’s school board. In her 12 years on the school board, Gutierrez said she

learned repeatedly how important representation was.

“There has to be representation always,” Gutierrez, now 74, said about her time on the school district board.

Gutierrez was born in Victoria and spent most of her childhood in the city’s public school system, aside from a few years in Point Comfort. She went on to study literature and history at the University of Houston before returning to Victoria to raise her family. As she raised her six children, she became active in parent teacher associations, eventually being honored

with “lifetime” membership in the statewide PTA coalition because of her work.

Gutierrez was first elected in 1984, less than a decade after both federal and state regulators had warned the Victoria Independent School District it needed to better integrate its schools or else risk losing state and federal funding and accreditation.

“There was nothing but white faces on the board,” Gutierrez said.

During her time on the board, Gutierrez said she was often, if not always, unpopular with some of her fellow board members and with members of the

public. There were a few months, she said, where animosity toward her was so intense that she worried about her safety.

But in all, Gutierrez found herself well suited to serving on the board and the intense scrutiny and debate that came with it. Eventually, after 12 years on the school board, Gutierrez was defeated by a well-funded challenger within her district.

Today, Gutierrez said she sees the same push for equality in education continuing in Victoria.

“The fight for equality is a constant battle,” she said.

VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th, 2021 — 21

VictoriaAdvocate.com

VISD has grown from 41 families to 14,000 students

By Samantha Douty SDOUTY@VICAD.COM The history of the city’s school district is deeply rooted in the foundation of Victoria.

Education started at the beginning when Victoria was founded in 1824 when a Spanish aristocrat named Don Martin de Leon settled 41 families in the area.

The first teacher in the area was Francesco Cardenas, who taught reading, writing and math. Cardenas also taught the catechism of Christian religion, according to the Victoria Independent School District’s website.

The school closed, though, because of the Texas Revolution.

After the revolution, the City Council set aside four square blocks for education, but it wasn’t until January 1847 the council decided to build a brick school building.

By 1875, the district comprised 25 square

miles. Teachers were paid 10 cents a day per student. School started on Oct. 1, 1875, and continued for four months. There were two daily school sessions from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.

By 1875, three of the city’s 10 schools served African American pupils. Professor Frederick W. Gross, who attended Texas’ Wiley and Bishop Colleges as well as Fisk University and the University of Chicago, came to Victoria about 1887 and was a principal for 20 years.

The last students to graduate from the segregated schools walked the stage in 1964, 1965 and 1966, according to Advocate archives.

Now, Victoria’s school district has 14 elementary schools, four middle schools and two high schools serving the community’s children. The district includes about 14,000 students.

Donivan Vecera’s rendition of the original school/fort.

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Victoria County: Population growth over time

By Kali Venable KVENABLE@VICAD.COM During the last century, the number of people living in Victoria County increased by more than 70,000 — transforming the once sleepy town into a bustling regional hub.

There were just 48 families in the beginning. Martin De Leon founded Guadalupe Victoria in 1824. By 1834, about 300 families lived in the municipality.

Victoria was established by the Republic of Texas in 1836. The City of Victoria was chartered in 1839.

A decade of economic progress followed the end of the Mexican-American War. Victoria County was home to 2,019 people by 1850.

Victoria gained attention as a promising community with deep-South origins and political influence, according to “Victoria: A Pictorial History,” by Robert Shook and Charles D. Spurlin. Sam Houston visited the community and drew a crowd of 500 citizens when he arrived on Diamond Hill in 1857 to give a speech.

The population doubled between 18501860, and included a handful of the state’s wealthiest families.

The South’s loss of the Civil War brought Victoria’s early pattern of growth to somewhat of a halt. Between 1860-1870, county population grew by less than 700.

From the 1880s to World War I, Victoria experienced significant growth. The Victoria County Courthouse was built in 1893 as well as many of the historic, Victorian-style homes downtown. A water system, electricity and telephone wires were installed in the city by the 1890s, according to Advocate archives.

During 1910, a reoccurring depiction of a “Texas Stork” ran in the Advocate, then known as the Daily Advocate, alongside encouragement for population increase.

“The density of population and the activity of the citizenship has largely to do with the prosperity of a community,” the unsigned brief said. “We must look to the stork and the immigration agent to increase our population.”

By 1920, the county population had swelled to 18,271.

