Twelve-year-old Sue Sanders visited Stephenville in 1892 during a political rally and barbecue on the square. Farmers had donated “chicken-eating hogs and fence-breaking cows” to feed the crowd. There were a lot of dogs present – a mighty lot – and they were only the green country kind that don’t get around much and weren’t posted on how dogs should act at a barbecue. So when they heard everybody clapping and hollering, they took it to mean, ‘sic ’em,’ and every dog of the lot went to it for all he was worth. I counted 18 dog fights around the speaker’s stand . . . The speaker’s face got red and purple, and the veins stood out in his neck like ropes. He was hollering as loud as a county politician can holler, but it got so we couldn’t catch a word of it.”

Sue Sanders, Our Common Herd. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1939; The above scenes are of the Erath County courthouse as it was 1n 1892. Courtesy of the Stephenville Historical House Museum.