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KNICKERBOCKER,
TEXAS
Tom Green County
FM 2335 and FM 584
6 miles E of the Irion county line
18 miles W of San
Angelo
6 miles S of Tankersley
Population: 50 est. (2000)
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Knickerbocker
Post Office and Community Center
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2006 |
History
in a Pecan Shell
The town was once second only to San
Angelo in size and political influence in the county after Ben
Ficklin was washed away in the great flood of the Concho River.
The name comes from two of the town's early settlers who were related
to Washington Irving, the American writer who was at the peak of his
popularity at that time.
Diedrich Knickerbocker was the fictitious narrator of Irving's History
of New York.
In 1875 the three Baze brothers donated land for a church, school,
and cemetery on the northwest side of Dove Creek. They installed an
irrigation ditch to grow hay, and melons to sell to the Fort Concho
soldiers. |
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The
Knickerbocker Ranch
Photo courtesy Hiram Joel Jacques |
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The
E.M. Grinnell House
Photo courtesy Hiram Joel Jacques |
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Knickerbocker
residence
Photo courtesy Fort Concho Museum |
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Joseph
Tweedy and wife
Photos circa 1881, courtesy Hiram Joel Jacques |
In
1877 Joseph Tweedy, J. Barlow Reynolds and the Grinnell Brothers drove
their herds of sheep from their camp near Brackettville.
They established the Knickerbocker ranch / store on the SE side of
Dove Creek.
A post office was opened in 1881. In the 1880s the Tweedy Mercantile
Company dealt in oats, wheat, and corn. Second only to the crops was
sheep production.
After a collapse in wool prices, the original settlers left, leaving
only J.Tweedy. He platted a townsite on his land, and set up his own
irrigation company for farms along Dove Creek.
Stephen Dexter Arthur planted cotton as an experiment in 1887 and
produced Knickerbocker's first bale. The ruins of his water-driven
gin can be seen near the bridge at Dove Creek. Arthur built a Methodist
church on land donated by Joseph and Elizabeth Tweedy. In 1889 the
town relocated to a site with better water.
The town had twenty-five residents in 1884, fifty in 1890 but by the
late 1890s the population had swollen to 250.
During its boom times, Knickerbocker seemed to have two of everything.
The town had two gins, two saloons, two blacksmiths, two hotels and
two stores. It also had an undertaker - just one.
Kinckerbocker also had an early sanitarium since doctors all across
the country were sending people to dryer climates. Later, nearby Carlsbad
became a huge facility for tuberculosis patients.
Knickerbocker's adobe store / post office, built in 1896 remained
standing until 1936. Knickerbocker got its first school, in 1889 and
a school for Mexican children six years later.
A lawless element hung out near Knickerbocker and two members of this
group staged a train robbery near Sanderson,
Texas (see The
Last Full-sized Train Robbery in Texas).
A brick school built in 1926, served until the school consolidations
of the 1950s. In 1956 Knickerbocker merged with Christoval.
© John Troesser |
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Knickerbocker
Historical Marker
Next to the highway in front of the Knickerbocker Community Church
Photo courtesy Baclay Gibson |
Our
special thanks to Hiram Jacques of San Jose, California and the Fort
Concho Museum for providing the photos illustrating the Knickerbocker,
Tankersley ,
Ben
Ficklin and Fort
Stockton pages.
Mr.
Hiram Joel Jacques' personal look at the people who settled this region
in the 1880s:
My late father's ancestors have deep roots in Ben Ficklin and Knickerbocker
history and Tankersley.
My great-great-grandfather, Tomas Jaques de Salazar (1800-1880), moved
to Ben
Ficklin around 1871-72 with his family.
He was the oldest man in Fort Stockton in 1870 at the age of 70 years.
He crossed over to Fort
Stockton, Texas from Chihuahua by wagon in 1870. In 1872, Tomas
and two of his four sons, Trinidad and Jesus Jose, signed the Petition
of 1872 to form Tom Green county, which included about 13 of today's
counties. Tomas died around 1880, two years before the great flood
of 1882.
Around 1886, Two sons then moved toward El Paso and two settled in
Knickerbocker. My great-grandfather, Honesimo Jaques, worked
for Joseph Tweedy and built his rock house in Knickerbocker.
My grandfather, Selso, worked for R. F. Tankersley as a foreman on
his cattle ranch. Selso married the niece of R. F. Tankersley's second
wife, Conchita Maldonado. My late father, Francisco (Frank) Jacques,
was born on the Tankersley
ranch in 1917.
- Hiram Joel Jacques, San Jose, CA ,August 14, 2003 |
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Immaculate
Conception Catholic Church
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2006 |
Knickerbocker
Community Church
Photo courtesy Drew Sykes, April 2007 |
Knickerbocker,
Texas Forum
Subject:
Ghost town: Tankersley VS Knickerbocker
Dear TE, Your, tethered to the ranch, ghost town-busting reporter
here reporting for service again. Visited your wonderful site again
to check on updates. Saw updated photos of the Knickerbockers churches,
thanks. But I noticed you still have us in the “Ghost Town” category.
I will try one more time to convince you that we are not dead! This
time by comparison. Check out your listing for Tankersley.
It’s only 6 miles north of Knickerbocker. You have Tankersley in
the regular city category. Tankersley does not exist anymore! It
has not been even a village for fifty years. There nothing there
that has any civic relationship to the lonely one or two ranchers
near by. [A] ranch office is there but that’s it. There’s a State
owned sign that says “Tankersley” but I or anyone else would be
hard pressed to point out where the town is.
Tankersley is a Ghost town not Knickerbocker!
Again, Knickerbocker has a community center, a post office, two
churches, a Volunteer Fire Department, warm homes with warm bodies
inside them on either side of the highway and down our side streets.
Kids are playing in yards, people gather to visit and exchange the
latest juicy gossip at the post office. We have yearly church festivals
and secular picnics. I think we could even produce a town mayor
when he’s sober, our spiritual deacon and a village idiot or two.
So, I am on my knees, I beg you, I implore you to put Knickerbocker
in the regular town category and out of the ghost town category.
- Sincerely, Drew Sykes, Sec/Tres, Knickerbocker Community Center,
Knickerbocker Ranch, August 06, 2007
We may have
ghosts - but they are all in the cemetery.
Subject: Knickerbocker Texas labeled a "Ghost Town"
Dear TE, You are wrong in claiming the village of Knickerbocker
a “Ghost Town”. Yes we have lost much of our business and population
over the years but we are still a community that takes great pride
in our little village. About 50 people live in Knickerbocker. We
have a Community Center that is used quite frequently by the local
citizens and it also has the Post office in it. It is beautifully
landscaped in front with native plants. Soon we will have the start
of a pavilion in the back of the center. We have two churches and
two cemeteries. Come to think about it we may have Ghosts in Knickerbocker
but they are only in the cemeteries! So could you please change
the title you have given Knickerbocker. We are not a Ghost Town.
If you need any other information or pictures I would be happy to
provide. Thank you, Drew Sykes, Sec/Tres. Knickerbocker Community
Center/ Knickerbocker Ranch, October 18, 2006
Anyone wishing to share history, stories or photos of Knickerbocker,
Texas, please contact
us
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