Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-04-07
TEXAS EARLY DAYS
History in Previous Centuries
Full of Stirring Events.
FULL OF SPICY ROMANCE
First Colony, Led by Frenchman,
Was Short Lived.
DISCOVERIES BY LA SALE
Famous French Explorer Travelled
Territory Along Mississippi River.
Career of LATTE.
DISCOVERIES BY LA SALE
BY WILLIAM F.. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM F.. CURTIS.
| Special Correspondence OF The Star and the
| Chicago Record Herald.
! GALVESTON, April L. 1911.
Within the last two years railway has
been built along the gulf coast of Texas
| from Galveston southwark to Brownsville
at the mouth of the Rio Grande. 1t hugs
the shore quite closely, and south Of Cor
pus Christi sticks to the trail of Gen.
Zachary Taylor and the American army
on their way to the Mexican war in 1S45.
While it is a very old country and one
| Of the earliest sections Of the United
States to be explored and colonized, at
the same time it is one of the newest.
| Until this railroad was built there were
| no towns. and only four houses between
| Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande, and
| those were the headquarters of enormous
| ranches, which stretched from the coast
far back into the interior and pastured
| hundreds of thousands of cattle
From the car windows today, however,
| may be seen several thriving young cities.
| numerous villages, farmhouses without
sugar mills. cotton gins and immense
| fields of cane, cotton and alfalfa, groves
| of lemon and banana trees. orchards of
all kinds Of fruit and truck farms on
| other vegetabl mature in January and
even in December Five years ago it was a
bare and barren prairie. given up to sage
brush, cactus and mesquit trees, which
| grew down to the beach. which extends
| for 100 miles as wide and hard and white
as that of the eastern coast of Florida
This section of the United States
! abounds in romance and history, and
some Of the most thrilling incidents of
| the early explorations occurred here.
| The first white man, so far as known, to
appear in Texas was Cabeza de Vaca, the
survivor of an expedition sent out from
to conquer Florida. The fleet slipped
through the West Indies somehow and
was wrecked in a storm somewhere along
| this coast. Everybody perished except
Cabeza and three others. including ne
were on the coast of Florida, this little
party of survivors started westward and
kept on going until they reached the Pc
cos valley Of New Mexico, where they
were detained for seven years by the
Pueblo Indians. who looked upon the
Moor as supernatural being and wor-
| SHIPPED him. They then managed to find
their way to the City of Mexico. where
Cabeza de Vaca wrote a narrative of his
! experience, which has been translated
into English by Adolph Bandelier. so that
Cabeza was not only the first arrival, but
the first explorer. the first overland tour
list and the first historian of Texas.
Name Comes From Indians.
The word Texas" comes from the
TEXAS Indians, a group of nearly fifty
tribes which occupied this country at the
| time of it's discovery. The letter u" in
Spanish is pronounced like the English
III"
| The first colony In Texas, and very
short lived one 1t was, came from France
In 1854 under command of Robert Cave
I StANrp ID In Cell
the authority of the great Louis XIV a
party of three hundred soldiers, farm
ers, mechanics. missionaries and adven-
turers, and landed somewhere near Mata-
| gOrda. half way between Galveston and
Brownsville. La Sale is one Of the most
| splendid figures among American explor-
ers. He came to Canada as boy with
his brother. Jesuit missionary, and was
the son of a noble family of Rouen, Nor
mandy. When he was only twenty three
years old Robert Cavelier built a boat
called the Griffin on Niagara river.
with which he cruised about the great
lakes for several years. and afterward ex-
plored the Illinois river and the Missis-
| sippi. His story will be found in that
most fascinating volume Of Francis Park
man called La Sale and the Discovery
of the Great West
La Sale discovered the mouth of the
Mississippi April Z. 1852. and by procla
nation and process verbal took posses
sion of all the territory watered by that
4 u
and by all the streams flowing into 1t on
both sides, in the name of his royal mas
| ter Louis XIV, and called it by his
name. This was one hundred and ninety
years after the discovery of America
The Spaniards had found the river one
hundred and forty years before and Fer
dinand de Soto had been lying under its
waters since 1913 but. somehow or an
other, nobody had found where it en-
tered the gulf, and when La Sale re-
| turned to France with his claims Of dis
| covery and possession he was received
with honors and glory by his munificent
| king.
He Immediately planned a colonizing ex-
petition which was fitted out in a man.
ner suitable to the Importance of the en-
| terprise and the dignity of the great
Louis, but unfortunately there was a di-
vision Of authority. While La Sale was
| allowed military and civil authority the
command of the fleet of four vessels was
intrusted to Capt. Beaujeu. a tough and
| heartless old sailor, who evidently did not
have much sympathy with the expedi-
ton.
| One of the ships was captured by the
Spaniards near Santa Domingo; another
| was wrecked and lost on the bar Of
Matagorda bay, which was a real calam-
ity, because a years provisions were in
her hold. La Sale quarrelled with Beau.
| jeu. holding him responsible for the
| wreck. and in revenge. the latter, on
| March IL, sailed back to France, leaving
La Sale and his colony camped on the
shore of Matagorda bay in pitiable and
| helpless condition.