Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Inner Space caverns was discovered by the Texas highway department while drilling for core depths to build I-35. They needed 25 feet thick, but kept losing their bit to open air. They drilled a 24" wide hole and rode down on the bit to see what was up. This is what they found. Can you imagine being the first people to ever see this incredible place? It makes me wonder what else is there underneath all that Texas vastness, just waiting to be discovered.

[Shakey Jake]

On this date in 1863, the USS Hatteras was sunk by the CSS Alabama. The Hatteras, a converted merchant ship formerly named the St. Mary, was commissioned in October 1861 and first saw duty in the South Atlantic. After assignment to the blockading squadron in the Gulf of Mexico, she was raiding along the Confederate coast when she was sunk by Confederate captain Raphael Semmes. She lies in sixty feet of water twenty miles south of Galveston. The federal government has been able to preserve the wreck for scientific and historical research.
The CSS Alabama was sunk in June 1864 by USS Kearsarge at the Battle of Cherbourg outside the port of Cherbourg, France.

[Shakey Jake]

Once again, this is a repost from the Traces of Texas facebook group:
The Texas quote of the day comes from our old friend Mary Bunton, one of the few women who ever rode the Chisholm Trail. She wrote a fascinating account of that experience entitled "A Bride on the Chisholm Trail," from which this is taken. She was born in 1863 and died in 1952 at the age of 89 and I always think about the changes she saw in her life. Here she talks about living in a dugout home on a North Texas ranch:
"It seemed that the living quarters on ranches in that section consisted of “dugouts” at that time. I wonder if any of you have ever seen, heard or read of a “dugout?" I never had until I first visited my husband’s ranch. You may depend on it, I was shocked to find not only cowboys but large families living in them apparently comfortable and contented.
Can you of this deluxe age imagine people living in dirt houses? That was what a “dugout” was—just a good-sized square hole dug back into the south side of a hill. On the north side of the room, a special place was dug out to be used as a fireplace. Just above this a round hole was dug through to the top of the hill for the smoke to escape, and the cowboys called it the dugout chimney. On the south side of the room was an opening without doors that gave light and ventilation. There were no windows in the dugout and only a dirt floor. In times of storm a wagon sheet or tarpaulin was fastened across the doorway. It was in such a dugout that the cowboys spent their time when they were not at work on the range.
If the weather was too inclement to work on the outside, the cowboys would bring in their saddles and bridles and grease them. When I asked them why they did this, they were too polite to laugh at my ignorance and just quietly told me that grease preserved leather and would protect it from the weather. The cowboys were expert in washing and mending their saddle blankets and their stirrup leathers.
They also prepared and ate their meals in the dugout and, as there were no tables or chairs, they had to squat around on the ground to eat. They slept in bunks built on either side of the small dugout room or rolled up in their blankets on the floor or out in the open. Some of the dugouts had several rooms and were satisfactory homes, the largest room being used as a place to have their visitors.
The dugouts were recreational centers, too, and, on Saturday nights and Sundays, cowboys came from near-by ranches to visit. On these occasions, they would sit around the open fire and tell hair- raising stories of their riding, roping, and branding, or thrum their banjos and guitars and sing their beautiful songs of life on the range."
----- Mary Bunton, "A Bride on the Old Chisholm Trail in 1886," 1939

[Shakey Jake]

“I said, ‘Thank you, Lord, for letting me die in the oldest honky-tonk in Texas.’ I wanted to die. All this had happened, and I was going home to see Eddy, Brenda, and my mother.”
----- singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver talks to God after having a heart attack onstage while performing at Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas, on August 25, 2001. Billy Joe's wife, mother, and son had all died within the previous two years and he thought it was his time. He survived and lived on for 19 more years, passing away in 2020. Shown here: Billy Joe and Willie Nelson outside the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, 1973.

[Shakey Jake]

Another good one from Traces of Texas:
Goodness gracious, the Lawrence T. Jones III archive at SMU's Degolyer Library continues to blow me away. Take a look at this 1874 stereograph of a smokehouse near Buffalo Gap, Texas, which was taken by George Robertson. Buffalo hunters didn't just skin the buffaloes and collect their hides, they also held on to quite a bit of meat for their own consumption. The meat was salted and then put into a pit that had been lined with buffalo hides. After about a few days, the meat was removed and placed on racks inside a makeshift, homemade smokehouse like the one shown here. Smoking the meat for a couple of weeks caused a good crust to form, which allowed the meat to be much more easily stored and handled. This is a remarkable photo in that I don't believe I've ever seen one of these before, not like this, out on the plains like this with no house nearby.
Thanks to Mr. Jones for donating his awesome archive to SMU and to the Degolyer folks for making it available online. You can follow the Degolyer here --- and you should! @degolyerlibrary

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1891 the Rio Grande Railroad was robbed of some $75,000 as well as government mail when a train was derailed by bandits. José Mosqueda, the leader of the outlaws, was identified as the culprit and pursued by Brownsville city marshall Santiago Brito, and they both became part of the folklore of the Texas Mexican community. "El Corrido de José Mosqueda" was composed in the 1890s to commemorate the event. A version of almost a half century later presents Brito as a coward fleeing from Mosqueda after a skirmish and Mosqueda as a hero.

