Well, I’ll be a Crawdaddy’s Uncle!

The first 2/3rds of this weekend was spent at Fredericksburg doing some day-job outreach work at the Jaycee’s annual Crawfish Fest at the Marktplatz. Now, anyone who has been to Fredericksburg knows that mudbugs and Zydeco music are things not normally associated with the Deutscher-Tex ambiance (or should we say “pretense”) of this still-charming town. The closest thing to crawfish that the early German settlers ate were orach mussels from the Llano River, and that because they were starving to death and cannibalism was not a viable option. The food had its ups and occasional downs. The home fried potato chips were worth coronary bypass surgery, and the shrimp and oyster po’boys and such were enjoyable enough. The ‘bugs were beer-relief spicy, although I have sucked juicier heads. The one clinker was a cup of etouffe that had never been within a mile of a proper roux. But enough of relatively minor quibbles. Overall, the grub was worth the reasonable (for festival food) prices. But the big value was beer. Where else can you get $3 Modelo Especials? Shiner Bock was $4 a can. But to my mind, the music was the spiciest dish of all: a baker’s half-dozen of imported Louisiana bands, plus Billy Mata and the Texas Tradition for the western swing crowd and Little Texas for the little folks. As a western swing fan, I cannot say enough about Billy Mata and the Texas Tradition. Billy can sing like Johnny Bush and Tommy Duncan reincarnated and the band swings as well as the Playboys ever did. Just google Billy Mata to find out more. There wasn’t a clinker of a note the whole set. Out Zydeco way, Mary Broussard and Creole La La, and T-Broussard and the Zydeco Steppers almost made me feel like I was back at Soap Creek Saloon and Antone’s sweating it out with Clifton and Cleveland, Buckwheat, Good Rocking Dopsie, et al.

Being stranded at the La Quinta on the Johnson City side of town, way out Fort Martin Scott way, we availed ourselves of all, at one time or another, of F’burg’s several reasonably priced taxi services. It is a small price to pay to avoid a tete-a-tete with one of F’burg’s finest. And if they don’t catch you from one of their Crown Vics, there is a fleet of nimble bicycle cops to attend to your indiscretions. So have your son-of-a-gun fun, and take the Stagecoach home (the name of one of the taxi services).

I started Saturday morning off with a bicycle ride out to Cain City and the beginning of “The Divide,” between the Pedernales and Guadalupe River watersheds. I did not have the time or legs to make it all the way out to the old tunnel/bat roost. I took Old San Antonio Road, whose roadsides were still awash with wildflowers, all the usual suspects for this time of year, plus some hold-over paintbrushes. Most of the original 1920s-era bridges and river crossings are still in service, except for the low water crossing at Barons creek, which is in the process of being replaced. perhaps they will leave the old one in place, if not in use.

I had my tastebuds set for BBQ from Cranky Frank’s for Saturday lunch, but found out from one of F’burg’s finest (firefighters, that is), that Frank’s cookhouse had suffered a structure fire just a few hours earlier; but they will be up and cranking out good ‘que again in the not too distant future.

I assuaged my thirst for smoky goodness at David’s Old Fashioned BBQ (nee the Peach Pit), 342 W. Main, open daily. My fire service colleague recommended it as an acceptable alternative to Frank’s. Except he referred to it as the peach Pit, which it ceased being over a year ago. Which brings me to another point. And the reason why I don’t make many specific shopping and dining recommendations in Hill Country about Fredericksburg. Places go out of business (or if they’re lucky enough to stay in business) or they move about as often as some people change their underwear.

Back to David’s. The name has changed, but the food hasn’t.  I splurged for a 3-meat plate of brisket, ribs, and po-ro (pork roast for those of you who don’t know me and my penchant for trivializing the English language). The brisket was good and fork tender, but had been off the pit too long, so it tasted like good roast beef. The pork roast had fared better, given its more generous fat content, and the ribs best of all (Fat, especially pig fat, is the prime smoky taste retainer). The mayonnaise-based potato salad was enjoyable, but the pintos need salt, pepper and pico de gallo to bring them up to snuff. The sauce, being sweet and thick, stayed in its crock. I opted for some Tabasco-type picante sauce I have never heard of and hope never to encounter again. Two spoiled bites of meat were enough to teach me my lesson. There were no crackers, and  passed on the bread, as I always do. To their credit, David’s uses Dutchman’s Market Sausage, which I prefer to the finely ground (almost hot dog consistency) Opa’s filling.

There I learned of Lobo Beer, F’burg’s newest brew, and available by the seis at local stores. Brewed by Pedernales Brewing, there are currently two flavors: a Lager and Negra. We chose Lager, which was hoppy pert near to an IPA. Very enjoyable on a hot Hill Country afternoon.

Now, normally, my idea of dessert is an extra pork rib or slice of brisket, but when I stopped to chat with Charley and Betty Wanner, I looked with unabashed lust upon their plate of David’s in-house peach cobbler. Charley does interesting things with antlers, horns and flint, including bottle stoppers that are available at Fredericksburg Winery at 247 W. Main. He speaks German, so if you sprechen ze deutsch, Charley (617 W. San Antonio, 830-997-4007) will be glad to accommodate you in some lively conversation.

