THE TEXAS SECRETARY OF STATE WILL BE CLOSED MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH IN OBSERVANCE OF LABOR DAY. HOLIDAY CLOSURE DETAILS. Show
Stephen F. Austin, commonly referred to as the father of Texas, served as Texas Secretary of State in 1836. After attending school in Connecticut and Kentucky, Austin returned to his family in Missouri. In 1821, Austin traveled to San Antonio to recruit United States citizens to settle in Texas. Austin negotiated with federal officials in Mexico, to which Texas then belonged, to acquire large grants of land. During the next 15 years, Austin brought thousands of settlers from around the United States to Texas. He also created many early maps of the area and remained devoted to the development of the land now known as Texas. After Texas won independence from Mexico in 1836, the newly elected President of the Texas Republic, Sam Houston, appointed Austin Secretary of State. Austin served as Secretary of State for only three months. He died of pneumonia while in office in December 1836 at the age of 43. Stephen F. Austin wrote in July, 1836: "The prosperity of Texas has been the object of my labors, the idol of my existence, it has assumed the character of religion, for the guidance of my thoughts and actions, for fifteen years." Many Secretaries of State held other statewide offices, including:
Lone StarsShortest TermGeorge Clark, confederate soldier and attorney, served as Secretary of State for only 10 days in 1874. A friend and supporter of then Governor Richard Coke, Clark served as Secretary of State until the arrival of the regular appointee. Clark was then appointed Texas Attorney General a few days later. Longest TermJane Y. McCallum, prominent writer and prohibition leader, served as Secretary of State for six years. Governor Daniel J. Moody appointed her in January 1927, and she retained the position under the next Governor, Ross Sterling, until 1933. She later became an important figure in the women's suffrage movement in Texas. First Woman Secretary of StateEmma C. Meharg was appointed Secretary of State in 1925 by Governor Miriam A. "Ma" Ferguson, Texas' first female Governor. Meharg served until January 1927. Loyal Texas Public ServantJames Webb served as Secretary of State of both the Republic of Texas under President Mirabeau B. Lamar and of the State of Texas under Governor Peter Bell. In addition, he served as Secretary of the Treasury and Attorney General of the Republic. He later became the first judge of the Fourteenth Judicial District of Texas, which included Corpus Christi. Webb County, in Southwest Texas, was named in his honor. International DiplomatEdward Aubrey Clark was appointed Secretary of State by Governor James Allred in January 1937 when Clark was only 30 years old. He served until January 1939. After leaving state government, he served as a mentor and advisor to three generations of political leaders, including Lyndon Baines Johnson. In 1965 President Johnson appointed Clark to be United States Ambassador to Australia. Tony Garza was appointed Secretary of State by Governor George W. Bush in 1995. He served as Secretary of State until December 1997. Garza was then elected to the Texas Railroad Commission in 1998, serving from January 1999 through November 2002. President George W. Bush appointed Garza to the post of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, and Ambassador Garza presented his credentials to Mexico's President Vicente Fox on November 22, 2002. Grandfather of a U.S. PresidentJoseph Wilson Baines served as Secretary of State under Governor John Ireland from January 1883 to January 1887. As Secretary of State, Baines helped oversee construction of the Capitol building. In 1869, he married Ruth Huffman. Their daughter, Rebekah Baines Johnson, was the mother of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States. U.S. Attorney GeneralAlberto Gonzales was appointed Secretary of State by Governor George W. Bush in December 1997 and served until January 1999. In 2000, he was elected to the Supreme Court of Texas and later served as Counsel to President George W. Bush in 2001. In 2004, he was appointed by President Bush as the 80th U.S. Attorney General.
Get even more daily history in this fascinating book! Arranged by day of the year to allow the reader to see into the past on any specific day, from 1528 to the present. Purchase at Legacy of Texas » During the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early morning of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were part of a group known as Black ...read more September 5, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford survives an attempt on his life in Sacramento, California. The assailant, a petite, red haired, freckle-faced young woman named Lynette Fromme, approached the president while he was walking near the California Capitol and raised a .45 ...read more Seen by some as a vicious murderer and by others as a gallant Robin Hood, the famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James is born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. Jesse and his older brother Franklin lost their father in 1849, when the Reverend Robert James abandoned his ...read more Art, Literature, and Film History On September 5, 2006, Katie Couric makes headlines—and TV history—with her highly publicized debut as the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening news broadcast, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Couric, who served as co-anchor of The Today Show from 1991 to 2006, ...read more Art, Literature, and Film History Boris Pasternak’s romantic novel, Doctor Zhivago is published in the United States. The book was banned in the Soviet Union, but still won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. Pasternak was born in Russia in 1890, and by the time of the Russian Revolution was a well-known ...read more Art, Literature, and Film History On September 5, 1957, New York Times writer Gilbert Millstein gives a rave review to “On the Road,” the second novel (hardly anyone had read the first) by a 35-year-old Columbia dropout named Jack Kerouac. “Jack went to bed obscure,” Kerouac’s girlfriend told a reporter, “and ...read more |