On This Date, August 16th...

1812: General Hull surrenders Detroit & Michigan territory to England. I read that Detroit is trying to make a comeback. It was suffering from 45% unemployment because the big ones of the auto industry moved to other locations, leaving the city high and dry. I think now the State Department is going over the legalities of the terms that General Hull surrendered Detroit to England in 1812 and say England won Detroit fair and square and it is now back under British rule as far as the U.S. is concerned.




1925: Fess Parker Fort Worth Texas Fess Elisha Parker was born either on August 16th, 1924 or August the 16th, 1925, take your pick. Wikipedia says he was born in 1924, on-line This Day in History says 1925.. He is probably best remembered for playing Davy Crockett and wearing a coonskin hat in the Disney movie. However, he also wore a coonskin hat playing Daniel Boone on a TV series. He also played James Andrews of Andrews Raiders in Disney’s GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE, which sort of started here in Marietta but really got underway a few miles up the track at Kennesaw… or was the name of it Big Shanty then? Not long ago we were in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta andread a sign said James Andrew was hung something like 40 or 50 feet from the sign, which would have been across Memorial Drive. I looked over to the spot the sign was pointing to and saw Fess Parker swinging at the end of a rope.




1977: Elvis Presley died of a heart ailment at Graceland at 42 and the music stopped.