Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Per TSHA:
On this day in 1934, celebrated Depression-era Texas outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were killed in a roadside ambush arranged by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer outside of Gibsland, Louisiana. Riddled by some 167 bullets, the bodies were taken to Arcadia and later put on public display in Dallas before being buried in their respective family burial plots.

[Shakey Jake]

Today's entry comes from the T of T Facebook group:
Fiddler extraordinaire Sam Savage (1861-1951) was not only a great fiddler but had an amazing life story. Buried in the Staggs Prairie Cemetery just north of Mineral Wells, Sam Savage was a rancher, farmer, and champion fiddler. At the age of five, he survived a Comanche Indian raid on his father's farm in Parker County and lived in captivity with the Comanches for a time.
The attack on Bolin Savage's homestead occurred on March 2, 1866, and was followed by a raid on his brother's farm. Both Bolin and James Savage were killed. Sam Savage, his brother, and a cousin were taken captive by the Indians. A posse headed by Parker County Judge A.J. Hunter failed to overtake the Comanches. The children were discovered by trader John Fields in November 1866 and were ransomed for the sum of $414 at Fort Arbuckle, Oklahoma.
Sam Savage lived until the age of 90 to relate his experiences of life with the Indians. In a very short time, he and the other children adapted to their situation, learning the language and the use of a bow and arrow. In 1911, Sam Savage and the trader who rescued him, John Fields, held a reunion during which many of the old tales were recounted.
Sam Savage married Arizona Pierce in 1881, and they lived in Palo Pinto County until their deaths.

[Shakey Jake]

RIP to the great Tina Turner, shown here singing at Fort Worth's Skyliner Club in 1964. The Skyliner was on "Thunder Road," the stretch of the Jacksboro Highway between Tiffin Hall's Mexican Inn & the Skyline Drive Motel in north Fort Worth. This strip had eighteen restaurants, six liquor stores, seven nightclubs, and ten motels. Tina Turner was 83 years old. What an amazing performer she was!

[Shakey Jake]

"These balmy days, I often recall my ideas of Texas before I had the pleasure of mingling with its people ------ of becoming a Texan myself. I regret to say that I had accepted Phil Sheridan's estimate of the State ----- an opinion that still prevails in too many portions of our common country. After living in Texas for ten years I paid a visit to my parents beyond the beautiful Ohio. The old gentlemen sized me up critically, evidently expecting to see me wearing war-paint and a brace of bowie-knives.
'So, young man, you're living in Texas?'
'Yes, paw.'
'Fell kinder t'hum 'mong them centerpedes, cowboys 'n other varments, I s'pose?'
"Y-y-yes, paw."
'Well, Billy, you allers was a mighty bad boy. I kinder cackalated as how you'd go t'hell some day; but, praise God, I never thought you was bound fer Texas!'"
----- William Cowper Brann, writing in "The Iconoclast," 1897. The next year, Brann was shot to death on the streets of Waco by a man named Tom Davis after Brann went after Baylor University and its administrators in the pages of the Iconoclast. He managed to kill Davis in the gunfight.

[Shakey Jake]

The Texas Quote of the Day:
"I've done made a deal with the devil. He said he's going to give me an air-conditioned place when I go down there, if I go there, so I won't put all the fires in hell out."
---- Red Adair, famous oil-well firefighter