Victoria indulged in new technologies that marked the 1920s, but its rural character “saved the town from much of the economic speculations, overbuild-

ing, and nonsense of the decade,” according to Shook and Spurlin’s “Victoria: A Pictorial History.”

In the 1920s, Census data shows that about 67% of county residents lived outside city limits.

Population growth slowed as Americans endured the Great Depression and World War II, which brought transformation to Victoria.

The oil and gas industry became a major force in Victoria’s economy in the 1930s.

Foster and Aloe fields training bases, built in Victoria in 1941 and 1942 for World War II, also heavily stimulated the local economy. Both closed in 1945 but Foster Field reopened six years later for the Korean War before closing one last time in the late 1950s.

The economy diversified and chemical and industrial plants brought new residents to the community, just as the military bases had.

Victoria was one of the fastest growing cities in Texas after World War II. The county population increased from 20,048 in 1930 to 46,475 in 1960, according to Census data.

The landscape of Victoria changed significantly by the end of the 1980s.

The Victoria Mall opened in 1980 — a year before Victoria reached the status of a standard metropolitan statistical area, which opened the county up to new opportunities for federal grant allocations. By then Victoria was home to the University of Houston-Victoria, Victoria College, a fine arts association and the Texas Zoo. The population in 1980 was 68,807.

During the next two decades, that figure grew to 85,088.

From 2000-2010, the county only about 1,700 residents.

The industries that originally brought prosperity to the county remained, including ranching and agriculture, but new industries became the biggest employers.

Major employers now include manufacturing facilities, school districts and health care systems, according to the Victoria County Economic Development Corporation.

The Census Bureau’s most recent estimate for 2019 put the county population just past 92,000, including 66,916 that live in city limits.

Higher education: ‘It changes a town’

By Samantha Douty SDOUTY@VICAD.COM Higher education hasn’t always been in Victoria.

Victoria College was created on Sept. 14, 1925, after Frank H. Crain made a motion during a Victoria Independent School District board meeting to establish Victoria Junior College. Crain’s motion was carried by unanimous vote.

The college, which was originally located on the Patti Welder High School campus, opened to its first 51 students.

The Victoria school district’s Superintendent Virgil L. Griffin was named president of Victoria Junior College and was paid $3,600 for his dual role as superintendent and Victoria Junior College president.

Nellie Lee Kelley was the first Victoria Junior College student to receive a diploma in 1926.

In 1948, the college’s board of trustees purchased 40 acres of the 160-acres Brownson Home tract for $500 per acre.

In 1949, the college was renamed Victoria College. In September of that year, the college opened its new campus at 2200 E. Red River St., where it currently operates.

The nursing program was created in 1959.

The campus expanded in 1970 to include the library, gymnasium, field house and fine arts building.

Now, the campus has about 8,000 students enrolled.

In the early years, Victoria College and the University of Houston-Victoria shared facilities.

The university was brought to Victoria in 1973.

Karen Locher, the university library’s senior director attended the university in the early years of its creation. At the time,

it only enrolled junior and senior students.

One of her first instructors came from Houston to Victoria on a bus to teach at the then-center at night, she said.

UHV and VC were deeply connected.

UHV students used the student center as well as other VC facilities for their classes.

In 1973, 104 students enrolled in the

university with 12 classes offered. It now offers classes to freshmen through graduate school and has more than 4,000 students enrolled.

“It made a huge difference in my life,” Locher said. “It changes a town.”

CONTRIBUTED BY VICTORIA COLLEGE The first VC building adjacent to Patti Welder High School.

VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th, 2021 — 23

VictoriaAdvocate.com

Hints of history fill Victoria’s downtown

By Mark Rosenberg MROSENBERG@VICAD.COM

The former Victoria Bank & Trust Company building on Main Street now houses the offices of Workforce Solutions of the Golden Crescent, which are outfitted with cubicles and an upstairs computer lab. But step inside the lobby and you’ll still see a colorful 12-by-38-foot mural depicting Victoria’s history, painted in 1954

by Wimberley artist Buck Winn, along with dozens of cattle brands from some of Victoria’s most prominent ranchers, collected in 1960 to celebrate the building’s expansion.

As Victoria has grown and expanded, its historic downtown has seen many changes.

