Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

I am not sure who was making the marketing decisions at Nocona boots in the late 1970s but whoever decided to engage Science Fiction/Fantasy artist Alex Ebel (November 14, 1932 – December 6, 2013) deserves a beer and a big bowl of chili. Check out his awesome advertising poster. I've told the story of Nocona Boots in the past but it's so interesting that I'm posting it again.
The story starts with H.J. "Daddy Joe" Justin, came to West Texas from Indiana in 1879, carrying with him hope for a new life.
He settled in Spanish Fort, a town right on the Texas-Oklahoma border about 50 miles east of Wichita Falls. Spanish Fort was right on the old Chisholm Trail.
With 25 cents and some bootmaking tools, "Daddy Joe" set up a shoe repair shop. When he had enough money, he bought leather for a pair of boots, sold them and bought leather for several more pairs.
"Daddy Joe" was a perfectionist with every detail of his handcraft. He started a tradition of fair boots for a fair price. When the cowboys came through on cattle drives, he'd measure their feet and on the way back, they would pick up their boots.
In 1887, the railroad came through Nocona, Texas, just south of Spanish Fort. So Daddy Joe moved his family and boot factory to Nocona and the better shipping facilities.
At the age of 12, in 1906, Daddy Joe's daughter, Enid Justin, started working in her father's shop. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade, her rebellion for having been suspended for dancing on Sunday at her brother's birthday party in her parent's home but she continued working with her father, absorbing everything he knew about bootmaking.
After "Daddy Joe" died in 1918, Enid's brothers, John, Sr., Avis, and Earl, wanted to move the business to Fort Worth. The commercial advantages of being in a large city like Fort Worth were too great to be ignored, they argued. But Enid felt so strongly that her father wanted the company in Nocona that she would not agree to it. In 1925, her brothers packed up the equipment and moved to Fort Worth, taking the Justin Boots name with them.
Enid borrowed $5,000 to keep seven employees in her small shop and founded the Nocona Boot Company.
During those first years Enid turned her home into a boarding house, worked as a sales clerk, shipping clerk, stenographer and credit manager. At first, some men had trouble doing business with a lady bootmaker, but they soon discovered the quality was just as good as her late father's.
The fortuitous discovery of oil near Nocona brought many new customers to Enid's young company. They made a 16 inch "lace-up" boot that was tough enough to survive the oil fields. The wildcatters loved them and kept coming back for more.
Accompanied by her sister, Miss Enid made her first sales trip into West Texas in 1926.
"The roads looked like cattle trails in those day's" she said. "And for good reason, they were cattle trails. Our old Model T took a pretty good beating on that first trip. In fact, we lost a back wheel once, it came loose and jumped over a fence. Despite the hazards of the road, the trip was successful. We came back with a book full of orders and a new market for boots."
In 1981, the Nocona Boot Company merged with Justin Industries, parent company of the Justin Boot Company, bringing the bootmaking histories of the two family companies full circle.
In 1999, Justin Industries closed the Nocona Boot Company plant in Nocona and consolidated all boot-making at El Paso, Texas, and Cassville, Missouri, thus ending more than a century of quality boot-making in Nocona.
Enid Justin died in 1990. She was 96 years old.
Thanks to Traces of Texas reader Jim Caldwell for sending this in.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Jo Payne-Pierce graciously posted this fantastic circa 1885 photo of "downtown" Antelope, Texas. Jo's great great grandfather, John Aaron Crossman, and his 2nd wife and children settled in the area sometime around 1880. He farmed there and his wife Mary Alice ran a boarding house. This is an absolutely fantastic image with so many great details. Antelope, which is in Jack County about 40 miles south of Wichita Falls, looks like it was one store with about 8-10 houses clustered around it. And what a Main Street!
Thank you, Jo. I love this!

[Shakey Jake]

The abandoned La Linda Catholic Church stoically awaits its certain fate in front of a backdrop of mountains that is as spectacular a setting as any you'll ever see. It is actually in Mexico but I was standing in the the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area on the Texas side when I took this.
One of my own photos, taken in 2009. (Remember to go to the Traces of Texas Facebook page. This is another disclaimer that these are not my writings. I'm just placing them here for those who do not have access or want access to Facebook. Jake).

