History

  By Virginia Peden
Matagorda County History Website
www.usgenwebsites.org/TXMatagorda/

   The now-extinct Karankawa Indians played an important role in the early history of Texas. 
   The name Karankawa became the accepted designation for several groups or bands of coastal people who shared a common language and culture. 
   Those bands, identified in early historic times, included the Capoques (Coaques, Cocos), Kohanis, Kopanes (Copanes), and Karankawa proper (Carancaquacas). 
   They inhabited the Gulf Coast of Texas from Galveston Bay southwestward to Corpus Christi Bay. 
   All spoke a little-known language called Karankawa, and only about 100 words of that language have been preserved. 
   The significance of the name Karankawa has not been definitely established, although it is generally believed to mean “dog-lovers” or “dog-raisers.” 
   That translation seems plausible, since the Karankawas reportedly kept dogs that were described as a fox-like or coyote-like breed. 

Blessing High School
1935 - 1950
Researched by Betty Lou Rickaway 2005
Edited by Mary Belle Ingram

Blessing High School 1935 - 1950
Researched by Betty Lou Rickaway 2005
Edited by Mary Belle Ingram

   EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 125th anniversary of Bay City’s founding in 1894.
   Since several events occurred in September that year, the Bay City Sentinel will feature the history of Bay City written the late Matagorda County historian Mary Belle Ingram throughout September.
   This is the final installment of Bay City’s history.
By Mary B. Ingram
From last week on History
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tricity. 
   The controlling company was Texas Public Service Company which had an office in downtown Bay City. 
   Frequent flooding of the Bay City area by water from the Colorado River led to the creation of the Colorado River Association in 1913 which became the Colorado Improvement Association in 1915.
   As early as 1912, a group of interested citizens began forming plans for a public library and tried to obtain funds for an Andrew Carnegie Library. 

   EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 125th anniversary of Bay City’s founding in 1894.
   Since several events occurred in September that year, the Bay City Sentinel will feature the history of Bay City written the late Matagorda County historian Mary Belle Ingram throughout September.
   This is the second installment of Bay City’s history.
By Mary B. Ingram
From last week on History
   The first rice harvested was stored in the county clerk’s office, then transported six miles to Van Vleck to the only railway station in the county, and then shipped by train to mills. Thus that county clerk’s office became the first “rice warehouse.”
   The first man to break rice cultivation in Matagorda County was A.P. Borden of Pierce whose plows went to work three miles north of Bay City in November, 1899. The Matagorda County Rice and Irrigation Company began work the following month.

   EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 125th anniversary of Bay City’s founding in 1894.
   Since several events occurred in September that year, the Bay City Sentinel will feature the history of Bay City written the late Matagorda County historian Mary Belle Ingram throughout September.
   This is the second installment of Bay City’s history.
By Mary B. Ingram
From last week on History
   This stuffy little building first served as a county clerk’s office. At an early date Judge T.J. Hamilton erected a two-story building across from the northwest corner of the square, on lots now occupied by Badouh’s big store.
   This structure was used as a temporary court house and became the focus of the community’s religious life, as a union church and Sunday school held forth there.

   EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 125th anniversary of Bay City’s founding in 1894.
   Since several events occurred in September that year, the Bay City Sentinel will feature the history of Bay City written the late Matagorda County historian Mary Belle Ingram throughout September.
By Mary B. Ingram
   “Bay City,” a name often misleading to strangers, is twenty-five miles from the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. 
   It is so named because the town lies in the center of the vast area of prairie land which has been known as Bay Prairie since the days of Stephen F. Austin in the early 1820s.
   J.A. Allhand’s 1931 book, Gringo Builders, tells the beginning of Bay City as follows:   
   You only have to go back to a summer day in 1894 to get the eginning of Bay City. 
   Out of the raw material of rich Bay prairie, whfrom whence Bay City receives its name, and the facile minds of G.M. Magill and N.M. Vogelsang, was this city born. 

From Historic Matagorda County and Wikipedia