[Shakey Jake]

Holt Missionary Baptist Church. Holt is south of Ranch Road 502 and four miles northwest of Skeeterville in northwestern San Saba County. The area was probably first settled in the late 1880s by the Leonard Asbury Hardman family. To acquire neighbors, the Hardmans offered a homesite to anyone who would move to the area; Garrett and Florence Burk were the first to accept this offer. Soon the Bill Holt family arrived and opened the first store. As more families began to settle in the area, the community gained a general merchandise store, school, church, blacksmith shop, gristmill, and cotton gin. The Holt post office, named in honor of the Holt family, was open from 1900 to 1918. A new school was erected around 1905 to replace the Antelope Gap or Antelope Creek school, which had been moved to the new community and renamed Holt. In 1933 the population of Holt was reported as twenty-five, and it remained at this level until 1947, after which no further population statistics were available. In 1947 Holt had only a store and a school. Eventually its school was consolidated with the Richland Springs schools. The Missionary Baptist church built at Holt in 1971 was still active in the community until 1983. Photo by Leash Forbus.

[Shakey Jake]

The wife said she wanted to visit London, Italy, and Paris so we took a road trip. She wasn't very talkative though. Did I miss something?
Jake

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another great one from Traces of Texas facebook group:
Traces of Texas reader Robert Brandon's wife's stepfather, Robert George, was a photographer during World War II. He was born in Missouri but raised in Houston and was living in Houston when the war began. Robert served in the National Guard and was assigned to the 111th Operations Squadron based at Ellington Air Field when the war started. As a photographer, he flew on 50 missions with various squadrons in North Africa and Europe, leaving behind some amazing photographs This is just one them, showing a B-17 that has had one of its wings blown off by flak above farmland somewhere in Europe.
How incredible is this image, folks? Talk about some intense photography! Thank you, Robert. Truly a great capture by your step father-in-law!
P.S. Robert sent in other photos and they are also very good and I will post them by and by.

[Shakey Jake]

A marvelous 1911 photo of a parade procession in Lufkin, Texas. I don't know what the celebrations was but by the way the people are dressed it must have been very important.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader JK shared this nice photo, which comes with a fantastic backstory. Says JK:
"This photo, taken in 1945, in the Pacific theater, shows Sgt Archie C. Vanskike Sr. (third from left) and his three sons, PCF Clarence E. Vanskike, PFC Louis E. Vanskike and PFC Archie R. Vanskike Jr. (they all came from Galveston, Texas). During WWII, when Clarence, Louis and Archie Jr. went off to war, their 43-year-old father decided to go with them. These four American heroes took part in the New Guinea campaign and the Liberation of the Philippines. Against all odds, they all survived the war and all went back to Texas. This amazing father passed away in 1962. Clarence died in 1978, Louis died in 1979 and Archie died in 1988. They are all now resting in peace together at Evergreen Cemetery in Galveston."
Thanks for sharing the story of the Vanskikes, JK. Fantastic contribution!

[Shakey Jake]

