Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Inner Space caverns was discovered by the Texas highway department while drilling for core depths to build I-35. They needed 25 feet thick, but kept losing their bit to open air. They drilled a 24" wide hole and rode down on the bit to see what was up. This is what they found. Can you imagine being the first people to ever see this incredible place? It makes me wonder what else is there underneath all that Texas vastness, just waiting to be discovered.

[Shakey Jake]

On this date in 1863, the USS Hatteras was sunk by the CSS Alabama. The Hatteras, a converted merchant ship formerly named the St. Mary, was commissioned in October 1861 and first saw duty in the South Atlantic. After assignment to the blockading squadron in the Gulf of Mexico, she was raiding along the Confederate coast when she was sunk by Confederate captain Raphael Semmes. She lies in sixty feet of water twenty miles south of Galveston. The federal government has been able to preserve the wreck for scientific and historical research.
The CSS Alabama was sunk in June 1864 by USS Kearsarge at the Battle of Cherbourg outside the port of Cherbourg, France.

[Shakey Jake]

Once again, this is a repost from the Traces of Texas facebook group:
The Texas quote of the day comes from our old friend Mary Bunton, one of the few women who ever rode the Chisholm Trail. She wrote a fascinating account of that experience entitled "A Bride on the Chisholm Trail," from which this is taken. She was born in 1863 and died in 1952 at the age of 89 and I always think about the changes she saw in her life. Here she talks about living in a dugout home on a North Texas ranch:
"It seemed that the living quarters on ranches in that section consisted of “dugouts” at that time. I wonder if any of you have ever seen, heard or read of a “dugout?" I never had until I first visited my husband’s ranch. You may depend on it, I was shocked to find not only cowboys but large families living in them apparently comfortable and contented.
Can you of this deluxe age imagine people living in dirt houses? That was what a “dugout” was—just a good-sized square hole dug back into the south side of a hill. On the north side of the room, a special place was dug out to be used as a fireplace. Just above this a round hole was dug through to the top of the hill for the smoke to escape, and the cowboys called it the dugout chimney. On the south side of the room was an opening without doors that gave light and ventilation. There were no windows in the dugout and only a dirt floor. In times of storm a wagon sheet or tarpaulin was fastened across the doorway. It was in such a dugout that the cowboys spent their time when they were not at work on the range.
If the weather was too inclement to work on the outside, the cowboys would bring in their saddles and bridles and grease them. When I asked them why they did this, they were too polite to laugh at my ignorance and just quietly told me that grease preserved leather and would protect it from the weather. The cowboys were expert in washing and mending their saddle blankets and their stirrup leathers.
They also prepared and ate their meals in the dugout and, as there were no tables or chairs, they had to squat around on the ground to eat. They slept in bunks built on either side of the small dugout room or rolled up in their blankets on the floor or out in the open. Some of the dugouts had several rooms and were satisfactory homes, the largest room being used as a place to have their visitors.
The dugouts were recreational centers, too, and, on Saturday nights and Sundays, cowboys came from near-by ranches to visit. On these occasions, they would sit around the open fire and tell hair- raising stories of their riding, roping, and branding, or thrum their banjos and guitars and sing their beautiful songs of life on the range."
----- Mary Bunton, "A Bride on the Old Chisholm Trail in 1886," 1939

[Shakey Jake]

“I said, ‘Thank you, Lord, for letting me die in the oldest honky-tonk in Texas.’ I wanted to die. All this had happened, and I was going home to see Eddy, Brenda, and my mother.”
----- singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver talks to God after having a heart attack onstage while performing at Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas, on August 25, 2001. Billy Joe's wife, mother, and son had all died within the previous two years and he thought it was his time. He survived and lived on for 19 more years, passing away in 2020. Shown here: Billy Joe and Willie Nelson outside the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, 1973.

[Shakey Jake]

Another good one from Traces of Texas:
Goodness gracious, the Lawrence T. Jones III archive at SMU's Degolyer Library continues to blow me away. Take a look at this 1874 stereograph of a smokehouse near Buffalo Gap, Texas, which was taken by George Robertson. Buffalo hunters didn't just skin the buffaloes and collect their hides, they also held on to quite a bit of meat for their own consumption. The meat was salted and then put into a pit that had been lined with buffalo hides. After about a few days, the meat was removed and placed on racks inside a makeshift, homemade smokehouse like the one shown here. Smoking the meat for a couple of weeks caused a good crust to form, which allowed the meat to be much more easily stored and handled. This is a remarkable photo in that I don't believe I've ever seen one of these before, not like this, out on the plains like this with no house nearby.
Thanks to Mr. Jones for donating his awesome archive to SMU and to the Degolyer folks for making it available online. You can follow the Degolyer here --- and you should! @degolyerlibrary

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1891 the Rio Grande Railroad was robbed of some $75,000 as well as government mail when a train was derailed by bandits. José Mosqueda, the leader of the outlaws, was identified as the culprit and pursued by Brownsville city marshall Santiago Brito, and they both became part of the folklore of the Texas Mexican community. "El Corrido de José Mosqueda" was composed in the 1890s to commemorate the event. A version of almost a half century later presents Brito as a coward fleeing from Mosqueda after a skirmish and Mosqueda as a hero.

[Shakey Jake]

Holt Missionary Baptist Church. Holt is south of Ranch Road 502 and four miles northwest of Skeeterville in northwestern San Saba County. The area was probably first settled in the late 1880s by the Leonard Asbury Hardman family. To acquire neighbors, the Hardmans offered a homesite to anyone who would move to the area; Garrett and Florence Burk were the first to accept this offer. Soon the Bill Holt family arrived and opened the first store. As more families began to settle in the area, the community gained a general merchandise store, school, church, blacksmith shop, gristmill, and cotton gin. The Holt post office, named in honor of the Holt family, was open from 1900 to 1918. A new school was erected around 1905 to replace the Antelope Gap or Antelope Creek school, which had been moved to the new community and renamed Holt. In 1933 the population of Holt was reported as twenty-five, and it remained at this level until 1947, after which no further population statistics were available. In 1947 Holt had only a store and a school. Eventually its school was consolidated with the Richland Springs schools. The Missionary Baptist church built at Holt in 1971 was still active in the community until 1983. Photo by Leash Forbus.

[Shakey Jake]

The wife said she wanted to visit London, Italy, and Paris so we took a road trip. She wasn't very talkative though. Did I miss something?
Jake

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another great one from Traces of Texas facebook group:
Traces of Texas reader Robert Brandon's wife's stepfather, Robert George, was a photographer during World War II. He was born in Missouri but raised in Houston and was living in Houston when the war began. Robert served in the National Guard and was assigned to the 111th Operations Squadron based at Ellington Air Field when the war started. As a photographer, he flew on 50 missions with various squadrons in North Africa and Europe, leaving behind some amazing photographs This is just one them, showing a B-17 that has had one of its wings blown off by flak above farmland somewhere in Europe.
How incredible is this image, folks? Talk about some intense photography! Thank you, Robert. Truly a great capture by your step father-in-law!
P.S. Robert sent in other photos and they are also very good and I will post them by and by.

[Shakey Jake]

A marvelous 1911 photo of a parade procession in Lufkin, Texas. I don't know what the celebrations was but by the way the people are dressed it must have been very important.