Sul Ross State University - Brand Yearbook (Alpine, TX)

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The Story of Lawrence Sullivan Ross ■LAWRENCE SULLIVAN ROSS 1838 -1898 IOWA BORN. FAMILY CAME TO TEXAS 1839. GAINED EXPERIENCE WITH INDIANS IN CENTRAL TEXAS WHILE .FATHER WAS INDIAN AGENT.LED RESERVATION INDIANS IN ' CAMPAIGNS AGAINST COMANCHES. AS RANGER COMPANY CAPTAIN IN 1859 HE KILLED THE-NOTED COMANCHE CHIEF PE7A NOCONA IN. HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT AND CAPTURED LONG LOST CYNTHIA ANN PARKER. FOLLOWING DISTINGUISHED C. S. A SERVICE AS GENERAL RETURNED TO TEXAS-MCLENNAN COUNTY ' ; SHERIFF. MEMBER 1875 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. ELECTED TO STATE SENATE . 1880-GOVERNOR OF TEXAS 1887-91:1ST CHIEF-EXECUTIVE TO OCCUPV PRESENT CAPITOL BUILDING,GAVE.MUCH ATTENTION TO PUBLIC LAND AND RAILROAD REGULATION POLICY, MADE SPECIAL PLEA FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND FREE TEXT BOOKS. FOUR ♦ T T • ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTIONS ' ESTABLISHED ' : ‘ in his ' Administration. !; - 1 ti - A.. ay . jfr ' iHic JFJF. Between the Administration Building and the Library Building on the Sul Ross State College campus, there is a monument honoring Lawrence Sullivan Ross Sul Ross State College opened its doors on June 14, 1920, twenty-two years after the death of the man for whom it was named—Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Sul Ross had many tributes paid to him after his death. Two of the more outstanding were the erec¬ tion of a statue of Sul Ross on the campus of Texas Agriculture and Mechanical College and the naming of a state college for him—our own Sul Ross State College. The statue on the campus of Texas A M was un¬ veiled in an impressive ceremony on Sunday, May 4, 1919. The permanent memorial to the former A M president was executed by Pompeo Coppini, a celebrated sculpter. Just who was Lawrence Sullivan Ross? The monu¬ ment that has been erected on the campus of Sul Ross College says that Ross was a former Texas Ranger captain, general in the Army of the Con¬ federate State of America, one-time sheriff of McLennan County, State Senator, A M College president, and governor of the state of Texas. Sul Ross was born at Benton ; s Fort, Iowa, on Sep¬ tember 27, 1838. His parents were Captain Shapley Prince and Katherine Fulkerson Ross, natives of Virginia. The family moved to Texas in 1839 after Captain Ross had traded two horses for fifteen hundred acres of land in the Lone Star State. Ross ' childhood was as eventful as one can be of a child who grew up on the frontier of Texas. He and his family had many narrow escapes from raid¬ ing Indians. In one incident, his father had appeared in the nick of time on horseback to ride down and snatch young Ross from the path of an onrushing party of Indians. Lawrence Sullivan Ross ' education was begun in the common schools of Texas, such as were to be found, before the Civil War. In 1856, at the age of eighteen, he entered Baylor University, located at the time at Independence, Texas. The following year, 1857, young Ross journeyed to Florence, Alabama, to attend Wesleyan University—one of the best edu¬ cational institutions in the South at the time. It was a long, tedious, and lonely journey, and it required nearly a month ' s travel for him to reach his destination. Little is known of the school life of Sullivan Ross at Wesleyan University, but he must have worked unusually hard because in 1859, he was graduated one year a head of his regular class. Upon graduation, Ross was appointed by Gov¬ ernor Houston as a captain of the Texas Rangers. On December 18, 1860, Ross led a company of sixty mounted volunteers in an attack on a Comanche village at the head of the Pease River. In the ensuing battle, a White woman was captured (It was thought 20

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The Executive Committee of the Alpine Commer¬ cial Club, composed of J. P. Wilson, F. E. Gillett, J. L. Crawford, and E. R. Bentley, sent Berkeley and Jack- son to Austin to support the bill. They also asked for the support of the surrounding towns, from which more than fifty telegrams were sent to the Legislature in Austin, emphasizing the pertinence of the bill. The Sul Ross Bill, No. 397 in the Senate, was passed March 11, 1917, without opposition in the Senate. At this time in his address, Jackson invited all of the State Senators to the Jackson-Harmon Ranch bcrbecue. Sam Harmon and J. D. Jackson were ranch partners, and