Belknap Street was named for Fort Belknap founded in Young County in 1851. Graham Street was named in honor of Fort Graham, founded in 1849 west of present Hillsboro on the site of an Anadarko Indian/Caddo village abandoned by Jose Maria [leader of the combined tribes] a few years earlier. Frey Street was named for John A. Frey [pronounced fry] who came to Stephenville in 1858 from Meridian. He operated a successful mercantile house and the family was important in banking. Funds from the Birdie Hartsough Frey Foundation were largely responsible for the creation of the Historical House Museum. The small, white office building at the museum was on the Frey ranch as a place for traveling black families that were not welcome in town. For many years Frey Street was a sandy path that ran along the stone wall that separated Stephenville from the ranch. Willard Chamberlain married Emily Marshall in December of 1838. They moved to Erath County in the 1870s and started a farm west of Stephenville near the present street named after them.

C. Richard King, Stephenville Streets. unpublished manuscript loaned by the author , 1986. I don’t know what became of this manuscript after King died.

1888: Two men ran for the office of constable in Strawn. A man named Hall and A. McCullum. Hall won the race, which led to a shootout on the street in December, A. McCullum died at the scene, and Hall died later of his wounds. Stephenville Empire

In 1858, 14-year-old Albert Salmon set up a sheep-herding camp in an elevated elm grove above Green Creek. He remarked that the location would be a nice place to be buried. He died a few month later and became the first person to be buried in what later became the Clairette Cemetery. A village grew up nearby known as Mayfield’ Switch, later the name was changed to Clairette. Larry Mayfield tells the story that a meeting was held to consider a name change, the speaker was standing on a Clairette soap crate – and that became the name. In December of 1892 Clairette citizens organized the post office in the home of Alwida Johnson. The post office closed on April 27, 1973.

P.T.A. “Stephenville Bicentennial P.T.A. Report.” Stephenville, Texas, 1976. In Dick Smith Library, Tarleton State University.

In December of 1898, between Cage’s store and the courthouse, Walker Miller lunged at A.J. Simpson with a knife, piercing his cheek and taking out two teeth. Simpson then drew and shot Miller dead. Simpson had just served as the main witness against the Miller clan in a cattle rustling case.

Erath Appeal

1888: “In spite of the manifold warnings of physicians; in spite of the fact that the shape of Cupid’s bow is changed; and in spite all the contemptuous and sarcastic remarks which are constantly appearing in the papers, gum-chewing in this country is rapidly on the increase.” (Austin) State Gazette

In 1898 Jim Logan was working out a fine for the city of Stephenville when he escaped and “appeared on our streets fighting drunk – he was drunk as a badger; he had blood in his eye; he wanted to wipe the sidewalk with every piece of frail humanity his eye rested on. Finally our efficient marshall conveyed him to the bastille . . . ” Erath Appeal

I have always wondered if so-called arrowheads were ethnic identifiers or if like cell phones, a point style was just the technology of the day and everyone used it. And color of the flint projectile points. I know archeologists that will heatedly reject that color could have cultural meaning. But there is a report from an excavation along the Bosque River (Mehalchick and Kibler) that has found that 2,000 year old Ensor points are consistently made from dark flint. Their competitors, the Godley point users, who also occupied the river, always selected pale gray for their dart points. Both colors were available at the lower Bosque River where they located their base camps. I don’t know how often this color identity based on flint occurred across Texas, but I did hear about the same color ID connection somewhere in Colorado.

Erath County Sheriff N.J. Shands wrote to Governor Ross on December 22, 1888 regarding the situation at the Johnson mines [early name for Thurber]: “I believe I am able to suppress the riots that may occur in this county while I am present, but the mines are 27 miles away . . . I am informed that as soon as I leave the mines the desperadoes commence disturbance during the night by firing guns all over the camp and into store houses and the office.” (Austin) State Gazette

1860: John M. Stephen, Joseph Salmon, and W.W. McNeil (involved with the Choctaw Tom Massacre) were among those in Stephenville who drew up the following resolution: “Resolved, That we are unalterably opposed to remaining in the Union with the Black Republican Party in power, and that we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and sacred honor to sustain Texas and any other state that declare their determination not to submit to the degradation, or union consequent upon Black Republican rule.”

State Gazette (Austin newspaper)

1902: “There is no question but from this time forward the boll weevil is to be a permanent factor in cotton culturation. Fifty-two counties in Texas affected by them in 1901 and sixty-nine this season.” They were in Bosque and Hamilton counties in 1901. “These pests are already uncomfortably close to us . . . That the weevil is to be a permanent factor in cotton raising in Erath County hereafter is certain.”

Erath Appeal