Local historians with Victoria Preservation Inc. have documented some of these changes in the Advocate in recent years, providing a fascinating look at some of the buildings and features that used to define downtown Victoria. And even in buildings like the Bank & Trust that have undergone changes, hints of Victoria’s history remain.

By the 1950s, the city had five downtown movie theaters — the Uptown, El Rancho, the Rita, the Queen/Princess/Venus and the

Victoria Theater — along with three drive-in theaters to the north. The Uptown Theater was outfitted with its own generator and air-conditioning system and was considered a “refined example of art deco architecture,” with a black water fountain in the lobby and black commodes and sinks in the restrooms.

El Rancho featured walls adorned with paintings of undulating seaweed. The lights on the marquees of these theaters used to light up the plaza at night.

Walking down the block of Constitution Street facing De Leon Plaza in those days, you’d pass the Victoria National Bank, Victoria Cafeteria, Waffle Shop, Rita and Uptown.

Keep going to the end of Constitution and you’d reach Pleasure Island swimming pool, now the site of Club Westerner. Pleasure Island opened in 1927 as an entertainment resort with a pool and dance pavilion. Cadets were bused in from Aloe and Foster Fields during World War II and high school dances were held at the resort in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Victoria was home to a dozen auto dealerships in the ‘50s, half of which were downtown. Atzenhoffer’s, for instance, used to sell

Chevrolets and Buicks at the corner of Santa top. The standpipe went out of use by 1923.

Adding to the hustle and bustle were the Rosa and Bridge streets. Other dealerships sold Dodges, Hudsons, Pontiacs, Plymouths, Southern Pacific Railroad and Missouri PaCadillacs and Chryslers. Drivers could pump cific Railroad depots, which sat at either end up their vehicles at filling stations staffed by of Santa Rosa Street, filling the street with commerce after Victoria and Rosenberg were attendants wearing “billed caps and snazzy uniforms.” Three of these stations sat at the linked by rail in 1882. Passenger trains ran through Victoria until 1953, and the Southern intersection of Main and Goodwin alone.

City government in those days was housed Pacific depot remained in use until 1979.

Times have changed, but fortunately, in the 1900 City Hall designed by Jules many of downtown’s historic buildings, from Leffland, a brick building with a clocktower churches to homes to the 1892 County Courtand scrollwork around the perimeter of a house, have been preserved and can still be “handsome mansard roof.” The building admired and used today. lasted 65 years.

In earlier years, the city’s 100-foot-tall standpipe sat in De Leon Plaza on the site of the current bandstand. The standpipe drew untreated water directly from the Guadalupe River for the public water supply. The tower occasionally overflowed, drawing kids who ran to the plaza to play in the water. Occasionally, catfish and VICTORIA COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION snakes would fly right out the A view of Victoria’s Main Street in the 1940s.

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24 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

VictoriaAdvocate.com

From cotton to Caterpillar: Business history of Victoria boasts diversity of industries

CATTLE RANCHING • In Thomas O’Connor’s lifetime, from

1817 to 1887, he built “reportedly the largest individual land and cattle holding in Texas.”

• James Alfred McFaddin, who lived 1840 to 1916, established ranches in Victoria and Refugio counties, as well as the first meat packing company in Texas, and was one of the first ranchers to use Brahman cattle breeds in the state.

CROP FARMING • Ranching was the region’s first major enterprise, but crop farming, including corn, cotton, sorghum, soybeans and rice, has remained a staple for generations.

FIRST OIL FIELDS • Oil fields in and around Victoria County picked up popularity after the first was bought in Victoria County in 1931. News of oil well completions occurred often and are still reported by the Advocate.

By Mark Rosenberg MROSENBERG@VICAD.COM

trees, debris and everything filled the air.

God seemed nigh.”

Whether it was the hurricane that demolished Indianola in 1886 or the winter freeze this February, bizarre weather is a fact of life on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Many of these events have been documented in the Advocate’s pages.

A months-long drought described as the “worst in recorded history” brought hardship to farmers and ranchers. Cotton production and cattle herds were cut in half, roughage grew scarce.

By Geoff Sloan GSLOAN@VICAD.COM New business endeavors in and around Victoria have often come in waves, helping various corners of the local economy build throughout the decades.

Many of the drivers of industry came to town at different stages in the city’s long history, directly and indirectly creating jobs and building Victoria into the multisector city economy it is today. Many of these businesses spurred other businesses’ creations or a decision to move to the region.