Charley filled me in on the latest peach news. A rain storm several weeks ago, produced hail in some places that totally destroyed some orchards’ production, while blessing most of the rest with the rain necessary to plump out this year’s crop to perfection. The season is about two weeks earlier than normal this year, which means the semi-freestones are already in plentiful supply with the freestones close behind. We chose to stop at Berg’s Corner at Stonewall, our favorite, faithful old standby. Even if no one else has peaches, Berg’s will always have some, even if they are at platinum prices. I came home a hero, with 1/8 bushel.

Bottom line: There are far worse ways to spend the Memorial Day weekend than at the Crawfish Fest, and not too many better, if the Hill Country on Memorial Day weekend is your cup of meat, or gumbo.

My thanks to the Fredericksburg and San Marcos Fire Departments, the Jaycees, and Jeremy and his better half (Y’all know who you are) for making our work and weekend fun as pleasant as possible.  You keep the “Willkommen” in the Fredericksburg lingua franca.

A Man Without Fear: Ben Thompson as Austin City Marshal

Good afternoon, and thanks for being here. Now I don’t claim to be an expert on Ben Thompson; no one alive today can. I never knew him, or even saw him walking down Congress Avenue, never shared a beer or shot of whiskey with him, and Thank God I never got crossways with him. But I have spent several hundred hours reading every scrap of information I could find about his life in Austin, and pondering the complexities and contradictions of his character, and I’m here today to share some of what I’ve learned about his stint as Austin’s city marshal.

“I’m not a politician nor office seeker, as we all know, but I must confess to a sincere aspiration to be marshal of Austin.” Ben said in an 1880 campaign speech.

Ben’s tenure as Austin City Marshal, from December 1880 until his official departure from office in October 1882, marked the zenith of his life. As marshal he was perhaps the most respected man in Austin, something to which he had always aspired.

He had come from being Austin’s pariah to its parvenu in four years. After he killed Mark Wilson on Christmas night, 1876, at the Capital theater, the Austin Statesman ominously editorialized:

“There is something electric in the very air which bodes no good to evil-doers. Our best and most conservative citizens are seen to shake their heads ominously and to say, with an air of quiet reserve that the present state of things cannot last much longer; if citizens are to be wantonly murdered, and the perpetrators go forth unwhipped of justice, then a more summary remedy will be invoked.”

Ben’s biography said, “Thompson’s character, as a desperado and man-killer, caused people to look with the greatest disfavor on his conduct. The rumor gained circulation, and was believed to be true that it was an assassination deliberately planned and coldly, murderously, relentlessly executed. There was much talk of raising a mob to visit on him summary punishment.”

But at the end of Ben’s first year in office, the Statesman was singing a different tune:
“Since his induction into office he has discharged his duties well and the Statesman has heard no complaints. He has kept the city orderly, and to the best of his ability has endeavored to administer the affairs of his office faithfully and for the best interests of the public peace. Should he be re-elected the city will be served well and have no cause to complain.”

We do not know when Ben first dreamt of becoming Austin’s city marshal, but we do know that he had decided to try and make his dream come true sometime during the latter part of 1879.

He had come back to Austin from Colorado in September 1879, as a changed man, after a violent stint as a hired gun in the service of the Santa Fe railroad in its turf war with the Denver and Rio Grande.

I quote from his biography: “Desiring to show what metal was in him, to change his line of life, and to bring his children up relieved from the common repute in which he stood, and to free his wife, whom he dearly and tenderly loved, from further anxiety about his personal safety, Ben concluded to offer himself as a candidate for city marshal of Austin, an election for which was then coming on. He consulted with some of the best and most responsible men in the community, both as to social position and financially. From them he received hearty encouragement. They promised him to give him support in his effort to rise above a miscellaneous life, and anchor himself to law and order.”

And so, on the morning of October 2, 1879, Ben announced himself as a candidate for city marshal.

His chief opponent was Ed. Creary, the incumbent. He had been marshal for many years, was liberal in his views, an excellent officer, and untiring and skilful as an electioneer.

Despite kind words for Ben in all the Austin papers, Creary whipped Ben soundly at the polls, 1174 to 744 votes. As Ben’s biography put it, “Ben was beaten by a considerable majority, but he was sustained in his aspirations by many of the best citizens in the city. Thompson continued on line of not only good but commendable conduct‑peaceable, quiet, orderly and law abiding‑nothing of note transpiring to attract attention outside of the ordinary walk of the well approved citizen.”

There is little reason to question this contention, given that the newspapers were silent about Ben for several months.

But by March 1880, Ben was back to his old ways, as the Austin Statesman reported on March 2: “Ben Thompson had a high old time in San Antonio Friday night and made things lively by firing off pistols on the streets. He was promptly fined $50.”

“The best tempered and gentlest hearted people are sometimes ruffled by small things, and do quite wrong, though there be present no malice,” Ben’s biography explained. “This is one of the misfortunes of life, and frequently brings a train of evils little foreseen; but what is about to be related had no serious consequences, though such might have naturally flowed there from. In vino veritas is an old adage, and it might be said with equal truth that wine often compels the tongue to utter the deeper feelings of the heart.”