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook Group:
Nettie Featherston in Childress in a 1937 photograph taken by Dorothea Lange. Nettie was the wife of a migrant farmer. She and her family were trying to get to California when they ran out of money in Carey, Texas, in 1937. A local cotton grower took pity on them and hired them to harvest his cotton. They were living in this small shack near Childress when Dorothea Lange drove up, talked with Nettie and took photos of her. Lange recorded the desperation in her face and in her voice. Nettie eventually moved to Lubbock and never made it to California, although several in her family did. In a 1979 interview, she said:
“Oh, it was terrible. And when you didn’t have hardly nothing to eat, and your kids would cry for something to eat and you couldn’t give it. We was living in a little old two-room house. And we cooked with blackeyed peas until I never wanted to ever see another blackeyed pea. I just prayed and prayed and prayed all the time that God would take care of us and not let my children starve…
“I must have said, ‘Well, if we’re dead, we’re just dead.’ That’s all I can remember because I don’t remember talking to her [Dorothea Lange].
“I never once thought about living this long [81 years in 1979]. Well, I just didn’t think we’d survive. You want to know something we’re not living much better than we did, as high as everything than we did then…
“Seems like I’m not satisfied. I have too much on my mind. It seems like I have more temptations put on me than anyone. Course, that’s what the Bible said, that’s the way we’d be tried out. And every time I ask God to remove this awful burden off of my heart, he does.”
Can you imagine living in this small shack in Childress back then? I would imagine it was not well insulated and the winds must have blown cold and bitter through it back in 1938.

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1889, the Texas Spring Palace opened in Fort Worth. This fair, promoted by Robert A. Cameron, immigration agent for the Fort Worth and Denver Railway, was designed to attract settlers and investors to Texas. Cameron wanted to advertise Texas by displaying all the natural products of the state under one roof. The completed Spring Palace, built in record time (thirty-one days) by the Fort Worth Loan and Construction Company, served as an educational, cultural, and entertainment center for Texas residents and guests throughout June. A second fair held in the building in 1890 ended when a sudden fire destroyed the place on the night of May 30.

[Shakey Jake]

Wow! Just found this picture on the UTA digital library of Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and the Wild Bunch taken in Fort Worth. Here's the description:
The Wild Bunch - Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) and the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh), Ben Kilpatrick (Tall Texan), William Carver, and Harvey Logan (Kid Curry), ca. 1900 [photographed by John Swartz, 705-1/2 Main St.

[Shakey Jake]

It seems I post a lot about Fort Worth. I spent five years there going to TCU and an apprenticeship in woodwind repair. Anyway, came across this picture of the Fort Worth Benevolent Home. It was established by Womens Christian Temperance Union in Fort Worth's "Hell's Half Acre". I posted about this area of Fort Worth earlier. It was just north of downtown and was an area for gambling and prostitution. The Fort Worth Benevolent Home was established Fort Worth’s notorious red-light district, where children lived precariously with their mothers or eked out a living on the streets. By 1891 the joint women’s groups had established the Fort Worth Benevolent Home in a former brothel. That year Reverend Isaac Zachary Taylor Morris (1847-1914) was transferred to Fort Worth’s City Mission and joined their efforts. Here is a picture of children in front of the reclaimed brothel. The home eventually morphed into the Gladney Center for Adoption soon after Edna Gladney was appointed the seventh superintendent of the home. She received no salary for the position. There was a second home established in Fort Worth after Gladney appealed to Amon Carter and received funds to establish a larger facility at 1315 West El Paso Street. More can be found about Gladney here: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/ent ... ney-center

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook group:
The Texas Quote of the Day:
"Not until I had made several trips [about 1915] from San Antonio to the Big Bend was I trusted by the local people. The credibility I finally achieved was threatened when I started filing stories with the San Antonio Light newspaper, 350 miles away, by carrier pigeon. The people of the Big Bend thought I was sending intelligence about smuggling to the authorities. I finally was "cleared" when Wayne Cartledge, owner of the Castolon Trading Post, read aloud my news story in Spanish before releasing the bird.
One pigeon, shortly before this episode, had set a record for carrying the longest story, a full 8 1/2 x 11 inch page although he took 10 hours and 15 minutes to get to San Antonio, by no means a speed record."
----- W.D. Smithers, Chronicles of the Big Bend, 1976

[Shakey Jake]

How about this fantastic picture of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys!

[Shakey Jake]

Sorry to bore you with another Fort Worth picture. I'd move back there in a heartbeat if it weren't for all the sister-in-law's medical needs. There's no place better to be than Houston if you have health issues. I go back later this month for my six months CAT scan. I hate those things but it's necesssary. Enough of my grousing. Here's a early picture of Fort Worth on Market Day (usually the third Saturday of the month). It was taken in late 1860 or possibly in the 1870's. My what a great picture for the time.

