Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

I am not sure who was making the marketing decisions at Nocona boots in the late 1970s but whoever decided to engage Science Fiction/Fantasy artist Alex Ebel (November 14, 1932 – December 6, 2013) deserves a beer and a big bowl of chili. Check out his awesome advertising poster. I've told the story of Nocona Boots in the past but it's so interesting that I'm posting it again.
The story starts with H.J. "Daddy Joe" Justin, came to West Texas from Indiana in 1879, carrying with him hope for a new life.
He settled in Spanish Fort, a town right on the Texas-Oklahoma border about 50 miles east of Wichita Falls. Spanish Fort was right on the old Chisholm Trail.
With 25 cents and some bootmaking tools, "Daddy Joe" set up a shoe repair shop. When he had enough money, he bought leather for a pair of boots, sold them and bought leather for several more pairs.
"Daddy Joe" was a perfectionist with every detail of his handcraft. He started a tradition of fair boots for a fair price. When the cowboys came through on cattle drives, he'd measure their feet and on the way back, they would pick up their boots.
In 1887, the railroad came through Nocona, Texas, just south of Spanish Fort. So Daddy Joe moved his family and boot factory to Nocona and the better shipping facilities.
At the age of 12, in 1906, Daddy Joe's daughter, Enid Justin, started working in her father's shop. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade, her rebellion for having been suspended for dancing on Sunday at her brother's birthday party in her parent's home but she continued working with her father, absorbing everything he knew about bootmaking.
After "Daddy Joe" died in 1918, Enid's brothers, John, Sr., Avis, and Earl, wanted to move the business to Fort Worth. The commercial advantages of being in a large city like Fort Worth were too great to be ignored, they argued. But Enid felt so strongly that her father wanted the company in Nocona that she would not agree to it. In 1925, her brothers packed up the equipment and moved to Fort Worth, taking the Justin Boots name with them.
Enid borrowed $5,000 to keep seven employees in her small shop and founded the Nocona Boot Company.
During those first years Enid turned her home into a boarding house, worked as a sales clerk, shipping clerk, stenographer and credit manager. At first, some men had trouble doing business with a lady bootmaker, but they soon discovered the quality was just as good as her late father's.
The fortuitous discovery of oil near Nocona brought many new customers to Enid's young company. They made a 16 inch "lace-up" boot that was tough enough to survive the oil fields. The wildcatters loved them and kept coming back for more.
Accompanied by her sister, Miss Enid made her first sales trip into West Texas in 1926.
"The roads looked like cattle trails in those day's" she said. "And for good reason, they were cattle trails. Our old Model T took a pretty good beating on that first trip. In fact, we lost a back wheel once, it came loose and jumped over a fence. Despite the hazards of the road, the trip was successful. We came back with a book full of orders and a new market for boots."
In 1981, the Nocona Boot Company merged with Justin Industries, parent company of the Justin Boot Company, bringing the bootmaking histories of the two family companies full circle.
In 1999, Justin Industries closed the Nocona Boot Company plant in Nocona and consolidated all boot-making at El Paso, Texas, and Cassville, Missouri, thus ending more than a century of quality boot-making in Nocona.
Enid Justin died in 1990. She was 96 years old.
Thanks to Traces of Texas reader Jim Caldwell for sending this in.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Jo Payne-Pierce graciously posted this fantastic circa 1885 photo of "downtown" Antelope, Texas. Jo's great great grandfather, John Aaron Crossman, and his 2nd wife and children settled in the area sometime around 1880. He farmed there and his wife Mary Alice ran a boarding house. This is an absolutely fantastic image with so many great details. Antelope, which is in Jack County about 40 miles south of Wichita Falls, looks like it was one store with about 8-10 houses clustered around it. And what a Main Street!
Thank you, Jo. I love this!

[Shakey Jake]

The abandoned La Linda Catholic Church stoically awaits its certain fate in front of a backdrop of mountains that is as spectacular a setting as any you'll ever see. It is actually in Mexico but I was standing in the the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area on the Texas side when I took this.
One of my own photos, taken in 2009. (Remember to go to the Traces of Texas Facebook page. This is another disclaimer that these are not my writings. I'm just placing them here for those who do not have access or want access to Facebook. Jake).

