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Texas
Small Town Sagas"Never
tell a story because it is true:
tell it because it is a good story."
- John Pentland Mahaffy |
Murder, Mysteries,
Robberies, Hangings ..... Hanging
a Dead Man by Bob
Bowman 3-14-10
George Hughes of Sherman
may have been the only man in East Texas to be lynched while he was dead... Law
and order used to be so very different
by Delbert Trew 3-3-10
Law
and order came slowly in the West, because it required decent citizens, fed up
with crime and carousing, to finally stand up and put up the money to hire a sheriff
or marshal...
“Death
by Rope” by Bob and Doris Bowman
2-26-10
The book explores
49 lynchings and legal hangings in East Texas between 1862 and 1942. Dueling
by Clay Coppedge 2-24-10
The Huston-Johnston
Duel in Feb. 5, 1837Hazlewood
Fight by Mike Cox 2-18-10
Though
several writers over the years have offered a version of the Hazlewood story,
no one seems to have explained the old guns found that spring night 65 years after
the battle. Nor has anything turned up indicating what happened to the vintage
firearms beyond having been displayed for a time at a Breckenridge movie house.
A
Very Personal Ghost and the Hanging on Sawyer Oak by C. F. Eckhardt 10-26-09
I’ve come to the conclusion, over the years, that when it comes to ghosts there
are two sorts of people—those who realize ghosts exist and those who don’t want
to realize it. One of the sure ways to become one of the first variety is to see
a ghost. However, even if you see a ghost, you may not realize at once what you’ve
seen. I know. It happened to me... John
Roan Mystery by Mike Cox 11-4-09
On
Dec. 13, 1879, the Atlanta Constitution published a brief story that should have
been big news in Texas, but somehow no editor in the Lone Star state picked up
on the Georgia daily’s report. The story dealt with the purported solution of
a 29-year-old mystery in Central Texas, the disappearance of one John Roan...Baled
in a Bale by Mike Cox 9-11-09
Though
most of the ginning is done by brainless machinery, the industry’s human element
has developed a colorful folklore with a range of subsets. But no ginning story
can top the occasional tale of a body in a bale.A
gunfight in Hemphill by Bob Bowman 6-20-09
With
deep roots in East Texas, John Wesley Hardin was our most famous outlaw and gunfighter,
but many of his raids and shootings in the pineywoods have remained unchronicled.
A little-known incident in which he won a gunfight with a Sabine County deputy
sheriff at Hemphill...Susan's
Indians by Mike Cox 6-11-09
Early
one morning, Rebecca and her niece, Susan Jane Ayres, happened to be on the porch
of the Duncan cabin when startled by an Indian woman who stuck her head up from
a place of concealment in a nearby draw ...Pistol
Packing Mamma by Bob Bowman 3-8-09
One
of the most popular songs in the U.S. during the mid-1940s was “Pistol Packing
Mama.” But few know that the song came from East Texas... Cherokee County Sheriff
Bill Brunt was killed in a shootout with bootlegger Red Creel near Rusk in 1939...A
Gruesome Prophecy Tattooed on a Soldier’s Breast
2-8-09Treasury
Raid by Mike Cox 1-29-09
When
the bell atop the First Baptist Church started clanging about 9 o’clock that Sunday
night, it was not a call to worship. It was June 11, 1865. A full moon hung over
Austin, a city of some 4,000 residents.
Doak
Good by Clay Coppedge 1-15-09
Good
was involved in a fabled but implausible shootout with another rambunctious pioneer
of the day, Gabe Henson.
Garrett
Murder by C. F. Eckhardt 12-9-08
One of the many unsolved mysteries of the West. White
Buffalo by Mike Cox
11-18-08
"A
group of buffalo hunters had gotten drunk and were working on getting drunker.
As the Webb boys got the story, the recently departed fellow had killed in a man
while arguing over cards..."
Murder
at a school by Bob Bowman 10-13-08
During
the evening of March 12, 1926, as students and parents watched a play at Center
Point school in Trinity County...Hardin's
Shotgun by Mike Cox 8-27-08
John
Wesley Hardin's shotgun used by him to kill the Sheriff of DeWitt County, the
most notorious of the men who had served in the State Police of the early 1870s...
Longhorn
Branded Murder 1889 by Murray Montgomery 6-2-08
To the cowboys who rode the range in West Texas during the [1890s] there was one
longhorn steer that was always an object of dread. He was a big, white fellow
with “Murder 1889” branded in huge letters on his left side. His appearance among
their herds brought a chill of terror to the superstitious...Hanging
preceded death of a town by Delbert Trew 5-29-08
Chipita Rodriquez died on Friday, Nov. 13th, 1863. She is believed to be the only
woman ever legally hanged by the state of Texas. Though guilty by circumstantial
evidence only, her death seemed to place a curse on the town of San Patricio,
Texas, as it signaled the beginning of the end of the small settlement...