After dining one evening with some friends, Ben felt the effect of the champagne he drank, and consequently was in humor to catch fun on the wing, and have it when and where he could.

So, Ben and a friend went to the gambling rooms that belonged to Ben and his partner, Gus Loraine. Loraine was dealing faro. For some reason, they were not in exactly good humor with one another. Ben believed that Loraine was cheating, so he pulled his pistol and shot into stacks of chips, scattering them in every direction. He also shot into the dealer’s box, cutting it through and through, and still not satisfied, fired at the chandelier, and broke it into a thousand pieces. Then he went downstairs into the keno rooms, and without saying a word, commenced to shoot into the “goose,” which contained the balls with which Keno is played.

As he ceased firing, he said: “This game ruins boys, and shall be played no more.” But he had no listeners. During the firing, the men, boys, players and dealers, waiters and attaches of every kind had left through the doors, windows, down stairs, on to the roofs of other houses.

A series of similar shoot-em-ups followed until the end of April, when Ben hightailed it for Kansas and then Colorado, before returning to Austin at the end of July, evidently a chastened man once more, for nothing more was heard of him in print until November dawned, when interest in the upcoming city elections began heating up. Ben was mentioned as a probable candidate for city marshal.

Late in November, Ben’s friend Sheriff Dennis Corwin, who had protected him from the mobs after the Wilson killing, resigned his office, and Marshal Creary resigned his position to take over the sheriff’s job. Ben promptly announced his candidacy.

On December 5, the Austin Statesman commented:
“Mr. Thompson is well-known to the people of Austin. He is known especially as a man without fear, and there are very many here who regard him as the proper sort of a person to be marshal of a city like this one. They say his life may appear as a reckless one, but that his disposition is and always has been to act honorably to all men and that they would pledge themselves that he would make a model peace officer. Mr. Thompson has lately bought a most beautiful home in the northern portion of the city, and he expresses a desire to serve the public in an honorable capacity, and says he will do so if elected, and it is known that his word is an excellent bond.”

On December 16, Ben whipped his nearest opponent by 227 votes.

With this resounding victory, the Statesman publicly kissed and made up with Ben:

The marshal has long lived in this city and is personally known to nearly all our old citizens and his reputation has extended into almost every state in the Union. His career has been an eventful one and at times has been marked by terrible encounters that have made him almost famous. He has an interesting family growing up, and of late has often expressed an earnest wish to settle down and educate his children. The bright, neatly dressed, intelligent little boy that often drives down the Avenue on a “buckboard” is his son. This wish of Mr. Thompson’s has been known for a long time, and on the promises he made during the canvas just ended, many of the best and most prominent citizens buried the past and cast their votes for him. Such confidence in the simple promise of a man who has lived such an eventful life has rarely been equalled in the annals of this country, and, very certainly, has not been excelled. It remains now for him to show by his actions and attention to duty that this confidence and faith has not been misplaced. The members of Hope Hook & Ladder Company, accompanied by a large number of citizens, last night tendered to Ben Thompson a complimentary serenade in acknowledgment of his being elected marshal of Austin. The music was discoursed by the Manning Rifle Band and the colored band.

Ben, evidently, had quite a victory celebration, as the Statesman blandly noted on December 19: Ben Thompson, marshal elect, is quite ill. As soon as he recovers he will qualify.

Two days later, he was “well” enough to take over active management of the Austin police department.

Once sober and firmly planted in the saddle, Ben wasted little time in making good on his campaign promises, as the Austin Statesman reported on December 23:

“There were eight or ten of them and along about the ‘wee sma’ hours’ yesterday morning they set about taking to the city. They were making an awful racket and from all appearances were determined to have a high time. Marshal Thompson was also abroad attending to official duties, and heard the above gents, and immediately getting on their trail came up with them just as one of the crowd calmly extinguished one of the street lamps. The marshal at once took in the situation and to the infinite disgust of the crowd bent on having a high old time, took them in.”

Once in office, the bark of Ben’s pistol was seldom heard, as this incident illustrates:

One day in April, 1881, a group of young men came to see the circus, and to have a little fun on their own. Along about 2 in the morning they left town on horseback, riding at a fearful gait. Ben happened to be standing on the sidewalk near the Raymond house and saw them galloping down the Avenue. He attempted to stop them, but two of them being on sleek horses managed to escape across the river. Officer Randolph followed them and fired a shot or two, hoping to bring them to a standstill. Ben hurried down and across the bridge, but being afoot, had given up the chase and was returning when he met the third member of the happy tea party, who was riding a slow horse. He was crossing the bridge with a drawn six-shooter in his hand when Ben ordered him to halt. “Who are you?” he said, his wicked-looking six-shooter gleaming in the starlight. “Marshal Ben Thompson, and if you don’t surrender, it will be the most unhealthy moment of your life,” Ben cheerfully responded. “Think so myself and to save trouble, and prevent anything like a funeral procession, I’ll cave,” the young man replied, and he was marched to the lock-up. The next morning his honor, the mayor, fined him $25 and costs for carrying a six-shooter.