[Shakey Jake]

Originally, producers wanted Charles Bronson and James Garner for the Lonesome Dove miniseries. But Bronson declined and Garner dropped out due to health reasons. When the producers cast Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, Duvall was originally set to play the stern and by-the-book Woodrow Call. But, after reading the novel ----- and on his wife’s advice ----- Duvall asked to switch roles, lending his signature warmth to the carefree spirit of Gus McCrae. It’s hard to imagine Jones and Duvall in each other’s roles, but it was almost a reality. For his part, Jones brought an air of authenticity, being that he's a Texan and also owns a ranch near San Saba.

[Shakey Jake]

Galveston society dame Bettie Brown was quite outrageous for her time. Here is how Miss Brown was described by Gary Cartwright: "When Miss Bettie Brown entertained at Ashton Villa. her footman rolled a red carpet down the front walk so that the skirts of ladies alighting from their carriages would not be soiled. Miss Bettie was one of the Island's wealthiest and most independent women. She lived with her parents ---- her father James M. Brown, was a merchant and civic leader ----- in a pre-Civil War Italianate mansion at the corner of 24th and Broadway. Miss Bettie enjoyed shocking the grand dames of Island society. She smoked cigarettes, and an occasional pipe, and went unchaporoned to garden parties, wearing the jewel-crusted $5,000 coat that she had once worn to a garden party at the castle of Emperor Franz Josef in Austria. She had traveled extensively in Europe (she kept an apartment in Paris) and studied art in Vienna with the court painter. Her idea of sport was racing down Broadway in her own fancy carriage, pulled by magnificent teams of matching stallions ---- a black team for day, a white team for evening.
Though many of the Island's most eligible bachelors courted Miss Bettie and drank champagne from her slipper, she never married. Some believe she was a lesbian, though there is no historical evidence that this is true. What she was was remarkably homely. She had thin lips, a prominent chin, and a nose upon which a family of eagles could have roosted ----- positioned, disconcertingly, atop a stunning hour-glass figure. Miss Bettie once painted a self-portrait using her sister as a model. As she grew older Miss Bettie spent her days mostly in the privacy of the Gold Room at Ashton Villa, painting, playing the piano, collecting treasures. She died in 1920 but her ghost is said to haunt the villa (which is now a museum) to this day."
---------- Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island, 1991. Courtesy the Galveston Historical Foundation . The Galveston Historical Foundation is dedicated to preserving Galveston's astonishing history and certainly would appreciate y'all following them if you're not already!

[Shakey Jake]

The Texas Quote of the Day, written in 1837, is a description of the funeral that was conducted by Juan Seguín for those who died at The Alamo. Seguín's speech is quite something.
"Funeral of the Heroes of the Alamo:
In conformity with an order from the General, commanding the army at headquarters, Colonel John N. Seguin, with his command, stationed at Bexar paid honors of war to the remains of the heroes of the Alamo.
The ashes were found in three places. The two smallest heaps were carefully collected, placed in a coffin, neatly covered with black and having the names of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett engraved on the inside of the lid, and carried to Bexar and placed in the parish church, where the Texian flag, a rifle, and a sword were laid upon it for the purpose of being accompanied by the procession, which was formed at three o'clock on the 25th of February, 1837.
The honors to be paid were announced in order of the previous evening, and by the tolling knell from daybreak to the hour of interment. The procession then proceeded to the principal spot, the place of interment, where the graves had been prepared [and] the coffin placed on the principal heap of ashes.
Colonel Seguin made the following address in his native tongue, Castilian: "Companions in arms, these hallowed relics which we now have the melancholy task of bearing onward, to consign to their kindred earth, are all that remain of those heroic men who so nobly fell, valiantly defending yon tower of the Alamo. If they, my brave associates, preferred rather to die a thousand times than basely bow under the vile yoke of tyranny, what a brilliant, what an illustrious example have they bequeathed us. How worthy to illumine with unchanging splendor the ever glowing pages of history. Even now the genius of liberty is looking down from her lofty seat, smiling with approbation upon our proceedings and calling to us in the names of departed brethren, Travis, Bowie and Crockett, and their iron-hearted band, bids us in imitating their mighty deeds to secure like them a high place upon the scroll of immortality.
Since then, soldiers and fellow citizens, undying fame is the glorious reward of those who fall in this noble contest; cheerfully will I encounter the most formidable dangers which fortune can crown in the path of glory in the noble attempt to achieve my country's independence, regardless of whatever indignity the brutal ferocity of my enemies may have to offer to my lifeless body. I would joyfully perish on the field of battle shouting the war cry, "God and Liberty, Victory or Death," of these heroes."
Thus have the last rites of a Christian burial been performed over these brave men. In after times when peace shall have returned to smile upon our prosperous country, a towering fabric of architecture shall be reared by their grateful countrymen above their ashes, designating Bexar as the monument city of Texas, where long after the massive walls of the Alamo have crumbled into dust, the votaries of freedom shall yearly assemble to celebrate at this "TOMB of HEROES" the mighty achievements of the unreturning brave."
----- Lance Parker, reporting in the Republic of Texas News, March 27, 1837. Sad to say that, today, the exact burial site is not known. Somehow it has been lost to history.
Shown here: Juan Seguín. Seguín was the only Mexican Texan in the Senate of the republic and served in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Congress.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Charles Fairchild sent in this fantastic image of a Tonkawa Indian somewhere in north central Texas. The photo is undated but if I am not mistaken that is a Winchester model 1873 lever action rifle in his hands, so probably sometime after that.
Thank you, Charles! AWESOME!