By Leon Beck.
In 1957, a red-headed stranger wandered into the Esquire Ballroom on Houston’s Hempstead Highway. He was a singer/songwriter/musician - and he was broke and hungry. He was there to sell his songs for food for his family.
Larry Butler & his band, the Sunset Playboys, the house band at the legendary Texas honky-tonk were on stage rehearsing. The stranger asked a waitress if he could talk to Mr Butler, a popular recording artist, bandleader & DJ in the Houston area. The reason he was there, he told the waitress, was he wanted to sell some songs to Larry Butler.
The waitress told Larry that there was a Mr Willie Nelson who wanted to see him and Larry said, “Well, tell him to come on in & sit down at the table over there. If he wants a Coke or beer, or whatever he wants let him have it. I’ll be off the bandstand in a few minutes.”
Willie asked for a Coke & two packets of cigarettes. Larry stepped down from the bandstand and went over to Willie. “Mr Butler,” Willie said, “I’ve got some songs I’d like to sell you.”
Larry, who had several No 1 songs on Houston radio, including “Exactly Like You” & “Find Your Place In Life,” listened to the young songwriter sing “Night Life,” “Crazy,” “Family Bible” and a few more songs. “ I told him, ‘Mr Nelson, I won’t buy ‘em.’ He said ‘Why?’ ‘Well they’re too good.’” Larry told Willie.
“He thought I was crazy. I said, ‘One of these days you’re going to be a big star and you’ll need your songs.’ He said, ‘Well I can write more songs but right now I’ve got my wife and kids out in the car and we’re starving. Ten dollars a song would look real big to me right now.’
“It would have made him rich,” Larry laughs. “Ten dollars would’ve. I wouldn’t buy ‘em but I said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll help you out. I’ll put you in my band and you go to work for me. In that way if you need any money or anything, I’ll help you out.”
Larry told the club owner, “I need to hire another guy. He’s down on his luck. He’s a songwriter and one of these days he’s going to be a big star.” But the owner of the club really wasn’t interested in hiring a new band member. “I said, ‘Well I’m going to hire him anyway and I’ll pay him myself.’ So I went back there and told Willie. ‘I’ll give you some money to get you started. Be here tomorrow night, or tonight, whenever you can and I’ll start you working in my band.”
Larry had his wife Pat buy Willie some groceries and rent him a house. Larry also split his $25 nightly pay with Willie. “I helped him get going and we’ve been friends and have worked together ever since. We’ve never had a cross word. He’s just one of the greatest guys you’ll ever meet.”
Larry, who had a Saturday radio show on Pasadena radio station KRCT ( the station later changed it’s call letters to KIKK) got Willie a job on there as a DJ. “I kept Willie in my band until he got on his feet, and he was with me off and on while he was there in Houston.”
“In ‘59, Willie had the itch to move to Nashville - ‘to push his songs.’ He and I talked about it, so I gave him some money to get up there.”
A year later while Larry and Pat were in Nashville attending the DJ Convention, they stumbled upon Willie at the Andrew Jackson Hotel. “He was asleep on one of the steps there at the Andrew Jackson Hotel. Pat told me, ‘Larry, that looks like Willie over there.’ I said, ‘Well, I think it is. Go over there and see.”
“She had high heels on, and she went over to see if it was Willie - she bent over and fell right on top of him,” Larry laughs. “She said ‘Willie, what are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I’m still pushing my songs.’ So we took him up and put him to bed in our room that night.” Larry put the top mattress on the floor for Willie to sleep on and he and Pat slept on the springs that night.
“The next day we got all our money together, we didn’t have much money left with us, and gave it all to Willie and left him to push his songs.”
“And he did!”
Footnote - They remained close friends until Larry's death in 2017.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1945, Elizabeth Toepperwein died in her home in San Antonio. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882. At eighteen, while working in a Winchester factory, she met Adolph (Ad) Toepperwein, a member of a vaudeville-circuit shooting act who was also employed as an exhibition shooter by the Winchester arms company. After they married in 1903, Ad gave Elizabeth her first shooting lessons and discovered she was a "natural." By 1904 the Toepperweins were working as a team professionally; their first appearance as a famous husband-and-wife team was at the St. Louis World's Fair. Elizabeth acquired the nickname "Plinky" during her early shooting lessons. After several tries, she shot a tin can, which made a "plinking" sound. Elizabeth exclaimed, "I plinked it"--perhaps the first use of this echoic verb now common in shooting publications. She and Ad performed in a career that spanned forty years. Their displays of expertise included shooting while standing on their heads and while lying on their backs. She was the first woman in the United States to qualify as a national marksman with the military rifle and the first woman to break 100 straight targets at trapshooting. She also held the world endurance trapshooting record, hitting 1,952 of 2,000 targets in five hours and twenty minutes. The celebrated shooter Annie Oakley once said to Plinky, "Mrs. Top, you're the greatest shot I've ever seen." Memorabilia of the Toepperweins' career is on display in San Antonio's Buckhorn Saloon.

[Shakey Jake]

First 3 cars in Rosenberg in 1909 in the 800 block of Main st (Now 3rd st). The Buick on the left belonged to Henry A. Meyer. The Buick in the center belonged to Dr. J.S. Yates, and the motorized buggy on the right belonged to R.T. Mulchay. Picture courtesy of Rosenberg Today.

[Shakey Jake]

Here's a wonderful picture of Houston dated 1856. The angle of the picture shows Buffalo Bayou at the foot of Main Street. Note the Allen Brothers sign at top left. Also pictured is how Allen's Landing looks today.