Ben simply was not afraid of anyone, no matter what their reputation.

Johnny Ringo was in town early Sunday morning, May 1, 1881, and was passing his time down in a house in the jungles of Guytown, Austin’s redlight district. Along about 4 o’clock he missed his purse, and stepping out in the hall where some three or four of Austin’s nice young men were seated, he came down upon them with his little pistol and commanded them to “up hands,” and he quietly searched them. Not finding his purse he smiled beamingly upon the young men, and retired to his room while they quietly slid out and reported the facts to the police. Ben went down to the house, but was refused admission to the room, whereupon Ben cheerfully kicked open the door, and to Ringo’s infinite disgust, scooped him in. He was disarmed, marched to the station and the next day he was fined $5 and costs for disturbing the peace, and $25 and costs for carrying a pistol. Ringo settled with the city and left a wiser if not sadder man.

The Austin city marshalship allowed Ben ample opportunity to exercise his gentlemanly side, and Austin immediately approved, as the Austin Statesman noted during the winter of 1881: “Marshal Thompson had a detail of his gentlemanly police on the outside of the Opera House last night and they kept perfect order. He and his officers deserve praise for the care they displayed in discharging their duties. They are a careful and polite set of officers, and few cities have their equals and none their superiors.”

Ben put the fear of God into wrongdoers and he publicly exhibited a respect for the Lord God Almighty himself: He and his police force, in a body, attended divine services at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church on Sunday night, May 22, 1881.

But Ben could not help being Ben, despite his best intentions. At Turner Hall, which still stands, at 17th and Lavaca, on the evening of June 30, 1881, Ben and Herman Lungkwitz, a bar tender, had a few words, when Lungkwitz grasped a beer mug as if to hurl it at Ben, who immediately drew a pistol and warned him not to do it. The mug was not thrown, and the matter adjusted.

It is not surprising that Ben was suffering from another bout of short temper: caused, no doubt, by the declining health of his mother, for whom he entertained the deepest, gentlest and most devoted affection.

Around her boy the arms of her motherly love were wrapped in an embrace that only the hand of death itself could unclasp. Ben remained with his mother until she died, on Sunday, July 10, of liver cancer, at the age of 66.

The remains of Mrs. Mary Ann Thompson were followed to her grave at Oakwood Cemetery that same Sunday evening, by a large cortege of friends and acquaintances. She was buried from Saint David’s Episcopal Church, which still stands in downtown Austin. The Austin Statesman noted, “Mrs. Thompson was a lady of more than ordinary intelligence and possessed to a marked degree all the attributes that ever crown the life of a noble woman. She was highly esteemed by all who knew her, and leaves several children and a large circle of friends to mourn her loss.”

Ben mourned her sincerely, but his electric, rebounding nature could not long stay bowed; a tear, a sigh, one torn moan from the heart, and he shook the cloud of melancholy away; besides there was his duty to the living to be performed.

The evening after her funeral, Ben made one of his most novel arrests.

Lee County Sheriff Jim Brown reached Austin from Louisiana where he had been to arrest a man charged with the murder of a Lee County man about six years earlier. Brown had a sprightly looking deputy with him, whom suspicion, a few days earlier, as the couple passed through the city, intimated was Mrs. Amelia Schooman, formerly of Austin, and well known as “Mrs. Skeris.” She was notorious in Austin for previously dealing out the ardent. Her first husband divorced her for that behavior and old man Schooman, her second husband, having discovered that she had too many lovers, left her to shift for herself.

When Marshal Thompson learned of the strange couple, he left orders for his force to keep a sharp look out for their return, and immediately report to him if they were to pass through Austin again. The evening after mother Mary’s funeral, he was notified that the couple, with a prisoner, had reached the city. Ben immediately repaired to the depot, and entering the car found Brown’s gallant deputy, armed with a six shooter, guarding the prisoner. He arrested her and carried the whole tea party to the lock up, where Sheriff Brown furnished Mrs. Schooman proper wearing apparel, and gave bond for her appearance the next morning. She was charged with appearing in the streets of Austin in male attire and for carrying a six shooter. Brown alleged he had her along to identify his man and work up the case, that he might make the arrest. News of the arrest spread like a fire and the corridors of city hall were thronged with people who wanted to get a look at the “small woman with such a big six-shooter.” She was described as having “sharp blue eyes, a small mouth, retrousse nose and a naiveté manner, which made her quite attractive.”

Sheriff Brown left later that day with his prisoner. His gallant deputy was not in the carriage on the way to the depot.

Sheriff Brown was no shrinking violet. He was a flamboyant man, having one of the finest strings of racehorses in the state, racing some of them against Sam Bass.

Brown also killed a number of men outright, which was not considered a bad thing, as the Austin Statesman declared on May 11, 1876:

“We admire the intelligence of the people of Lee County. They elect the right sort of sheriffs. Achilles was not more invulnerable than the sheriffs of Lee. The last one they created over there was shot last week and penetrated by nine buckshot but he still lives unawed, unterrified, and unkilled. His name is Jim Brown and they can’t knock the black out.”