they held an annual bar¬ becue at the ranch headquarters. The Sul Ross Bill was No. 677 in the House, and when first considered, it was defeated 42-30. The principal reason for the defeat was the small popu¬ lation in the area. A representative from Odessa asked Berkeley to take his place in the House de¬ bates. Berkeley pointed out to the House of Repre¬ sentatives that his section of the state paid more taxes than it received in return for education. Dr. B. F. Berkeley carried the Sul Ross fight to Austin. The bill was then passed in the House by a vote of 77-33 after an amendment allotting 100 acres for the school in Alpine instead of 50 acres was added. W. B. Hancock donated the 100 acres for the school. On April 4, 1917, Governor J. E. Ferguson signed this bill which provided not only for Sul Ross, but also for two other normal schools to be built at later dates. It was reported that Governor Ferguson said he didn ' t know where the money was going to come from to establish three new normals, but because of his friendship with Jackson and Hudspeth, he signed the bill. In a San Antonio newspaper, several citizens of Alpine noticed that the Board of Regents had de¬ cided to build the school in Kingsville before build¬ ing Sul Ross. When the Conference Committee of the Legislature was settling its differences in the dying hours of the 37th Legislature, a rider was placed on the bill that the school would be built in Alpine be¬ fore the other two schools. Dr. Berkeley was sent to Austin as the represen¬ tative of the citizens of Alpine. He went to see A. C. Goethe, president of the Board of Regents, and ex¬ plained why he thought the Board of Regents had made a mistake. Goethe said that the Board of Re¬ gents had acted with the advice of the attorney gen¬ eral, and hey felt that they were on firm ground. Berkeley told Goethe that the attorney general had made a mistake, and that he was going to that office next. Berkeley went to C. M. Cureton ' s (the attorney general) office and explained the Board of Regents ' error to him. He also pointed out the original legisla¬ tion. Cureton stated to Berkeley that he thought that the Doctor was mistaken, but that he would take him to the best man in his office. Cureton explained the problem to his subordinant and asked him to look into it. The lawyer told Berkeley to return the next morning at 10:30, and he would have had time to consider the question. At 10:30 the following morn¬ ing, the lawyer told Berkeley that he had been over¬ whelmed with too much work and hadn ' t had time to look into the problem. He asked Berkeley to return at 11:00 the next morning. When Berkeley arrived at the lawyer ' s office, the lawyer said he had not had time to thoroughly appraise the problem, but said, Old Boy, I tell you one thing. Alpine has got them skinned. Thus it was that the Sul Ross Normal was assured. Even though the Sul Ross Bill stated that the school must be ready for occupancy not later than October 1, 1919, it was not until June 14, 1920, that the buildings were completed. The reasons for this were World War I and the poor fiscal conditions of the state. This was prior to the time when Texas was oil rich. During these delays, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to repeal Sul Ross, but it and all such bills since have been met ad¬ versely. Construction was started on the Administration Building in 1919. So it was that the headlines of the January 16, 1918, Alpine Avalance, Sul Ross Normal College Is now Assured, let the people of West Texas know that their effort had been to great avail. —The material was borrowed from the Alpine Avalance, Vol. 70, No. 39, June 28, 1962. 19

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at first that she was an Indian squaw). The woman turned out to be the long lost Cynthia Ann Parker who had been captured by the Indians at the Fort Parker Massacre in Limestone County in Mcy, 1836, when she was about nine years of age. Ross sent her and her little daughter, Prairie Flower, to her uncle who lived near Weatherford. Two sons had escaped the battle. One of them became the most famous of the latter day Comanches—Quanah Parker. In 1861, war between the North and South was becoming so iminent that Ross tendered his resigna¬ tion to Governor Houston. Houston did not wish to accept the resignation and appointed Ross as his aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel. Ross refused the appointed and joined the infant army of the Confederacy as a private. It was not long