[Shakey Jake]

The Texas Quote of the Day is a reminder of one of the saddest events in Texas history. On January 8, 1865, at Dove Creek, 18 miles southwest of present day San Angelo, a tribe of Kickapoo Indians was attacked by a troop of Confederate soldiers. The soldiers had mistaken the friendly Kickapoos for Comanches, and the misunderstanding became a massacre of eighty Indians ----- men, women and children. Thirty-five soldiers were killed. Years later, one of the surviving Kickapoos told the Indians' side of the battle:
"We had lived friendly with the white people many years. They said they were our friends and we believed them. The great [Civil] war came on. We did not know why our white friends wanted to kill each other. They led some of our young men into war and some never came back because they were killed. They went in for twelve months, then they came home and said they did not want to fight with the white soldiers any more. Our old men held a council. They kept the fires burning three days. The white men had been fighting three years. Soldiers came and killed our cattle. They took all our corn. Sometimes they were white soldiers; sometime Pin Indians. Our old men said it was not our war, and no man could say when peace would come back. They said as long as there was no peace, the war trail would lead through the Kickapoos' country. They told our people they must go to Mexico where they could live in peace. When the white men quit war and made peace, the Kickapoos could come back to their lands. Five of our chiefs went to see General Smith. He gave them papers. He told them they could take their people to Mexico. When the corn was ripe and all gathered, we started. It was a long journey but we had strong arms and hearts, and wanted to get away from the war. We crossed Red River and kept above the settlements all the way. Six white men came to us on the Brazos. They were friendly. They asked many questions. They saw all our horses. They did not claim any of our horses. We told them to look at all our horses. After that we saw few white men until the morning of the fight. We had a fight with the Comanches two days before on the Concho. They shot one of our men in the eye with an arrow. He died that night.
"When the soldiers came up that morning, one of our chiefs wanted to talk. He went out of the thicket with a white cloth. They killed him. Then a young woman went out with a white cloth. They shot her down. They killed her baby also. Her name was Oo-lath-la-hi-na. She had gone to school at Fort Gibson. She could write and read and spoke good English. She said, 'I will go and talk with the white captain. He thinks we are Comanches. The white men won't shoot a woman.' They killed her. Then we had to fight or stand still and be killed like rabbits. Our young men wanted to follow them when they ran off, and kill all. Our chief and old men said no. We must go quick. They will bring more soldiers and surround us. We buried our chief and Oo-lath-la-hi-na that night. We carried our wounded with us. Many died on the way. We traveled day and night till we crossed the Rio Grande. We were hungry all the way. We were sad and wanted revenge. We took no scalps in that fight. The battle ground is one day west of the Concho River."
----- John Warren Hunter, Hunter's Magazine, 1911.
Shown here: Babe Shkit, a Kickapoo Chief, in 1894. He had nothing to do with the massacre described above, but I couldn't find a photo of John Warren Hunter and wanted a historical photo of a Kickapoo to show y'all so this is the one I selected.

[Ernie]

Thanks Jake. I am enjoying this post.

[Rifletom]

Thanks Jake. These posts are amazing! Keep it up if possible. Amazing!

