Texas Historical Events for the Month of May

Texas history is full of remarkable stories, and the month of May has no shortage of them. From pivotal battles and groundbreaking medical milestones to cultural firsts and community milestones, important events have shaped the state during this time of year. This day-by-day guide highlights key moments from May in Texas history, giving readers a chance to see how the state’s past connects to its present.

May 1

• 1718 – State history – Mission San Antonio de Valero founded. Governor Martín de Alarcón and Fray Antonio de Olivares established the mission that later became known as the Alamo. Its founding also anchored the presidio and civilian villa that grew into San Antonio.
• 1980 – Sports/Business – NBA awards the Dallas Mavericks expansion franchise. Commissioner Larry O’Brien announced Dallas as the league’s 23rd team under owner Don Carter. The club began play that fall and has been part of Texas’s modern pro-sports landscape ever since.

May 2

• 1872 – Business/Transport – Texas and Pacific Railway name adopted. Investors reorganized the Texas Pacific Railway and soon standardized operations under the Texas and Pacific name, tying North Texas to national rail commerce.
• 1874 – Security – John B. Jones appointed to lead the Frontier Battalion. The Texas Legislature created the battalion to curb violence on the frontier, with Jones organizing statewide ranger companies for mobile law enforcement.

May 3

• 1968 – Science/Medicine – First successful U.S. heart transplant performed in Houston. Dr. Denton Cooley and team at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital transplanted a human heart successfully, placing Houston at the forefront of cardiac surgery.
• 2015 – Security – Attack at a cartoon contest in Garland. Two gunmen opened fire outside the Curtis Culwell Center during a contest of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad; they were stopped by police and an off-duty officer. The incident prompted statewide reviews of event security.

May 4

• 1886 – Labor/People – Texan Albert Parsons speaks at the Haymarket rally in Chicago. Parsons, raised in Texas before becoming a national labor figure, addressed the crowd prior to the bombing that reshaped U.S. labor history. His Texas roots connect the state to the era’s national labor struggles.

May 5

• 1862 – Military/People – Ignacio Zaragoza’s victory at Puebla (Cinco de Mayo). Zaragoza was born in Bahía del Espíritu Santo, Texas, before his family moved to Mexico. Texans long noted his local ties while celebrating the Mexican victory over French forces.
• 1937 – Education – Texas Legislature authorizes state-supported junior colleges expansion. The move accelerated community college growth, widening access to postsecondary education across Texas towns.

May 6

• 1911 – Business/Civics – Rotary Club of Dallas chartered. Early civic leaders organized the state’s second Rotary club, which became a key venue for business networking and service projects.
• 1864 – Military – Hood’s Texas Brigade fights in the Wilderness Campaign. Texan soldiers serving in the Army of Northern Virginia saw brutal action in Virginia, a reminder that Texas regiments fought far from home during the Civil War.

May 7

• 1813 – Business/Founding – Future founders of Harrisburg marry in New York. John R. Harris married Jane Birdsall; they later helped shape Harrisburg, a settlement that influenced the siting of Houston.
• 1900 – Immigration/People – Galveston becomes a major point of entry under federal oversight. Following late-19th-century reforms, the port grew as a key gateway for immigrants heading to Texas and the interior.

May 8

• 1846 – Military – Battle of Palo Alto near Brownsville. General Zachary Taylor’s forces and Mexican troops clashed north of the Rio Grande at the opening of the U.S.–Mexican War, with U.S. artillery decisive on the coastal plain.
• 1935 – Conservation – State Parks Board accelerates Depression-era park building. Working with New Deal programs, Texas expanded parks and recreational sites that remain popular today.

May 9

• 1846 – Military – Battle of Resaca de la Palma. Taylor’s army pushed Mexican forces across the Rio Grande the day after Palo Alto, securing the Texas side of the river.
• 1972 – Labor/Business – Farah strike begins in El Paso. Thousands of garment workers walked out over pay and conditions, making national news and reshaping local labor relations.