[Shakey Jake]

If you go to the Evergreen Cemetery in Bisbee, Arizona you will find the grave of the man shown in this photo, Augustine "Gus" Gildea. Gus lived an adventurous life that somehow seems typical. He was born in Dewitt County, Texas April 23, 1854. The story goes he ran away from home at the age of ten to join the Confederate Army, but was declined. He was working as a cowboy by the age of twelve. During the late 1860s and 1870 he worked cattle in Texas and New Mexico. In 1873 he was living in Frio County, Texas.
Historians say that Gus rode with Selman’s Scouts in September and October 1878, during the troubles spawned by the Lincoln County War. Selman’s Scouts were known for violence. It was reported, “They were known for their brutality and callous regard of all human life. The Scouts stole horses and cattle wherever they came across them, murdered innocent men and boys without warning, raped women, pillaged businesses and houses, and burned ranches to the ground, all without any sense of rhyme or reason.” At one point, Gildea was listed as wanted for four murders under investigation. Selman’s Scouts disbanded and some, including Gildea, fled back to Texas. The Federal Census in 1880 recorded an unemployed Gildea living with his mother in San Antonio. In 1885 he married Virginia R. (Jennie) Boehmer in San Antonio. They divorced in 1901.
In the way things appear to have gone back then, he returned to law enforcement: in 1882 and 1883 he is recorded working as a deputy sheriff in Tom Green County, Texas. He next served as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Del Rio in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
After his lawman days he worked as a cowboy and range guard for John Chisum in New Mexico. Gus made his way to Arizona where he worked as a cowboy on a ranch near Tombstone. He died of natural causes at Douglas, Arizona on August 10, 1935.

[Shakey Jake]

From the Traces of Texas Facebook group:
The Texas Quote of the Day is a very early explanation as to why many early settlers originally came to Texas:
"Few persons feel insulted at such a question [as to why a man has run away from the States and come to Texas]. They generally answer for some crime or other which they have committed; if they deny having committed any crime, or say they did not run away, they are generally looked upon rather suspiciously."
------ W. B. Dewees, "Letters from an Early Settler of Texas," 1854, as compiled by Cara Cardelle. W.B. DeWees came to Texas from Kentucky in 1822, when Texas was part of Mexico. He received a large land grant in 1824 as one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300" colonists. He worked as a blacksmith and a trader. After the town of Columbus was burned in the Texas Revolution, in 1836, he laid out the present-day town of Columbus and gave land for a courthouse and school. He died in 1878 at the age of 79. His grave marker, shown here, is in the Columbus city cemetery.

[Shakey Jake]

A man with a produce wagon in Wellington, Texas dated 1922. I believe I see some black diamond watermelons. Whatever happened to those? They were so tasty!
Courtesy Traces of Texas Facebook group.

[Shakey Jake]

Another Robert George photo. This is a damaged B-24 Liberator returning from a bombing mission over Southern France. August 1944.

[Shakey Jake]

A true Barbecue Hall of Famer who opened his first barbecue restaurant in Lubbock in 1968.
C.B. Stubblefield learned the ART of smoking meats and adding barbecue sauce to COMPLIMENT the meats from Amos Gamel.
Stubb was a lover of music and Stubb's Bar-B-Q hosted "jam sessions" on Sunday nights that brought in music legends such as B.B. King, Willie Nelson, and Stevie Ray Vaughan to name a few.
The song "The Great East Broadway Onion Championship of 1978" by country singer Tom T. Hall was written after a pool match at Stubb's Bar-B-Q.
Another club by the name of Fat Dawg's was located across from Texas Tech began to also hold a jam session on Sunday nights which tremendously impacted Stubb's business and eventual closure of his East Broadway location.
In 1984 Stubb relocated to Austin and was selling his barbecue and bottling his sauce at a blues place called "Antone's."
The "tornado in my chest" got the best of Stubb and he passed away in 1995, five years after setting up "Stubb's Legendary Kitchen."
Stubb was inducted into the Austin Music Memorial in 2009.
Stubb was also an 🪖 Army Veteran 🪖 and served in the Korean War.
The Stubb's memorial titled, "Barbecue Beyond the Grave," is located where Stubb's Bar-B-Q was located at 108 East Broadway.
Stubb's BBQ Sauce is sold WORLDWIDE. Stubb's Legendary Kitchen (now known as Stubb's Legendary Bar-B-Q) continues to sell the Original and Spicy barbecue sauce, as well as marinades, rubs, and other barbecue sauce flavors. The company, was purchased by McCormick & Co. Inc.