The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-11-05
TIT STORY OF TEXAS
Lecture on The Lone Star State By Rev. Gilbert Mecurs

Gilbert McClurg delivered very in
teresting and instructive lecture on
Texas at the Presbyterian church last
night. illustrating his subject with a
number of beautiful views, which gave
the large audience Il better apprecia-
ton OF the Lone Star state and its
varied resources.
Mr. AEcClurg said that "The Lone
Star state of Texas rises large and
full in the gaze of the nations, the
largest of the States United; an en-
pire of antitheses,-of distances and di-
yersties, of bignesses and contradc-
tions. Let us note some of these con-
trasts.
1T is the state of the treeless plains
and thick forest growths of pine, mes
quite, oak, pecan, walnut and ebony,
the state where you may battle every
day of the year in the blue Gulf of
Mexico, or delve in the mountains at
FL Paso for ore; the state of heavy
rains and of rainless desert; of inland
farms and plateau cities and ports
shipping the cotton of the worlds
marts; of land for all who come, and
yet not an acre of government land;
Il state with ancient granaries dating
back to 1893, and with two crops of
corn a year in fields from which the
cactus was grubbed up year ago by
a Trinity and Brazoc Valley settler;
the biggest state with almost the low
est rate of taxation; the state with
the most tomatoes and fewest toma-
to cannerics; Astounding in peccaries
and importing most of its pork; which
will give you a Christmas dinner of
beef and plum pudding, with strawber-
ries and holly and with twenty-four
varieties of fresh gathered vegetables!
I'm Texas the traveller passes mys-
FERROUS swamps hung with ghostly
gray moss, to reach breezy upland
cattle ranges where billion beeves
are fed; he travels the distance from
New York to Chicago, but he is still
in Texas he is braced by keen
'nortEer and pulls bananas near the
largest palm groves in the United
Statcs-still in Texas; his ears are
saiUted with soft bastard Latin at
Brownsville and the tongue of the
Fatherand ct New Braunscts; ne pas
ses fields of oil and fields that yield
sorghum; he travels over twelve thou
sand miles of railroad, more than in
any other state, but the stage coach
81, -. af,,1 10 10
Texas; Texas has citizens born under
the rule of Spain, and citizens who
know no flag save the Stars and
Stripes; its first American colonists
were Connecticut men, yet Texas is
a stronghold of southern democracy;
Texas is the land of the cowboy des-
pcrado who adorns the frontier tale,
but twelve thirteenth of the Pan Han
die counties are prohibition counties,
card playing and cigarette smoking are
not permitted, and the CARRYING of
concealed weapons is a penitentiary
olTcnse.
In Texas its mission churches, in
serene and time-worn beauty, have
scarce been repaired since the seven
teen hundreds; the state capitol, alb
solutely modern, was finished yester-
day, and is the seventh largest build
ing III the world. In Texas are the
homes of those who dwell in the snow
and who live in the tropics; the con-
querors of the desert and the masters
of the sea-all contained in this Law
ish, varied, Kaleidoscope state of
Texas"
Early Discoveries from Spain and
France.
'The first white man to reach Texas
was the Spaniard, Cabeza de Vaca,-
cast upon her shore naked as the
first man in Eden, most unwilling
explorer; whose sojourn during ter