May 10

• 1893 – Media/Arts – Texas Woman’s Press Association formed in Dallas. Women journalists organized to advance professional work and mutual support, reflecting a growing press culture.
• 1893 – Civics – Texas Equal Rights Association founded the same day. Early suffragists coordinated strategy and public outreach that later fed into statewide suffrage successes.

May 11

• 1953 – Weather/Disaster – Waco tornado kills more than 100. A violent tornado struck downtown Waco in the late afternoon, one of the deadliest in Texas history, and led to changes in severe-weather awareness.
• 1970 – Weather/Disaster – Lubbock tornado outbreak. A powerful nighttime tornado devastated parts of Lubbock, prompting research that improved storm warning and engineering standards.

May 12

• 1903 – Culture/Education – “The Eyes of Texas” debuts in Austin. Students introduced the song at a campus event; it later became closely associated with the University of Texas.
• 1913 – Labor/Civics – Black postal workers protest discrimination in Houston. The demonstration highlighted inequities in federal employment practices and the growing civic activism of Black Texans.

May 13

• 1865 – Military – Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville. Often cited as the last land battle of the Civil War, it occurred weeks after the Confederate surrender in Virginia.
• 1846 – Federal – U.S. Congress declares war on Mexico. The declaration formalized a conflict already unfolding along the Rio Grande and shaped Texas border history.

May 14

• 1836 – Diplomacy – Treaties of Velasco signed. Texian officials and captured Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna signed public and secret agreements calling for troop withdrawals and other terms following San Jacinto.
• 1854 – Community/Politics – Texas Germans denounce slavery as evil. At a San Antonio meeting, German Texans issued resolutions opposing slavery, reflecting Hill Country antislavery sentiment.

May 15

• 1675 – Religion/Exploration – First recorded Mass in Texas celebrated on the Bosque-Larios expedition. Missionaries traveling through present Maverick County noted the service, an early sign of Spanish ecclesiastical presence.
• 1890 – Literature – Katherine Anne Porter born in Indian Creek. The future Pulitzer winner drew on Texas settings and characters in short stories and novels that became American classics.

May 16

• 1843 – Military/Navy – Texas Navy engages Mexican vessels off Campeche. Yucatán allies and the Texas Navy fought actions that disrupted Mexican supply lines during a regional revolt.
• 1968 – Education/Civics – Edgewood High School student walkout in San Antonio. About 400 students marched to protest inequities in facilities and teaching, energizing school-finance reform efforts that echoed for decades.

May 17

• 1839 – Military – Skirmish on the San Gabriel River ends José Antonio Mexía’s incursion. Texan forces checked the expedition, easing immediate fears of a larger attack.
• 1902 – Law and Order – A. Y. Baker shooting sparks a bloody Hidalgo County feud. Ranger Anderson Yancey Baker’s killing of Ramón de la Cerda set off reprisals and trials that reshaped Valley politics.

May 18

• 1835 – Colonization – Empresario Green DeWitt dies in Monclova. His colony on the Guadalupe River was one of the most successful in Mexican Texas and helped populate the coastal-prairie region.
• 1871 – Frontier/Conflict – Warren Wagon Train Raid. A multitribal force attacked Henry Warren’s wagon train on the Butterfield route near Salt Creek, helping trigger a harsher federal campaign on the Southern Plains.

May 19

• 1836 – Frontier/Conflict – Raid on Fort Parker. Comanche and allied warriors captured several settlers, including Cynthia Ann Parker, whose later life bridged Comanche and Anglo Texas histories.
• 1910 – Science/Nature – Halley’s-Comet-era meteorite fall in Delta County. A notable stone fall added to Texas’s long meteorite record, which also includes the Odessa crater and other finds.

May 20

• 1893 – Local government – “New” Amarillo selected as Potter County seat. Henry B. Sanborn’s higher-ground townsite won the second county-seat election, cementing Amarillo’s role as Panhandle hub.
• 1930s – Business/Ranching – Amarillo’s rise as a cattle-shipping center continues. Multiple rail lines and stock facilities made the city one of the busiest shipping points in the world, shaping regional commerce.

