An article in the 1888 Stephenville Empire advises: “There are a good many farmers sitting around the stove, or worse, the tavern, smoking and trading yarns when their supply of dry wood is very low. The wood is worth more cut now, before the sap starts, and good seasoned wood will not only last longer, but it will keep the women from getting cross from cooking with green wood.”

1884: Professor Campbell, of Green’s Creek, tells us that the sound of the woodsman’s axe can be heard, on clear mornings, in every direction, wresting from nature her forest groves and adding them to the agricultural kingdom.” Stephenville Empire

For thousands of years cedar (juniper) had been kept from the lowlands by frequent prairie fires. Fifty years of overgrazing eliminated the three-foot high little bluestem and ended the hottest fires. This began the spread of cedar away from slopes, like Chalk Mountain, and then near the hundreds of acres of apple orchards. Cedar is a carrier of scale, an insect that destroys apple trees. In 1912, Louis J. Tackett arrived from the State Department of Agriculture to examine the dying trees. Various deadly sprays were tried that destroyed the health of many orchard workers but did not stop the scale. Today there are a few varieties of apples that can live in Erath County.

Dan Young, Erath History Calendar, 1985.

The Krakatoa volcanic eruption was heard in Stephenville, residents said it sounded like a thunderstorm on a clear day. The three winters following the event were made colder by the volcanic dust in the atmosphere. On January 20, 1884, it was 0 degrees in Stephenville and the Bosque was frozen until February. That winter was described as the coldest in twenty years. The winter of 1885 was closer to normal with only a few spells of zero degree weather.

Dan Young, Historical Calendar, 1985.

The hill east of the Stephenville square was the location of the wagon yard, a visit to town was an overnight stay for many people in the county. A space for the wagon was rented and that’s where the family slept during the stay in town. Later the hill was Stephenville’s First Monday trade fair grounds until after WWII: “This entire area was crowded with livestock, buggies, wagons, cars, vegetable stands, medicine shows, and Gypsies.”

H. Grady Perry, Grand Ol’ Erath: The Saga of a Texas West Cross Timbers County, Stephenville, Texas, 1974.

In January of 1884, Frank Trout was returning to his home near Alexander when two horsemen rode up to him and asked his name. Upon his answer “they informed him that they had come to kill him and proceeded to do so,” shooting him from his horse. Trout lived long enough to tell what happened, but did not know why he was killed. Fort Worth Gazette

In January of 1879, the Chidister Line stagecoach, possibility because of a drunken driver, wrecked between Bluff Dale and Granbury. No one was injured, but it was a cold, snowy night and the passengers had to walk the last four miles to Bluff Dale. The Chidister Overland Stage Line was discontinued in 1881.

H. Grady Perry, Grand Ol’ Erath: The Sage of a Texas West Cross Timbers County, Stephenville, Texas, 1974; and Henry Fooshe, Historical articles appearing in the Stephenville Empire in the 1880s.

An article in the Stephenville Empire in 1910, “There is growing sentiment against the brutal game of football and there is little doubt that it will be driven from the field of legitimate sport in this Christian land.”

1883: “Some of our farmers are experimenting with the Johnson grass with very satisfactory results. Our opinion is that it will pay to give it a thorough test as it is fine for stock and hogs do fine on the root.”

Stephenville Empire

Until January 31, 1882, John Henning was a normal husband and father of three children, but he began to show erratic behavior and paranoia. He was especially resentful of the state requirement that men were responsible for maintaining roads for a few days each year. J.B. Lewis was sent to tell Henning that he owed the county a few days labor and Henning shot him to death. Henning escaped on horseback to New Mexico where he worked on a railroad until October, when the local sheriff telegraphed his location to Stephenville Sheriff W.B Slaughter. Slaughter traveled by horseback to New Mexico and brought him back. Before the trial, Slaughter was assassinated on the square and was replaced by J.C. Gilbreath. Henning’s defense was that he was insane when he shot Lewis. He was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life in prison. He survived fifteen years in Huntsville, the last several years in isolation because of his insanity. Prison records show that he died of complications of insanity and diarrhea.

Sherri Knight, Vigilantes to Verdicts: Stories from a Texas District Court, Stephenville: Jacobus Books, 2009.

Fannie and I danced every dance that was called during the entire picnic. I was wearing high button shoes that for the first day or so had held my feet, but toward the last my ankles were so tired that they turned under me. When the fun was over, we got back into our calico dresses and riding skirts and headed home, both plumb tuckered out. Those three days had passed mighty fast, and we had a heap of things to digest, such as meat and pickles and adventures. We had both got acquainted with several farm boys who lived some distance away, and that was something. We rarely met strangers. Fannie didn’t feel handicapped any more with the boys, because by this time her hair had grown a good length to curl. One of the boys we met stuck right to me all through the barbecue. Texas produced as good-looking girls then as it does now, [1939] and I couldn’t figure out why this fellow took to me. There were plenty of good-lookers at the barbecue. But for some reason or other he did, and even asked to see me home. That seemed a little too much all at once, and I refused. I figured I’d had enough excitement for one trip. Josh Handley was his name, and he told me he worked on a big farm as foreman over the other hands. He rode a good horse and also owned two mares and a couple of shoats. That set him up as sorter looking ahead a little, in case anything like getting married showed up. After the barbecue we began keeping company and went together all that fall and winter. Every week he would ride over on horseback, and we would go to a dance now and then. Sue Sanders, Our Common HerdNew York: Arno Press, 1980