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KNICKERBOCKER,
TEXASTom Green
County
FM 2335 and FM 584
6 miles E of the Irion county line
18 miles
W of San
Angelo
6 miles S of Tankersley
Population:
50 est. (2000)
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Knickerbocker
Post Office and Community Center
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, December 2006 |
History
in a Pecan Shell
The town was once second only to San
Angelo in size and political influence in the county after Ben
Ficklin was washed away in the great flood of the Concho River.
The
name comes from two of the town's early settlers who were related to Washington
Irving, the American writer who was at the peak of his popularity at that time.
Diedrich Knickerbocker was the fictitious narrator of Irving's History
of New York.
In 1875 the three Baze brothers donated land for a church,
school, and cemetery on the northwest side of Dove Creek. They installed an irrigation
ditch to grow hay, and melons to sell to the Fort
Concho soldiers. |
The
Knickerbocker Ranch
Photo courtesy Hiram Joel Jacques |
The
E.M. Grinnell House
Photo courtesy Hiram Joel Jacques |
| | Knickerbocker
residence
Photo courtesy Fort Concho Museum |
| | Joseph
Tweedy and wife
Photos circa 1881, courtesy Hiram Joel Jacques |
In 1877
Joseph Tweedy, J. Barlow Reynolds and the Grinnell Brothers drove their herds
of sheep from their camp near Brackettville.
They established the Knickerbocker ranch / store on the SE side of Dove Creek.
A post office was opened in 1881. In the 1880s the Tweedy Mercantile
Company dealt in oats, wheat, and corn. Second only to the crops was sheep production.
After a collapse in wool prices, the original settlers left, leaving
only J.Tweedy. He platted a townsite on his land, and set up his own irrigation
company for farms along Dove Creek.
Stephen Dexter Arthur planted cotton
as an experiment in 1887 and produced Knickerbocker's first bale. The ruins of
his water-driven gin can be seen near the bridge at Dove Creek. Arthur built a
Methodist church on land donated by Joseph and Elizabeth Tweedy. In 1889 the town
relocated to a site with better water.
The town had twenty-five residents
in 1884, fifty in 1890 but by the late 1890s the population had swollen to 250.
During its boom times, Knickerbocker seemed to have two of everything. The
town had two gins, two saloons, two blacksmiths, two hotels and two stores. It
also had an undertaker - just one.
Kinckerbocker also had an early sanitarium
since doctors all across the country were sending people to dryer climates. Later,
nearby Carlsbad became a huge facility for tuberculosis patients.
Knickerbocker's
adobe store / post office, built in 1896 remained standing until 1936. Knickerbocker
got its first school, in 1889 and a school for Mexican children six years later.
A lawless element hung out near Knickerbocker and two members of this
group staged a train robbery near Sanderson,
Texas (see The
Last Full-sized Train Robbery in Texas).
A brick school built in
1926, served until the school consolidations of the 1950s. In 1956 Knickerbocker
merged with Christoval.
©
John Troesser |
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Knickerbocker
Historical Marker
Next to the highway in front of the Knickerbocker Community
Church
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, December 2006 |
Our
special thanks to Hiram Jacques of San Jose, California and the Fort Concho Museum
for providing the photos illustrating the Knickerbocker, Tankersley
, Ben Ficklin
and Fort Stockton
pages.
Mr.
Hiram Joel Jacques' personal look at the people who settled this region in the
1880s:
My late father's ancestors have deep roots in Ben Ficklin and Knickerbocker
history and Tankersley.
My great-great-grandfather, Tomas Jaques de
Salazar (1800-1880), moved to Ben
Ficklin around 1871-72 with his family.
He was the oldest man in
Fort Stockton in 1870 at the age of 70 years. He crossed over to Fort
Stockton, Texas from Chihuahua by wagon in 1870. In 1872, Tomas and two of
his four sons, Trinidad and Jesus Jose, signed the Petition of 1872 to form Tom
Green county, which included about 13 of today's counties. Tomas died around 1880,
two years before the great flood of 1882.
Around 1886, Two sons then
moved toward El Paso and two settled in Knickerbocker. My great-grandfather,
Honesimo Jaques, worked for Joseph Tweedy and built his rock house in Knickerbocker.
My grandfather, Selso, worked for R. F. Tankersley as a foreman on his cattle
ranch. Selso married the niece of R. F. Tankersley's second wife, Conchita Maldonado.
My late father, Francisco (Frank) Jacques, was born on the Tankersley
ranch in 1917.
- Hiram Joel Jacques, San Jose, CA ,August 14, 2003 |
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Immaculate
Conception Catholic Church
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, December 2006 |
Knickerbocker
Community Church
Photo courtesy Drew Sykes, April 2007 |
Knickerbocker,
Texas ForumSubject:
Ghost town: Tankersley VS Knickerbocker
Dear TE, Your, tethered to the ranch, ghost town-busting reporter here reporting
for service again. Visited your wonderful site again to check on updates. Saw
updated photos of the Knickerbockers churches, thanks. But I noticed you still
have us in the “Ghost Town” category. I will try one more time to convince you
that we are not dead! This time by comparison. Check out your listing for Tankersley.
It’s only 6 miles north of Knickerbocker. You have Tankersley in the regular city
category. Tankersley does not exist anymore! It has not been even a village for
fifty years. There nothing there that has any civic relationship to the lonely
one or two ranchers near by. [A] ranch office is there but that’s it. There’s
a State owned sign that says “Tankersley” but I or anyone else would be hard pressed
to point out where the town is.
Tankersley is a Ghost town not Knickerbocker!
Again, Knickerbocker has a community center, a post office, two churches,
a Volunteer Fire Department, warm homes with warm bodies inside them on either
side of the highway and down our side streets. Kids are playing in yards, people
gather to visit and exchange the latest juicy gossip at the post office. We have
yearly church festivals and secular picnics. I think we could even produce a town
mayor when he’s sober, our spiritual deacon and a village idiot or two.
So, I am on my knees, I beg you, I implore you to put Knickerbocker in the regular
town category and out of the ghost town category. - Sincerely, Drew Sykes,
Sec/Tres, Knickerbocker Community Center, Knickerbocker Ranch, August 06, 2007
We
may have ghosts - but they are all in the cemetery.
Subject: Knickerbocker
Texas labeled a "Ghost Town"
Dear TE, You are wrong in claiming the village
of Knickerbocker a “Ghost Town”. Yes we have lost much of our business and population
over the years but we are still a community that takes great pride in our little
village. About 50 people live in Knickerbocker. We have a Community Center that
is used quite frequently by the local citizens and it also has the Post office
in it. It is beautifully landscaped in front with native plants. Soon we will
have the start of a pavilion in the back of the center. We have two churches and
two cemeteries. Come to think about it we may have Ghosts in Knickerbocker but
they are only in the cemeteries! So could you please change the title you have
given Knickerbocker. We are not a Ghost Town. If you need any other information
or pictures I would be happy to provide. Thank you, Drew Sykes, Sec/Tres. Knickerbocker
Community Center/ Knickerbocker Ranch, October 18, 2006
Knickerbocker
Area Destinations & Hotels:
San
Angelo | San
Angelo Hotels
Tankersley
|
Ben
Ficklin |
Texas Town List | Ghost
Towns | Panhandle | West
Texas | Texas | Hotels
Texas Escapes town #700
September, 2003 Feature town |
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