Many of these industries are still mainstays for employment, economic development and revenue today. Here are a few eras in Victoria’s business history when businesses across various sectors helped build the city and region.

EARLY INDUSTRIES STILL HERE TODAY

METALS, PETROCHEMICALS AND BIG CITY AMENITIES

DETAR HOSPITAL • The hospital, which still remains at Navarro and Rio Grande streets, opened in 1924 on property bought for $8,500 with ten rooms.

VICTORIA MACHINE WORKS • In 1933, equipment repair and servicer VMW began, then growing to service the oilfields until its facilities were sold to Tejas Production Services in 2019.

ALCOA • The Aluminum Company of America opened its Point Comfort plant in 1947 and operated there until fully curtailing that site’s operations in 2016.

THE PORT OF VICTORIA • The first 14-mile leg of a canal to Victoria was completed in 1953.

UNION CARBIDE • The Union Carbide Corporate site in

Seadrift began operations in 1954. It would later become part of the Dow Chemical Company in 2001.

MANUFACTURING, RETAIL AND MODERN CHANGES

FORMOSA • Formosa Plastics announced it would begin construction on its Point Comfort plant in 1980.

THE VICTORIA MALL • Retail sales grew about fourfold in Victoria County after the Victoria Mall opened in 1981.

CATERPILLAR • The international manufacturer opened its Victoria plant in 2012.

THE EAGLE FORD SHALE • The second largest gas shale play in Texas began to pick up its production levels in the early 2010s, bringing jobs and dollars into the Crossroads.

Hurricanes, floods, droughts and snow: Victoria has weathered it all

HURRICANE, AUGUST 1886

A devastating hurricane demolished Indianola, which was then vying to become Texas’ chief port. In Victoria, the storm toppled church spires and crushed the top of the city’s standpipe “as thoroughly as a hammer breaking an egg shell,” the Advocate reported on Aug. 21, 1886.

GOLIAD CYCLONE, 1902

The Advocate published an eyewitness account of a cyclone that ripped through Goliad, blowing away brick houses, destroying churches and killing at least 132.

“Suddenly a noise came like a heavy train running in the distance,” said the eyewitness. “Everything turned to my eyes a dark brown or red color. Limbs of

DROUGHT OF 1956

HURRICANE CARLA, 1961

Hurricane Carla lashed the Gulf Coast with 175-mile-per-hour winds, forcing 250,000 people to evacuate, killing 34 and damaging $300 million of property.

Morris Roberts, the Advocate’s publisher, drove to Port O’Connor and said the damage he found there was “sickening” to behold.

“There is no need for sight-seers,” Roberts wrote. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

FLOOD OF 1998

After more than 30 inches of rainfall, rivers overran their banks and floodwaters filled Cuero and Victoria. National Guardsmen airlifted Victoria residents

off their homes using baskets dangling from helicopters and the city’s wastewater treatment plant became submerged, leading to fears of tetanus.

HURRICANE CLAUDETTE, 2003

Hurricane Claudette made landfall with 90-mile-per-hour winds and caused $100 million in damage, including in Victoria.

CHRISTMAS EVE SNOWFALL, 2004

Snow flurries brought a white Christmas, delighting many.

HURRICANE HARVEY, 2017

Harvey made landfall in Rockport with 130-mile-per-hour winds, killed more than 100 and inflicted an estimated $125 billion in property damage. In Port Lavaca, the storm surge tossed boats “like rubber duckies in a tub.”

The storm destroyed thousands of homes, flooded schools and hospitals and forced residents to pick up the pieces.

ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO A resident is airlifted off the roof of his home after the flood of 1998.

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Texas History The European expedition that shaped the course of Texas The excavation, which lasted until 1997, led to astonishing discoveries. Mud had encased the Belle, and most of the The Victoria College’s Museum of the ship’s cargo was found in good condition.

Coastal Bend is one of several museums in Findings included the hull of the ship, the region that holds pieces of a story that had a profound impact on the state of Texas. three bronze cannons, thousands of glass beads, bronze hawk bells, pottery and the That story is one of the first permanent skeleton of a crew member.

