One of Frontier Village & Museum’s most popular hands-on programs returns this fall, giving participants the chance to experience the traditional craft of blacksmithing in a historic setting. Beginner Blacksmithing, led by Steven Mildward of Black Dog’s Foundry, offers an introduction to the skills and techniques used by blacksmiths in the 1800s.

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution organizes the annual event, and representatives of DAR’s Martha Jefferson Randolph chapter will ring bells at 3:00 p.m. at Parkside Baptist Church after our chapter meeting on Thursday. It is a symbolic act reminiscent of the church bells that rang in Philadelphia when the Constitution was signed in 1787.

Thomas Peyton Steger was born in Tennessee on March 15, 1852. In Bonham, he practiced law and served as the president of the Fannin County Bar Association. One of Thomas’s most famous cases was his representation of the unknown heirs of Tom Bean, a Fannin County lawyer and surveyor who had great wealth at the time of his death in 1887. Thomas managed Rayburn’s congressional campaign in 1912 when Rayburn first ran to represent the Fourth District in the U.S. House of Representatives. photo courtesy of the Fannin County Museum of History

United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Ryan Raybould announced that on Sept. 9, Tammy Sue Kerns, 58, pleaded guilty to second degree murder for killing her newborn son on or about Aug. 4, 1988, at the U.S. Air Force Regional Hospital at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas.

1963 – Baptist Church bombing: Four children are killed in the bombing of an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by the white supremacist terrorist group the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Four members of a local KKK chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity," the explosion at the church killed four girls and injured between 14 and 22 other people. The 1965 investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation determined the bombing had been committed by four known KKK members and segregationists: Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry. However, it was not until 1977 that the first suspect, Robert Chambliss, was prosecuted by Attorney General of Alabama William "Bill" Baxley and convicted of the first degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair. As part of an effort by state and federal prosecutors to reopen and try cold cases involving murder and domestic terrorism from the civil rights era, the State of Alabama placed both Blanton Jr. and Cherry on trial, who were each convicted of four counts of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Future United States Senator Doug Jones successfully prosecuted Blanton and Cherry. Herman Cash died in 1994, and was never charged with his alleged involvement in the bombing. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the civil rights movement and also contributed to support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Congress.

Join us on Saturday, September 26 for the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum's 4th To Hell & Back Motorcycle Poker Run. Don't ride a bike? That's OK – come on out to the museum from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. to visit the vendor booths, have lunch, participate in the silent auction and raffle and listen to music by Jenn Ford that will start at 12:30. There are some wonderful auction items including gift certificates, decorative items, fine art photo portrait certificate and much more. photo by Allen Rich