Bud Newman, part II by Mike
Cox 5-29-08
About 11 p.m. on June 9,
1898 at a point called Coleman Switch about four miles west of Santa Anna, Newman
and three other masked men descended on a Santa Fe passenger train...Bud
Newman Gang by Mike Cox 5-26-08
Bud Newman didn’t amount to much as an outlaw, but not for lack of grit... Ben's
Pistol by Mike Cox 5-8-08
Whatever became of Ben Thompson’s six-shooter?
Thompson, a British-born former
Texas Ranger and soldier of fortune with a penchant for booze and gambling, made
quite a reputation as city marshal of Austin in the early 1880s. His life ended
violently in San Antonio on the night of March 11, 1884 when someone gunned him
down along with former outlaw-turned-lawman King Fisher of Uvalde... Santa
Robber by Mike Cox
Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” stands as an enduring
classic, but truth being stranger than fiction, Texas can claim one of the nation’s
more bizarre real-life holiday tales – a story of a Santa Claus gone bad... The
Mystery of Lady Bountiful by Bob Bowman
November
22 will mark the 85th anniversary of an East Texas murder that created a still-lingering
mystery and put a timber baroness in a pauper’s grave. The
Bones in the Courthouse Crawlspace by Johnny Stucco
What the exterminator
saw... “Witch’s
Gate” by Johnny Stucco
In Cold Blood: Clay County, Texas 1975
A needless
killing for a fortune that wasn’t there. Tragedy
in South Texas: Reading Black - Unionist, George Washington - Wall Confederate
by Linda Kirkpatrick
The northern end of South Texas is still considered by
many as a remote, desolate area that could only be home to rattlesnakes, horned
toads, scorpions and occasionally an outlaw...Sullivan
Mike Cox
Ex-Ranger W.S.J. Sullivan, and the hanging of condemned preacher
Morrison, the last man ever legally hanged in Wilbarger County.Horrell-Higgins
Feud in Lampasas County by Clay Coppedge
Bloody
Christmas by C. F. Eckhardt
The Murder of LaSalle County Sheriff Charles
B. McKinney
Looking for Hangings
by Bob Bowman
Before the electric chair gave Texas an alternative way of punishing
murderers and the like, Texas counties had the local authority to hang criminals...John
Ringo by Mike Cox
"It didn't play out quite like a scene from "Gunsmoke,"
but two of the Old West's more notorious characters faced each other in Austin's
red light district in 1881..."
"No Gallows" by Bob
Bowman
The names of some East Texas towns can be downright confusing. And
much of the confusion arises from mispronunciations which, during the passage
of time, have become actual names.Belle
Starr The Bandit Queen by Maggie Van Ostrand
"I regard myself as a woman
who has seen much of life," said Belle Star to The Fort Smith Elevator in 1888,
a year before she died... Shootout
at Shafter
Ranger Meets His End on New Years Day 1940
Story and photos
courtesy of William G. HowellYoakum's
Soda-Pop War by Murray Montgomery
It seems that people will often fight
over some mighty ridiculous things. I remember a while back seeing a story, in
the Hallettsville paper from well over 100 years ago, where a fellow shot and
killed his partner just for playing the wrong domino. People in the old days took
things pretty seriously, to say the least... The
1862 Hangings at Gainesville Texas by W.T. Block
Certainly one of the
worst atrocities of the Civil War occurred in Gainesville, Texas in Oct. 1862,
when 40 men, suspected of Union sympathies, were hanged... The
Night the Posse Chased Santa by Maggie Van Ostrand
December 23 will mark
the 79th anniversary of the bloody melodrama which was about to take place in
the town of Cisco in West Central Texas, on the day before Christmas Eve 1927.
I know about it because of an article written at the time by the great Texas columnist,
Boyce House. He should know. He was there...O.
Henry and the Shoal Creek Treasure by C. F. Eckhardt
"...While Santa
Anna was trying to put down the Texas rebellion of 1836, two high-ranking Mexican
officers-one was, so the story goes, the paymaster, the other a high-ranking general-decided
to steal the entire payroll for the Mexican Army in Texas. ...In the meantime,
two of the common soldiers hatched a plan of their own. Why enrich the paymaster?
Why not kill him-and the other five soldiers-and have the fortune to themselves?..."