European colonies in Texas, estabThe nearly two million artifacts reprelished by an explorer whose ship sank in sent an unparalleled glimpse into the supMatagorda Bay only to be excavated more plies for a 17th-century European colony than three centuries later. in the New World, according to the Texas The La Belle was one of four ships that Historical Commission. They were taken embarked on a 1684 French expedition led

by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. to Texas A&M University to be studied and preserved for future generations.

La Salle planned to find the mouth “We have an entire ship’s cargo hull to of the Mississippi River to establish a study and research to show the world, colony and trade routes, but the expeand a lot of this stuff was not replicated dition was plagued by bad luck. There elsewhere. It is a remarkable, remarkable were disagreements among leaders and thing to have such an intact European desertions, and La Salle failed to find the ship full of trade goods, full of weaponry,” Mississippi River. He instead wound up Para said. “It just went down, and the hundreds of miles west in Texas. stuff was on it, and they cleared out the A violent storm wrecked La Salle’s last water and took everything out, including remaining ship, the La Belle, in 1686 in the ship.”

Matagorda Bay. While the ship was being worked on, an Fast forward to 1995. After years of employee at Keeran Ranch in Victoria unsuccessful searches, archeologists with the Texas Historical Commission positively County made another remarkable discovery: eight iron cannons that were found in identified the shipwreck with the discovery of a bronze cannon that had French designs the same position they were buried in by the Spanish in 1689 when they came across and the name of a French admiral. the remains of La Salle’s Fort St. Louis.

In 1996, a more than $2-million, douThen began the excavation of Fort St. ble-walled cofferdam was built around the ship near the Matagorda Peninsula, which Louis, which La Salle and his colonists established in 1685 on Garcitas Creek in allowed archaeologists to pump water present day Victoria County. out of the site and excavate the La Belle “A historical revival began like no other almost as if they were on dry land.

“As far as I know, the cofferdam has only seen in Texas, and particularly this area, been done once before that,” said Heather since the Texas Centennial year of 1936,” Para, exhibits and collections manager at former Advocate columnist Henry Wolff Jr. wrote at the time. “This is a time like the Museum of the Coastal Bend. “Being no other for an area where so much of the able to take the water out of the equation very earliest of Texas history occurred.” and just treat it as a land archeological Fort St. Louis dwindled in population in excavation was just amazing because you could (recover) every little straight pin; the years following its establishment. By every little bead.”

1689, Karankawa Native Americans had

By Kali Venable KVENABLE@VICAD.COM

killed or captured the last of the settlers.

Upon visiting what was left of the settlement, the Spanish burned the buildings and buried the cannons while establishing the Presidio La Bahia in 1721.

During the excavation, archeologists recovered artifacts that provide insight into the lives of the settlers, including the cannons, musket balls, gunflints, coins and dishes. A communal grave was found with remains that were determined to be those of three colonists — a man, a woman and a child.

After the excavation of the fort and the ship, the state, Texas Historical Commission and seven counties developed a plan to create six different different exhibits in museums throughout the region that would be known as the “La Salle Odyssey.” Visitors can travel to each site to view a selection of the artifacts.

The Museum of the Coastal Bend was built to serve as the repository for the ar-

tifacts from Fort. St. Louis, though it also has artifacts from the La Belle on display that are on loan from France.

In 2013, the preserved hull of the La Belle was presented to the public at Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, where the vessel remains surrounded by artifacts recovered during the two excavations.

La Salle’s failed expedition raises many questions, Para said. What if the French had succeeded or what if they had never arrived in Texas?

“It set everything in motion for what we have now. The Spanish encountered their (the French) fort later and established their presidio there, which was the first of several,” Para said. “Without that French expedition that failed, other things may not have unfolded the way they did so it really is sort of the underpinnings of all the history in this area.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS Adam Kane, left, and Erkut Arcak work to restore relics excavated from the Belle in 1999 in College Station.

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28 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

VictoriaAdvocate.com

The first shot of the Texas Revolution

By Kali Venable KVENABLE@VICAD.COM GONZALES—A small, unassuming cannon inside the Gonzales Memorial Museum draws people from all of the world to the quaint, history-rich town every year.

About 8 miles down the road, on land off SH 97, the cannon was fired during the Battle of Gonzales 186 years ago.

The battle was more of a skirmish than a fight but is often regarded as the start of the Texas Revolution because of what it represented.

