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Getting
the Most Fun from "The Only Hanging for 50 Miles Around." by Mike Cox 4-4-13
The
tale of one Sam Walker, told in the Shiner Gazette on Jan. 12, 1898 and rediscovered
by Austin history buff Sloan Rodgers, is likely fiction disguised as news, but
that surely didn’t lessen the pleasure of reading it.Austin
Mystery Murders by Mike Cox 11-21-12
Only
a village with a few hundred residents in 1841, Austin experienced at least a
couple of homicides that year that by today’s standards read more like big-city
whodunits. Lawman's
interview provides historical insight by Delbert Trew 9-25-12The
Deadly Tower by Murray Montgomery 9-18-12
One of
the saddest days in Texas history occurred August 1, 1966. On that day a crazed
man started firing from the observation deck at the University of Texas tower
— picking random human targets on the ground and hitting them with deadly
accuracy... Tex
Thornton: King of the oilfield firefighters and rainmaker
by Clay Coppedge 5-1-12Lizzie
Hay and the Demise of the Lone Highwayman
by Mike Cox 2-9-12
Sometimes,
no matter how good the story, a compelling tale gets forgotten. That’s sure the
case with the Texas outlaw known in his day as “the lone highwayman.” The
Ghost of Thurber by Bob Hopkins 9-28-11Drought
and Skeleton by Mike Cox 9-22-11
Skeleton
in Brackettville...The
Murdered Sheriff by Bob Bowman 7-10-11
Angelina County
Sheriff William Reed (Bill) McMullen was one of the men who was killed during
a feud between the Gilley and Windham families at Homer, the county seat of Angelina
County in the 1860s... Science
Hill by Bob Bowman 6-19-11
Sitting atop a scenic
hilltop in southwestern Henderson County, Science Hill lasted only a few decades,
but its reputation as a center of education is well-remembered by descendants
of its founders and builders. So is its violence in the early days of the Civil
War... Ernst
Tinaja by Mike Cox 6-16-11
A geologic feature in
Big Bend National Park called Ernst Tinaja, a deep natural water hole dug out
of the bedrock over the millenia by erosion—a place of beauty tainted by
a history of death.End
of the Hanging Era by Bob Bowman 4-17-11
From the
inception of the Republic of Texas in 1836, the method of punishing criminals
was usually by hanging at the county level. But in 1924, the State of Texas took
the responsibility for capital punishment and changed the method from hanging
to electrocution. George
Washington’s Execution by Bob Bowman 12-26-10
When
the Texas prison system plugged in its electric chair in 1924, would you believe
that George Washington was one of the first four men to be executed? Don’t laugh,
it really happened... Prairie
Fire by Mike Cox 12-16-10
A raging winter prairie
fire. an arsonist, and post Civil War justice in Hunt County. The
Legend of Campbell’s Branch by Murray Montgomery 12-9-10
If
you leave Hallettsville traveling on FM 957 towards Breslau, you will cross over
a small creek named West Campbell Branch – known as just plain “Campbell Branch”
to most folks. Recently I came across a fascinating story, from 1944, about the
legend of Campbell’s Branch... |
| | The
Murder of Dr. Sam Houston Adams; Slaton, Texas, 1930s by James Villanueva
11-1-10
The murder of Dr. Sam Houston Adams is not a tragic tale. It’s
not necessarily a gloomy story. Nor is it a hopeful story about overcoming hardships
or tribulations. It’s not quite folklore either. No. For lack of a better description,
it is simply - a love story. |
| | The
Tar and Feathering of Father Joseph M. Keller, Slaton, Texas, 1920's by James
Villanueva 10-1-10
On
a Saturday night, March 4, 1922, in Slaton, what may have begun as a whisper,
an aside, a comment, or just mindless chatter amongst neighbors, transformed the
community... |
The
Haunting of the Old Travis County Jail by Mike Cox 10-14-10
Harvey,
34, had the distinction of being the last of nine men legally hanged in the castle-like
stone jail... A
Hanging in Austin by Mike Cox 8-19-10
Forty years
ago, the late Edmunds Travis of Austin told me about a hanging he reluctantly
covered for the Austin daily he edited in 1913... 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 to maintain law and order...“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. This
Wild Bill Was No Hero by Murray Montgomery
The
Legend of Bill LongleyA
Very Personal Ghost and the Hanging on Sawyer Oak by C. F. Eckhardt
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
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
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
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
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
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 BreastTreasury
Raid by Mike Cox
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
Good was involved in a fabled but implausible shootout
with another rambunctious pioneer of the day, Gabe Henson.
Garrett
Murder by C. F. Eckhardt
One of the many unsolved mysteries of the West.
White
Buffalo by
Mike Cox
"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
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
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
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
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
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
Bud Newman didn’t amount to much as an outlaw,
but not for lack of grit... Ben's
Pistol by Mike Cox
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
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
Bill Longley, his hangings, and his grave.
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 The
Huston-Johnston DuelWatt
Moorman, a central figure in the Regulator-Moderator War, was shot to death
by Bob Bowman Gunfight
at the Lampasas Saloon - Historical MarkerThe
Killing of General J. J. Byrne
Historical Marker
10-3-11Shoot-Out
on Jones Street, Castro County, Dimmitt, Texas
- Historical Marker 7-23-10 |
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