For years the Erath prohibitionists had been unable to vote the county dry because of the large Thurber vote. The October, 1903 issue of the United Mine Worker’s Journal revealed that for some reason, W.K. Gordon, “The King of Thurber,” arranged with Erath County commissioners to exempt the Thurber vote.

Weldon B. Hardman, Fire in the Hole, Gordon, Texas: Thurber Historical Association, 1975.

Kight Street was named for Henry Lee Kight who came to Texas in 1876. He built cotton gins in Stephenville, Bluff Dale, Tolar, Alexander, Dublin, Clairette, Comanche, and Proctor.

C. Richard King, Stephenville Streets, Unpublished manuscript loaned by author, 1986.

In October of 1913. thousands of unidentified hawks flew over Stephenville heading south. They roosted for the night along Green Creek where alarmed farmers killed over 300. Stephenville Empire

Squirrels, once abundant in Stephenville were hunted out before 1900. In October of 1921 a rare squirrel was seen in the city limits which was soon shot and eaten. Later it turned out that it was the pet of a local physician. Stephenville Tribune

in 1897 Josie Caldwell (12), “small for her age,” and her sister Carrie (9), “have made a record that those much older might be proud of,” each picked 200 pounds of cotton, four times their own weight. Stephenville Empire Cotton ruined the soil and as a farming strategy, it was hard on people. Between 1910 and 1940, after Erath County soil was depleted by cotton and abusive grazing, half of the Erath population migrated out of the area. During this time land sold for $5 to $15 dollars an acre, this period was the end of small farmers, who were replaced by large ranches. Old-timers that I interviewed from before this time said that a farmer could stand on his porch and see ten other farmhouses.

Lena Lewis, Erath County: A Compilation, Stephenville, Texas, 1938; and Temple Nolan Saester-Hicks, Interview, Stephenville, Texas, May 19, 1981.

Erath County was mostly settled by the descendants of the Scots-Irish who came over in the 1700s from the British Borderlands (bringing Border Collies) and after a few generations in the Upper South moved go Texas. In the old country they were not allowed to cut oak trees, so when they reached Erath County, they cut down post oak trees for rail fences and cabins with reckless abandon. Pecan trees were cut down to make collecting the nuts easier. Post oak trees were once so thick that a squirrel could climb into a tree on the square and not come down until Dublin. Last month a dozen surviving post oaks were bulldozed on Washington street almost without comment. The incredible fertility of early Erath County unfortunately encouraged a philosophy of abundance which led to the destruction of not just timber; abusive grazing removed the grass root mat that had trapped spring rains which had trickled into clear-running streams during the summer. Just a few years after barbed-wire fences were introduced in the early 1880s prairies chickens became extinct for lack of water and cover. Thoughtless agriculture methods resulted in the loss of 75% of the topsoil by the 1930s.

Some of this is from the Stephenville Empire-Tribune; Henry Fooshe, Historical Articles Appearing in the Stephenville Empire in the 1880s; and my own remarks.

In October of 1878 W.T. Willis, also known as Charlie Ford, a noted horse thief and murderer , was killed in a shootout with the Sheriff of Palo Pinto at his hideout just north of the Erath County line.

Waco Examiner

In 1891, Taylor Long was driving his ox team home from Stephenville when a nearby stampede frightened his oxen. He knew he was in trouble when his “meek and mild-eyed oxen began to turn the hair on their backs the wrong way.” The ox team ran away, smashed up the wagon bed, and dumped everything in the road. Stepenville Empire

In 1865, a man named Dalton, who lived a little south of Stephenville on the Bosque River, was brought to town and charged with killing his wife. A large crowd gathered around the square. Since there was no judge, town officials drew a line in the ground on the square and after some discussion of the case, the people were asked to step to the guilty or the innocent side of the line. Most of the crowd stepped to the guilty side and Dalton was hanged from a post oak tree on the Stephenville Square.

M.L. Auten, A History of Erath County. Unpublished master’s thesis, Hardin-Simmons University, August, 1951, in Texas Tech Southwestern Collection.

October 14, 1862 is the birthday of Jim Miller, known as “The Deacon” a fervent prayer-meeting type who killed for hire. The “Deacon” dressed in a black scissor-tailed coat and a bullet-proof vest. Reputed to have killed 51 people, including Sheriff Pat Garrett and Stephenville attorney and land developer, James Jarrott. Jarrott had arranged for 25 mostly Erath County families to settle land west of Lubbock. Large ranchers had been trying to keep farmers and small ranchers out of the area. A rancher hired professional gunman, the “Deacon” to hide behind a water tank and ambush Jarrott as he approached. A few settlers returned to Erath County, but most stayed on their land. The “Deacon” took a break from his line of work to sell real estate out of Fort Worth that was located in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. and Mrs. M. G. Abernathy, Oral History Interview, June 7, 1956, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas; and Joseph Carroll McConnell, The West Texas Frontier: Or, A Descriptive History of Early Times in Western Texas, Jacksboro: Gazette Print, 1933.

H.S. Armstrong of Duffau bought his farm on credit in 1886 for $1800, he paid off the farm in October of 1891. “He now has 100 acres in cultivation. This season he made 15 bales of cotton, 400 bushels of corn, 300 bushels of oats, put up 1500 pounds of pork, and has $100 in the bank.” Stephenville Empire

In 1855, after thirty families followed the Bosque River from Waco to the new townsite of Stephenville, there was a surplus of oxen that had pulled those wagons. In October, J.G. Yarbrough bought a “hundred yoke of oxen” from John and William Stephen, to take to another frontier town, Kimbell Bend, in Bosque county. To keep the oxen together, he cut down a large post oak tree from the northeast corner of the square and the oxen dragged it to Bosque County. The drag marks became the trail to Glen Rose and later was paved as the Glen Rose highway. Stephenville Tribune

In 1909 “Erath County has 33 felons in the penitentiary, and also keeps seven or eight young men on the county chain gang, and has her quota of moral perverts in the reformatory, and she is also well represented in the insane asylums, and so far this year there have been nine murders.

Stephenville Tribune