Traces of Tx (today)

[Hatchdog]

Oh, my came across this picture taken in 1953 of "Rockyfeller's" in Fort Worth, TX. I remember my mom buying 19¢ hamburgers at Griff's in Joplin, Missouri along with 5¢ cokes and 10¢ fries when a kid in the 60's, but a hamburger for 5¢! I bet they were delicious as well. It makes me want to go out and get one for lunch!

In Spokane there is a place called Dick’s Hamburgers and when I was a kid I remember the sign said .21 cents and their slogan is, “buy the bag full”. Once in a while our dad would head down there and bring home a bag full along with fries and shakes. Now that was a treat. They still use a potato press to make the fries and they are still considered the best fast food fries in the area.

[Shakey Jake]

I'm finding quite a few pictures of Texas Rangers on the UTA digital library. This one is dated 1892. I do believe I see at least one Henry in the picture.
Title: Texas Rangers, Company E, Frontier Battalion
Creator: Smith, W. D. (Photographer)
Description: Caption reads: "Company E, Texas Rangers, Frontier Battalion, Alice, Texas, 1892. -- #1 Capt. J.S. McNeel; #2 D.S. Robinson; #3 John Cameron; #4 Charles Johnson; #5 Luke Dowe; #6 P.J. McNeel (not a ranger); #7 Rigdon "Fat" Terrell; #8 Forest Townsley; #9 J.S. McNeel, Jr; #10 Everett E. Townsend; #11 Richard Flowers, (not a ranger); #12 Charles Premont; #13 Bud Rader; #14 Louis Pauli; #15 Rut Evans; #16 Bob Townsley."
Date Created: 1892

[Shakey Jake]

There's a small place in Texas called Honey Island. Honey Island is at the junction of Farm roads 1003 and 1293, thirty-five miles northwest of Beaumont in central Hardin County. It is on high land between Cypress and Flat Cypress creeks, which rise in heavy rain, making the site a temporary island. Back during the civil war Jayhawkers, Confederate deserters, and those who opposed succession hid out in the area. Being hard pressed for food the band would take honey from the numerous hives in the area and leave it on the "island" for locals to exchange it for food. Although their numbers were only estimated to be between 15 and 20 Captain Bullock of the Confederate militia decided to capture the "Union sympathizers". The area became known as Union Wells due to the camouflaged diggings used as a water source during dry weather. It was during one of these dry spells that Bullock decided to burn out the band of "Unionists" although they were a peaceable lot. The area was a dense thicket of woods and canebrake and when set afire in a horseshoe shape to capture the band on the "island" they only captured a few and only two were killed. One of those killed wasn't even a part of the band. He was known as "Old Man Lilly" and was killed while on his way home with a deer he had shot. It was said he was shot right through the heart. The skirmish, if you could even call it that, was named the Battle of Bad Luck Creek due to Lilly's "accidental death". Other's call it "Kaiser's Burnout" after a German settler in the area.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1914, the body of South Texas rancher Clemente Vergara was found hanging from a tree. Vergara owned a ranch near Palafox. He allowed his horses to graze on an island in the Rio Grande, land that was disputed by the United States and Mexico. Vergara suspected that Mexican soldiers had stolen eleven of his horses from the island. He and a nephew crossed the Rio Grande to meet with several soldiers who called the two men over. Vergara was struck on the head and carried to the Hidalgo garrison, while his nephew escaped and returned to the United States. Vergara's wife and daughter crossed into Mexico on February 14 and found him severely beaten and jailed in the Hidalgo garrison. The following morning soldiers told the women that he had been taken to Piedras Negras. Texas governor Oscar B. Colquitt and President Woodrow Wilson's administration disagreed on how to deal with the situation, with the former advocating the use of Texas Rangers to extradite Vergara's kidnappers if necessary. On February 16 the commander at Piedras Negras reported that he had ordered Vergara's release and the return of his horses; however, on February 25 witnesses told American officials that they had seen Vergara's body hanging from a tree near Hidalgo, and that it had been there since February 15. Vergara's body was finally "delivered" to his relatives in Texas on March 7. Vergara's murder outraged Texans and increased tension between Mexico and the United States.
More on Palafox:
The Palafox, Burkeville, Sabine and Rio Grande Railroad, chartered in 1854, was never built. In the 1880s there were two large stores, the Cantú and Alexander stores, at the site; a post office operated from 1886 to 1887 and again from 1905 to 1922. A map drawn by William Sydney Porter in 1888 shows Palafox with no roads leading to it and no adjoining settlements. The 1910 census listed forty inhabitants. Jack Walker, the settlement's last inhabitant, left in 1938. Ruins of numerous stone buildings, a cemetery, and an irrigation system built in the 1920s remained in 1990.

