Ima Vacationing.

It’s August in Houston. Look for new blogs in September!

Tugboat Ima

       

 Ima Hogg had a boat named after her. Built in the early 1900s, the tugboat IMA HOGG was a fixture in coastal Texas waters. She once towed a barge carrying 400 Texas sheriffs and tax collectors down Buffalo Bayou to Galveston, at a gathering of the Texas Sheriffs’ Association. Ima, as far as we know, was not present. --Galveston Daily News, July 14, 1905.

         In 1908 when a New England visitor asked how the IMA HOGG got her name, “He was told that she was named for the daughter of one of the greatest men Texas ever produced.”

--Galveston Daily News, October 30, 1908.

         In the summer of 1911 Ima sailed to Germany aboard the Hanover, a German ship which left from Galveston. And there was the IMA HOGG, decked out in bunting and signal flags sailing, alongside, dipping its colors to honor its namesake. “The matter was a complete surprise for Miss Hogg,” said a Galveston newspaper, “and she acknowledged the compliment in a most charming manner.”

        She would never escape her name.

The Panther’s Story, 1899

With apologies to the author of this 40-year-old column, here is the panther’s role in the 1899 hunt staged by J.S. Hogg for William Jennings Bryan.

Let us hope the panther enjoyed his place on South Congress Avenue. No doubt the meat market owner kept him well fed.

J.S. Hogg, W.J. Bryan, and the Great Panther Hunt

Walter Palmer , recently in the news for killing a lion, might have been better off on a panther hunt like the one ex-governor James Stephen Hogg put on for his friend William Jennings Bryan, who visited him in Austin in 1899.

For the panther’s side of this story, see next week’s blog.