TexasEscapes.comTexas Escapes Online Magazine: Travel and History
Columns: History, Humor, Topical and Opinion
Over 2500 Texas Towns & Ghost Towns
NEW : : TEXAS TOWNS : : GHOST TOWNS : : TEXAS HOTELS : : FEATURES : : COLUMNS : : ARCHITECTURE : : IMAGES : : SITE MAP : : SEARCH SITE
HOME
SEARCH SITE
ARCHIVES
RESERVATIONS
Texas Hotels
Hotels
Cars
Air
Cruises
 

Brownfield's Riot
That Never Was

by Mike Cox
Mike Cox
In the summer of 1908 an article with a Fort Worth dateline published in a Sunday edition of the New York Herald caught the eye of President Theodore Roosevelt as he sat in his home at Oyster Bay, NY.

The four-paragraph dispatch, which dealt with an incident reported as having occurred in then five-year-old South Plains town of Brownfield, struck the president as bully news, something he wanted to share with his friend Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge. The following Tuesday, noting his “immense delight” with the piece, Roosevelt included the full text of the article in a letter to the senator:

Fort Worth, Texas, Saturday [Aug. 15, 1908]. Word reached here today from Brownfield, in Terry County, western Texas, that residents there on Thursday erected a life-sized statute of President Roosevelt after a street fight in which 50 shots were fired. One person was killed and nine others were wounded. The statue represents Mr. Roosevelt in hunting costume and stands on the town square.”

After noting that Brownfield lay 100 miles from the nearest railroad and had a population of 1,500 who were mostly ranchers, cowboys or farmers, the article explained the issue behind the battle over the statue:

“The erection of the statue was vigorously opposed by Democrats and some Republicans, but it had already been ordered from Denver by a citizen’s committee which refused to turn from its plans. The unveiling was opposed because…Roosevelt was still President and because the Democrats wanted a [William Jennings] Bryan statue on the opposite side of the square and the town could not afford both statues.”

The Herald story went on to report that the anti-Roosevelt-statue crowd had at first stolen the statue and buried it. But the pro-Roosevelt folks had recovered the piece, cleaned it up and placed it on the courthouse square.

During the dedication ceremonies, “a band of cowboys made a rush and met a determined crowd. Revolvers, fists and clubs were freely used but the statue was not disturbed.”

Finally, after 10 people had been shot, cooler heads prevailed. At a mass meeting following the riot, “a compromise was effected whereby it was agreed that should Bryan be elected, his statue should be placed near that of Roosevelt.”

Concluding his letter to the honorable senator from New York, Roosevelt said he had never heard of the statue before reading the story about it in the Herald. Indeed, he added, he had never even heard of Brownfield.

But measuring up to his tough guy, living-life-to-the-hilt image, the president said, “I think there is something delightful beyond words in the idea of this sudden erection of a statue of me in hunting costume, at the cost of a riot in which one man was killed and nine wounded, and the final compromise by which it was agreed upon to put up another statue of Bryan in case he was elected.”

Writing that he wondered what the statue looked like, Roosevelt concluded: “Who, with a sense of humor and a real zest for life [clearly describing himself], would not be glad to be prominent in American politics at the outset of the Twentieth Century?”

Nearly two decades later, writer R.J. Pendleton decided to visit Brownfield to see the statue that had caused a riot and claimed a life. His camera ready, Pendleton drove around the square looking for a bronze Teddy Roosevelt. But, as he wrote, “No masterpiece of the sculptor’s art was anywhere to be seen.” Thinking the statue might have been moved, Pendleton drove the town’s other major streets. Still, no Teddy.

Beginning to think that Bryan’s supporters might have prevailed and succeeded in stealing or destroying the monument, Pendleton went to the office of the Brownfield News to see if the local editor knew what had become of the trouble-causing statue.

When Pendleton asked about the statue, the editor broke into a smile bigger than Roosevelt’s favorite grin.

“There’s nothing to it,” the editor said. “Some reporter with a vivid imagination must have made up the yarn and then looked around for a good place in which to locate it and picked on Brownfield.”

The editor told Pendleton that Sen. Lodge had never really bought into the statue story, though the nation’s 26th president apparently believed every word of it.

As Pendleton concluded, whoever dreamed up the tale must have had “too much regard for the truth to drag it out on every paltry occasion.”

© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
December 1, 2010 column
More Texas Monuments & Statues
Related Topics:
Texas Towns | Texas People | TE Online Magazine | Texas
Books by Mike Cox - Order Now
 
 
ALL ABOUT TEXAS:
PEOPLE >
PLACES >
THINGS >
TE Online Magazine >
Hotels >
 
TEXAS ESCAPES CONTENTS
HOME | TEXAS ESCAPES ONLINE MAGAZINE | TEXAS HOTELS
TEXAS TOWN LIST | TEXAS GHOST TOWNS | TEXAS COUNTIES

Texas Hill Country | East Texas | Central Texas North | Central Texas South | West Texas | Texas Panhandle | South Texas | Texas Gulf Coast
TRIPS | STATES PARKS | RIVERS | LAKES | DRIVES | MAPS

Texas Attractions
TEXAS FEATURES
People | Ghosts | Historic Trees | Cemeteries | Small Town Sagas | WWII | History | Texas Centennial | Black History | Art | Music | Animals | Books | Food
COLUMNS : History, Humor, Topical and Opinion

TEXAS ARCHITECTURE | IMAGES
Courthouses | Jails | Churches | Gas Stations | Schoolhouses | Bridges | Theaters | Monuments/Statues | Depots | Water Towers | Post Offices | Grain Elevators | Lodges | Museums | Rooms with a Past | Gargoyles | Cornerstones | Pitted Dates | Stores | Banks | Drive-by Architecture | Signs | Ghost Signs | Old Neon | Murals | Then & Now
Vintage Photos

TRAVEL RESERVATIONS | HOTELS | USA | MEXICO

Privacy Statement | Disclaimer | Recommend Us | Contributors | Staff | Contact TE
Website Content Copyright ©1998-2008. Texas Escapes - Blueprints For Travel, LLC. All Rights Reserved
This page last modified: December 1, 2010