Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

If you ever get near Winchester, TX stop in at Murphy's Steak House. You'll love it. You get steak as every bit as good as Ruth Chris for a fraction of the price. Winchester is a bit northwest of LaGrange. Winchester, named for Winchester, was first settled in 1827 by John Ingram, who received a grant nearby on the Colorado River still known as Ingram's Prairie. The town itself was platted in 1857 by John Gromme on lands originally granted to E. Campbell and J. F. Berry in 1831. A post office was established in 1866, and by 1900 the town had eighteen businesses. As a shipping point on the Waco branch of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, the community served a wide area of prosperous farms. Due to improved roads and the decline of cotton farming, the number of businesses dropped to nine by 1950, and the population dropped to 220. By the 1980s the population was fifty, and the settlement had four businesses. Most of the surrounding farmland had reverted to pasture for cattle, and additional revenues came from oil production. Through 2000 Winchester still had a population of fifty. I'll add that the Steak House also serves as the Post Office!

[Shakey Jake]

Another great read from Traces of Texas today:
The Texas Quote of the Day was written by Teddy Blue Abbott, the young cowboy shown in this photo, and it is a GREAT one:
"There were worlds of cattle in Texas after the Civil War. They had multiplied and run wild while the men was away fighting for the Confederacy, especially down in the southern part, between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. By the time the war was over they was down to four dollars a head -- when you could find a buyer. Here was all these cheap, long-horned steers overrunning Texas; here was the rest of the country crying for beef -- and no railroads to get them out. So they trailed them out, across hundreds of miles of wild country thick with Indians. In 1866 the first Teas herds crossed the Red River. In 1867 the town of Abilene was founded at the end of the Kansas Pacific Railroad and that was when the trail really started. From that time on the big drives were made every year, and the cowboy was born...
Those first tail outfits in the seventies were sure tough. It was a new business and had to develop. Work oxen were used instead of horses to pull the wagon, and if one played out, they could rope a steer and yoke him up. They had very little grub and they usually ran out of that and lived off of straight beef. They had only three or four horses to the man, mostly with sore backs, because the old-time saddle ate both ways, the horse's back and the cowboy's pistol pocket. They had no tents, no tarps and damn few slickers. They never kicked, because those boys was raised under just the same conditions as there was on the trail -- corn meal and bacon for grub, dirt floors in the houses and no luxuries. In the early days in Texas, in the sixties, then they gathered their cattle, they used to pack what they needed on a horse and go out for weeks on a cow hunt they called it then. That was before the name roundup was invented, and before they had anything so civilized as mess wagons. And I say, that is the way those first trail hands were raised. Take her as she comes and like it. They used to brag that they could go anyplace a cow could and a stand anything a horse could. It was their life.
Most all of them were Southerners, and they were a wild, reckless bunch. For dress they wore wide-brimmed beaver hats, black or brown with a low crown, fancy shirts, high-heeled boots and sometimes a vest. Their clothes and saddles were all homemade. Most of them had an army coat with cape, which was a slicker and blanket, too. Lay on your saddle blanket and cover up with a coat was about the only bed used on the Texas trail at first. A few had a big buffalo robe to rollup in, but if they ever got good and wet you never had time to dry them, so they were not popular, All had a pair of bullhide chaps, or leggings they called them then. They were good in the brush and wet weather, but in fine weather were left in the wagon."
----- E.C. "Teddy Blue" Abbott, "We Pointed Them North," 1939. Teddy Blue was 18 years old and had already spent several years in the saddle when this photo photo was taken. He had been born in Cranwich, England in 1860, and was brought to the West by his parents as a boy. The Abbotts settled in Lincoln, Nebraska at a time when the region was overrun with Texas cattle and cowboys heading north on trail drives. Teddy Blue's father decided to try his luck in the booming business and bought cattle from Texas. Teddy , only 10 years old, when he first became a trail cowboy, went to Texas and was allowed to help herd them to Nebraska in hopes that the open air would improve his frail health. The experience, Abbott said later, "made a cowboy out of me. Nothing could have changed me after that." Teddy Blue worked on the range throughout the 1870s and 1880s. His memoirs of cowboy life -- from the dangerous trail drives to the off-season shenanigans in town -- was published in 1939 and, on account of its honesty and the fact that it dealt with quite a few mature, "adult" themes, marked a new era in the historiography of the Old West. It's clear to me when I read "Lonesome Dove" that Larry McMurtry was well-acquainted with Teddy's autobiography!

[Shakey Jake]

Per TSHA:
On this day in 1837, eighteen Texas Rangers fought 150 to 180 Kichai (Keechi) Indians in present-day Archer County in a conflict called the battle of Stone Houses. In mid-October 1837, a ranger company pursued the raiding Kichais up the Colorado River. Lt. A. B. Van Benthusen and seventeen men split from the main group and headed north to the Brazos. Eventually, they found the Kichais. Cherokee and Delaware Indians who were present attempted to act as peace agents, but when one ranger killed an Indian and took a plug of tobacco from the dead man’s body the infuriated Kichais attacked. The rangers sought cover in a shallow ravine, but after fierce fighting, the Kichais set fire to the prairie and smoked them out. In the ensuing chaos, some rangers escaped into the woods. Eight rangers survived the battle, which was so named after three stone mounds that looked like houses to the Indians.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1918, World War I came to an end. The armistice found the two most prominent Texas units on active service in France. The Ninetieth Division was fighting its way through the Meuse-Argonne, while the Thirty-Sixth Division was resting behind the lines after suffering heavy casualties in the same offensive. A total of 198,000 Texans saw service in the armed forces during the course of the war. Five thousand one hundred and seventy-one Texans, including one nurse, died in the armed services; 4,748 of the dead served in the army. More than a third of the total deaths occurred inside the United States, many of them as a result of the influenza epidemic of 1918. Four Texans were awarded the Medal of Honor. In a trend that would become even more marked during World War II, military camps were established in Texas to train men for service and the state was the main location for pilot training for military aviation.

