Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Today's entry comes from TSHA:
On this day in 1855, Charles Siringo was born in Matagorda County. Beginning in 1870, he worked as a cowboy, part of the time for Shanghai Pierce, and later helped establish the LX Ranch. While working as an LX cowboy, he met Billy the Kid and led a posse into New Mexico in pursuit of him. In 1884, while working as a merchant in Caldwell, Kansas, Siringo began writing his first book, A Texas Cowboy; or, Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony (1885), which established him as the first cowboy autobiographer and became a range literature classic. In 1886 he moved to Chicago and began a twenty-two-year career with Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. He subsequently worked all over the West and participated in such celebrated cases as the Haymarket anarchist trial and the murder trial of "Big Bill" Haywood. After leaving Pinkerton's in 1907, Siringo retired to his ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His second book (A Cowboy Detective, 1912) caused a bitter conflict with the Pinkertons, and his Two Evil Isms, Pinkertonism and Anarchism (1915) brought an unsuccessful libel suit from the agency. Siringo was appointed a New Mexico Ranger in 1916 and for two years saw active service against cattle rustlers. Following his return to Santa Fe he published A Lone Star Cowboy (1919) and History of "Billy the Kid" (1920). In 1922 he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a film advisor and played bit parts in movies. His Riata and Spurs (1927) was a mature composite of his first two autobiographies. Siringo met such varied celebrities as Pat Garrett, Bat Masterson, Clarence Darrow, William S. Hart, and Will Rogers. He helped to romanticize the West and to create the myth of the American cowboy. Siringo died in California in 1928.

[Shakey Jake]

Per TSHA:
On this day in 1887, "Longhair Jim" Courtright, former town marshall of Fort Worth, was killed in a gunfight with Luke Short. This was one of the most famous gunfights in western history--and, contrary to the movie legends, one of the few face-to-face shootouts. (I posted a couple of years ago here: http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.p ... rt#p174038 )The duel was the first of two events that drew increased hostile attention to the hive of brothels and bars known as Hell's Half Acre. The second was the discovery of a murdered prostitute named Sally, two weeks later. Before these violent occurrences, even legitimate businesses had resisted reform of the Acre because of the money it brought in. But the deaths of Courtright and Sally brought renewed and ultimately successful cleanup efforts.
As the importance of Fort Worth as a crossroads and cowtown grew, so did Hell's Half Acre. It was originally limited to the lower end of Rusk Street (renamed Commerce Street in 1917) but spread out in all directions until by 1881 the Fort Worth Democrat was complaining that it covered 2½ acres. The Acre grew until it sprawled across four of the city's main north-south thoroughfares: Main, Rusk, Calhoun, and Jones. From north to south, it covered that area from Seventh Street down to Fifteenth (or Front) Street. The lower boundary was marked by the Union Station train depot and the northern edge by a vacant lot at the intersection of Main and Seventh. These boundaries, which were never formally recognized, represented the maximum area covered by the Acre, around 1900. Occasionally, the Acre was also referred to as "the bloody Third Ward" after it was designated one of the city's three political wards in 1876.
The Acre meant income for the city-all of it illegal-and excitement for visitors. Possibly for this reason, the reputation of the Acre was sometimes exaggerated by raconteurs; some longtime Fort Worth residents claimed the place was never as wild as its reputation. Suicide was responsible for more deaths than murder, and the chief victims were prostitutes, not gunmen. However much its reputation was exaggerated, the real Acre was bad enough. The newspaper claimed "it was a slow night which did not pan out a cutting or shooting scrape among its male denizens or a morphine experiment by some of its frisky females." The loudest outcries during the periodic clean-up campaigns were against the dance halls, where men and women met, as opposed to the saloons or the gambling parlors, which were virtually all male.

[Shakey Jake]

Today's entry comes from the Traces of TX Facebook group:
Traces of Texas reader Mary Haner graciously submitted this wonderful photo of the Sayers family outside their home, which comes with a good story Says Mary:
"This is the Sayers home in Dumont. Farley Sayers is 5th from the right. Burke Burnett shot Farley over a cattle dispute May 1912. Farley was married to my Dad's half-sister, Rosa Magee. I remember Dad telling me how proud the young rancher was with his newly built home. Left to right: the carpenter (unknown), Minnie Magee Morgan (Rosa's sister), Walker Morgan (who was in the washroom when Farley got shot), Jess Sayers, Farley Sayers, Little Farley, Rosa Magee Sayers, Lois Sayers, J.T. Sayers and Mary Johnson, who later married Jess Sayers."
The story behind the shooting of Farley Sayers is this: In 1912 when he was 63 years old, Burke Burnett was confronted by Farley Sayers in a bathroom at the Goodland Hotel in Paducah, Texas. Witnesses say Sayers reached for his gun, but was outdrawn by Burnett and killed by a single shot to the chest. Burnett turned himself into local law enforcement and stood trial for murder. Burnett was acquitted on grounds of self defense. A feud between the two men over the ownership of cattle precipitated the event.
Thank you, Mary! I just did quite a bit of research on all of this, to include reading the New York Times account in 1912. I guess any time a man as wealthy as Mr. Burnett ---- owner of the 6666 ranch ------ kills a man, it's newsworthy.