[Shakey Jake]

I found this interesting picture on the UTSA library digital site. It's titled "Party at Shady Oak Farm in celebration of the premiere of the 1940 film, "The Westerner," in Fort Worth, Texas." The Shady Oak Farm was owned by Amon G. Carter. Carter was the owner of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and WBAP radio and television. He was very influential in Ft. Worth:
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/ent ... -amon-g-sr
The "Howdy Stranger" bar was part of the Shady Oak Farm and a gathering place for celebrities visiting Fort Worth. "The Westerner" (per IBID) Judge Roy Bean, a self-appointed hanging judge in Vinegarroon, Texas, befriends saddle tramp Cole Harden, who opposes Bean's policy against homesteaders.
It starred Walter Brennan, Gary Cooper and Doris Davenport along with other notable actors of the time. There was a TV show with the same name in the 60's starring Brian Keith. I remember watching it as a kid. I think you might spot a star or two in this picture.

[Shakey Jake]

Photograph of the Guadalupe Peak. The peak is a part of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park which ranges from West Texas to southeastern New Mexico. Guadalupe Peak, also known as Signal Peak, is the highest point in Texas. It is in Guadalupe Mountains National Park three miles west of Pine Springs in northwestern Culberson County (at 31°53' N, 104°52' W). Its summit, with an elevation of 8,749 feet above sea level, rises 3,100 feet above Pine Springs. The peak towers over nearby Guadalupe Pass, and nineteenth-century travelers, including John Russell Bartlett, were often deceived by the peak's great height and the clear mountain air; they reported seeing the peak a full week before they reached it and consistently underestimated their distance from it.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1943, Dolly Shea graduated with the first flight-nurse class of the United States Army Air Forces at Bowman Field, Kentucky. The San Benito, Texas, native served in the European Theater during World War II. She was killed on April 14, 1945, when her evacuation plane, ferrying wounded Americans to hospitals behind the front line, was shot down over Germany. She was one of three women in the Army Nurse Corps known to have been killed by direct enemy action and the only one from Texas. Her awards include the Air Medal, the Red Cross Medal, a Special Citation from President Harry Truman, and a posthumous Purple Heart.

[Shakey Jake]

Another fine picture from the UTA digital library. This one entitled "Childress, Texas in 1897, wagons being loaded for a trip to Matador. Windmill watering trough with men, horses, and wagons clustered about it, town stores in background". It's a 58 mile trip today. I'm not sure if they would have taken the same route.

The Matador Ranch was consolidated in 1882 by a Scottish syndicate, and a post office opened at Matador in 1886. At the end of the 19th century, townspeople freed the community from domination by the Matador Ranch, which was liquidated in 1951, by relocating non-ranch families there and electing their own slate of officials. The community was incorporated in 1912 and made the county seat. The state required that a town have at least 20 businesses. Local ranch hands hence established fraudulent, temporary businesses using ranch supplies. The only real business in Matador at the time was a saloon.

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another picture of the Howdy Stranger bar. The sign in the background says " Welcome, Fort Worth, where the West begins and the East peters out."

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1838, captive Rachel Plummer was reunited with her husband after spending over a year with the Comanches. Born Rachel Parker in Illinois in 1819, she moved to Texas with her father, James W. Parker, and her family and married Luther Plummer in 1833. In May 1836 their settlement was attacked by a large group of Indians. Five settlers were taken captive: Rachel and her son James Pratt Plummer, Cynthia Ann and John Parker, and Elizabeth Kellogg. James Pratt was taken from Rachel, and she never saw him again. Rachel became a slave to the Comanches, and traveled thousands of miles with the band. She was pregnant at the time of her capture and bore a second son about October 1836. The Indians thought that the baby was interfering with Rachel's work, so they killed him when he was about six weeks old. Rachel was ransomed by Mexican traders north of Santa Fe in June 1837. Several months later, Rachel's brother-in-law escorted her back to Texas, where she was reunited with her husband. In 1838 she published an account of her captivity entitled Rachael Plummer's Narrative of Twenty One Months Servitude as a Prisoner Among the Commanchee Indians. This was the first narrative about a captive of Texas Indians published in Texas. Rachel bore a third child in 1839 and died in Houston shortly thereafter; the child died two days later.