“When people from Ireland began populating Texas, they arrived packing courage, toughness, and resilience as a result of previous persecutions and domination by England. The newcomers encountered similar difficulties under Spanish rule, yet they persevered and ultimately helped Texas win its independence. . . . Contrary to the hopes of the Mexican government, the Irish ultimately joined other settlers in Texas’ struggle for independence. Eleven Irishmen died defending the Alamo in 1836, and approximately a hundred fought at the Battle of San Jacinto . . . in the decades that followed, more Irish escaped to Texas to avoid economic woes and famine in their homeland. . . . The Central Texas community of Dublin, proclaimed by the state legislature in 2005 as the “Irish Capital of Texas,” stages a celebration the Saturday before Saint Patrick’s Day.”

Bob McCullough, “The Pluck of the Irish,” Authentic Texas: The Heritage Magazine of Texas, Volume 4, 2019, 60-61.

Cowboy Marsh Johnson described a night in a tent city saloon along the Chisolm Trail in 1868: The dance floor was crowded with women and girls with their partners of cowboys, halfbreeds, and toughs of every description – regular cutthroats. . . . Suddenly amid the hum of voices and laughter a shot rang out . . . the next few minutes were given to a bombardment of whiskey bottles, bullets, and rocks. Then as suddenly as it had started, the music began and . . . the proprietor yelled out, ‘on with the dance; there is only one man killed.'”

Marshall L. Johnson, Trail Blazing: A True Story of the Struggles with Hostile Indians on the Frontier of Texas, Dallas: Mathis Publishing Co., 1935.

Sue Sanders recalled that in the 1870s, ” Ma planted morning-glories and set out flags, [Iris] both the white and the purple kinds. She loved flowers a heap, and when the haws bloomed in the spring, [Cratagus variety now extinct in the area] she kept the house filled with their blossoms. At the windows she had sweet-potato vines growing in bottles, and they made as pretty a house plant as you could ask for.”

In April of 1892, a traveler between Thurber and Weatherford investigated the “sounds of of piteous moaning” to discover a trained bear chained to a tree, nearly starved to death. Nearby were the bodies of two Italians who had been traveling across Texas with the bear doing shows. They had been robbed and murdered a week or so before. Waco Daily Examiner

In April of 1886, “An old possum visited Mrs. Britton’s hen house near Skipper’s Gap [in the Chalk Mountain area] and caught nine little chickens. The next morning Mrs. Britton found that the varmint had left in the old hen’s nest nine little possums. It seems that the possum considered that a fair exchange rather than robbery.” Stephenville Empire

An article in the 1913 April issue of the Stephenville Tribune noted that John M. Stephen moved an un-named black family to the present Stephenville square in 1854 and left them there for a year to establish friendly relations with the local Indians. The store traded for deer-skin bags of honey, hides, and buffalo hams, earning the trust of Comanches, Anadarkos, and other Indians. A year later Stephen returned with the first thirty Anglo emigrants. It was only a couple of years before Stephenville men ruined the relations with the Natives, the Choctaw Tom Massacre in 1857 being a prime example.

The graves of the black family, and other African-American people were removed from the Stephenville cemetery in 1922 during a decade of demagoguery and Culture Wars.

On April 25, 1910, millions of small, yellow bugs passed through Erath County headed south. A year later in 1911, Two boys discover a fierce bird about the size of a hen. It had tiger stripes, a small head, and a four inch bill. The bird was captured by throwing a hat over its head. Local ornithologists pronounced it to be a tigersuma, a native to South America, probably brought here by a storm. Stephenville Tribune

In 1832, George Bernard Erath sailed from Harve, France to New Orleans to begin his life of adventure in Texas. Four years later [April 21, 1836] he was with Sam Houston’s army as they defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto: “About half the Mexican force was killed, some wounded, and 700 prisoners taken. About eight hundred pack mules and a number of horses fell into our hands.”

George B. Erath, The Memoirs of Major George B. Erath. Bulletin 3, The Heritage Society of Waco, 1956.

“50,000 Acres of land on the head-waters of Kickapoo Creek and the Poluxy River in Erath County twenty miles from the new and flourishing town of Stephenville. These lands are admirably adapted for a large emigrant party, as they combine all the natural advantages that can be desired – – rich valley-land, building and rail timber, pure water, eligible and picturesque building-sites, and excellent building stone. Title indisputable and terms easy.” DeCordova, Jacob, Texas: Her Resources and Her Public Men, Waco: Texian Press, 1969.

1911: “Ulmer Gaston and Roy Green, the Opera House managers, ever alert to the importance of giving the people of Stephenville instructive, wholesome and elevating summer entertainments, have erected an airdome on the lot south of the creamery for the purpose of giving moving picture shows.”

Stephenville Tribune