Texas

Texas Civil War Museum to close; artifacts will be sold

Published

5 months ago

September 6, 2024

Texas Civil War Museum to close; artifacts will be sold

The Texas Civil War Museum will close its doors on Oct. 31 after 18 years of showcasing artifacts from the Union and Confederacy.

The 15,500-square-foot building has been sold and artifacts on display will be sent to a cosigner, The Horse Soldier, in Pennsylvania, the museum announced in a Facebook video last week. Those interested in acquiring any of the objects can contact the cosigner.

Founded in 2006 by Judy and Ray Richey, the museum housed artifacts from the couple’s collection and the former Texas Confederate Museum at the Texas Capitol. The items from the Austin museum, which closed in 1988, are owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and will not be sold.

In the Facebook video, Dennis Partrich, director of sales and marketing at the museum, thanked the public for its support.

“All of us here at the Texas Civil War Museum want to encourage you not to mourn, but to celebrate this collection, its presentation of American history and the willingness of the Richey family to share with the public their collection,” Partrich said.

The museum store, which sells Civil War and Victorian period memorabilia, will remain open until the last day.

“If you’ve put off a purchase, don’t delay,” Partrich said. “Inventory is limited to the stock on hand and once it’s sold, it’s gone.”

In April 2023, the museum announced it would close to coincide with the owner’s retirement on Dec. 30. The decision was reversed later that year, with the museum’s board citing an outpour of support.

To continue operating, the museum planned to sell some of its high-value artifacts and increased admission fees from $7 to $12 for adults and $4 to $6 for children ages 6-12.

The museum’s artifacts were estimated to be worth around $20 million to $25 million last year, The Fort Worth Star Telegram reported.

Some of the notable artifacts have included a cigar partially smoked by U.S. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, a Victorian-era dress that belonged to Winston Churchill’s mother and a pocket knife carried by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Marcus Richey, the director of the museum, could not be immediately reached Friday afternoon for comment on the decision to close.

In the comment section of the Facebook announcement, supporters lamented the loss of the museum. “The public can no longer learn [about] and enjoy these wonderful artifacts,” one person wrote. Another person called the museum “a true treasure.”

The museum’s mission, according to its website, has been to preserve Civil War-era artifacts that relate to the “role Texas played in the conflict.”

David Bedford, the museum’s education director, told The Dallas Morning News last year that the artifacts are meant to be educational. “This is about the people, the men and women who served,” he said. “This goes more toward them than what side is right or wrong.”

The museum has drawn criticism, though, from some community members who have taken offense with the Confederate relics and accused the museum of downplaying the history of slavery.

Bud Kennedy, a columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, wrote last year that the museum was a “whitewashed attraction that overlooked Black history.”

In 2018, the museum was considered as a landing spot for a statue of Robert E. Lee that was removed from a park in Dallas. The controversial monument was ultimately sent to auction in 2019 and sold to a golf resort in West Texas.

Source link

Related Topics:arts & entertainment Featured Fort Worth Museums

Click to comment

Texas

Northbound East Loop 820 closed after possible road rage shooting, police say

Published

45 minutes ago

January 27, 2025

Press Room

Northbound East Loop 820 closed after possible road rage shooting, police say

CBS News Texas

Live

FORT WORTH — Northbound lanes of East Loop 820 are closed after a person was found shot in their vehicle Monday night.

Fort Worth police said east units were called to East Loop 820 & Meadowbrook around 6:45 p.m. for a traffic hazard. Responding officers found an unconscious person in a vehicle bleeding and discovered the victim had been shot.

The victim was taken to the hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.

There is no one in custody at this time and Fort Worth PD said this is believed to be a road rage incident. An investigation is underway.

TxDOT officials said the roadway will be closed for several hours.

S.E. Jenkins

S.E. Jenkins is a digital content producer for CBS Texas. She has also been a Digital Content Producer in Tallahassee and Myrtle Beach. S.E. graduated with journalism degrees from Texas State University, Aarhus Universitet and City, University of London.

Source link

Texas

ICE begins immigration raids across Texas

Published

12 hours ago

January 27, 2025

Press Room

ICE begins immigration raids across Texas

TEXAS — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted raids around Texas on Sunday, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Sally Sparks, DEA Houston Division spokesperson, told Spectrum News, “The DEA Houston division along with our Department of Justice partners, is assisting DHS and other federal law enforcement partners with their targeted enforcement actions.”

Sparks added that the raids occurred in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Brownsville and McAllen.

The DEA Houston Division , along with our Department of Justice partners, is assisting DHS and other federal law enforcement partners with their immigration enforcement efforts. pic.twitter.com/AqgjXeXDQ2
— DEAHouston (@DEAHOUSTONDiv) January 26, 2025
Advertisement

On Jan. 20 and 21, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency concerning immigration, enacting multiple executive orders.

The first group of active-duty military personnel arrived in El Paso and San Diego last week to bolster border security, according to defense officials.

The Associated Press reported on Jan. 23 that no requests had been made to use military bases for migrant housing or troops for law enforcement.

Source link

Texas

Multi-agency operation targeted immigrants in Austin and San Antonio

Published

24 hours ago

January 26, 2025

Press Room

Multi-agency operation targeted immigrants in Austin and San Antonio

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Agents from multiple federal agencies carried out immigration enforcement operations in Austin and San Antonio on Sunday, federal officials said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives collaborated on “enhanced targeted operations” in both cities, an ICE spokesperson said. A similar operation took place Sunday morning in the Rio Grande Valley, a local station reported.

The spokesperson said the operations were to “enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.” The official did not say what kind of offenses the targeted individuals were suspected of committing or whether anyone was detained.

KXAN first reported ICE was conducting an operation in the Austin area on Sunday afternoon through a spokesperson for the DEA’s Houston division. DEA spokesperson Sally Sparks said the agency’s Houston office “mobilized every agent in our division,” whose jurisdiction spans from Brownsville to Corpus Christi, Del Rio and Waco.

“We got information that we had to mobilize, so we mobilized,” Sparks told The Texas Tribune. “The majority of our agents assisted.”

A Houston DEA post on X on Sunday showed photos of law enforcement officers in a residential area escorting a man in handcuffs.

Neither ICE nor the DEA answered questions about the scale of the operations. Spokespeople for the Travis and Bexar counties’ sheriff’s offices said they had not been notified of the operations. A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said Doggett did not receive advance notice that ICE would conduct an operation in Austin.

Sunday’s operations came less than one week after President Donald Trump began his second term as president and promised mass deportations across the country. Trump issued more than a dozen immigration-related executive orders last week, including halting the use of an app that lets migrants make appointments to request asylum and authorizing immigration officers to raid sensitive locations such as churches, schools and hospitals.

The Trump administration has also directed federal officials to investigate and potentially prosecute local officials who interfere with deportation efforts. Some local Texas officials said they are ready to assist Trump, though they have offered scant details on how they would cooperate. A group of Texas lawmakers asked state education officials last week for clear guidance on how school districts should prepare for federal immigration enforcement.

Federal officials also conducted raids in Chicago on Sunday, and ICE officials have been directed to increase the number of people they arrest from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500, The Washington Post reported Sunday. ICE made 956 arrests Sunday and sent 554 requests to take custody of individuals currently being held in jails, prisons or other confinement facilities, the agency said in a Sunday evening post on X.

Trump’s actions over the past week have left some migrants stranded on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the threat of deportation has left others in fear. Texas is home to approximately 1.6 million undocumented people, according to a Pew Research Center Report.

Source link