Like an elephant, Sheriff Jim Brown did not easily forget, especially when it came to personal humiliation. At the beginning of September, Ben caught wind that Sheriff Brown and several of his friends would attend the horse races that were to come off on Saturday, September 3, for the purpose of creating a disturbance, in which they hoped to draw Ben and kill him, if possible. Ben met Brown that day at the Austin fairgrounds, and approaching him, informed him of what he had heard, and said, if it was true, then was the time to settle the trouble, like men. Brown flatly denied the report, and matters were amicably settled.

As Austin city marshal, Ben had finally found his niche in life. As his biography states:

In his uniform of office he was one of the finest looking and best behaved men in the city. His effort seeming to be to compel order, by quiet, determined measures, in spite of the lawless element. His known nerve, his own innate sense of what was right in a legal sense, the chivalry born in him toward women, his appreciation and recognition of the dividing line between the lawful and the unlawful, caused turbulence, violence and disturbance to flee from his presence, and during his term of office no city was so free as was Austin from the thousand annoyances that are so common to all cities even of 10,000 inhabitants. While Thompson was city marshal, there was not a murder, not an assault to kill in the limits of the city; and as now remembered, not a solitary burglary, a single theft of any moment that was not detected, promptly brought to light and punished.

It is hard to dispute the latter contention, but Austin was by no means a chaste city, despite Ben’s best law enforcement efforts.

“Away up in a certain building on a certain street in a certain room certain orgies are carried on by certain young men with certain companions, that are observed by all in the neighborhood,” the Austin Statesman reported on July 30, 1881. “They are highly reprehensible, and if they are not stopped there will be trouble, and no end of scandals and such things.”

And in all fairness, there does exist the possibility that at least one burglary went unsolved, for no resolution of the following case ever appeared in print. October 7, 1881, the Austin Statesman:

Wednesday night sometime after the streetcars were called off for the night, someone bent on mischief, calculated to put money in his pocket to the detriment of the railroad company, went through the cars, and breaking open the money boxes, pocketed their contents. It is the custom of the company every evening at 6 o’clock to unlock the boxes and take out the day’s receipts, hence the daring robber did not reap a very rich reward for the trouble he had undoubtedly been at in forcing open the boxes.

As the annual city elections loomed large, the Austin Statesman declared on November 7, 1881:

“The City of Austin never had an officer whose claims to re-election at the hands of her people rested upon a more solid basis than the record of duties impartially, faithfully and fearlessly performed, presented by Captain Ben Thompson. He has performed his duties humanely, efficiently, and firmly. Good order, discipline and quiet have reigned. The city has been free from those disgraceful scenes which disgusted our people in times past. Rowdyism has been almost unknown, and his reputation alone has served to check excesses of those turbulent elements that have sullied the fair fame of the city.”

Despite the overwhelming odds for his re-election, Ben was not a man to leave anything to chance. He was an early believer in the power of advertising, and on the day before the election, the city newspapers were littered with what we now call “spot ads.”

“Ben Thompson never turns his back on a friend or an enemy, and has made Austin a good officer.”
“When you vote tomorrow, see that Ben Thompson’s name, for city marshal, is on your ticket.”
“As city marshal Ben Thompson is a success, and will be re-elected tomorrow — and don’t you forget it.”
“Don’t throw your votes away, but cast them for Ben Thompson for city marshal.”
“The best people in Austin elected Ben Thompson marshal, and they will do it on Monday.”
“Everything has been quiet for a year past and will continue so if Ben Thompson is re-elected city marshal.”

On election night, after the results were announced, about  midnight, quite an enthusiastic crowd, headed by the Manning Rifles band, proceeded to the residence of Major Saylor, in the first ward, where the mayor elect appeared and thanked them.

There was prolonged cheering and a tune by the band. The crowd, accompanied by the band, next visited Ben’s home, where he was serenaded. A hearty good time prevailed. Probably too good a time, for re-election exacted a toll similar to his initial electoral triumph. “Captain Ben Thompson, city marshal, has been quite sick for several days. He is better and we hope he will soon be quite well again,” the Austin Statesman noted on November 16, 1881.

Two days after his re-election, a group of Ben’s friends presented him with a handsome desk for his office. The desk was a fine piece of worksmanship, made of the finest black walnut, exquisitely carved, supplied with every convenience for keeping writing material and filing papers, and elaborately ornamented in gilt. A comfortable and costly arm chair accompanied the desk, and, taken together, it was only another evidence of the high esteem in which Ben was held.

The city council met to discuss the city’s debt problem in early February 1882. Loud calls brought Ben to the stage and he delivered a most practicable of fact address. He said he wasn’t competent to discuss the great questions of finances, but 13 months in office had put him in possession of information upon subjects upon which he did feel competent. He said that the city owed about $91,000 in bonds and about $52,000 in warrants and other floating debts, and the debt must be paid. There was no use talking about repudiation – you can’t repudiate. Vote for the extension of bond indebtedness and don’t go back on your words. He could not see any economy in cutting down the police fire department, or water supply. Do either and the insurance rates will go up. The city administration had been elected to do certain things; there was not a dollar in the treasury with which to carry out these requirements. He could see no other way than in accepting and voting for the proposition put before the people. Whether that carried or not, the city still owed the money, and honesty and good faith said it must and shall be paid.