The
Worst Feud by Bob Bowman
The
deadliest feud happened in East Texas between 1840 and 1844. The Regulator and
Moderators War was the first and largest American feud in numbers of participants
and fatalities. William
Marsh Rice by Archie P. McDonald
Everyone loves a murder mystery, especially if the murder happened
a long time ago and did not involve someone they know. The story of William Marsh
Rice's demise is such a case... The
Case of Beaumont's Missing Marble Corpse by W. T. Block, Jr. ("Cannonball's
Tales")
It was July of 1901 in Beaumont, and the frenzy of oil excitement
rushed on unabated... In the midst of all the oil madness, there emerged one of
the strangest tales ever to unfold in the "sawdust city," the case of Beaumont's
missing corpse that had turned to stone... The
Gunfight that Killed Helena by C. F. Eckhardt
"The Colonel's son
has been gunned down, in cold blood or so the story implies..."Murder
of Local Doctor During Reconstruction by Murray Montgomery
After the Civil
War ended, folks in Texas and throughout the South underwent a phase in time known
as "Reconstruction." During this period, the states that had previously been part
of the Confederacy were now subject to military rule as well as, occupation by
Union troops...Seth
Carey's Escape from the Murderous Yocum Gang by W. T. Block
Just another
fly caught up in Yocum's web of murder and intrigue, Carey not only survived his
slated assassination and dismemberment in Yocum's alligator slough, but he lived
instead to finger the gang and account for its destruction.
A
criminal or a saint? You never know by Delbert Trew
"Route 66 certainly
endured its share of crime in its heyday."Yocum's
Inn: The Devil's Own Lodging by W T Block Jr.
"A gentleman's life...held
no attraction for Squire Yocum, a man who literally was nursed almost from the
cradle on murder and rapine, and for many years Yocum's Inn was actually a den
of robbers and killers..." Three
Tragedies by Bob Bowman
An intriguing family mystery spanning more than
135 years is told by three tombstones lying behind a rusting iron fence in a small
East Texas cemetery. Hardin
Shootings at Albuquerque by Charley Eckhardt
Book
Burning by Mike Cox
“'Where they have burned books,' German poet Johann
Heinrich Heine wrote in the 19th century, 'they will end in burning human beings.'
Indeed, Texans have done both...."Freeny
Hanging by Mike Cox
"... No matter White’s official status, most
folks remembered him as the sheriff who hanged a tenant farmer named George Freeny
for killing his son-in-law..."Poisoned
Supper by Bob Bowman
A tragic, unthinkable
incident in the spring of 1847, frequently associated with the Regulator-Moderator
War, remains after 157 years one of East Texas’ worst mass murders -- if it was
murder. PRAIRIE
DELL, Tranquil setting belies past by Clay Coppedge 9-24-04
The principle
set for the sequel to the movie "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Poison
Doc by Mike Cox
Herman Webster Mudgett, America’s first serial killerHow
Bonnie and Clyde Were Caught by Bob BowmanRockledge,
A Panhandle Ghost Community by Delbert Trew
Two murders and a bank robbery
Murder
at Camp Swift 1942 - The Tragic Death of Little Lucy Maynard by John TroesserCamp
Bowie by Mike Cox
On the night of May 5, 1837, two officers of the Republic
of Texas' army lay asleep in their tent at Camp Bowie. Only one of them would
wake up.McDade
Hanging by Mike Cox
While not quite on the level of "A Christmas Carol,"
"The Miracle on 42nd Street," or "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas," the story of
the McDade Christmas clean up has become one of Texas' more frequently told Yuletide
tales. A
Famous Murder by Bob Bowman
80th anniversary of one of East Texas' most
famous mysteriesRange
King by Mike Cox ("Texas Tales" column)
"It can't atone
for his murder, or even the apparent contempt of those who buried him, but at
least James W. King lies in a beautiful cemetery."Pearl
by Mike Cox ("Texas Tales" column)
Pearl was tried and convicted
in Brown County. The jury's finding in regard to his punishment was easily written
on a single piece of paper: Death by hanging.Looking
for Old Murders by Bob Bowman
Between the 1860s and 1940s, East Texas
produced some of the strangest murders in Texas. Cranfill
- by Mike Cox
For about the last quarter of the 19th century, and the first
two decades of the 20th century, being a "wet" or a "dry" defined a Texan politically
much more accurately than being Democrat or Republican. Both sides of the issue
passionately believed they were in the right. Often, they were willing to fight
over their belief, sometimes to the death.
