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Gunfight
at the Lampasas Saloon |
Gunfight
at the Lampasas Saloon Historical Marker
Photos courtesy Sarah
Reveley, 2006 |
Gunfight at the
Lampasas Saloon Historical Marker TextIn
the early 1870s Lampasas was a wild frontier town.
In January 1873 Sheriff S.T. Denson was shot while arresting brothers Wash and
Mark Short. The district judge sent men to apprehend the Short brothers, but the
posse was stopped by Ben, Tom, and Mart Horrell and several others. Sheriff Denson
and the justices of the peace of Lampasas County appealed to Governor Edmund J.
Davis for the assistance of the State Police. On February 10, Governor Davis issued
a proclamation prohibiting the carrying of sidearms in Lampasas. On March 14,
Captain Thomas Williams and seven state policemen entered Lampasas
to enforce the proclamation.
The State Police immediately arrested Bill
Bowen for carrying a gun in town. Bowen persuaded Captain Williams and two of
his men to enter Jerry Scott's Lampasas Saloon, this led to a gunfight between
the State Police and the Horrell brothers and their associates. Three officers
were killed in the saloon and a fourth was fatally wounded while trying to escape.
The police were buried in Lampasas, but Captain Williams
was reinterred in the Texas
State Cemetery in Austin.
More
State Police came to Lampasas and joined forces with
the sheriff and Lampasas and Burnet County Minute Men companies to search for
the Horrell Gang. They arrested four men connected with the incident. In early
May the Horrell gang attacked the Georgetown
Jail and released Mart Horrell and Jerry Scott form custody. The Horrell gang
remained in the Lampasas area until September when
they left for New
Mexico. In 1874 they returned to Lampasas. In 1876
the Horrell brothers stood trial for the murder of the State Police, but were
found not guilty. | |
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