Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

In August, 1945 photographer Hans Wild set out across Texas to photograph the state for LIFE magazine. It was on that journey that he came across these men playing dominoes outside a country store. Sadly, the exact location is not known, at least not to me. Wild took many of his photos in the Hill Country, especially in the area around San Marcos, Twin Sisters etc.. so perhaps there. What a classic Texas scene. It's just crazy that he happened upon this group of crusty Texas characters. There's at least one beer bottle on that table!

[Shakey Jake]

Here's a "Two fer" for you today Per T of T Facebook:
One of the things that I like best about Willie is that he's always followed his own moral compass. That's why, in 1966, when his Willie Nelson Show package tour rolled across South Texas and Louisiana, he added African American country artist Charley Pride to the bill. Willie didn't care what people thought. He knew talent when he heard it. At Dewey Groom’s segregated Longhorn Ballroom, in Dallas, “Dewey didn’t want Charley on the bandstand,” Willie later recalled. “So I got up onstage and introduced Charley . . . I laid a big kiss on him, right on the mouth. Then he started singing, and they loved it.” The color barrier had been broken. Later that night, after a raucous guitar picking session in his motel room, Willie said “I wished I would’ve had a camera. Charley Pride and Dewey Groom had both passed out on the same bed.”

This is a photo of Willie and Charley Pride at Soap Creek Saloon in Austin back in 1975. It was taken by the great Scott Newton Photography , who was nice enough to let me post it here. Scott's taken an INCREDIBLE assortment of photos of music stars etc.. who have passed through Austin. You can see them, and purchase them, at his website: https://scottnewtonphotography.com/

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another great picture! Man, oh man, I wish I could grow a mustache like that.....and that hat! Wow!
Per T of T:
Texas Ranger Joseph Walter Durbin, armed and holding a riding crop, poses next to his horse in Rio Grande City in November, 1888. Durbin (1860-1916) served in Captain Frank Jones' Company "D," Frontier Battalion, with his brother, James William "Tink" Durbin. In 1892, after his service with the Texas Rangers, Joseph was elected sheriff of Frio County, Texas, near San Antonio. He later authored a memoir entitled "Walter Durbin: Texas Ranger and Sheriff," which was edited by Robert W. Stephens, a Texas Ranger historian.

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another great picture form the T of T Facebook group:
Traces of Texas reader Ben Watson generously sent in this nifty circa 1890 shot of a fiddlers club in Nacogdoches, Texas. I wonder what these men sounded like when they played together. Wonderful beardage, too.

[Mr. Neutron]

What is that instrument called that the man second from the left, back row, is playing??? It's drivin' me nuts tryin' to remember......

[Shakey Jake]

Not sure but looks like some type of chordophone.
Jake

[Shakey Jake]

A surveying party in Austin posing with typical tools and weapons found on a surveying expedition. 1876. Top row, left to right: Richard P. von Blucher, Grove R. Crafts, Charles F.H. von Blucher, Surveyor in Charge. Bottom row, left to right: George A. von Blucher, Philip Fullerton, Hilario Martinez

Photo courtesy the fine folks at the Texas General Land Office.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1851, notorious outlaw Sam Bass was born in Indiana; his short and violent life also ended on July 21, in 1878. Bass arrived in Texas in the fall of 1870 and, after trying his hand at a number of occupations, began robbing stagecoaches and trains in 1877. In the spring of 1878, Bass and his gang robbed four trains within twenty-five miles of Dallas. They did not get much money, but the robberies aroused citizens, and the bandits were the object of a spirited chase across North Texas by posses and a special company of Texas Rangers headed by Junius Peak. Bass eluded his pursuers until one of his party turned informer. In Round Rock on July 19 Bass and his men became engaged in a gun battle in which he was wounded. The next morning he was found lying helpless in a pasture north of town and was brought back to Round Rock. He died there on July 21, his twenty-seventh birthday. He was buried in Round Rock and soon became the subject of cowboy song and story.

[Shakey Jake]

I came across this picture of a chuck wagon on the Matador Ranch taken sometime in the 1930's. It has a lot of detail. Looks like there were a few Mesquite trees on the property.
Jake

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1861, Lt. Col. John Robert Baylor led 300 men of the Confederate Second Texas Mounted Rifles in an assault on Union forces under Maj. Isaac Lynde at Fort Fillmore, New Mexico. Baylor was under orders to occupy a chain of forts protecting the overland route between Fort Clark and Fort Bliss. He entered the nearby town of Mesilla that night. The next morning Lynde ordered an artillery attack on Mesilla, but after three of his men were killed and six wounded, he withdrew. Learning that Baylor had requested artillery from Ft Bliss, Lynde abandoned the fort the night of July 26. The next day, Baylor gave chase. The Confederates rode into Lynde’s camp in the early afternoon, and Lynde surrendered his force of 492 men. Baylor proclaimed Arizona Territory, C.S.A., and named himself governor. He remained there until the spring of 1862. The victory at Mesilla was one of the Civil War’s early and surprising Confederate successes.