On June 19, 1865 — nearly two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, at long last received official notification that they were free from bondage. That historic day is now called Juneteenth, a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth.”
The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to those states (including Texas) that had joined the Confederacy; the enslaved individuals in states that remained loyal to the Union were not freed until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on December 6, 1865. Nonetheless, and long before it was designated a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth ultimately took on nationwide significance as a commemoration of the overall demise of slavery in the United States.
The earliest celebrations of Juneteenth (first widely known as the annual Day of Jubilee) were held in Texas and can be traced as far back as 1866. Over time, these celebrations within the Lone Star State were characterized by an abundance of both fellowship and food and also included everything from rodeo competitions to baseball games.
Another trademark of numerous Juneteenth festivities throughout the years involved transportation. Quite a few people, wearing their finest clothes, would travel to those celebrations in horse-drawn vehicles that were elegantly decorated with flowers.
An example of this tradition can be seen in the accompanying photo that was taken by George McCuistion (1878-1928) on June 13, 1913, in Corpus Christi, Texas. The person pictured here is Daniel N. Leathers Sr. (1855-1922), seated in an elaborately festooned carriage and all set to go to a Juneteenth event. Leathers was born in North Carolina and graduated from a college in Alabama. He eventually settled in Corpus Christi, where he became both a successful merchant and one of his community’s most prominent citizens.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
Additional information on the history of Juneteenth is available at https://www.archives.gov/news/articles/juneteenth-original-document and https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/juneteenth-photographs/
Transportation History 
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