[Shakey Jake]

This is the grave of Fred D. Chilton in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tascosa, Texas, as it appeared in 1937. Fred was killed in a gunfight on March 21, 1886. The gunfight at Tascosa is little-known today, but at the time it was more famous than the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, having similar causes and involving more fatalities than the shootout at Tombstone, Arizona. What happened is this:
As I mentioned, the Big Fight at the Jenkins Saloon was an incident that took place in the Old West town on March 21, 1886. The gunfight was between members of two Texas Panhandle ranch factions: the LS Ranch's Home Rangers and a group of small ranchers and cattle rustlers known as "The System".
In the spring of 1884, Pat Garrett came to the Texas Panhandle as newly appointed captain of the Texas Ranger Division. He was tasked by the Texas State government and by the big ranchers of the Canadian River with organizing a company of Texas Rangers to put a stop to the rampant rustling and re-branding of cattle in the area. He set up his headquarters at the LS Ranch and petitioned the government for official papers so that he could go to work. In the following months, he and his men, known locally as the 'LS Rangers' were successful in policing the area and preventing the same kind of feud that resulted in New Mexico's Lincoln County War just eight years earlier.
In the spring of 1885, the rangers were disbanded and Garrett returned to New Mexico. The rest of Garrett's men continued to work for the LS Ranch as rangers, but since they were no longer officially Texas Rangers, their hard-drinking and arrogant ways began to stir local resentment. Ex- Texas Ranger Ed King was particularly troublesome, as he was known to be especially arrogant, quarrelsome when drunk and quick to draw his gun at any excuse. In Tascosa, the rangers became known as 'barroom gladiators'.
The final straw came when Sally Emory, who worked at the Jenkins Saloon, dumped her boyfriend, bartender Lamar Albert (Lem) Woodruff (who the rangers suspected to be a System man), and took up with Ed King. In the days preceding the fight, a drunken Ed King would taunt Woodruff, calling him 'Pretty Lem' and endeavoring to humiliate him.
On the evening of 20 March 1886, Ed King, his friend John Gottlieb Lang, and two other LS ranch hands, Frank Valley and Fred Chilton, rode into Tascosa to participate in a local dance. In the early hours of the 21st, the four men left the dance and headed into town, where Ed King was hoping to meet Sally Emory. Valley and Chilton entered the Equity Bar while Lang tied up the group's horses. Meanwhile, Ed King and Sally met outside the Jenkins Saloon at the corner of Spring and Main Streets. There, King was hailed by someone in the shadow of the saloon. Stepping up onto the porch, King was shot in the face. Lem Woodruff rushed out and shot King in the neck. King died immediately. Sally Emory ran away down Spring Street.
Seeing his friend shot down, John Lang rushed down Main Street to the Equity Bar. Finding his friends there, he demanded extra weapons from the bartender. The three remaining LS ranch hands rushed out towards the Jenkins Saloon. They went around the back, just as Lem Woodruff, Louis Bousman, Charley and Tom Emory (now known to be aliases used by Fehdor Charles Arnim and William Oscar Arnim), John Gough (AKA the Catfish Kid) and others were exiting from the back door of the saloon. Gunfire erupted immediately. Woodruff and Charley Emory were shot first. Frank Valley ran towards the door of an adobe shack behind the saloon from which gunfire was erupting and was shot in the head as he opened the door. Chilton shot Jesse Sheets, a local restaurant owner, in the face, and he fell dead. Chilton was then shot in the chest by someone shooting from a woodpile outside the saloon. Dying, he handed his gun to Lang.
John Lang found himself alone and being fired at in a crossfire from the saloon and from gunmen shooting from behind the woodpile. He retreated up Spring Street, firing as he went, while bullets tore into the ground and through the air around him. His fight ended as he turned a corner and was joined by friends from the Equity Bar. The men made their way back to the western part of Main Street. Soon afterwards, Sherriff Jim East and his deputy arrived on the scene. Lang offered his services as a deputy and the men went back towards the Jenkins Saloon. When they got there, the Catfish Kid ran from the woodpile and was shot at. He fell, groaning and choking. But it was a ruse: as soon as he was unnoticed, he ran off, unhurt.
The fight had left John Lang with a bullet through his coat, but without a scratch. His three friends were not so lucky. They lay dead or dying where they had been shot, as did Jesse Sheets. Lem Woodruff survived, even though he had been badly wounded in the abdomen. Charley Emory also survived.
Murder charges were filed against Woodruff, Bousman, Emory, Lang and the Catfish Kid. The first trial ended in a hung jury. In the second, all the men were acquitted. The Catfish Kid died in prison in 1890 after killing an unarmed man in another incident in Tascosa. Charley Emory died in 1897. Lem Woodruff moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he died in 1902. Tom Emory died in 1914. Louis Bousman died in Oklahoma in January 1942.
According to the Lang family, John Lang went on to become Amarillo Town Sheriff for a short time before rejoining his family in Oregon. In 1897 he took part in the Klondike Gold Rush. In 1898 he joined the Oregon Volunteers and served in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. After the war, he returned to Oregon. A long-time Democrat, Lang represented his district in the Oregon state legislature. He also served as mayor of Haines, Oregon. From the 1900s until the 1930s, he tried his hand as a gold prospector. He died in April 1942.
Source: The Traces of Texas Facebook Page

