Celebrating 75
This online exhibit features photographs from the opening of the San Jacinto Monument and the San Jacinto Museum of History, April 20 and 21, 1939. Found in the museum's archives in a variety of formats including print and negative images, the majority of the photographs were acquired in 1948 from an unknown source. Other documents are from the archives of the museum's Albert and Ethel Herzstein Library.
The opening of the San Jacinto Museum of History was planned by a committee of historians, educators, and public persons across the state. Special care was taken to invite representatives of historical organizations throughout the United States, as well as those governments formerly exercing sovereignty over Texas and governments having diplomatic relations with the Republic of Texas. This oversized engraved invitation includes an embossed image of the San Jacinto Monument, and shows the names of the lead organizers of the two-day opening event. Said the Dallas News on April 7: "State Press has never been in receipt of a more elegant invitation. If the program half lives up to the invitation, it will be a work of art."
Special guests responded using an engraved RSVP card, such as this one returned by Oveta Culp Hobby, who attended as the representative of the Texas Newspaper Publishers Association. Representatives from Great Britain, France, Italy, China, the Dominican Republic, and the Vatican were present.
Looking down from the Observation Floor, on the morning of the dedication of the San Jacinto Memorial Monument, Thursday, April 20, 1939, northwest side of the Monument. The chairs are placed in front of the door to the museum, indicating that the museum is not yet open. Note the width of the center of the three rows of fluting that runs down the side of the Monument; its width is not as obvious from the ground. This perspective is not possible to a visitor today, because the windows are sealed shut.
An official program was created for the event, with a printing cost of $282.14. 1000 programs included an embossed clear overlay and a red cord tie; 10,800 copies were made without the overlay and tie, and could be purchased at the event.
San Jacinto Monument Dedication
George A. Hill, Jr., left, president of the San Jacinto Museum of History, and Eugene C. Barker, right, stand at a microphone in front of the San Jacinto Memorial Monument. The public address system was on loan from Gulf Oil Corporation; note the speakers on the roof of the gallery. Hill opened the event, after an invocation from Bishop A. Frank Smith. Dr. Barker, professor of American History at the University of Texas, presented the opening speech. "This beautiful and awe-inspiring monument is appropriate not only to the men who won victory here, but to the results which victory brought to pass."
At the opening session, the honorees on the platform were more numerous than the crowd in the public seats. But that soon changed. Two buses brought the honorees from the Rice Hotel, and arrangements were made to park cars along the new right-of-way, now known as Vista Road. 25 state highway patrolmen and Houston motorcycle officers regulated traffic to and from the battleground.
San Jacinto Monument Dedication
The noon session on April 20 took place over lunch at the San Jacinto Inn. Here Marcel Moraud of the Rice Institute outlined the part Texas has played in European history. "Texas, historically, grew out of a conflict. It had become the object of a vast duel between two European nations, Spain and France, equally proud and equally tenacious."
The afternoon session took place back at the Monument. Carlos Castañeda, at that time Latin-American Librarian of the University of Texas and President of the American Catholic Historical Association, spoke on the work of missionaries in bringing religion and civilization to Texas and the Southwest.
With no air conditioning until 1969, windows like this one into the northeast gallery could be opened to allow air flow into the galleries, which was certainly needed to combat the heat from the crowds who visited during the opening.
The lobby was full during the two-day opening event. The doors in the far wall open to what was called the Anglo-American Room at the time of the opening; that is the present exhibit gallery.
The gallery on the south side exhibited material covering the period of Spanish and Mexican rule over Texas. This room is now the Jesse H. Jones Theatre for Texas Studies.
The elevator lobby was just as crowded, with people waiting to go to the top. Cost of an elevator ticket in 1939: 25 cents for adults, 10 cents for children. Length of time for the trip in 1939: a minute and a half going up, about 5 seconds less coming down. A young Houston athelete walked up as quickly as he could, and made the trip up in 15 minutes, and down in 10.
Unlike the windows on the Observation Floor today, in 1939 the windows could open. Governor W. Lee O'Daniel rests his elbow out of the window.
San Jacinto Monument Dedication
Official cachet envelopes were offered during the two-day opening. Margaret Scullin, Suan Barry, and Dick Golding at the cachet envelope table. The first letter mailed from the top of the San Jacinto Monument was addressed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was mailed with a rare 1936 Texas Centennial stamp. A 25 cent fee was charged for letters mailed at the top of the Monument, with a 15 cent fee for letters mailed at the base; the fees were to support the cost of the dedication.
This example of the cachet was one of several mailed to the museum's director, Ike Moore, on April 21, 1939. $241.49 worth of cachets were sold over the two-day period, costing $39.47 for stamps.
Andrew Jackson Houston, last living son of Sam Houston, stands in front of the plaque honoring the men who remained at Harrisburg, in the north gallery.
Dick Golding, a member of the organizing committee, and Andrew Jackson Houston, looking toward the water. They could be looking toward the flotilla of yachts and speedboats that cruised adjacent to the battleground during the celebration, or at the U.S.S. Wichita, which saluted as it passed the Monument on April 20.