While the job of marshal kept Ben busy, he still found the time to tend to his gambling interests, for the salary of city marshal alone was not enough to support Ben’s preferred lifestyle. He did well enough to purchase an elegant sailboat, towards the end of May. He took a ride every evening or so, and said that he could entertain his friends better in that way than in any other he knew of.

One detail Ben neglected to mention is that on several occasions during his tenure, he was the cause of several of “the thousand annoyances that are so common to all cities even of 10,000 inhabitants.” And his chivalry toward women had its limits: One evening in August 1881, Susan Billingsley, full of whiskey, was driving through the city at a fearful rate when she happened to run across Marshal Thompson. He stopped her mad career but she refused to timely submit to arrest and calmly sailed into Ben, and they had quite a lively tussle for some minutes. He finally succeeded in overcoming her and she was fined 10 dollars and costs.

One day during the same week he took possession of the good ship Bennett, Ben was going out to Pressler’s garden and met a wagon with three men in it, which he said, nearly ran into his buggy — in fact, that he had to strike the horses with his whip in order to turn them and prevent a collision. He had John Hafner arrested for reckless driving, but as it was shown that Hafner was not the driver, he was released. Hafner then swore out a complaint against Ben for cursing him at the time of the threatened collision. Deputy Sheriff Rudolph Krause was sent to arrest Ben, who refused to submit, remarking, “you go back and tell Tegener when he wants me to send a gentleman for me,” or words to that effect.

Krause left Ben and reported to his chief. Ben wrote Justice Tegener a note in which he stated he would be down and answer to the complaint.  Justice Tegener fined Ben one dollar and costs. Krause was relieved of his job.

The world was Ben’s oyster as the summer of 1882 drew nigh. The City of Austin and her people were loudly blamed by much of the rest of Texas for giving Ben the high executive office of marshal, but the citizenry of Austin were not moved. They cheered Ben on his way in the line of duty, to the point that the Statesman had declared in April 1881: “El Paso is in the care of roughs with six-shooters. They need a Ben Thompson as marshal.

Ben seemed invincible.

But storm clouds were gathering beyond the horizon, that no one could see. We’ll let Ben’s biography do the talking.

During the time Ben was marshal, no longer did the demon of passion, spurred on by drink, hover over Ben’s household. There was peace; there was happiness; there was family unity, concord and content. There was a home of which a crowned king might be proud; but as in Paradise a serpent entered, so here evil came, not into the body of the household, but outlying like a panther in ambush, and the fatal spring was made, when the greatest security was felt.

For some months Ben had contemplated carrying his little boy and girl to San Antonio, to visit friends who had repeatedly and urgently invited and insisted they should come to them. Having some leisure time, and being desirous of recreation from his arduous duties, he notified the children that the time for the visit had come. Gladly their mother prepared them to accompany their father on what was to them a gala day, full of sunshine, singing birds and blooming flowers. To the little girl it was as if she were to be the Queen of May. Ben, full of pleasure at the joy of his children, received Kate’s affectionate kiss and left his home, holding the children by their hands, and departed for San Antonio, where they arrived after a short ride on the railroad. Friends met, the friends of children met the children. How happy were all.
He joined friends who were glad to see him, with undisguised and candid congratulation on his appreciation at home, and his assured position among the better-thinking class of the people.
How sudden the descent from the apex of hope to the abyss of despair. How quickly the clouds obscure the sun ‑how soon darkness follows light.
For a few hours Ben enjoyed the association of friends ‑a few hours, freed from care, he saw, to him, a smiling world, a future full of hope, a release from bonds that had bound him, on earth, peace, good will toward men.
Social ties, unfortunately for Ben, brought the social glass, and the social glass induced indulgence beyond prudence. The social glass begat confidences wherein secrets revealed, tales told, threats communicated, aroused passion and resentment. A brave man, while he ought to despise threats, yet he likes not to have them lurking through the air. They abrade the even temper, they ruffle the sober mind, they are not borne meekly, even by a meek man ‑ they hurt and poison, they corrode and madden, particularly when the object of them is free from blame. But, however that may be, what was said to Ben caused him to conclude to investigate and find for himself whether there were men in San Antonio who causelessly, sought his life, or equally without cause designed to build themselves up as brave men by “loud-mouthed threats ” against a man who had never known what fear was, nor turned his back on a friend or to a foe.
The old city, which Ben entered under circumstances so auspicious, was not to be left until after many weary months of imprisonment in the Bexar county jail – for the next morning, July 12, 1882, the headlines across Texas blared, JACK HARRIS KILLED BY MARSHAL THOMPSON.

Firmly ensconced in the Bexar County bat roost after his arrest, Ben tendered his resignation, which was read at the August 7 Austin city council meeting: To the Mayor and Board of Aldermen, City of Austin:
Gentlemen — I hereby tender my resignation as marshal and chief of police of the city of Austin, to take effect on the first day of September next ensuing, or before that date if my successor should sooner qualify. Very respectfully your obedient servant, Ben Thompson.