[Shakey Jake]

Here's a picture of the great Bob Hope at the Colonial. I remember while at TCU the Colonial was a big event in Fort Worth every spring. The campus would be filled with guests during the days of the tourney. The next big event would probably be the Cliburn Piano Competition that was held on campus each year. This year the Cliburn Junior Competition will be held in Dallas starting next Thursday.
Description: While on tour in Fort Worth, Texas on June 17, 1946, Bob Hope stopped by the Colonial Country Club for a round of golf. Mr. Hope was in town to perform his variety show at Farrington Field the next day. Mr. Hope is teeing off on the first hole. He is wearing a hat, a striped short sleeve shirt and trousers as he swings his driver. A crowd of people are watching the famous actor. The club house is in the distance.
Date Created: 1946-06-17

[Shakey Jake]

On this day in 1849, Maj. Robert S. Neighbors arrived in San Antonio after leading an expedition to survey an upper, or northern, route to El Paso. His expedition was one of several sent out to open a practical wagon road to the west. The expedition formed at Torrey's Trading Post near Waco, left the trading post on March 23, 1849, crossed the Colorado River on April 2, and crossed the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing on April 17. They reached the Rio Grande on April 25 and El Paso on May 2. Considering the last hundred miles too difficult for wagons, Neighbors took a northern return route previously used by the Mexican army between El Paso and the Pecos River. He reported that the route could be used by wagons and proceeded on to Fredericksburg and finally San Antonio. Today's railroads and highways generally follow his survey.

[Shakey Jake]

Per T of T Facebook Group:
Apolinaria Gutierrez Garrett, wife of sheriff Pat Garrett, poses with the gun her husband used to kill the outlaw Billy the Kid in 1881. This was taken in El Paso in (roughly) 1920.

[Shakey Jake]

Per TSHA:
On this day in 1836, a mounted ranger company in the service of the Texas revolutionary army captured a Mexican ship. The rangers, under the command of Maj. Isaac Watts Burton, had been dispatched by Gen. Thomas J. Rusk to watch a stretch of the Gulf Coast south of San Antonio Bay. When they heard of a suspicious vessel in Copano Bay, the rangers hid on the shore and sent up distress signals. The ship responded first by hoisting American and Texan signals, which were ignored. Only when the ship raised Mexican signals did the rangers respond. Thus tricked into thinking the supposedly distressed soldiers were Mexican, the captain came ashore and was captured. With him as hostage, sixteen rangers rowed out, boarded the Watchman, and seized its cargo of provisions for the Mexican army. Burton and his men employed this decoying tactic twice more on June 17, when they captured the Mexican ships Comanche and Fanny Butler. For these unlikely captures at sea, the mounted rangers were dubbed "Horse Marines."

[Shakey Jake]