The
Barrymore Shooting by Bob Bowman
Someone
asked John Barrymore, the patriarch of America's famous family of thespians, what
he thought about Texas. In his deep, resonant voice, Barrymore replied: "Texas
is a no man's land where sudden death lurks in every bistro." He had good reason
for feeling that way.The
Bank Robbery (Dalton Gang, 1894) by Bob Bowman Bill
Longley Does Not Get Along Well With Others. A Visit to the Giddings City Cemetery
The
Day Doc Newton Robbed Bonnie Parker's Bank - He could've been charged with
disturbing one hundred years of solitude The
Double Murder in Granger, 1934 The
Tall Texan : The Story of Ben Kilpatrick by Arthur Soule The
Last Full-sized Train Robbery in Texas by Brewster Hudspeth The
Double Hanging at Bellville in 1896 The
Infamous East Texas Sewing Needle JailbreakThe
Day Eastland Texas Hanged Santa Claus
"....And to think that it happened
on Mulberry Street!" Diamond
Bessie: The Trial of the (19th) Century Watt
Moorman, a central figure in the Regulator-Moderator War, was shot to death
by Bob Bowman 8-23-09
Gunfight
at the Lampasas Saloon - Historical Marker
10-11-09 |
Hardship, War
and FamineSearch
World War II Chronicles (A series)
Search World War I Chronicles (A
series)
Indian Stories by Mike Cox
2-19-09
Unlike most states of the
Union or those of the Confederacy, Texas fought two wars during the Civil War.
One war, of course, was the bloody struggle against the North... The second war
was primarily one of self-defense against hostile Indian tribes...Where
are you Benny Goodenberger?
by Perry Peary
Mark Davis was in the Merchant Marine and was assigned to serving
on oil and gasoline tankers coming up the east coast from New Jersey to Texas.
In May of 1942, he was on the SS Virginia coming out of New Orleans when a German
submarine, the U-507 torpedoed the ship....Sarah
by Mike Cox
Few
Texas women ever saw any worse than Sarah Creath McSherry Hibbens Stinnett Howard.
A woman with true grit, the way she came by her long name is one of Texas' more
gripping tales. Born around 1812.... Barbecue
Bust by Mike Cox
With
more than 20,000 chanting anti-war protestors headed downtown from UT, the governor
decided he was hungry for barbecue... Upshur
County Chronicles - George Lester remembers Union Grove
Helmet-less
Football, Bone-chilling Movies, Short Boxing Careers and Why Teachers Should Be
Demanding Wends
in Texas by Raoul Hashimoto
The Brides Wore Black: A look at Texas'
most unique immigrant groupPrivate
and Corporal York:
Lee County Cousins killed in the Great War. Giddings City Cemetery Kaiser's
Burnout and Other Big Thicket Adventures by Archie P. McDonald Lonesomeness
redefined: Indian Hot Springs (Hudspeth, County), "Fort Unworthy"
and Victorio's Secret |
Texas
Storms Central
Texas Flood by Mike Cox 9-3-09
The
first day it started raining, people took it as good news...Terrible
Memories of Hurricane Carla by Murray Montgomery
The
story was from the Associated Press (AP) wire service and it was titled: "15-Year-Old
Boy Describes Loss Of Family In Storm." And what triggered the bad memory for
me was; I knew that boy...
The
Longest Train Ride by C. F. Eckhardt
"Train #1 of the Gulf & Interstate
Railroad, which left Beaumont, Texas, at 7:00 AM on September 8, 1900, to make
the run to Port Bolivar, about 85 miles away by modern highway, arrived at Port
Bolivar at 11:10 AM, September 24, 1903—three years, sixteen days, and ten minutes
late. Some of the original passengers were still aboard..."
Balinese Room Cashiered
The Texas Rangers finally succeeded in eliminating gambling at Galveston’s famed
Balinese Room in 1957, but it took a Category 2 hurricane to cashier the old casino-on-a-pier
once and for all. Coming ashore on Galveston Island in the predawn hours of Sept.
13, Hurricane Ike...An
Irony of Hurricane Ike by Bill Cherry 9-15-08Galveston
1900 by Mike Cox The
Galveston Storm by Archie P. McDonald, PhD
The
hurricane that struck Galveston on September 8, 1900, still reigns as the worst
natural disaster in United States history because an estimated 10,000 people lost
their lives.
