Teddy Blue recalled a storm on a cattle drive in 1882: “Nobody knows now what those storms were like, because nobody has to stay out in them anymore, but believe me, they were awful . . . I was out in one that killed 14 head of cattle and six or seven horses and two men. . . one was so scared he threw his six-shooter away, for fear it would draw the lightening, and I remember old Matt Winter, with the rain pouring down and the lightening flashing, taking off his hat and yelling at God Almighty, ‘All right, you old bald-headed son of a bitch up there, if you want to kill me, come and do it.’ It scared the daylights out of the rest of us.”

Edward Charles Abbott, (“Teddy Blue”) We Pointed them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher. Ed. Helena Huntington Smith. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939, 1971.

In 1872 Rube Burrow left his home in Alabama for the “Eldorado of the Southern emigrant, Texas.” He settled with his uncle, Joel Burrow between Alexander and Dublin this fall. Not adjusting well to farmwork, he made a living gathering unbranded cattle and driving them to market in Fort Worth. In 1888, Jim Burrow joined his brother on Cottonwood Creek, after a few years as cowboys, the brothers became train robbers. On October 5, Jim was captured during a robbery and died in a Texarkana jail. In 1890, Rube Burrow left his hat at a train robbery, the hat was traced to Stephenville and then to Rube. He left for Alabama until things cooled down. (There is a legend that he tried to spend the night on the ghost cabin at McDow Hole, on Green Creek.) He was captured in Linden, Alabama, on October 7, he escaped by asking for his bag of ginger snaps which contained a pistol. Instead of leaving town immediately, Burrow searched for an hour trying to find his favorite rifle. Before he could leave town he was shot and killed. Word reached Erath County later in October that the desperado Rube Burrow had been thrown from a train and killed by “many mysterious wounds.” But it was later discovered that this was another man named Burrow.

George W. Agee, Rube Burrow, King of Outlaws, and His Band of Train Robbers. Cincinnati: C.J. Krehbel & Company, 1890; and Ed Bartholomew, Album of Western Gunfighters. Houston: The Frontier Press, 1958.

On October 1, 1892, A Stephenville woman stood in front of her stove during a thunderstorm. Lightening struck the flu, came out the open stove door, burned a hole in her apron and dress, struck her below the knee, and continued down to the floor, splitting her shoe on the way. Dublin Progress

For the first decades in Stephenville’s history, hogs were allowed to roam the streets as a primitive form of garbage collection. In October of 1885, “One of the most exciting elections ever held in Erath County ,” attempted to establish a hog law to stop the practice. For some reason many people in town favored the inexpensive waste control and the measure was voted down again, 1160 to 433. The anti-hog people, called prohibitionists, had increased by 200 this time. Fort Worth Daily Gazette

Ex-Sheriff W.B. Slaughter, along with John Gilbreath, worked to break the power of vigilante rule in Erath County. On the night of October 2, 1884, while walking home through the square, Slaughter was attacked from behind a wagon and beaten to death. [Some say he was struck with a Thurber brick] He died from his wounds the following March. Stephenville Empire

1885: Joe Parker invested his last 25 cents in a peck of sweet potatoes last spring. From those he produced hundreds of slips which he planted in his quarter-acre garden at Alexander. On September 21, in Stephenville, he sold 10 bushels of the 100-bushel crop for $10. Stephenville Empire

1923: The Eureka persimmon, developed in Erath County by Joe Fitzgerald around 1903, ripens in two stages: :About a fourth will ripen the first week in September. These early fruits will not keep and are just for local markets. The remaining fruit grows larger, and turns from red to yellow by the first of November. These later fruits can be stored as late as February. Joe Fitzgerald, Family Papers, Stephenville, Texas

Today we have freezers that will soften and ripen the fruit in a week. I squeeze them out of their bitter skin on my oatmeal, when I can get them.

In the last week of September, 1908, a new bridge near Clairette built by convict labor, collapsed as men, teams, and buggies posed on it for the photographer. There were several injuries. Stephenville Tribune

“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