Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Cars burning at Willie Nelson's 4th of July picnic in College Station, Texas 1974. One of these belongs to singer/songwriter Robert Earl Keen. He prefaced a song about it on one of his albums. The just of it is he's at the picnic (concert) and hears over the PA system that there are some cars on fire in the parking lot and the announcer gives out the license plate number. Realizing that one of the cars is his, he goes out and checks on it. He says to his date, "I wonder how we'll get home." She replies, "I don't know about you, but I have a ride." as she gets into a car with another couple of guys. I have that album but couldn't locate a file of it on youtube so I'll just a link to one of his songs. Edit: I found it.... have a listen, it's funny!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWyQYS5 ... rt_radio=1

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1860, a series of mysterious fires broke out in North Texas, devastating several communities and leading to the Texas slave panic of 1860. The most serious fire destroyed most of the downtown section of the small town of Dallas. In addition, about half of the town square in Denton burned, and fire razed a store in Pilot Point. At first, the leaders of the affected communities attributed the fires to a combination of the exceedingly hot summer (it was reportedly as hot as 110 degrees in Dallas on the afternoon of the fire) and the introduction into the stores of the new and volatile phosphorous matches. Indeed, subsequent experience with "prairie matches" in Denton satisfied the citizens of that town that spontaneous combustion was the probable cause of the fire there. In Dallas, however, certain white leaders detected a more sinister origin to the area's fires.Charles R. Pryor of the Dallas Herald blamed the assault on an abolitionist plot "to devastate, with fire and assassination, the whole of Northern Texas...." By the end of July, communities and counties throughout North and East Texas had established vigilance committees to root out and punish the alleged conspirators. By the time the panic subsided in September, between thirty and 100 blacks and whites had been killed by the vigilance committees. Often called "the Texas Troubles" by the press, the Texas panic of 1860 helped prepare Texans and other Southerners to leave

[Shakey Jake]

San Antonio's Plinky Toepperwein was one of the greatest shooters of all time.
Famed female shooter Annie Oakley once told Plinky, “Mrs. Top, you’re the greatest shot I’ve ever seen.”
She was born Elizabeth Servaty in Connecticut in 1882, and married Adolph “Ad” Toepperwein in 1903. They were based in San Antonio for 40+ years. She met her future husband while he performed with a vaudeville circus shooting act.
Adolf gave Plinky her first shooting lesson. Within three weeks, she was able to shoot one-inch pieces of chalk from between his fingers.
The Toepperweins began touring together as a husband-and-wife act and performed at the St. Louis World Fair. They had a career that spanned more than 40 years. Plinky earned the nickname “Plinky” after she shot a tin can once and shouted, “I plinked it!” So when you hear somebody say they went out plinking with their .22, it's because of her. She broke many shooting records throughout her lifetime. She was the first U.S. female to qualify as a national marksman with a military rifle. She also was the first woman to break 100 straight targets while trapshooting. After shooting 1,952 out of 2,000 targets in five hours and 20 minutes, Toepperwein broke the world endurance trapshooting record. Plinky is buried in San Antonio’s Mission Burial Park South. A display in San Antonio’s Buckhorn Saloon is dedicated to her and her husband.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Ed Smith's father, also Ed Smith, was a cowboy on the Matador Ranch beginning in 1914. One of his fellow cowboys was Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry's uncle, John McMurtry, and it is John McMurtry who is shown here in this amazing portrait. I wonder if Larry McMurtry has seen this.

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook Group:
This is Bass Reeves, who some say is the greatest lawmen in the history of the Old West. Bass was born into slavery in Crawford County, Arkansas, in 1838. He was named after his grandfather, Basse Washington. Reeves and he and his family were slaves of Arkansas state legislator William Reeves. When Bass was eight (about 1846), William Reeves moved to Grayson County, Texas, near Sherman in the Peters Colony. For the next eighteen or so years, Bass Reeves may have been a slave owned by William Reeves' son, Colonel George R. Reeves, who was a sheriff and legislator in Texas.
Sometime during the American Civil War, Bass parted company with George Reeves, perhaps because Bass beat up George after a dispute in a card game. Bass fled north into the Indian Territory. There he lived with the Cherokee, Seminole, and Creek Indians, learning their languages, until he was freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, in 1865.
As a freedman, Reeves moved to Arkansas and farmed near Van Buren. He married Nellie Jennie from Texas, with whom he had 11 children.
Reeves and his family farmed until 1875, when Isaac Parker was appointed federal judge for the Indian Territory. Parker appointed James F. Fagan as U.S. marshal, directing him to hire 200 deputy U.S. marshals. Fagan had heard about Reeves, who knew the Indian Territory and could speak several Indian languages. He recruited him as a deputy. Bass was the first black deputy west of the Mississippi. He was initially assigned as a deputy U.S. marshal for the Western District of Arkansas, which had responsibility also for the Indian Territory (Oklahoma). He served there until 1893. That year he transferred to the Eastern District of Texas in Paris, Texas, for a short while. In 1897, he was transferred again, serving at the Muskogee Federal Court in the Indian Territory.
Reeves worked for 32 years as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory and became one of Judge Parker's most valued deputies. Reeves brought in some of the most dangerous criminals of the time, but was never wounded, despite having his hat and belt shot off on separate occasions. Once, he had to arrest his own son for murder.
In addition to being a marksman with a rifle and pistol, Reeves developed superior detective skills during his long career. When he retired in 1907, Reeves claimed to have arrested over 3,000 felons. He is said to have shot and killed 14 outlaws to defend his own life.
One of his sons, Bennie Reeves, was charged with the murder of his wife. Deputy Marshal Reeves was disturbed and shaken by the incident, but allegedly demanded the responsibility of bringing Bennie to justice. Bennie was eventually tracked and captured, tried, and convicted. He served his time in Fort Leavenworth in Kansas before being released, and reportedly lived the rest of his life as a responsible and model citizen.
When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, Bass Reeves, then 68, became an officer of the Muskogee Police Department. He served for two years before he became ill and had to retire. Reeves was himself once charged with murdering a posse cook. At his trial before Judge Parker, Reeves was represented by former United States Attorney W.H.H. Clayton, who was a colleague and friend. Reeves was acquitted.

