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In This Issue:
Tailed 'Em Across Red River By Gus Staples, Skidmore, Texas One beautiful spring morning in 1876, our bunch pulled out for Dodge City, Kansas, with a herd of cattle. Bob Jennings and George Lyons were the bosses. After we had been on the trail about three weeks we encountered a severe cold spell during which my saddle horse froze to death. The blizzard was accompanied by rain which froze as it hit our slickers, and we suffered from the extreme cold. We stayed with the cattle as long as we could and finally the boss said, "Let 'em go to hell, boys, and we'll go to the campfire." We rustled all the wood out of the creek bottom and kept busy roasting first one side and then the other. When we reached Forth Worth the weather had moderated considerably. That is where I saw the first railroad. We renewed our supply of grub here and went on our way. When we got to Red River it looked to me to be more than a mile wide, and I did not fancy going across, but I was six hundred miles from home, and it was either turn back or grab an old cow by the tail and let her pull me across, so I tailed her and reached the other side safely. When we were in Indian Territory we experienced many thunder storms and heavy rains. Saw many Indians, too. While we were passing through Valley Mills, George Lyons and I traded our pistols off for horses, and as we were in the Indian Territory where Indians were numerous, I often wished for my pistol, and was ready to swap jobs with the cook.
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While studying trick riding, Goldia was hired for the Malone Wild West Show. As Goldia Fields, she performed with the Wild West Show, trick riding and competing in rodeo events. She was the only woman to ride the famous bull "Funeral Wagon." Farming after she retired from rodeo , she was honored for her long years with the 4-H and FFA Clubs. Goldia Bays "Fields" Malone | |
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A Member of Congress (1922) | |
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Texas Fact | |
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Deaf Smith County, Texas | |
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The Beginning of Stagecoach Lines STAGECOACH LINES were established in Texas around the fall of 1835. Creating in the beginning for postal routes through government contracts, they were short, as the line between Houston and Harrisburg in 1837. Stagecoach travel was full of danger from bandits and hostile Indians. Especially true in "frontier" areas such as the country around San Antonio and Austin. In 1840, a stagecoach line was started between Austin and Houston. The three day trip cost 20 cents a mile! On September 20, 1851, Henry Skillman was granted a contract to provide mail service from San Antonio to Santa Fe via El Paso. The first San Antonio-El Paso Mail stage departed on November 3, 1851. |
| One of the most famous stagecoach operations in Texas was the Butterfield Overland Mail. This overland route was headed by John Butterfield of Utica, New York, and ran from St. Louis and Memphis, crossing the Red River at Colbert's Ferry in Grayson County and continuing across Texas for 282 miles to El Paso, swung south across a barren plain between the Concho and Pecos rivers, where water was in short supply, past Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos, up the east bank to Pope's Camp, where it crossed the river, hugged the west bank northwestward to Delaware Spring, and then turned westward through Guadalupe Pass to Nueco Tanks and El Paso. From there it continued westward through Tucson and Fort Yuma to San Diego, California. SuBee Enterprises, Inc. & Bartel's Mancos Valley Stageline
A Story of Charlie Packhurst | |
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SNUFF BOXES By David J. Dill I took my Yearlings To the feed lot today. And I wrote a new poem, Thanks to the boss, Robert J. He liked my rhyme "Bout a cowboys truck, 'Cause at workin' with cowboys, He's had lots a luck. He said "Cowboys ...God loves them, And I do too. But their book keepin' and memos, Need replaced, Somethin' new. They keep books an' memos on the bottom, Of a box of snuff. Readin' and understandin' Sometimes gets tuff. The real problem He says it seems Is the last time that snuff box Comes out'a them jeans. They toss it without givin' a thought To the sufferin' All them lost memos have brought. But the'll saddle their hoss To go pick it up. Out there in the feed lot Amongst the mud and the muck. If they'd just write all them figures On the brim of their hat. When they were needed They'd know where there at. 'Cause a cowboy may loose notes on snuff boxes And stuff like that. But if he ain't lost his head He ain't lost his hat. | |
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References: The Trail Drivers of Texas Compiled and Edited by J. Marvin Hunter Introduction by B. Byron Price University of Texas Press, Publisher 1992 Texas Folklore and Cowboy Songs by J.Frank Dobie "Hopi Kachinas" by Barton Wright Northland Publishing, 1994 Sharps Rifles and Spanish Mules: The San Antonio-El Paso Mail, 1851-1881 College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1985 Texas: The Drama of Its Postal Past Fredericksburg, Maryland: American Philatelic Society, 1970 | |
























