All eyes were on Matt Larks Friday night as the UNT guitarist played the role of Charlie Christian at the inaugural Charlie Christian Jazz Festival in Bonham. A year of planning and work by Bonham Tourism Committee, in particular Mike Weber, resulted in a remarkable evening of jazz featuring three bands.

Hailed as one of the largest working "working" farm heritage events in the southern U.S., Esbenshade Farms hosted the 20th Annual Golden Harvest Day June 14-15. This event was free to the public as the farm welcomed exhibitors and spectators alike.

On Saturday, June 22, Farmersville, Texas will celebrate Audie Murphy Day. This is the fourteenth year for this popular Main Street Program event, which was named “Best Promotional Event” by the Texas Downtown Association.

Without the railroad, North Texas as we know it today may not exist. Before the smoke had cleared at San Jacinto, the leaders of the Republic of Texas recognized the importance of the new steam locomotive technology to the young nation’s development.

1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad. Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. Due to the troubled political situation in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue and the Americans provide the site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. The torch-bearing arm displayed at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and in New York's Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the World started a drive for donations to complete the project that attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. The statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.