In 1853, from somewhere in Central Texas, Mrs. Jane Wilson and family started out for the California gold fields. When they reached the Guadalupe Mountains they were attacked by Comanches and Jane Wilson was the only survivor. She found a tree stump large enough to shelter her and lived on raw frogs for several weeks. She was rescued by Pueblo Indians who were awarded $50 by the governor of New Mexico for her kind treatment.

J.M. Franks, Seventy Years in Texas: Memories of the Pioneer Days, Gatesville, Texas, 1924

1912: Alaskan gold miners used cat fur for gloves, creating a market for cat skins – which must explain this enigmatic post in the Stephenville Tribune: “John Oxford has won 1460 head of stripped tom cats from Dee Cantrell, which so depletes the Cantrell herd that he will not be able to make his shipment of cats to the gold diggings in Alaska.”

In 1887, Erath County residents had been suffering from drought for nearly two years and residents were moving back east. Reserve seed had been lost in hopeful planting. “Word reached Texas in February that President Grover Cleveland had vetoed the drought bill appropriating $10,000 in seed for the Central Texas area.” Cleveland explained that the drought was a local problem.

C. Richard King, Wagons East: The Great Drought of 1886, Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1965.

In 1843 a party of Caddo Indians were following the Brazos River northwest to their village in present Palo Pinto County when they were attacked by a group of Anglo horsemen. Six of the Indians jumped from their horses, fell to their knees and “began to make gruesome and hideous noises with their bow strings.” The immigrant’s horses became uncontrollable and threw their riders. The Caddos escaped during the confusion.

Joseph Carroll McConnell, The West Texas Frontier: Or, A Descriptive History of Early Times in Western Texas. Jacksboro: Gazette Print, 1933.

February 10, 1900. “Elaborate preparations are under way in Thurber to celebrate Italian Day. Music, festivities, and feasting followed by a grand ball in the opera house to which all are invited.” Erath Appeal

In 1860, E. L. Deaton observed that when fighting at night, Comanches used whistles to keep track of each other. Floyd J. Holmes, Indian Fights on the Texas Frontier: A True Account of the Last Exciting Encounters with Redskins in Hamilton, Comanche, Brown, Erath, and Adjoining Counties, as recorded by E. L. Deaton, Fort Worth: Pioneer Publishing Co., 1927.

“In the1850s, no one ever ate any part of a turkey but its breast, the balance of the meat being thrown to the dogs . . . Ducks and wild pigeons came through the country in countless thousands. Prairie chickens flocked across the plains and the bobwhite quail was always abundant.”

John K. Strecker, Chronicles of George Barnard: The Indian Trader of the Tehuacana and other Bits of Texas History. The Baylor Bulletin, Volume 31, Waco: Baylor University, 1928.

On the night of February 13, 1882, 15 miles south of Stephenville, a party of horsemen rode up to Andy Turnbow’s house and called out, asking directions. When the riders thought he was about to open the door they opened fire, shredding the door. Turnbow was not yet at the door and was unhurt.

Fort Worth Democrat

1889: Col. Hunter, the feudal-minded director in charge of coal mining operations at Thurber, refuted the charge on February 15, that he had refused to allow Erath County farmers to sell produce to the miners or forcing the miners to depend on the company store. The carefully patrolled fence that surrounded the town “was built to keep out persons that would insult and annoy the employes.”

Fort Worth Daily Gazette

1874: “The interest of civilization, the interest of the Christian religion – as paradoxical as it may seem – demand the extermination of the Indian . . . Twenty thousand men would do the work in two years . . . “

Waco Daily Examiner