Clora Larea Bryant (May 30, 1927 – August 25, 2019) remains a sadly under-recognized musical pioneer. The lone female trumpeter to collaborate with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, she played a critical role in carving a place for women instrumentalists in the male-dominated world of jazz, over the course of her decades-long career proving herself not merely a novelty but a truly gifted player regardless of gender.
Born May 30, 1927, in Denison, TX, Bryant grew up singing in her Baptist church choir. In high school, she picked up the trumpet her older brother Fred left behind upon entering the military, joining the school marching band. She proved so proficient that she won music scholarships to Bennett College and Oberlin, instead opting to attend the Houston-area Prairie View College, joining its all-female swing band, the Prairie View Coeds. The group toured across Texas, in the summer of 1944 mounting a series of national dates that culminated at New York City's legendary Apollo Theater. Although one of the band's lead soloists, Bryant nevertheless transferred to UCLA in late 1945 after her father landed a job in Los Angeles; there she first encountered the fledgling bebop sound, and began jamming with a series of small groups in the Central Avenue area.
In the summer of 1946 Bryant joined the all-female Sweethearts of Rhythm, earning her union card and quitting school soon after. Around this time she befriended Gillespie, who not only offered her opportunities to perform with his band but also served as Bryant's mentor for the remainder of his life. When the Queens of Swing lost their drummer, Bryant rented a drum kit and won the job, touring with the group until 1951, at which time she returned to L.A. and to the trumpet, backing Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker during their respective performances at the Club Alabam. She relocated to New York City in 1953, gigging at the Metropole and appearing on several television variety shows.
She even toured Canada, but ultimately returned to southern California in 1955, two years later cutting her sole headlining LP, Gal With a Horn, issued on the tiny Mode label. Bryant spent the remainder of the decade on the road, with long engagements at clubs in Canada, Chicago, and Denver. She also played Las Vegas opposite Louis Armstrong and Harry James. While performing with James, Bryant caught the attention of singer Billy Williams, joining his touring revue and backing him during a showcase on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1960, she also appeared in the Sammy Davis, Jr. motion picture Pepe.
After quitting Williams' band in 1962, Bryant again returned to Los Angeles, teaming with vocalist brother Mel to put together a song-and-dance act. The duo toured the globe for well over a decade, even hosting their own television show during a lengthy engagement in Melbourne, Australia. In the late '70s, Bryant replaced the late Blue Mitchell in Bill Berry's big band, but after several years out of sight she made international headlines in 1989 after accepting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's invitation to play five dates in the U.S.S.R., becoming the first female jazz musician to tour the Communist nation.
A 1996 heart attack and subsequent quadruple bypass surgery rendered Bryant unable to continue her career as a trumpeter, but she continued to sing, at the same time beginning a new career on the lecture circuit, discussing the history of jazz on college campuses across the U.S. Honored by Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with its 2002 Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival Award, Bryant was again celebrated with the 2004 release of Trumpetistically, a documentary profile that took filmmaker Zeinabu Irene Davis some 17 years to complete.
Bryant died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on August 25, 2019, after suffering a heart attack at home. At the time of her death, she had nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Source: Jason Ankeny/Wikpedia
(Image: May be an image of 1 person, clarinet, saxophone and trumpet)

[Mr. Neutron]

Shakey Jake,

First of all, Thank You SO MUCH for all these really interesting posts in this thread. I was born a bit north in Oklahoma, but spent a lot of time in Texas racing Motocross in the early '70s, visiting relatives in Sherman, and such. Always liked Texas a lot.

In your post a bit above here, from May 31st, you gave picture of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Do you happen to have a list of names of the musicians and folks in that picture? Reason I'm asking is because when I lived in Tulsa, the first man I ever took guitar lessons from was Eldon Shamblin, the rhythm guitar player for Bob Wills. Some of his other "duties" with the band was to wake up Bob himself and make sure he made it to the shows. I guess that wasn't always an easy thing to do sometimes.....

[Shakey Jake]

Shakey Jake,

First of all, Thank You SO MUCH for all these really interesting posts in this thread. I was born a bit north in Oklahoma, but spent a lot of time in Texas racing Motocross in the early '70s, visiting relatives in Sherman, and such. Always liked Texas a lot.

In your post a bit above here, from May 31st, you gave picture of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Do you happen to have a list of names of the musicians and folks in that picture? Reason I'm asking is because when I lived in Tulsa, the first man I ever took guitar lessons from was Eldon Shamblin, the rhythm guitar player for Bob Wills. Some of his other "duties" with the band was to wake up Bob himself and make sure he made it to the shows. I guess that wasn't always an easy thing to do sometimes.....

No, there isn't. I went back to the original site and there isn't a list. I did find a list of players on another site:
Al Stricklin
Bob Wills
Cameron Hill
Curly Lewis
Danny Alguire
Eldon Shamblin
Herman Arnspiger
Jesse Ashlock
Jimmy Belken
Joe Ferguson
Laura Lee
Lee Ross
Leon McAuliffe
Louis Tierney
Millard Kelso
Noel Boggs
Sleepy Johnson
Smokey Dacus
Tiny Moore
Tommy Duncan (1934 – 1948)
Tubby Lewis
Zeb McNally

[Mr. Neutron]

Thanks, Jake!!!