In 1840 John Henry Moore reported from the Upper Colorado River that among the Indians killed in October was a very old man who wore a “silver medal, about an eighth of an inch in thickness and two and a half inches in diameter, one side of which presents a profile, in relief, of James Madison, with the words ‘James Madison, President of the United States, 1809.’ The reverse presents clasped hands with the calumet and tomahawk, and the words ‘peace and friendship.'”

Malcolm McLean, (comp.) Papers Concerning Robertson’s Colony in Texas: The Upper Colony, Vol. 5, Arlington: The University of Texas Press at Arlington, 1978.

William Whipple Johnson was born on October 11, 1843 in Ionia, Michigan. He lost almost everything in the Panic of 1873 and sought by more than 100 creditors, he and his brother Harvey decided to come to Texas. They began the first serious mining operations in the Strawn/Thurber area in 1886.

Robert Spoede, “W.W. Johnson and the Beginnings of Coal Mining in the Strawn/Thurber Vicinity, 1880-1888.” West Texas Historical Association Yearbook, 44 (October, 1968, 43-59.

In 1855, there was a surplus of oxen left over from the settler’s trek from Waco to the site of Stephenville, J. G. Yarbrough bought 100 yoke of these oxen from John and William Stephen. To prevent them from straying, a large post oak was cut from the NE corner of the square. The oxen dragged this tree to Kimball Bend, Bosque County, forming a rut that was followed for years afterword to Glen Rose. Eventually this path became the Glen Rose highway. Stphenville Tribune

In October of 1892, as a woman stood in front of her stove during a storm, lightning struck the flu, came out the open stove door, burned a hole in her apron and dress, struck her below the knee, and continued down to the floor, splitting her shoe on the way. Dublin Progress

In 1876 a stranger appeared in a community near Waco named Tom Johnson. She wore male clothing and “carried the part of the beau admirably. She proved herself an expert horseman, and adept with the revolver and Spencer rifle. She attended a camp meeting and on two occasions, sat on the anxious seat and asked for the prayers of the congregation. When by accident her sex became known, the sheriff arrested her and carried her before the Justice of the Peace. He knew no law by which he could hold her and she was permitted to go free.” Before she left the area she told someone she was from Comanche and had assumed the disguise because she had killed a man. Graham Leader (newspaper)

In the 1860s Hazel Dell, on the Erath-Comanche line, “achieved prominence as the roughest, toughest town in Texas. There were several saloons operating there, and a man named lewis Ledbetter had the most popular saloon in Texas. It was known all over the state, and many tall tales have been told about the meanness, and the horrible crimes that were committed at this little place. It is said that the first ten citizens of the little village met violent deaths except for Choctaw Bill Robinson.” One story as to how the Hazell Dell cemetery began tells of a group of drunks in a saloon that decided to shoot a trapper camped near-by , since no one would miss him. His was the first burial at the cemetery. The most famous resident was Choctaw Bill Robinson, who came to Stephenville in 1856. “The tall, dark preacher arrived in Stephenville, and with several residents assembled in a log cabin on the north side of what is now the town square, delivered the county’s first sermon.”

Robinson-Bradley, Willo M. and Edith Lucile Robinson. Family Trails: Ancestral and Contemporary. Stephenville Printing Co., 1978.

“When this country was first settling up a good many went into the hog-raising business, as they did not think the Indians would steal them, and further, it required so little capital to start with . . . It is strange now we hardly ever see a good acorn mast. In those days [1850s] the timber was always full of acorns, and we killed our hogs fattened on the mast, which made good bacon . . . We would get up before daylight and have breakfast over by daylight and be in the rough on a hog trail. When the dog would get up with the hogs, if they were not too wild they would rally and fight the dog, and we could kill the whole bunch in a pile.” The current feral hogs in Texas are descended from game animals brought to hunting ranches in the 1970s. F.M. Cross, A Short Sketch-History from Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in Central Texas, Brownwood: Greenwood Printing, 1912.

An article in Austin’s Southern Intelligencer in 1857, reported that a drought was underway between the Colorado and Brazos Rivers. “The water in creeks and small rivers, formally running, is now reduced to stagnant pools. Even the Bosque is in this shape.” As it turned out, the drought involved all of the Great Plains, not just Texas. The rains would not return to the West and Plains until the mid-1860s. David Stahle of the University of Arkansas used tree ring analysis to show that in Texas, this was the worst drought in the previous 300 years, worse than the Dust Bowl drought in the 1930s. This drought could not have come at a worse time for bison. Normally they would move into the valleys to avoid the drought, but Euro-American emigrants and Indian refugees were already in the valleys and with their grazing animals, had already destroyed the best grasses. Persistent La Nina and increased hunting nearly drove the bison to extinction during this time. The bison recovery after the Civil War drought brought temporarly hope for Plains peoples – at least until the locust plagues in the 1870s.

In September of 1891, Frank McInroe and Lute Beach began to quarrel in Hindsman’s Saloon “which resulted in a pretty lively rough and tumble fight.” After several minutes they ended up in the street. A large crowd gathered and cotton wagons backed up causing much congestion. Finally Sheriff Shands and John Oxford separated the combatants. Stephenville Empire

In the 1870s, before barbed-wire, rock fences were described as honey-combed throughout the area. I interviewed the daughter of one of the fence-builders that said her father was part Cherokee who came to Erath County to escape prejudice. He built rock fences for 75 cents per day. When the population grew, wagon loads of the fences were ground up for street paving. An article in the 1910 Stephenville Empire noted: “The old time rock fences in and around Stephenville have nearly al disappeared since work on the public square commenced, the city having bought them to be ground up and put on the streets. The disappearance of these landmarks . . . leaves nothing as it looked fifty years ago.”