“There were shots fired elsewhere but nothing changed,” said Vicki Frenzel, a local historian in Gonzales who wrote a book about the men who fought in the battle. “The reason we call this the first shot is because once the shot was fired here, Texas was no longer under Mexican rule.

There was no going back.”

When Green DeWitt established his colony near the Guadalupe River in 1827, colonists built a fort to fend off Native Americans. The fort was ineffective in preventing raids, so DeWitt asked the

Mexican government for a cannon in 1831 to protect settlers against further attacks.

The settlers were given the small cannon, which was loud and served as a scare tactic.

By 1835, relations between settlers in the Mexican state of Tejas and President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s regime had grown tense. Santa Anna had appointed himself dictator, and the Mexican Constitution of 1824, which gave the settlers certain rights, was no longer valid.

Mexico asked for the settlers of Gonzales to give up their cannon, and they refused. They buried the cannon in a peach orchard for safe keeping, only to dig it up a few days later.

After unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, Domingo de Ugartechea, the military commander of Mexican troops in Texas, dispatched Mexican Lt. Fracisco de Castaneda and 100 soldiers to retrieve the cannon.

“After the Mexicans sent a group to come get the cannon, they were stalling and sent out messengers,” she said.

“It was time then, they thought, to take a stand about weapons because they

believed if they gave into this, and they let the Mexican government take the cannon, then the next thing they would come and get were their rifles, and they couldn’t live out here with their rifles.”

At the Guadalupe River near Gonzales, 18 settlers blocked the Mexican soldiers from crossing the river. More Texans arrived from nearby settlements as they stalled. Castaneda moved his camp up river and they followed suit.

On Oct. 2, 1835, the Texans fired the cannon under the now infamous “Come and Take It” flag. The battle was brief. Castaneda was instructed to avoid using force and was outnumbered, so he retreated and road his men toward San Antonio de Bexar.

Frenzel spent three to four years searching through records for the men who fought at the Battle of Gonzales. She collected hundreds of names and narrowed the list down by determining where each person was at the time of the battle based on available records.

She had to decide what proof would be good enough to say with some degree

of certainty that a person was there, she said. Fenzel settled on two credible sources who saw a person at the battle, excluding the person’s own account, as enough to show that they participated.

“This is the best guess, but I have learned that history is a best guess,” she said. “Unless you saw it, you don’t know what happened. You get all the data you can get together, and you make a decision.”

The stories she read during her research, which are published in her book titled “Gonzales: Hope, Heartbreak, Heroes,” showed her the significance of the Battle of Gonzales and all that followed, she said.

“I really felt like I really got to know some of these people … It literally changed my life,” she said. “When you think of what these men and their wives were willing to give up for freedom, for independence, it makes you want to stand up and say ‘We’re going to live independently here, and we’re going to stay free.’

“That is where Texas gets its attitude I think.”

Notable politicians from the Crossroads

By Chase Rogers CROGERS@VICAD.COM Many Victoria residents have served in the state legislature or state government.

Here are three of them

Morris Roberts (May 21, 1906 - Jan. 13, 1991)

Roberts, before taking on his role as the Advocate’s publisher, served as a representative for the Texas House of Representatives from 1932-1937 and Texas Senate from 1937-1941. Over the course of his three terms, he was vice-chair for the stock and stock raising, federal relations and interstate co-operation committees.

He also chaired the Commerce and Manufactures, Engrossed Bills and Finance committees, according to the Legislative Reference Library of Texas.

A Democrat, he was just 26 when he was first elected to represent four counties, Aransas, Bee, Refugio and San Patricio.

His district expanded as a senator, add-

ing, Atascosa, Calhoun, DeWitt, Goliad, Jackson, Karnes, Live Oak, Victoria and Wilson counties.

Geanie Morrison (October 6, 1950 - )

by working for candidates, eventually campaigning for Phil Gramm, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. She ran for office when Steve Holzheauser, who was vacating his representative seat, asked her to run for the Texas Legislature.

District 30 State Rep. Geanie Morrison is serving her 12th term in the Texas Legislature, representing the residents John Sharp was elected to the Texas of Aransas, Calhoun, DeWitt, Goliad, Legislature in 1979 and would go on to Refugio, and Victoria counties. serve until 1987, wherein he was a memHaving won the seat in 1998, ber of both the House and Senate. Sharp she is the longest-serving was the Texas Comptroller of Public Acfemale representative in the counts for eight years, from 1991 to 1999.

