“G.W. White, who lived about a mile and a half north of Stephenville, last saw his cattle on January 29, 1883, when he turned them out to go to water. That morning he had seen Dawson Blankenship speaking with three other men along the road. Blankenship said one of the men, George Boucher, asked him if him if White wanted to sell his cattle. Blankenship told him that White was looking to buy, not sell, and he asked Boucher if he had any cattle to sell. Boucher replied that if he had some to sell, he would not be trying to buy. Blankenship recognized one of the men as Looney D. O’Neal; the third man, however, he could not identify. G.W. White, discovered his cattle missing the next morning and searched for them along the Bosque River” White finally found his stock twenty miles north in John Glenn’s pen. . . Wes Turnbow arrested John Glenn for cattle theft . . . a few days later Glenn jumped bail . . . a few days after that, Sheriff Gilbreath raided near Corinth and arrested Looney D. O’Neal and Mat Hughes, George Boucher escaped on foot. O’Neal and Boucher were eventually arrested and sent to the state penitentiary. In August, Boucher was wounded and his two companions killed as he escaped. Boucher was soon spotted in Erath County, but a posse never found him.

James Pylant. Sins of the Pioneers: Crimea and Scandals in a Small Texas Town. Stephenville: Jacobus Books, 2019.

“The north end of Erath County has secured more refugees from justice than any other portion of the county,” wrote the editor of the Stephenville Empire on October 3, 1885. Local historian, James Pylant, has pieced together the story of a crime syndicate based near what became Thurber, under the leadership of a tall, blue-eyed, blond-haired man in his early thirties named John Glenn and Bill Gilbreath. The syndicate reached Indian Territory, Williamson County, and Louisiana. ‘They would steal a horse, say in Louisiana, travel by night to Thurber, and then on to Indian Territory, and then to another station back in Louisiana,’ wrote Henry Gilbreath. John Gilbreath promised voters that if they would elect him as sheriff, he would break up the gang – and eventually he succeeded.” “Bill Gilbreath, overconfident in his cousin’s election, celebrated by gathering with friends and becoming intoxicated. ‘I came here to take in this town!’ Gilbreath proclaimed to the citizens of Stephenville. ‘Cousin John is sheriff, and I am going to take it in.’ The boozed Bill was sadly mistaken. It took Sheriff Gilbreath and several others to apprehend Stephenville’s self-appointed ruler. The arrest of Bill Gilbreath had a profound effect upon organized crime; it cracked the band’s powerful hold on Erath County. ‘That broke it up,’ recalled the sheriff’s son, Henry Gilbreath. The ring said, ‘Well, if he would jail his own cousin, guess he would jail us.'”

James Pylant. Sins of the Pioneers: Crimes and Scandals in a Small Texas Town, Stephenville: Jacobus Books, 2019.

On August 13, 1892, The Dublin Progress reported that in Charlie Day’s saloon A.E. Homuth shot and killed Levy Young who had been sharing Homuth’s house – among other things.

1891: Bear-baiting, offered by Jackson and Turner on the Stephenville square featured a chained bear versus a wolf drew huge crowds. In December the bear escaped and was shot as he opened a barrel of molasses in a local store. Stephenville Empire

“The story begins in the late fall of 1886. As I recall it now, the fall crop had just been harvested and the Knox family was on its way to a new home . . . twelve miles due north of Dublin . . . The family consisting of a father, mother, and nine children all the way from a youth of sixteen to a baby in arms, were either in the Ox-wagon or scattered advantageously around it, best suited to the function he or she was to preform on the trip. There was hardly a semblance of a road for us to follow until we came to Hazeldell. So father and brother Jimmie, carrying axes, walked at the head of the procession cutting away the underbrush and guiding the four-head of oxen along. The wagon was piled high with household plunder. It was covered over with a wagonsheet fastened down at each side, leaving a small opening at the hindend. A chicken coop, bulging with various colored chickens, cackeling and crowing continuously, was fastened to the hind-end of the wagon, while a mother pig with her litter of ten babies found travel accomodations in a huge box fastened beneath the latter. Mother sat on the flat board placed across the wagon at the front end to assist in directing the procession and otherwise keeping an eye on things in general. In her lap was baby, Hawkins, who fretted continuously because a little baby lamb, riding at my mother’s knees, kept sharing the refreshments at my mother’s breast with him.”

Effie Knox Cooper. Egg Custard and Blackstrap Molasses: Tales of Texas Pioneers. Dallas: The Story Book Press, 1954.

1889: There was a Stephenville ordinance against riding “any horse or beast of burden into a saloon or other business, or public or private residence, or into any public building within the corporate limits of the City of Stephenville.” 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.

Erath resident T. Ed Northcutt took his own life in 1886. His brother, Luke went to Church of Christ preacher William A. Jones for counseling, but instead of offering words of comfort, Jones declared that the brother had gone to Hell, it was Jone’s notion that suicide was an unpardonable sin. A few days later, the preacher was driving cattle by Northcutt’s house at Cow Creek, west of Dublin, when Northcutt walked outside and threw a rock at Jones. Preacher Jones responded by killing Northcutt with his shotgun. Later that morning Jones was arrested in Stephenville and a grand jury found the preacher’s shooting was with “felonious intent.” I don’t know what happened after that.

This story is among those found in Erath historian James Pylant’s, Sins of the Pioneers: Crimes and Scandals in a Small Town, Stephenville: Jacobus Books, 2019.

In 1885, Frank Jackson brought a string of chickens to the Stephenville square to sell. “A long, lank, hungry hog rushed up and appropriated them and went flying across the square. The chickens were squalling and the air was full of feathers.” Jackson finally caught up with the hog and retrieved most of his chickens. Stephenville Empire

An 1881 article in the Fort Worth Democrat reported: “The surveying corps of the Fort Worth & Rio Grande Railway Company reached Stephenville on August 19. When they reached a point opposite the public square, one hundred guns were fired by the enthusiastic people in commemoration of the event. The generous people also prepared a splendid dinner for the corps.” The railroad reached Stephenville ten years later.

As an example of how dense the post oak forest was around Stephenville as recently as 1898: Ira Cain was returning to town after dark from Raven Hill when his buggy strayed off the sandy path and he became lost among the trees. He was found the next morning in a blackjack tree where he had climbed to escape imaginary wolves. Erath Appeal It was said that a squirrel could climb a tree in Stephenville and not come down until it reached Dublin.