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T:
My, my, my ... the things y'all send in. Traces of Texas reader Margie Thibert sent in this remarkable bit of Texana, a wedding present that Janis Joplin gave to Margie when Margie got married. Janis was an artist major at Lamar, and so was Margie's roommate Annette Clark. The system had put Janis in a room with two Pentacostal preacher's daughters and of course that didn't work so Janis stayed in Margie's room. Margie thought about asking Janis to be in the wedding but "I was afraid she'd say f*** in front of my parents and I'd be disowned." Janis made this as they were studying Picasso's Blue Period, painting it on some kind of board ... cloth board, maybe?
So how outstanding is that story and this historical artifact? A painting by Janis Joplin? Thank you, Margie. Really awesome!

[Shakey Jake]

Presidio la Bahía was established in 1749 during the Spanish Colonial period and was the site of the Goliad Massacre on Palm Sunday, March 1836. Built by the Spanish Army, it was host to one of the bloodiest chapters in Texas' quest for independence from Mexico.
Missions Espíritu Santo and Rosario tell a story of faith, sacrifice and the creation of a distinctive ranching heritage. The missions also reveal the story of the Karankawa, Aranama and Tamique people’s traditional way of life.

[Shakey Jake]

A rather unique post on Traces of Texas today. I thought it was good enough to share here:
There's never a dull moment here in West Texas. I left Terlingua yesterday and drove to Marathon, on account of I wanted to see my friend Danny Self, who owns the Marathon Motel & RV Park. Danny opened his door and said, with a twinkle in his eye, "you're not going to believe what's in my bathroom. Follow me." It turned out that Danny had found a baby javelina while out walking his dogs last night here in Marathon. Somebody left something like a manhole uncovered, the baby javelina fell into it, and its mother left it. Danny fished it out of the hole and realized it had a broken leg, which meant that even if the baby javelina's mother returned, it would not survive. Danny's friend DJ Hensley is the local wildlife/domestic critter rescuer/helper here in Marathon, so Danny called DJ and she came over with some goat's milk, which the baby javelina drank greedily. The baby javelina is only a few days old --- its umbilical cord is still attached. This morning, Danny is driving the 168 miles to the A-Z veterinary clinic in Midland, where the little critter's leg will be surgically repaired, and then it will be off to a wildlife rehabilitation place, where it will be taken in, allowed to heal, and eventually be released back into the wild. Don't get me wrong: I love Texas wildlife as much as the next guy, but I am not sure that I'd drive 340+ miles to save a baby javelina, particularly when there doesn't seem to be any shortage of them hereabouts. But Danny feels that fate called upon him to do it and that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't and, besides, "who can resist that face?" He's a much better man than I am and I'm not afraid to say it. I have to admit, though, that its face DOES make a pretty compelling argument! Here are a few photos of DJ with the baby javelina. Also: did you know that baby javelinas are called "reds" because they have so much red fur? I didn't.

[cooperhawk]

Does the term "Roast Suckling Pig" come to mind? Oh never mind. After looking at that face I
couldn't do it either.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1980, Jess Sweeten, colorful county sheriff and mayor of Athens, Texas, died. He was born in Stigler, Indian Territory, in 1905. He moved to Dallas in 1926 and worked there for several years before becoming a deputy sheriff. In 1932 his election as sheriff of Henderson County made him the youngest sheriff in Texas. He served for twenty-two years. The six-foot-four, 225-pound Sweeten gained a reputation as a hard-nosed investigator and a crack shot. During his tenure he shot nine men, killing three, including Gerald Johnson, the so-called "Dallas Kid," whom Sweeten gunned down after a high-speed car chase through Athens. Sweeten conducted shooting exhibitions for schools and civic clubs throughout his career, shooting cigars and other objects held up by his one-armed assistant, Gus Sowells. On one occasion, he reportedly fired 3,700 rounds in seven hours, shooting up some 600 pounds of potatoes. He was elected mayor of Athens in 1969.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r ... &FORM=VIRE

[Shakey Jake]

Today's post comes from the fine folks over at TSHA:
On this day in 1845, the Republic of Texas concluded its last Indian treaty. The agreement marked the end of the Tehuacana Creek Councils, which began in the spring of 1843, when Jesse Chisholm helped convince a number of Indian groups, including the Caddos, Tawakonis, Delawares, Lipan Apaches, and Tonkawas, to meet on Tehuacana Creek near the Torrey Brothers trading post south of present Waco. A second council met at Fort Bird on the Trinity River in the fall of 1843. These councils resulted in a peace treaty between the Republic and the Wacos, Caddos, and other smaller groups, but the absence of the Comanches caused President Sam Houston to call another council to meet at Tehuacana Creek in April 1844. The April council convened without the Comanches, but by October 9, 1844, Houston had negotiated a treaty with a part of the southern Comanches, Kichais, Wacos, Caddos, Anadarkos, Hainais, Delawares, Shawnees, Cherokees, Lipan Apaches, and Tawakonis. At the November 1845 council the Wacos, Tawakonis, Kichais, and Wichitas agreed to the treaty of October 9, 1844.