An Advocate staff reporter wrote in a 1991 legislative body. Over the course of 22 years, the Victoria story titled “John Sharp: He likes to save money, and that’s not bologna,” described College graduate was the first chairperson on the Environhis youth in Placedo. Just 41 years old mental Regulation Committee at this time, from 1979 to 1987, he was a member of both houses of the Legislature. when it was created in 2015, also later serving on the CulFrom 1987 to 1991, he was one of the ture, Recreation & Tourism three members of the Texas Railroad Commission. In 1998 and 2002, he was the Committee, the Mass Violence Prevention & Community Democratic Party’s nominee for lieuSafety Committee and the tenant governor of Texas. Sharp is now

ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO Local & Consent Calendars the chancellor of Texas A&M University, Photo of John Sharp taken in the state capital shortly after Committee. where he earned his bachelor’s degree he began his tenure as the Texas Comptroller of Public Her entry into politics began Accounts after high school.

John Sharp (July 28, 1950 - )

VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th, 2021 — 29

VictoriaAdvocate.com

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Thank you, Victoria Advocate, for writing our story for the past 175 years . . .

First Presbyterian Church of Victoria Organized October 2, 1841

KALI VENABLE | KVENABLE@VICAD.COM The cannon that loaned to settlers of Green DeWitt’s colony and fired at the Battle of Gonzales is on prominent display in the Gonzales Memorial Museum, 414 Smith St.

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CHURCH RICH IN HISTORY The urge and will to gain freedom against great odds and to enjoy the blessings of individual liberty is our Texas heritage. It was not long after Texas won her independence and became a republic that a group of pioneer Christians gathered under a live oak tree at the plantation home of Dr. Robert and Mary Trigg Peebles to discuss the organization of an Old School Presbyterian Church on the west side of the Guadalupe River Valley. This organizational meeting lasted three days with Rev. William Blair acting as moderator. On July 8, 1849, Elizabeth Smith Calhoun Barnhill, Miles Squire Bennet, Bathsheba Gibson Bennet, Mary Trigg Peebles, James Norman Smith, and Elizabeth Morehead Smith signed the covenant, elected two ruling elders, James Smith and Miles Bennet, and baptized three month old Samuel D. Bennet. Because many of the services were held under the live oak tree, Mrs. Peebles suggested the name Live Oak Presbyterian Church. It became one of the seven charter churches in the Presbytery of Western Texas, organized in Victoria in April 1851.

From July 1949 to August 1951 church services continued under the oak tree with sermons provided by Rev. William Blair, Rev. Steven Cocke, or Rev. James Wallis. After August 1851, the Live Oak Presbyterian Church was relocated to Clinton, Texas in the log frame courthouse. In 1980, the Live Oak congregation dedicated its own church building.

On September 16, 1855, on the east bank of the Guadalupe River the Concrete Presbyterian Church was founded with 13 members of the Live Oak congregation.

October 13, 1878 a Presbyterian Church U.S. was organized in Cuero and met the Episcopal Church once a month. Live Oak and Concrete petitioned the Presbytery of Western Texas to consolidate the three congregations into one church to be located in Cuero and called First Presbyterian Church of Cuero. This was approved and the union consummated on May 5, 1883 with a total of 166 members.

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First Presbyterian Church of Cuero 302 N. McLeod | Cuero TX, 77944 | 361.275.2662

30 — VICTORIA ADVOCATE, May 9th , 2021

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Reflecting on the Goliad Massacre

By Chase Rogers CROGERS@VICAD.COM One of the darkest days of Texas’s fight for independence against Mexico was March 27, 1836. The Goliad Massacre was a grim showcase of brutality, and it still weighs heavy in people’s memory of the Texas Revolutionary War. After a convincing Mexican victory at the Battle of Coleto Creek just a week before, more than 400 of Col. James Fannin’s men were captured and held at the Presidio La Bahía, a fort previously constructed by the Spanish Army, in Goliad.

Within the walls of the Presidio, which took on the name Fort Defiance by the Texians, Fannin and his men received many letters with varying messages of hope or hardship.

Some of the messages recovered showed hope in the men, like the ones describing the declaration of Texas independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos, while others, like ones describing the sacking of the Alamo in San Antonio, shook them to their core.