For the afternoon session on April 20 and again on April 21, the seating was moved from the northwest to the northeast side of the Monument, allowing easy access to the front doors of the museum. With April 21 a state holiday, more visitors were expected, especially to hear the speaker for the noon session.
Honored guests had reserved seats on the platform behind the speaker, while the general public was welcome to sit at the lower level. The City of Houston loaned 1500 chairs from the City Auditorium, and four transport companies volunteered their trucks to move the chairs out to the battleground and back. A security guard was hired to watch the chairs overnight, and they were covered with tarps to protect them from dew.
Boy Scouts served as ushers, directing honored guests to their seats on the platform, and selling programs. As volunteers, they could purchase food and drink at a discount from the concession stand, at a maximum of 5 cents an item, rather than the maximum 10 cents an item for the general public.
On April 21, music was provided by the 90-piece First Band of the Houston high schools, brought together under the direction of Victor Alessandro.
Herbert Gambrell of SMU and the Dallas Historical Society, left, presided over the morning session on April 21. Radoslav A. Tsanoff, right, of the Rice Institute and president of the Texas Folk-Lore Society was the morning speaker. Note the addition of a second microphone; a portion at least of the day's presentation would be broadcast statewide by radio. "In its fuller meaning, the story of a people would include all that has moved it or expressed its outlook on life. Those quaint fancies and superstitions, and the tales of customs in which they have found expression, reveal the imaginative mood of our people, the tone of their life and thought. We can appreciate better the history of a people's actual lives if we attend to the stories of their imagination wherein they stand revealed."
Many in the crowd came to hear the popular "Pappy" O'Daniel during his noon-time address. Here George A. Hill, Jr. greets Texas Governor W. Lee O'Daniel, his wife Merle O'Daniel, and Oscar Holcombe, mayor of Houston, when they arrived shortly before noon on April 21, 1939.
W. Lee O'Daniel was a well-known radio personality, well experienced in standing in front of a microphone. Probably the first political candidate anywhere in the U.S. to campaign with a band, he toured the state with his Hillbilly Boys, and his popularity as a radio announcer swept him to the office of Governor in January 1939. He had no hesitation standing at the podium at the noon session of the dedication on April 21, while Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe and University of Houston President Edison E. Oberholtzer look on.
The crowd during Gov. W. Lee O'Daniel's speech at noon on April 21, 1939. The bright sunshine caused many of the men to keep their hats on, a breach of etiquette for those seated on the platform. Others in the audience shaded their eyes with their programs.
O'Daniel brought his entire family. Sons Mike and Pat were part of the well-known Hillbilly Boys, and daughter Molly charmed the media.
Notoriously solumn-faced, even Andrew Jackson Houston had a hint of a smile when greeted by the O'Daniel family.
After the speech, Merle and W. Lee O'Daniel visited the Observation Floor. The road along the north side of the reflection pool, visible here, was later removed.
The O'Daniel family also visited the exhibit galleries. Museum director Ike Moore and archivist Malcolm McLean spent the night before the opening installing the exhibits. Many of the exhibit cases, manufactured by Remington Rand and delivered in pieces about two weeks before the opening, are still in use in the gallery today.
This photo shows part ot an exhibit of Thomas W. Streeter's collection of Texana, on loan to the museum for the opening. The center letter is from Sam Houston to Phillip Dimmitt; it tells of the fall of the Alamo, and commands Dimmitt to fall back to headquarters. Other significant collections on loan were those of Emil Hurja and Everette DeGolyer.
The foundation of the museum's collections came from gifts of artifacts and documents donated in early 1939 from a large number of people, including Hill. Here, Jeanne Sully Smyth presents a Mexican army saber and scabbard to museum director Ike Moore for the museum.
Volunteers from the Houston Fire Department served as security guards in the galleries during the two-day opening.
Clarence R. Wharton at the afternoon session on April 21, 1939: "This ostentatious shaft marks the scene of one of the major events of history. Here culminated the struggle which had been going on for more than three centuries for the mastery of North American and which determined for all time that the country west of the Mississippi to the Pacific should be part of the United States."
The day concluded with a banquet at the Rice Hotel, featuring a speech on "Texas, A Heritage and a Trust" by Peter Molyneaux, editor of The Texas Weekly, and music by the 5-piece Joe Belle Orchestra. "Our heritage is this rich region of the earth, this Texas, which we inhabit and which is our homeland, and something else besides, something even more precious - the freedom to govern ourselves and to order our lives under the protection of equitable laws of our own making."
This image from the collection of dedication photos is thought to be from the evening session at the Rice Hotel on April 21. Almost 400 people attended the final banquet.
In 1939 the San Jacinto Memorial Monument was called "the most popular man-made tourist attraction in Texas." In its first six months, more than 175,000 people visited, from all 48 states and from 40 foreign countries. 75 years later, it continues to draw visitors from throughout the world, to see what George A. Hill, Jr., called "one of the finest museums in America, and with the magnificent structure we have to house it in, it cannot be less than that."