[Shakey Jake]

Originally, producers wanted Charles Bronson and James Garner for the Lonesome Dove miniseries. But Bronson declined and Garner dropped out due to health reasons. When the producers cast Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, Duvall was originally set to play the stern and by-the-book Woodrow Call. But, after reading the novel ----- and on his wife’s advice ----- Duvall asked to switch roles, lending his signature warmth to the carefree spirit of Gus McCrae. It’s hard to imagine Jones and Duvall in each other’s roles, but it was almost a reality. For his part, Jones brought an air of authenticity, being that he's a Texan and also owns a ranch near San Saba.

[Shakey Jake]

Galveston society dame Bettie Brown was quite outrageous for her time. Here is how Miss Brown was described by Gary Cartwright: "When Miss Bettie Brown entertained at Ashton Villa. her footman rolled a red carpet down the front walk so that the skirts of ladies alighting from their carriages would not be soiled. Miss Bettie was one of the Island's wealthiest and most independent women. She lived with her parents ---- her father James M. Brown, was a merchant and civic leader ----- in a pre-Civil War Italianate mansion at the corner of 24th and Broadway. Miss Bettie enjoyed shocking the grand dames of Island society. She smoked cigarettes, and an occasional pipe, and went unchaporoned to garden parties, wearing the jewel-crusted $5,000 coat that she had once worn to a garden party at the castle of Emperor Franz Josef in Austria. She had traveled extensively in Europe (she kept an apartment in Paris) and studied art in Vienna with the court painter. Her idea of sport was racing down Broadway in her own fancy carriage, pulled by magnificent teams of matching stallions ---- a black team for day, a white team for evening.
Though many of the Island's most eligible bachelors courted Miss Bettie and drank champagne from her slipper, she never married. Some believe she was a lesbian, though there is no historical evidence that this is true. What she was was remarkably homely. She had thin lips, a prominent chin, and a nose upon which a family of eagles could have roosted ----- positioned, disconcertingly, atop a stunning hour-glass figure. Miss Bettie once painted a self-portrait using her sister as a model. As she grew older Miss Bettie spent her days mostly in the privacy of the Gold Room at Ashton Villa, painting, playing the piano, collecting treasures. She died in 1920 but her ghost is said to haunt the villa (which is now a museum) to this day."
---------- Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island, 1991. Courtesy the Galveston Historical Foundation . The Galveston Historical Foundation is dedicated to preserving Galveston's astonishing history and certainly would appreciate y'all following them if you're not already!

[Shakey Jake]

The Texas Quote of the Day, written in 1837, is a description of the funeral that was conducted by Juan Seguín for those who died at The Alamo. Seguín's speech is quite something.
"Funeral of the Heroes of the Alamo:
In conformity with an order from the General, commanding the army at headquarters, Colonel John N. Seguin, with his command, stationed at Bexar paid honors of war to the remains of the heroes of the Alamo.
The ashes were found in three places. The two smallest heaps were carefully collected, placed in a coffin, neatly covered with black and having the names of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett engraved on the inside of the lid, and carried to Bexar and placed in the parish church, where the Texian flag, a rifle, and a sword were laid upon it for the purpose of being accompanied by the procession, which was formed at three o'clock on the 25th of February, 1837.
The honors to be paid were announced in order of the previous evening, and by the tolling knell from daybreak to the hour of interment. The procession then proceeded to the principal spot, the place of interment, where the graves had been prepared [and] the coffin placed on the principal heap of ashes.
Colonel Seguin made the following address in his native tongue, Castilian: "Companions in arms, these hallowed relics which we now have the melancholy task of bearing onward, to consign to their kindred earth, are all that remain of those heroic men who so nobly fell, valiantly defending yon tower of the Alamo. If they, my brave associates, preferred rather to die a thousand times than basely bow under the vile yoke of tyranny, what a brilliant, what an illustrious example have they bequeathed us. How worthy to illumine with unchanging splendor the ever glowing pages of history. Even now the genius of liberty is looking down from her lofty seat, smiling with approbation upon our proceedings and calling to us in the names of departed brethren, Travis, Bowie and Crockett, and their iron-hearted band, bids us in imitating their mighty deeds to secure like them a high place upon the scroll of immortality.
Since then, soldiers and fellow citizens, undying fame is the glorious reward of those who fall in this noble contest; cheerfully will I encounter the most formidable dangers which fortune can crown in the path of glory in the noble attempt to achieve my country's independence, regardless of whatever indignity the brutal ferocity of my enemies may have to offer to my lifeless body. I would joyfully perish on the field of battle shouting the war cry, "God and Liberty, Victory or Death," of these heroes."
Thus have the last rites of a Christian burial been performed over these brave men. In after times when peace shall have returned to smile upon our prosperous country, a towering fabric of architecture shall be reared by their grateful countrymen above their ashes, designating Bexar as the monument city of Texas, where long after the massive walls of the Alamo have crumbled into dust, the votaries of freedom shall yearly assemble to celebrate at this "TOMB of HEROES" the mighty achievements of the unreturning brave."
----- Lance Parker, reporting in the Republic of Texas News, March 27, 1837. Sad to say that, today, the exact burial site is not known. Somehow it has been lost to history.
Shown here: Juan Seguín. Seguín was the only Mexican Texan in the Senate of the republic and served in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Congress.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Charles Fairchild sent in this fantastic image of a Tonkawa Indian somewhere in north central Texas. The photo is undated but if I am not mistaken that is a Winchester model 1873 lever action rifle in his hands, so probably sometime after that.
Thank you, Charles! AWESOME!