Bass Reeves passed away at the age of 71 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1910.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1870, at the battle of the Little Wichita River, Capt. Curwin B. McClellan and a force of fifty-five troopers of the Sixth Cavalry attacked a camp of Kiowa Indians under Chief Kicking Bird. The Indians had crossed the Red River into Texas and terrorized white settlers across Wichita, Archer, Young, and Jack counties. McClellan caught up with them on the Little Wichita River in what is now Archer County. He soon realized that he was outnumbered by two to one, and that the Indians were equipped with Spencer rifles, superior to his equipment. His men were attacked from all sides, and three died during a retreat. After cowboys from the Terrell Ranch and twenty troopers reinforced McClellan, Kicking Bird broke off the engagement. In his report McClellan praised Kicking Bird's generalship and called for larger forces to protect the frontier. This was the last time Kicking Bird was ever involved in hostilities. He dedicated the rest of his life to establishing better relations between the Kiowas and the whites.

[Shakey Jake]

Rafael "Red" Lopez (center) and unknown compatriots circa 1915 in El Paso. Red was a little-known Mexican outlaw who was responsible for at least thirty known murders in northern Mexico and the American Southwest. He fought in the Mexican Revolution. It is believed that he was eventually killed in a shootout by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, though there is some doubt about that. This photo was taken by well-known El Paso photographer Otis Aultmann.

[Shakey Jake]

Deputy sheriffs on the South Texas border circa 1910. I have to say that I LOVE the look of the man on the right and think I may adopt it for my journeys around Texas. The hat, the tie ... too perfect. This photo is part of the remarkable Robert Runyon collection at UT's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. The Briscoe Center has an absolutely amazing collection of historical artifacts and is a "must" visit the next time you are in Austin.

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook Group:
This a remarkable historical photo. The cars seen clogging this road belong to a crowd of some 8-10 thousand people gathered at the Daisy Bradford # 3 oil derrick just south of Overton in early October, 1930 after word got out that oil might be discovered there. Mind you, it was a time when the Great Depression was on and people were desperate.Locals rented parking for 25 cents a car and vendors sold food, soft drinks, and local corn liquor. The first day passed and the bailing operation continued for a second day, removing all the mud from the hole, yet still no oil. The crew started swabbing the well on the third day and some black fluid was beginning to show. After countless trips, a gurgling sound could be heard by the crowd. Finally, on October 3, 1930, oil spirted from the casing and over the crown block, and those gathered there also gave vent to their emotions with a loud cheer. They didn't realize it immediately but by early spring of 1931, it became evident that the new wells in the area were not from small, widely spaced pockets of oil in separate fields, but from one vast field stretching for dozens of miles. It was learned that all the new wells were drawing oil from the same Woodbine sands. The great East Texas oilfield, one of the largest ever discovered, was born. So far more than 5 billion barrels of oil have been pumped out of the ground. How important is this site? A historical marker was erected there by the State of Texas and the well is still, to this day, producing. You can see the pumpjack in this 2008 Google Streetview:
https://www.google.com/maps/@32.1952153 ... ?entry=ttu

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook Group:
Andrew Jackson Sowell, Texas ranger, lifelong soldier, and eyewitness to so much Texas history. He was born in Tennessee in 1815 but moved with his family to Texas before the Texas Revolution. He was a participant in the revolution and, survived the siege ---- though not the Battle ----- of the Alamo. Andrew fought in the Battle of Gonzales, when the town would not surrender the "Come and Take It" cannon to Francisco de Castañeda and the Mexican troops sent to retrieve it. His father had been one of the "Old Eighteen", defending the colony's right to keep the cannon. This incident was the first shot fired in the Texas Revolution. Sowell went on to take part in the Battle of Concepción and the "Grass Fight." Although a participant in the Texians' attempt to take San Antonio, he was unprepared for inclement weather, and like many others he returned home for the winter. In December the Texians drove the Mexican soldiers under General Martín Perfecto de Cos from Mexican Texas after this siege of Bexar.
In February, 1836 Sowell volunteered again during the Siege of the Alamo Although he served in the old mission fort while the army of Santa Anna was already in the vicinity of San Antonio, he and Byrd Lockhart were sent out as couriers and foragers. They went as far as Gonzales, Texas to buy cattle and supplies for the Alamo garrison. But upon their return to San Antonio, they were not able to enter as the Alamo was surrounded by Santa Anna's army. From the Alamo they headed to Gonzales, where Sowell assisted the Texian settlers who became refugees in the Runaway Scrape. After insuring the safety of the civilians, he marched towards San Jacinto to join Sam Houston's troops, arriving after the Battle of San Jacinto had taken place.
Andrew continued his service during the years of the Republic of Texas, in the Mexican–American War, and the Civil War. He was a frontier defender, an early Texas Ranger, and a friend and scout with Kit Carson. He died in Seguin, Texas on January 4, 1883, and is buried some miles east of town in the Rogers-Mofield Cemetery, north of U.S. Route 90 Alternate (Texas) near Darst Creek, Texas.