“You can tell in many letters sent back and forth that it was a lot to take in,” said Scott McMahon, the director of the Presidio. “Some of the men had just come back from the previous summer. I imagine that moral was a challenge among them.”

“The entirety of this time was very hard for the Texians and their allies,” said Wade Dillon, a museum coordinator at Freeport Historical Museum. “I think many of them likely knew they would die.”

At the direct request of the general and president of Mexico Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the men were executed on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. Despite the appeals for clemency by General José de Urrea, the massacre was reluctantly carried out by Lt. Colonel José Nicolás de la Portilla. Correspondence between the two army officials showed that Urrea was hesitant to kill the men, McMahon said.

Fannin, knowing he was going to die, made three requests of the Mexican army officials: one, to return his watch to his wife; two, to be shot in the chest rather than the face; and three, a Christian burial. None of these requests were met, Dillon said.

Antonio. I think you lose some of the expeWhile a dark day in the state’s history, rience because of that,” he said. “Goliad is McMahon said it is important to keep the quite enough that, if you really take in the history alive. As director of the Presidio, surroundings, it is just like you were there he has helped organize and has particiin the 1800s. There really isn’t anything pated in one of the largest living history like it.” events in the county on the hallowed grounds. Excluding 2020 because of the pandemic, the event has been held every year for 35 years.

“It was originally to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Texas Independence and it stuck around,” he said.

“Reenacting is a great way to put the history out there for people who otherwise wouldn’t have heard it.”

McMahon said he hopes more people come soak in the history.

“The Alamo is in the

ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO middle of the huge A group of reenactors reload their muskets as part of an annual metropolis that is San demonstration at the Presidio La Bahía in Goliad County.

The Runaway Scrape

By Kali Venable KVENABLE@VICAD.COM Gonzales was established in 1825 by Green DeWitt, but none of the original buildings remain — in part due to an exodus known as the Runaway Scrape.

Thirty-two of Gonzales’ own men went to the Alamo on March 1, 1836, to answer the call of Alamo Commander Col. William B. Travis who was in need of reinforcements.

They were the last and only reinforcements to arrive and died alongside nine other residents of Gonzales at the Alamo.

News that the Alamo fell to President General Antonio López de Santa Anna on March 6 was met with grief and fear in the town of Gonzales.

“There was not a soul left among the citizens of Gonzales who had not lost a father, husband, brother or son in that terrible massacre,” wrote Private John Swisher, according to “Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign,” by Stephen L. Moore.

Sam Houston was made commander-in-chief of the Army of the Republic of

Texas and arrived in Gonzales on March 11, where he heard rumors of what happened at the Alamo.

Alamo survivor Susanna Dickinson arrived in Gonzales March 12 to deliver a message of warning from Santa Anna to Houston.

Communities in south central parts of Texas had already started fleeing the state as early as Jan. 14, when the Mexicans were reported gathering on the Rio Grande, according to the Texas State Historical Association. While in Gonzales, Houston decided to retreat to the Colorado River and ordered all accompany him — triggering what became known as the Runaway Scrape on a large scale.

He ordered the burning of Gonzales and told settlers to run east toward Louisiana to find safety in the U.S. Couriers from the town delivered news of the fall of the Alamo to other settlements. An estimated 5,000 left everything behind to join the panicked flee.

“There wasn’t anything left; it was all burned and imagine how scared they were,” said Vicki Frenzel, a Gonzales resident and local historian. “They thought

Santa Anna was right on their tail.”

The farther Houston’s army retreated toward Sabine, the more women and children were left behind without protection.

There was disease, rain, cold and hunger, according to many accounts.

The flight continued until Texas won its independence with victory at the battle of San Jacinto on April 21. Settlers gradually returned home to dwellings that no longer stood.

The home of Sarah and Horace Eggleston was among the first rebuilt in Gonzales in the 1840s.

Sarah Eggleston, 15, was pregnant with her first child at the time of the Runaway Scrape and among the women of Gonzales who fled. Her husband, Horace, fought in the Battle of San Jacinto.

The Eggleston house can be visited today on St. Louis Street in Gonzales, just east of the Gonzales Memorial Museum.

KALI VENABLE | KVENABLE@VICAD.COM The Eggleston house is located on St. Louis Street in Gonzales, just east of the Gonzales Memorial Museum. The cabin was built after the Texas Revolution around 1845.

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