[Shakey Jake]

The Texas Quote of the Day is a reminder of one of the saddest events in Texas history. On January 8, 1865, at Dove Creek, 18 miles southwest of present day San Angelo, a tribe of Kickapoo Indians was attacked by a troop of Confederate soldiers. The soldiers had mistaken the friendly Kickapoos for Comanches, and the misunderstanding became a massacre of eighty Indians ----- men, women and children. Thirty-five soldiers were killed. Years later, one of the surviving Kickapoos told the Indians' side of the battle:
"We had lived friendly with the white people many years. They said they were our friends and we believed them. The great [Civil] war came on. We did not know why our white friends wanted to kill each other. They led some of our young men into war and some never came back because they were killed. They went in for twelve months, then they came home and said they did not want to fight with the white soldiers any more. Our old men held a council. They kept the fires burning three days. The white men had been fighting three years. Soldiers came and killed our cattle. They took all our corn. Sometimes they were white soldiers; sometime Pin Indians. Our old men said it was not our war, and no man could say when peace would come back. They said as long as there was no peace, the war trail would lead through the Kickapoos' country. They told our people they must go to Mexico where they could live in peace. When the white men quit war and made peace, the Kickapoos could come back to their lands. Five of our chiefs went to see General Smith. He gave them papers. He told them they could take their people to Mexico. When the corn was ripe and all gathered, we started. It was a long journey but we had strong arms and hearts, and wanted to get away from the war. We crossed Red River and kept above the settlements all the way. Six white men came to us on the Brazos. They were friendly. They asked many questions. They saw all our horses. They did not claim any of our horses. We told them to look at all our horses. After that we saw few white men until the morning of the fight. We had a fight with the Comanches two days before on the Concho. They shot one of our men in the eye with an arrow. He died that night.
"When the soldiers came up that morning, one of our chiefs wanted to talk. He went out of the thicket with a white cloth. They killed him. Then a young woman went out with a white cloth. They shot her down. They killed her baby also. Her name was Oo-lath-la-hi-na. She had gone to school at Fort Gibson. She could write and read and spoke good English. She said, 'I will go and talk with the white captain. He thinks we are Comanches. The white men won't shoot a woman.' They killed her. Then we had to fight or stand still and be killed like rabbits. Our young men wanted to follow them when they ran off, and kill all. Our chief and old men said no. We must go quick. They will bring more soldiers and surround us. We buried our chief and Oo-lath-la-hi-na that night. We carried our wounded with us. Many died on the way. We traveled day and night till we crossed the Rio Grande. We were hungry all the way. We were sad and wanted revenge. We took no scalps in that fight. The battle ground is one day west of the Concho River."
----- John Warren Hunter, Hunter's Magazine, 1911.
Shown here: Babe Shkit, a Kickapoo Chief, in 1894. He had nothing to do with the massacre described above, but I couldn't find a photo of John Warren Hunter and wanted a historical photo of a Kickapoo to show y'all so this is the one I selected.

[Ernie]

Thanks Jake. I am enjoying this post.

[Rifletom]

Thanks Jake. These posts are amazing! Keep it up if possible. Amazing!