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NEWS BRIEFS by Barbara EavesSan Jacinto Museum of HistoryThe museum’s November fundraiser, “An Elegant Evening withHistory,” will be in the San Jacinto Monument. Also comingthis fall will be an exhibition about the U.S.-Mexican War,beautifully illustrated with Samuel Chamberlain’s watercolorsfrom the museum’s own large collection. Watch the website fordetails about both events: www.sanjacinto-museum.org Themuseum bookstore has a limited number of first-edition, hardto-findbooks about Chamberlain published by the Texas StateHistorical Association: Sam Chamberlain’s Mexican War byWm. H. Goetzmann ($49.95); and My Confessions: Recollectionsof a Rogue by Chamberlain with preface by Goetzmann($60).Greater Houston Preservation AllianceNominations for the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance’s30th annual Good Brick Awards are due at 4 p.m., September18, 2009. Rules and nomination forms are online at www.ghpa.org/awards. These will be presented during the CornerstoneDinner in February.Tours? You bet! GHPA monthly tours of Houston neighborhoodsare scheduled on Sundays, through November. TheJuly-through-September treks start at 6 p.m.; October’s and November’sbegin at 2 p.m. They usually last about 90 minutes andcost $10 for adults; $7 for GHPA members and students withvalid IDs. Children 11 and under are free. Check the website forthe schedule and to register. www.ghpa.org/tours.The Houston Public Library – The downtown JuliaIdeson Building is being restored and a new wing – part of theoriginal plans drawn by Ralph Adams Cram 80 years ago – isunder construction. The $32 million project should be completedby spring of 2010.The present building will serve as a multi-purpose publiclibrary with meeting rooms, exhibition space, reading rooms,a new photo lab, a conservation lab, and more. The new wingwill house the bulk of the city’s archival collection and includea first-floor reading room much like today’s Texas Room. Pleasesee Houston History, Spring 2009, pages 7-9, for architect BarryMoore’s article.Meanwhile, the city kicked off Phoebe Tudor’s $32 millionfund raising effort with $10 million. More than half of the restis now in the bank, but there’s $9.5 million to go. Every dimehelps. To contribute, contact Margaret Lawler, executive director,Julia Ideson Library Preservation Partners, 2726 Bissonnet,#240-203, Houston, TX 77005.Kemo Curry, manager of the Houston Metropolitan ResearchCenter, is looking for volunteers who know their history. Shehas two jobs:1. Transcribing oral history interviews. Some of these conversationshave already been posted on the Web. Take a look athttp://digital.houstonlibrary.org.2. Re-housing and indexing some of the library’s most heavilyused files.Finally, the HMRC will have different hours of operationduring construction. The schedule:July 1 through August 31, 2009 – open Mondays,Thursdays, Saturdays, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.September 1 through October 31, 2009 – OpenMondays through Fridays, by appointment only.To make an appointment, call the Telephone Reference Serviceat 832-393-1313.Whence Houston’s wards?Have you ever wondered about Houston’s wards – what andwhere they were, how each was unique, what they are liketoday? If so, plan to attend “Houston’s Original Six Wards:Then and Now,” a course co-sponsored by the Houston HistoryAssociation and Rice University. Six historians will explorethe wards, taking a look at each one’s residents, architecture,workplaces, community institutions and neighborhoods as theyexisted in the past and as they are today.Classes will be held on Tuesday evenings beginning September22. For more information or to register, contact Rice University’sSusanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies at713-348-4803 or gscs@rice.edu.San Jacinto Symposium: Did archeologistsnail the surrender spot?Archeologists said they believe they have found the spot wherehundreds of defeated Mexican soldiers disarmed before surrenderingto Texas Gen. Sam Houston in April 1836. It’s abouta mile southeast of the San Jacinto Battleground on propertybelonging to NRG Energy.Unfired musket balls, bayonets and cavalry ornamentswere unearthed there last fall, lined up in rows in a spacetwenty yards wide by 200 yards long. “It was as if they’d beendropped,” said archeologist Roger Moore, who leads the SanJacinto field work. Indeed, this may be what happened, becausethe placement of the artifacts agrees with many historicalrecords and memoirs.These findings—plus more than 1,000 other archeologicaldiscoveries since the Friends of the San Jacinto Battlegroundbegan its systematic study in 2003—gave a six-man panel plentyto talk about at the 2009 San Jacinto Symposium last April.NRG provided access to its land in 2006 after the Friendsreceived an American Battlefield Protection Program Grantfrom the National Park Service. NRG also funded half the costof the 2009 research with a grant of more than $20,000 thentransferred title to all artifacts to the State of Texas where theywill be kept in a certified archeological repository. From there,they can be borrowed for museum exhibition.Texas History makes newsOld news is making good news these days, as KUHF joins theHouston Chronicle, the Houston Business Journal, KTBU-TV(Channel 55) and KRPC-TV with regular Texas history newsfeatures.Vol. 6, No. 3–Sports 51