History

  EDITOR’S NOTE: Isaac Zepeda was born and reared in Bay City and, like many of the city’s native sons, was sent to fight in World War II.
   Chosen as an Army scout to go behind enemy lines in Normandy after the D-Day Invasion, Zepeda was captured by the Germans.
   His incredible story of survival as a POW, followed by a harrowing story about moving around in a devastated Germany at war’s end to find American forces.
   Not only is his story noteworthy because he’s from Matagorda County, Zepeda’s story - as told in his own words - is at once grim, but fascinating.
   We’ll be carrying his story in installments. Zepeda died in Bay City in 2014.

    The famous American Brahman herd sire, Manso, was born on the Sartwelle Brothers Ranch in Palacios. 
   In the early 1900s, after their Episcopal minister father’s death at age 43 in 1897, W.L.D. Sartwelle relocated his younger siblings from Comanche, Texas, to their 
family’s Sarvaca Ranch in Lavaca County. 
   The Sartwelle’s Canmore Ranch properties in Matagorda County were under lease until 1917. 
   James W. Sartwelle, born in Dallas, after his father’s death was sent to his older sister’s husband’s school in Niagra Falls, NY. 
   He returned to the Gulf Coast as a railroad agent and telegrapher living in LaWard. 
   He later managed cattle operations for the Ward Cattle and Pasture Company where on their behalf he purchased the Brahman bulls and crossbreds cows of O’Connor’s one half of the Borden-Pierce Bos Indicus cattle imported from India in 1906. 

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J. D. Hudgins Ranch

From Lighthousefriends.com 

By Emmie Parris Johnson
From Oak Leaves
Matagorda County Genealogical Society 

Matagorda County TXGenWeb

Matagorda County TXGenWeb

Matagorda County TXGenWeb 

The charter for the Bay City Business College was filed August 30, 1910. 
   It was formed for the purpose of maintaining and conducting a college for teaching and instruction in all business branches. 
   The first directors were R. M. Gannon, Henry Rugeley, John Sloan, John W. Gaines and M. Thompson. 
   The amount of the capital stock was $500 which was divided into fifty shares of $10 each. 
   Stockholders in addition to the founders were: J. Sutherland, F. Huebner, B. E. Norvell, N. M. Vogelsang, William Cash, R. L. Perry, T. J. Poole, G. M. Magill, W. S. Holman, C. A. Erickson and V. L. LeTulle. 
   It is believed that the college was located in the Hamilton building and an advertisement stated “Bay City Business College is the only permanent business college in the Mid-Coast section.”   

Matagorda County TXGenWeb