1886: Drought stricken Central Texas made the Dallas Morning News in September: “The very air is now quivering and throbbing with the cries of the poor and needy for bread to eat and food to sustain life. Those who are able are leaving their homes in search of employment in more favored localities , while those who remain, to continue the battle, are driven to the wall.” C.D. Williams of Desdemona, wrote to The Dallas Morning News: “There has been considerable grub sent here by the good people of the East, and I will say that parties that it are mostly those that don’t deserve any help, for I know that they lay around town a week waiting for the rations to be issued, when right here in sight of town they cn get plenty of cotton to pick at 50 cents per hundred.” King, 1965

1886: For hundreds of miles there is no green grass and very little dry, and often no water. The people are moving their cattle before they all die.” C. Richard King. Wagons East: The Great Drouth of 1886. Austin: The University of Texas , 1965.

Immigrants into Texas had been led to believe by land speculators that Texas was a subtropical paradise. Rain was plentiful in the spring of 1885, but by January of 1886 all surface water was gone: “Long strings of wagons are daily seen coming east.” The drought had begun. King, 1965

In 1874 Captain J.K. Blunt moved his family from Erath County to Beasley Crossing in McCulloch County. While chopping wood Blunt was attacked by unidentified Natives among whom was a white man with a large mustache and a broad brimmed white hat. Two of the Indians were killed and the others were driven away. J.M. Franks. Seventy Years in Texas: Memories of the Pioneer Days. Gatesville, Texas, 1924.

In 1867 a band of Comanches led by a man with long red hair killed Ann Whitney, a Hamilton schoolteacher, and kidnapped one of her students, John Kuykendall, whom they later sold for four gallons of whiskey. Homer Stephen. The Frontier Postmasters. Dublin: Dublin Progress, 1952.

During the second of a drought, in 1886, Stephenville residents rejoiced to see a huge black cloud approaching out of the west. Someone yelled, “Didn’t I tell you it was going to rain?” But it was only another sandstorm. Stephenville Empire

An 1893 Stephenville ordinance declared: “Any person who shall bathe, wash, or swim in that part of the Bosque River within the corporate limits of the city of Stephenville, between the hours sunrise and sunset, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and/or upon conviction thereof shall be fined any sum not exceeding ten dollars.”

J.W. Jarrott. Revised Ordinances and Rules of Order of the City of Stephenville, Texas. Printed and published by authority of the City Council of Stephenville, Texas. Revision of 1893.

In July of 1898, Mrs. N.W. McCorkle of Thurber, with three of her children, were thrown into a barbed-wire fence when their horse ran away and turned over the buggy. Erath Appeal

In 1877 Erath County was described by the Fort Worth Democrat: “It is mostly uncultivated; the farms are few and far between. We did see a very extensive orchard. Stephenville is a very promising town with an inhabitance of about 2000 . . . .The United Friends of Temperance is an organization of note: with a membership of about 200, much good work has been done, and more bad whiskey put down by its members than all the churches in town.” [of course this was before Thurber].

On July 11, 1956, Lydia Street was dedicated to the memory of Lydia Groesbeeck. Gooesbeeck and Phelps also honor this early ranching family who lived at the location of these streets. Charlotte Street is named for a daughter Lydia and John Gooesbeeck. Nesblett Street is named for Charles Nesblett, mayor of Stephenville from 1916 to 1918 and chairman of the Farmers-First national Bank for forty-two years.

C. Richard King. Stephenville Streets. unpublished manuscript loaned to me in 1987, I returned it and I have no idea where it is after his death.

In 1895 the Stephenville Empire reminded Erath citizens to vote: “Are you with the churches and Christian people, or are you with the saloons and whiskey bums? The prohibitionist lost again because of the Thurber vote and would continue to lose until the godly people found a way to discount the Thurber vote.