[Shakey Jake]

John Hays, otherwise known as Capt. Jack, was born at Little Cedar Lick, Wilson County, Tennessee. His father Harmon A. Hays fought in the War of 1812, naming his son for a relative by marriage, Colonel John Coffee. In 1836, at the age of 19, Hays migrated to the Republic of Texas. Sam Houston appointed him as a member of a company of Texas Rangers because he knew the Hays family from his Tennessee years. He met with Houston and delivered a letter of recommendation from then-President Andrew Jackson, his great uncle. Rachel Jackson was Hays' great aunt of the Donelson family, a relative of his mother.
In the following years, Hays led the Rangers on a campaign against the Comanche in Texas and succeeded in weakening their power. He rode with a Lipan Chief named Flacco who led the charge into every battle with him. The duo led and inspired the Rangers. In 1840 Tonkawa Chief Placido and 13 scouts joined with the Rangers to track down a large Comanche war party, culminating at the Battle of Plum Creek. The battle of Plum Creek was an aftermath of the Council House Fight, in which many of the Comanche Indian chiefs, women, and warriors were killed. In the summer of 1840, the Comanches swept down the Guadalupe valley, killing settlers, stealing horses, plundering, and burning settlements. After sacking Linnville in Calhoun County, they started a retreat. The Texans organized a volunteer army under Gen. Felix Huston, Col. Edward Burleson, Capt. Mathew Caldwell, and others and with Texas Rangers under Ben McCulloch overtook the Indians at Plum Creek in the vicinity of the present town of Lockhart on August 11, 1840. There a decisive defeat on the following day pushed the Comanches westward.
In 1849 Hays led a wagon train to California during the Gold Rush days and served as Sherriff of San Francisco County for four years. A surveyor by profession, Hays laid out the city of Oakland. He died near Piedmont, California in 1883.

[Shakey Jake]

This picture from the UNT archives was too good to pass up. I don't know the photographer, but this is a fine specimen from the 1880's. Texas Rangers Company D's Camp Leona in Uvalde County, Texas, (left to right) Baz Outlaw, Charles Fusselman, Jim Robinson (horseback), Ira Aten, Walter Jones, Walter Durbin, Calvin Aten, Frank Smith, Frank R. Hughes, Jim King and Ernest Rogers. I was going to post this in the morning but too good to wait.
Baz Outlaw was killed by John Henry Selman on April 5, 1894 during a wild brawl in Tillie Howard's brothel in El Paso. (If you recall a previous thread Selman also killed John Wesley Hardin.)

[Shakey Jake]

Per TSHA:
Walter Moses Burton, Black state senator, was brought to Texas as a slave from North Carolina in 1850 at the age of twenty-one. He belonged to a planter, Thomas Burke Burton, who owned a plantation and several large farms in Fort Bend County. While a slave, Walter Burton was taught how to read and write by his master, a skill that served him well in later years. Thomas Burton sold Walter several large plots of land for $1,900 dollars. This land made the freedman one of the wealthiest and most influential Blacks in Fort Bend County. He became involved in politics as early as 1869, when he was elected sheriff and tax collector of Fort Bend County. He was the first Black sheriff elected to office in Texas and the first Black elected sheriff in the country. Along with these duties, he also served as the president of the Fort Bend County Union League. He later served four terms in the state legislature.
More information can be found here:
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/ent ... lter-moses

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another fine picture from the W.D. Smith Collection. Texas Rangers at Judge Roy Bean's Jersey Lilly saloon and Justice of the Peace court in Langtry, Texas, Pecos County 1880's.

[Shakey Jake]

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!

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another great picture of the Jersey Lily with Judge Roy Bean himself in front of the establishment. Here's a snippet of information from TSHA:
By 1884 Bean was settled at Eagle's Nest Springs, some miles west of Vinegarroon, which acquired a post office and a new name, Langtry. Bean claimed credit for naming the town after English actress Emilie Charlotte (Lillie) Langtry, whom he greatly admired. Actually, railroad records indicate that the town was named for George Langtry, a railroad construction foreman. Bean's fame as a bizarre interpreter of the law began in the 1880s. There was, however, a sort of common sense behind his unorthodox rulings. When a track worker killed a Chinese laborer, for example, Bean ruled that his law book did not make it illegal to kill a Chinese. Since the killer's friends were present and ready to riot, he had little choice. And when a man carrying forty dollars and a pistol fell off a bridge, Bean fined the corpse forty dollars for carrying a concealed weapon, thereby providing funeral expenses. He intimidated and cheated people, but he never hanged anybody. He reached the peak of notoriety on February 21, 1896, when he staged the Fitzsimmons-Maher heavyweight championship fight on a sandbar just below Langtry on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, where Woodford H. Mabry's rangers, sent to stop it, had no jurisdiction. Fitzsimmons won in less than two minutes.

The full article can be found here: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/bean-roy

[Shakey Jake]

I've got a busy morning so just posting another great picture. This one is also from the UNT digital library of some Texas Rangers near Marfa, Tx. I had a good friend and classmate from TCU that was a band director in Marfa for a number of years. Here's a snippet of information from TSHA. More information can be found here: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/marfa-tx
The town's biggest attraction, however, is the famous Marfa Lights. The town and surrounding area have also provided the background for several Hollywood movies, including Giant (1956), the Andromeda Strain (1971), There Will Be Blood (2007), and No Country for Old Men (2007). The 1960 population of 2,799 had decreased to 2,647 by 1970. That year Marfa had several small local industries among its seventy-nine reported businesses. The 2,466 inhabitants of Marfa celebrated the town's 100th birthday on March 5, 6, and 7, 1983. For the celebration about 5,000 friends, relatives, and former Marfans came to have a memorable time and enjoy their city. In 1990 Marfa reported a population of 2,424. That figure decreased to 2,121 in 2000 and 1,981 in 2010.