“When this country was first settling up a good many went into the hog-raising business, as they did not think the Indians would steal them, and further, it required so little capital to start with . . . It is strange that now we hardly ever see a good acorn mast. In those days (1850s) the timber was always full of acorns, and we killed our hogs fattened on the mast, which made good bacon . . . We would get up before daylight and be in the rough on a hog trail. When the dog would get up with the hogs, if they were not too wild, they would rally and fight the dog, and we would kill the whole bunch in a pile.”[The current hog problem resulted from Texas game ranches importing hogs for hunting – they escaped into the wild in the 1970s].

F.M. Cross, A Short Sketch-History from Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in Central Texas, Brownwood: Greenwood Printing, 1912.

Probably because of the climatic disturbances following the atmospheric explosion of a small astroid over Siberia, known as the Tunguska Event on June 30, 1908, the whole summer was cool and damp in Erath County. Frost on September 28 heralded the coming of an unusually cold winter.

George McDuffie Reil. Account Book, 1904-1909. Stephenville, Texas.

In 1873, Bill Russell, bossing a trail drive out of Erath County, encountered a starving family in a wagon. Russell gave then a $20 bill and ordered the grub wagon to feed them. Years later Russell was recognized by the grateful family and repaid. Stephenville Tribune

In the fall of 1872, near Dublin, a cowboy rode into camp with two arrows in him. After the arrows were pulled out, the wounds were successfully treated by placing a cup of slow dripping water over them.

Sarah Catherine Lattimore. Incidents in the History of Dublin. 1913 (Copied from the Dublin Public Library by Mollie Louise Grisham in 1967).

Erath County was once honey-combed with rock fences. The 1910 Stephenville Empire explained: “The old time rock fences in and around Stephenville have nearly all disappeared since work on the public square commenced, the city having bought them to be ground up and put on the streets. The disappearance of these landmarks . . . leaves nothing as it looked fifty years ago.”

In September of 1888, Mr. Zachary, the boy-preacher encountered the Rev. Joe Lockhart on the square and began a loud religious argument. A large crowd gathered to observe. Stephenville Empire

The Civil War drought lasted from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s was reported in the Austin Intelligencer: A major drought is underway between the Colorado and Brazos Rivers, “The water in creeks and small rivers, formally running, is now reduced to a few stagnant pools, even the Bosque is in this state.”

In September of 1866, J. L. Baker bought 236 head of cattle from Mr. Frey (Frey Street was once the boundary between the Frey ranch and Stephenville) and began to drive them to Johnson County; before the drovers were out of Erath County they lost 100 head in a stampede. Cleburne Chronicle, 1876

In 1884 a man living eight miles north of Stephenville had his house burned recently. On September 18, while rebuilding the house, he found a note warning him to leave Erath County within five days. “There have been similar cases in this county lately, and there exists a bad state of affairs.”

Notice that bad news about Stephenville was not published in Stephenville. Fort Worth Daily Gazette

The climate dried up and turned cold for a thousand years in the Younger-Dryas period. Lush, spoiled C4 grasses like big bluestem died out and were replaced with tough, drought-resistant C3 grasses like side oats grama. Mammoths couldn’t digest these new grasses and collected in the few areas where these plants still survived. The last of the Clovis hunters hammered away at these nutrition-stressed animals until they were gone. Meanwhile, the new grasses spread from the Coast to Canada and attracted the next alpha grazers, the now extinct bison antiquus. A next-generation technology appeared around 12,900 years ago to hunt these large animals, it was the Folsom tradition. An atlatl (spear-thrower) launched a five foot dart tipped with the iconic Folsom point, found in most collections along the Bosque River. This three-inch point was knapped out of the finest flint available, it featured a center flute to thin the point and make it easier to resharpen in the field as the hunters followed the bison over long distances. Lithic analyst, people who study flint craftsmanship, have examined Folsoms and unfinished Folsoms and have concluded that the hardest part, the flute, was probably done by a specialist, probably in a ritual context. After about 400 years the Folsom hunters fragmented into dozens of regional adaptions, leading into the Archaic period, and the precise Folsom craftsmanship was lost.

This is a summary of part of a chapter in my manuscript that I’m rewriting in an effort to please the A&M Press. They want a timetable on when I might finish and I’m afraid to tell them that this one chapter took two weeks. Yuck.