On this day in 1835, Texan forces defeated a Mexican column in the so-called Grass Fight. The Texas army besieging San Antonio was informed at mid-morning that Mexican cavalrymen with pack animals were approaching. Thinking that the column might be carrying pay for the Mexican army, the Texans attacked with cavalry and infantry. Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos, commander of the Mexican garrison in San Antonio, sent out infantrymen and an artillery piece. The Texans eventually drove the Mexicans back. Texas losses included four wounded, while Mexican losses numbered three dead and fourteen wounded. The pack train, the Texans discovered, was carrying only grass for the Mexican army animals.
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On this day in 1850, On this day in 1850, the state legislature chose a new site for the county seat of Denton County because of a lack of water at the former site, the town of Alton. The legislature had established Alton, less than a mile from the site of present-day Corinth in the east central part of the county, to replace Pinckneyville as county seat in 1848, and for nearly three years the residence of W. C. Baines, the only person living in Alton, served as the legal center of the county. The new site, five miles south of the site of present-day Denton near Hickory Creek, kept the name Alton, and by 1855 boasted at least two stores, a hotel, and a post office. In 1856, however, residents of the county demanded a new county seat. They argued that Alton was not in the center of the county, that the water from the standing pools in Hickory Creek had made a number of families ill, and that the development of the town had been unsatisfactory. As a result of these complaints, in an election held in November 1856, Denton County voters accepted an offer from Hiram Cisco, William Loving, and William Woodruff to provide 100 acres of their property for a new county seat. This new site, near the center of the county, was named Denton. Soon after the establishment of the new county seat Alton disappeared.
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On this day in 1821, Austin Colony pioneer Abner Kuykendall and his family crossed the Brazos River via the La Bahía Road, arriving near the site of their future homestead. The Kuykendall party also included Abner’s wife Sarah and sons Barzillai, Gibson, Jonathan, and William; his brother Joseph and Joseph’s wife Rosanna; his father-in-law William Gates; and his brother-in-law Amos Gates. At Nacogdoches they were joined by another brother, Robert H. Kuykendall Sr. The three brothers were among the first of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred colonists.