before Ross held the rank of Major in Confederate army. Just previous to the three days battle at Pea Ridge, Missouri, General Ben McCulloch sent Major Ross with 557 men around the rear of the enemy to cut off their supply trains. After a bitterly contested fight at Keitsville, Missouri, Ross returned to the command with eleven prisoners, sixty cavalry horses and many mules after destroying a supply train and without losing a man in the engagement. In 1862, Sul Ross—now a colonel—was recom¬ mended for appointment as Brigadier General. He was only twenty-three years of age at the time, and he objected to his name ' s being sent to Richmond because he felt that he was too young and inex¬ perienced for so high and responsible a position. At any rate Ross continued to be recommended for the appointment until on February 5, 1864, the ap¬ pointment was formally made to rank from December 21, 1863. The value of Lawrence Sullivan Ross to the Confed¬ erate Cause cannot be estimated. He served the en¬ tire four years of the war taking part in one hundred thirty-five battles, and his fearlessness in fight is shown by the fact that five horses were shot from under him. He returned penniless to his home in 1865 at the age of twenty-seven, facing the problem of earning a livelihood on the Texas frontier. He turned to farm¬ ing, leaving agriculture only briefly for two years to serve as sheriff of McLennan County. He was elected to the office on December 2, 1873, and he earned the title of The Model Sheriff of Texas. He returned to farming, and in 1880—after two crop failures—Ross decided to leave the farm to his oldest son and enter politics. He was elected to the Seventeenth Legislature in 1880 as a senator. He served on many committees, including the Committees on Educational Affairs, Internal Improvements, Finance, State Affairs, Ag¬ riculture Affairs, and Stock and Stock Expenses. Senator Ross was elected for the term 1881 to 1884, but in a called session of the Seventeenth Legislature, on May 3, 1882, a reappointment bill was passed thus calling the election of a new Senate. This gave Ross only a two year term, and he declined to seek the office again. In 1886, Sul Ross was a unanimous nominee of the Democratic State Convention for governor. In the election that followed in November, Lawrence Sul¬ livan Ross was elected governor by an overwhelming majority: Ross—228,776; A. M. Cochran (Republican) —65,236; E. L. Dahoney (Prohibitionist)—19,186. T. B. Wheeler of Eastland was chosen for Lieutenant-Gov¬ ernor, and James S. Hogg for Attorney General. Sul Ross was inaugurated into the Governor ' s office on January 18, 1887. In his address on this occasion, he discussed the problems of the state in general, and asked that the members of this Twentieth Legislature feel a common obligation to do justice to all—the humblest as well as the highest. Ross was the first governor to occupy the present capitol building, and he gave much thought to the development of the capitol grounds. He caused legis¬ lation to develop concerning the Public Lands and the establishment of the Railroad Commission. He made a special plea for public schools and free text books. On July 1, 1890, the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas unani¬ mously elected Governor Ross to the office of president of the College to take effect at the ex¬ piration of his term of office as Governor. In offering this responsible place to him they said: We believe that your election to office will meet with the hearty and unqualified approval of the people of the entire State, and that they will regard your acceptance of this call to their service as an additional evidence of your devotion to their highest and best interests. Sul Ross accepted this call, and on February 1, 1891, he assumed the duties of office in which he laboured earnestly for the advancement of this insti¬ tution, and became one of its most beloved presidents. During his stay at A M, Sul Ross brought about many improvements. He started a building program in which many new building were added. He also made improvements along other lines. The Battalion, the college newspaper, was established during the 1894-95 session, along with a college annual, The Olio. Ross ' death on January 3, 1898, followed a long siege of illness. A battalion of cadets escorted the remains to a special train which carried members of the family, faculty, directors, officers, and students of the college to Waco where Ross was buried in Oakwood Cemetary by the side of his father. 21