Incredibly, the city council did not accept his resignation until October 23, and only after Ben had been refused bail by the Court of Appeals in Galveston.

How the mighty had fallen! Ben never recovered from his fall. His own hubris would ambush him, every bit as much as Joe Foster and Billy Simms.

This was the speech I intended to give

In a (Central Texas) Stew

The weekend of April 21-22 was spent roaming around part of the territory covered in the Central Texas Stew chapter of Central Texas. Starting in Smithville, not much of note has changed, except that Charlie’s BBQ (RIP) is now the Playhouse Smithville Theater (110 Main), but the 1905 pit out back is still there and looking in reasonably good shape for its age. Huebel’s Beer Garden is still alive and shit-kicking, one of the last of the old beer bars still extant, besides Riley’s in Hunter, Cistern Country Store and Pavla’s in Moulton.

Which is not to say that booze is not live and well. The decline of my beloved beer joints has been paralleled by the rise of home-produced wines, beers and white lightning. We politely call the latter “vodka” nowadays. This phenomenon began is Austin with Tito’s, spread west to Dripping Springs and the eponymously named distillate (now orange-flavored) and has now flowed east to Smithville, where triple-filtered “Smith’s” is produced, from locally sourced grains. They point out at their website , www.smithsvodka.com, that they produce beverage-grade enthanol, as opposed to the commercial-grade ethanol used by mass producers. It is newly available in Austin, Bastrop and elsewhere at Spec’s and Twin Liquors. Several flavors of “white lightning” (their name), and other liquors All of this is not “busthead,” “bug juice” or “pop skull” stuff; at $18 or so a bottle, it could not afford to be. As happened too often during Prohibition, you will not die or get the jake leg from these clear successes. Enjoy them on the rocks, perhaps with a splash of lime and club soda. You don’t want to detract from the smooth flavor; something that many vodkas lack.

Quite a few of exterior walls of downtown Smithville’s commercial buildings are now marked by fading, faux-old, painted advertising, courtesy of the movies that have been filmed here. The south side of the Old Masonic Lodge (301 Main at Loop 230), a three-story red-brick building built in 1902, still bears fading, painted advertising that dates back to well before World War II. Downtown is increasingly given over to junque-teek shops and such. Not much has changed at the railroad museum/visitor center. You can keep up with the latest additions and developments at www.smithvillerailroadpark.org. While the LCRA’s coal-car maintenance shop means that railroading still contributes to the local economy, the lusciously gingerbreaded, two-story Victorian-era Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) passenger depot is long gone, as are the old roundtable and maintenance shops.

Down in Cistern, the store enjoys a healthy weekend patronage and V&V is still churning out sausage, albeit of an inferior variety.

Changes are afoot in Flatonia. Train enthusiasts are still mourning the loss of the old SAAP freight depot, which had been moved to the railroad park a couple of years ago from its previous location on Hwy 95 just north of the Arnim Museum. A peek through the increasingly dusty windows of the old Arnim and Lane Store revealed pretty much all of the stock still on the shelves and in the display cases, but covered over with clear plastic sheeting and not an active element of the Arnim museum across the street. Across the tracks on S. Main, the old City Market, which had transitioned into a café by the same name several years ago, is now “The Red Velvet.” The Lyric Theater is showing movies on Friday nights and music on special occasions, and someone is in the process of restoring the old “Happy Hour Theater” painted advertising on the western exterior wall. One of the more notable newcomers to town is the Central Texas Rail History Museum (104 E. South Main, Open Saturday afternoon, or by appointment 361-865-3003), which contains a mix of model train layouts and Southern Pacific memorabilia. The Flatonia Argus still hangs on in its longtime location, but unfortunately, the Friendly Bar next door appears to have closed for good. While we’re on the subject of closed beer bars, let us toll the bells for all the deceased I can remember since the first edition of Hill Country appeared in 1983. RIP, in part: Jerry Simek Place in Engle; Lakeside Café, Schulenburg; Assman’s Café, New Ulm; Frank’s Place, La Grange, Tony Hanzelek’s, Gonzales; Two Brothers, Lockhart; Palace Café, Shiner; Dungan’s, McDade. And while I’m at it, New Ulm is pronounced “New UH-lum.”

In Schulenburg, not much has changed in the last couple of years, except for the opening of the Texas Polka Museum (625 North Main, www.texaspolkamuseum.com) next door to the Schulenburg Museum (in the old Wolter’s Store), which has an 1873, hand-pulled fire engine among its display highlights. Being a Sunday, City Market was closed, so we didn’t get a chance to pick up any of their sausages or smoked meats from the market, or our pick of meat from the pit. Sorry, Joe Nick, City Market is top tier; if you have gotten bad meat there, maybe you need to brush up on your meat picking skills. Harlan’s Supermarket was open, but only does barbecue on Saturdays; if you’re in Schulenburg before noon on Saturdays, be sure to stop; they sell out early.

Just after you turn left onto FM 1383 to Dubina, you will see on your right a sign that says “Lee School.” This is the location of Greater Dubina’s long vanished “colored” school. With all the emphasis on the area’s Czech culture, it’s easy to forget the area’s considerable black population.