[Shakey Jake]

Well now, this is a first. I have posted photos of children with goat carts, pony carts, and even a chicken cart, but I have never posted a photo of kids with a deer cart. This is Hoyt Murphree and his sister Burnetta in Waco circa 1915. Tragically, their mother, Lena Beck Murphree, died in 1919 when she was asphyxiated at the family home at 416 Williams street. Per her obituary, she was attempting "to light a fire in the air-tight heater and inhaled the gas that had accumulated there and died from its effects."
Many Texans don't realize it but there was a livelihood to be made by itinerant photographers in the old days by knocking on doors and asking folks if they would like their children to be photographed in the cart. A photographer would walk a neighborhood in the morning, making the proposition, then come back a couple of hours later (after the kids had a chance to clean up and get in their best clothes) to take the photo.
This photo courtesy the T.B. Willis Photograph Collection via The Portal to Texas History . You can browse 2,700+ photos from that collection here: https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/co ... mage_photo

[Shakey Jake]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:
When Dallas millionaire O.L. Nelms built a honky tonk for Bob Wills and his band at 206 Corinth Street, he had 1700 silver dollars inlaid into the bar and built indoor stalls for horses. Wills himself occasionally rode his horse Punkin ---- who wore special rubber boots ---- onto the concrete floor. The honky tonk was called Bob Wills' Ranch House. It was renamed the Longhorn Ballroom in 1958, when Nelms sold it to business partner Dewey Grooms. Jack Ruby managed a portion of the ballroom as a separate venue from Grooms’ half of the place and often brought friends from the world of organized crime through the back door. One night after closing the club was broken into. Strangely, only Grooms’ safe had money stolen from it. (Image: )
Here's a photo of Bob Wills at what is still the Longhorn Ballroom. It comes courtesy the ballroom's website, which is located here:
https://www.longhornballroom.com/
If you click on the history link you'll see photos of some of the other famous folks who have played there. Really some great photos! I need to get up to Dallas and check this place out.

[Shakey Jake]

Here's another goodie that Traces of Texas just posted.
The Texas Quote of the Day is a reminder that old-time cowboys faced many different kinds of hazards:
"Well, I never froze on the trail, but I I did starve for water, and I don't mean maybe either. It was my first drive, too - that was what made it so hard on me. In the spring of 1869 we left Pick Duncan's ranch with a bunch of W Cross L's for the head of the Concho to go from there to the Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. We left that good, clear Concho with one barrel of water, intending to refill at Hackberry water hole, mid-way on the plains.
Halting to answer the cook's 'come and git it' at noon, we went on until dusk, when we pitched camp (no where near that water hole) and when supper was finished, so was the water - fourteen men and not a drop, not to mention the stock, and three days to go.
We did not bed the cattle as planned but hit the trail all night and at nine o'clock next morning we stopped to rest an hour; then prodded 'em up and on toward that water hole. Finally when within a mile of it the boss said he would ride ahead and reconnoiter. He was back right now with 'It's so confounded dry you could bury a man in the cracks, they're so deep.' That settled it. We kept the herd hoofin' until three o'clock, halting for another hour, then trailing it straight through until the next day noon when we hit the canyon, twelve miles from Horsehead Crossing.
The cattle got wind of the water and pulled out plumb pert. It was half an hour by sun when we got there, and when we got to that river not one of the fourteen boys could speak above a whisper and several could not shut their mouths for swollen tongues. If any of you have ever been as thirsty as we were, you know just how good water just plain, brackish, alkali, Pecos River water can taste. It was so good we laid up three days drinkin' our fill and enjoyin' ourselves.
Water logged, full of good grub, rested and fresh as daisies, we started up the Pecos to the falls. There the horse wrangler, named Kuykendall, dismounted on herd and stood his gun by a bush. Remounting, he caught it by the barrel, the hammer caught in the brush, pulled back and blew his head off. We buried him and continued on to Hondo, thence to Denver where we delivered the cattle."
------ Charlie Harmon, an old Texas cowboy, quoted in an interview in February, 1930