May 21

• 1884 – Health/Public works – Brackenridge Hospital opens in Austin. It became Central Texas’s public-health anchor. The original Brackenridge campus ultimately closed after more than a century of service.
• 2017 – Health/Infrastructure – Brackenridge closes and services move to Dell Seton Medical Center. Patients and programs shifted a few blocks to the new teaching hospital, marking a major modernization in Travis County care.

May 22

• 1991 – Diplomacy/Community – Queen Elizabeth II visits Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Houston. The stop honored the city’s first Black Baptist congregation and highlighted Houston’s diverse history.
• 1971 – Museums/Presidential history – LBJ Library dedicated in Austin. The nation’s fifth presidential library opened on the UT campus, creating a major archival and public-history center for 20th-century U.S. politics.

May 23

• 1934 – Crime/Law – Bonnie and Clyde killed near Gibsland, Louisiana, after Texas investigation. The ambush ended a crime spree that had stretched across multiple states and kept many Texas lawmen busy.
• 1873 – Finance/Banking – Early savings institutions expand across Texas towns. Building-and-loan associations and private banks scaled up to serve cattle, cotton, and rail economies.

May 24

• 1869 – Law/Politics – “Stockade Case” in Austin tests Reconstruction power. State officials tried to arrest federal officers over the seizure of a printing press, bringing tensions between state and military authority to a head.
• 1930 – Culture/Architecture – Dallas’s Fair Park facilities expand toward the later Centennial. Planning and early projects set the stage for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition.

May 25

• 1896 – Heritage/Civics – Texas Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy meets in Victoria. The group coordinated commemorative work and monument campaigns that shaped public memory.
• 1930s – Conservation – Statewide soil-and-water projects begin in response to drought. Early conservation districts formed to address erosion and Dust Bowl conditions in the Panhandle and beyond.

May 26

• 1839 – Frontier/Conflict – Fight at Bird’s Creek near present-day Temple. Settlers and Native warriors fought along a tributary of the Little River as tensions simmered in the Republic era.
• 1942 – Military/Training – World War II pilot-training ramps up across Texas fields. Dozens of airfields turned Texas into a national training hub for Army Air Forces personnel.

May 27

• 1961 – Politics – John Tower wins U.S. Senate special election. He became the first Republican senator from Texas since Reconstruction, signaling a long-term partisan realignment.
• 1937 – Education – Texas adopts new standards for high-school accreditation. The changes linked curricula to expanding university and workforce needs.

May 28

• 1923 – Energy – Santa Rita No. 1 comes in in Reagan County. The strike launched the university oil lands fund that would later support both UT and Texas A&M systems.
• 1937 – Infrastructure – Port of Brownsville’s ship channel operations broaden trade. Deeper draft and modern docks helped shift Gulf commerce toward the Rio Grande Valley.

May 29

• 1889 – Culture/Economy – Texas Spring Palace opens in Fort Worth. The elaborate exhibition promoted immigration and investment until a 1890 fire destroyed the structure.
• 1953 – Aviation – Carswell AFB expands Strategic Air Command facilities. North Texas’s bomber base became a core Cold War installation supporting global deterrence.

May 30

• 1898 – Military – Rough Riders ordered to San Antonio for mustering. Theodore Roosevelt’s volunteer cavalry organized at Camp Wood and nearby grounds before heading to Cuba.
• 1936 – Culture – Texas Centennial Exposition preparations reach a peak. Workers rushed to complete Art Deco buildings and exhibits that still define Fair Park.

May 31

• 1881 – Military/Frontier – U.S. Army abandons Fort Griffin. The fort’s closing reflected the frontier’s shift as railroads and towns replaced line-of-march posts.
• 1938 – Public works – Lower Colorado River Authority moves to complete early Highland Lakes dams. Those dams tamed seasonal floods and powered regional electrification.

Looking back at Texas history in May shows how diverse the state’s past really is. From frontier battles and political milestones to cultural traditions and modern achievements, each event adds another layer to the Texas story. By tracing these moments day by day, we can see how Texans have shaped their communities, their state, and even the nation. Remembering these events helps keep history alive and shows how the past continues to influence Texas today.