Hurricane
1900 Cartoon by Roger T. MooreHurricane
Carla by N. Ray Maxie
She was ferocious, deadly and destructive; a Category
5 hurricane at one time, with 175 MPH winds. She slowly came ashore September
11, 1961Indianola
A poem by Jeff McLemore published in 1904. Indianola
"Queen city of the West" turned ghost town, devastated by storms The
Story of Indianola by Maggie Van OstrandIndianola
Remnants by Mike CoxRockspring
1927 Tornado |
Disasters and
AdventureTexas’
10 Worst Disasters by Mike Cox 1-14-10
A
look at the most dire disasters in the state’s history – a list that contains
one disaster that happened long before Texas was settled – shows that the worst
disasters are the ones that come without warning... New
London School Explosion by Archie McDonaldNew
London School Explosion by Archie McDonaldA
Tragedy's Museum
by Bob BowmanSteamship
Texas Ranger by Mike Cox
In the summer of 1875, a nameless storm off the
lower Texas coast battered a vessel with a famous name. She was the Texas Ranger,
a coastwise steamboat.Old
West fires often impossible to tame by Delbert Trew
The
Texas Flood of 1935 by Edward Aquifer
Vintage photos courtesy of TxDoT
Locomotive Boiler Explosion
Smithville Blast of 1911 Kills 9, Injures
12 The
Emporia Mystery by Bob Bowman
In the early 1900s, an explosion and fire
spread throughout the old Emporia sawmill in south Angelina County. An estimated
30 sawmill workers, most of them black, are believed to have perished in the conflagration...
Texas
City 1914 by Mike Cox
"A small town with a big name, Texas City hosted
an Army camp. Not that it amounted to a strategic location - it had not yet become
a petrochemical port -- but with Mexico embroiled in a bloody revolution, the
military had moved more troops into Texas in anticipation of trouble..."
Slocum
by Sandy Fiedler
Slocum's Great Tornado of April 24, 1929Deadly
Explosion in the Oilfield by N. Ray Maxie
The Day J. B. Taylor was killed
This is a post World War II story... Humble
Fire by Mike Cox
"...Hudson's enthusiasm for the oil business changed
abruptly on July 23, 1905. That evening, a thunderstorm triggered a bolt of lightning
that ignited the oil in one of the large tanks Hudson had helped build. Sending
billows of thick, black smoke high in the sky, the fire spread quickly..."
The
Eagle Befriends the Stork by John Troesser
Port Arthur's legend of F.
B. Wright, A Hurricane StoryFriendship,
Texas - Now under Lake Granger
"The rain started
at 6 p.m. on September 10, 1921 and continued until 6 a.m. on September 11th.
Although no official measure was mentioned - it was estimated that 50 inches of
rain fell...."Hollywood
Soot by Audrey A. Herbrich
Photos by Boyd Photography, La Grange
The
fire in La Granger.
"The north wind—unusually strong this March—carried
the voices from those gathered below to me, and I could hear their whispers and
gasps. And it wasn’t the ablaze Botts Title Company that trumped the conversation,
or the equally ablaze China Inn Restaurant, Bertie’s Barbershop, or the income
tax lawyer’s office. No, it was the Cozy Theater, slotted between Bertie’s on
the left and the JC Penney catalog store on the right." The
Volunteer Fire Departments of Sunray and Dumas -
The Shamrock Oil refinery
explosion in the late 1950's Circuit
Board Fragments on Pine Needles
The American Spirit, Observations by Gary
E. McKee
A volunteers account of the search for space shuttle debris in East
Texas Scurry
County: Fire on the SquareBen
Ficklin, Texas
"The short history of Ben Ficklin has many of the
elements that other counties have built legends upon. A county seat rivalry, a
rowdy frontier fort, friendship beyond the grave and a disaster that killed many
of the inhabitants..... "Night
of the Iguana x 11,315
Ol' Rip, The Entombed Horned Toad of Eastland
County |
Buildings are
People Too
The
Bathhouse that Wouldn't Die
Reader's comment : I enjoyed your piece
on the Luling Bathhouse. I had no idea all that history was there. - Chandra Beal,
author or "Splash Across Texas" Hotel
Wars in Seguin - Two hotels in one town, the rivalry of building them and
the little girl who loved them both. No, it's not a Shirley Temple movie script.
Rooms
With a Past
(A series) - Texas hotels built before 1950. |
Texas Forum Subject:
Texas City Explosion
Dear TE, I attended 1st grade in Galveston
at the Rosenberg school on 10th Street. One morning about 9:00 the whole school
shook. We had a fire drill and had to go outside. Mama had made me a nice Easter
dress and while we waited outside it became spattered with oil. We went back into
the school and classes were dismissed for the day. I had to walk to 7th street
where we lived and I found Mama in the bathroom washing clothes on a scrub board,
In the afternoon we stood on the porch and looked towards Texas City where the
sky was red and glowing. We lived close to St. Marys hospital where the emergency
people were bringing in the injured from Texas City in the back of trucks. Later
we found out [about the] explosion. That's all I remember about that terrible
day. - Margie Bennett
Hill, Manvel, Texas, April 09, 2007 |
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