[Shakey Jake]

Happy Thanksgiving from Traces of Texas to all y'all beautiful, crazy Texans out there!
Cowboys lining up to eat in Spur, Texas, 1939. Photo by Russell Lee.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas
1h ·

The Texas quote of the day:
"I stayed all night with Jim Bowie. On the night before the fight was to take place I never saw a man sleep more soundly than he did."
----- an unidentified Texian "soldier" under Jim Bowie's command, regarding the night before the Battle of Concepcion, which took place on October 28, 1835. The quote is found in a clipping in the Daughter of the Republic of Texas' biographical file of Jim Bowie.
Shown here: A map of the site of the Battle of Concepcion as provided by the great folks at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission . The second image shows a current map of San Antonio. The San Antonio River's course has changed somewhat since 1835, but the battle site is about 500 yards north and west of Mission Concepcion, placing it just south of where I-10 crosses the San Antonio River. Think of how many people drive on I-10 over that spot every day without realizing what took place there less than 190 years ago. Well, surely none of those people are readers of Traces of Texas! (Image: )

[Shakey Jake]

I always like to see photos of folks having a good time, which is why I was glad when Traces of Texas reader Scotty Baccus kindly sent in this nifty photo. Says Scotty: "My Grandmother, Ilene Baccus, was born in 1907 and always told me she remembered the first model T to come to Abilene. She was living in Merkle (Noodle, specifically) by 1920. This is a photo of her at 19, with my grandfather, Carl. She is on the left, and he has his back to the car with infant in his lap. The baby is her son Coy, born in 1926, the year this photo was taken. He later served in WW II. Likely taken on the plains near Merkle, Texas."
Thank you, Scotty. What could be better than a picnic on a sunny day in Texas? Not much!

[MuddyWaters62]

I really enjoy your Tales of Texas reports. My paternal grandparents met each other in Burkbernet in the earl 20's. My grandmother and her mother ran a boarding house on the bluff overlooking the Red River. My grandfather was working in the oil fields during an oil boom. After a courtship, they married and worked in several different places in Texas. They settled in Gainesville in the late 30's. As it happens, I too was born in Gainesville.
Your reports have stirred up a lot of old memories. Thank you.

Muddy Waters69

[Shakey Jake]

I really enjoy your Tales of Texas reports. My paternal grandparents met each other in Burkbernet in the earl 20's. My grandmother and her mother ran a boarding house on the bluff overlooking the Red River. My grandfather was working in the oil fields during an oil boom. After a courtship, they married and worked in several different places in Texas. They settled in Gainesville in the late 30's. As it happens, I too was born in Gainesville.
Your reports have stirred up a lot of old memories. Thank you.

Muddy Waters69

Thanks Muddy but I can't take credit for this thread. I just copy and paste items of interest from the Facebook Traces of Texas. Some of the fellows here don't have a Facebook account and I post them here for their entertainment. There's a lot more posted there on a daily basis and encourage you to go to the Facebook page and give it a "Like" if you haven't already.

The Not-So-Arcane Texas Fact of the Day is some sad news on the historical preservation front: the Schroeder dance hall in Goliad is shutting down. Schroeder Hall, which features a 6,000 foot dance floor, is the second-oldest in Texas, getting its start in 1890. The venue has hosted a large roster of country music talent. Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Faron Young, Mel Tillis, Wanda Jackson, Johnny Bush, Tammy Wynette and George Jones, Hank Thompson, Buck Owens, Johnny Rodriguez, Ernest Tubb, and many other artists have performed at Schroeder Hall. Roy Clark recalled playing there when he was a young musician starting out. At that time chicken wire surrounded the bandstand to protect the band from the result of any rowdy behavior. Polka bands, such as the Majeks, also have a long history at Schroeder Hall.
Sounds like I need to make a trip to Goliad soon!

[Shakey Jake]

Cowboys on the trail from Texas to Kansas circa 1880. The real deal.