At Dubina, we found the locked, jail-style doors still in place in the vestibule inside the Saints Cyril And Methodius Church’s front doors, which deny you entrance, but allow you to at least view the interior. Luckily for us, we found the church hall to be open, allowing me my first walk-around inside since my last visit to the annual parish picnic and Feast Day (held the first Sunday in July), a good 15 years ago. Nothing has changed in here, from the wall of advertising signs for Weimar and Schulenburg businesses, dating back to the “123” phone number days and Ford crest last seen on cars about 1953, to the exposed-rafter wooden ceiling/roof and original wiring with its ceramic insulators. Most of the businesses are no longer in business. Two walls bear interesting collections of old photos and narratives depicting the histories of the church and area schools, respectively.

The old outdoor, outhouse toilets marked “Muzke” and “Zenske” still stand, and I was able to relieve myself in the men’s one-holer (shades of Boy Scouts camp going on 50 years ago), but the women’s “room” was closed off. A quick trip over to the “piano wire” bridge showed it to be freshly painted and worthy of a Dvorak concerto.

On to Ammansville, where there is now another club/bar in a converted shotgun house on the western outskirts of town, with no sign or name, but full of people, but we did not have time to stop. The sign on the door of St. John the Baptist Church says the doors are locked at 5:30, but not on this particular day. We were able to stroll in and wander about, unlike at Dubina. A dab of Holy Water and the sign of the Cross upon the forehead and breast for good luck, which you need plenty of when driving a PT Cruiser – What an unfaithful car! Andrew wanted to light a votive candle as well for added protection (35₵ small; $1 King-of-Kings size), and although several King-sizers were burning, I said a most emphatic “No!” One of the first commandments of fire safety is not to leave burning candles unattended. God works in mysterious ways (The church was destroyed by a storm in 1909 and rebuilt. Not long thereafter it was destroyed by fire and again rebuilt), and I did not care to have the smoking embers of another perished church burning a hole in my conscience. The bulletin board in the vestibule here, as well as at Dubina, for that matter, bore a poster for the upcoming Hostyn Parish feast, featuring smoked pork and sausage. This show of mutual support is comforting in more than one way. There’s nothing like a bellyful of Tex-Czech holiday food and beer, and some Tex-Czech music from the Red Ravens or Djuka Brothers to dance it off, or the more traditional, Old-World sounds of Kovanda’s Czech Band (Gee-tars and drum sets need not apply here). One detail I had not previously noted was the date of the current church’s construction and dedication, “1919,” set in little white and gray tiles in one corner of the highest concrete front steps.

If you like Polka music and dancing, check out The Texas Polka News, a monthly tabloid dedicated to you-know-what (jlrivard123@sbcglobal.net); or dancing and old-time dance halls generally: Texas Dance Hall Preservation, texasdancehall.org.

I am now recommending the old Dubina-Weimar Road (a little over a mile south of the church and Piano Bridge Rd.) as an alternative, even preferred, route to reach Weimar from Dubina, both for its rural beauty, and the resurrected Gladys’ Bakery, at 3239 Dubina-Weimar Road, (800) 725-5254, (979) 263-5940 originally located just east of Cistern, and highly recommended in earlier editions of Hill Country for its gourmet fruitcake (forget your previous prejudices about fruitcake) and cookies.Once in Colorado County, Dubina-Weimar Road is also known as County Road 20, and Sedan Street in Weimar. Once in town, it dead-ends into Water Street; turn south (right) on Water and proceed 2 blocks to W. Post Office Street, or 3 blocks to US Hwy 90. Kaspar’s Meat market is 4.5 blocks east on Post Office Street.

In Weimar, the old Kaspar’s Meat Market sign was tucked under the awning, off its former perch. Weimar has no railroad museum as such, but the 1925 Southern Pacific depot survives as the Weimar City Library (with 1970s vintage caboose outside) and the Weimar Museum has railroad items in its collection.

The Borden Store and the house next door have for sale signs in their yards, which does not bode well for the store’s future. It being a Sunday, the place was closed, as has been the custom for several decades. Back in the 1980s, it was another good Shiner stop. We turned onto County Rd. 217, which parallels the SP tracks and offered better wildflower displays than Hwy 90 or IH 10, which was pretty much a parking lot from Sealy to well past Columbus. Well, people who live in Houston and go west for the weekend pretty much deserve what they get for living there, although we don’t need any more expats from Houston or anywhere else in Austin, thank you.

We got to La Grange at 11:30 on Saturday, which gave us just enough time to hit Prause’s Market for what little brisket and sausage remained. The pork ribs had long since sold out. We got mostly “moist” (a polite term for “fatty”) brisket, which is usually repulsive elsewhere, but having been properly and sufficiently cooked, most of the fat had been rendered out the connective tissue forced into submission, the result being a most flavorful, albeit messy treat, definitely a cut above the saltine-cracker dry, lean brisket you get so often now-a-day. Anthony Bourdain would have been very happy, even though it wasn’t pig fat. I had forgotten how wonderful the plump little all-beef links are; juicy, with that coarse grind that I personally prefer. Easily the equivalent of Luling City Market’s rings or the Elgin rope sausage. And you better not waste too many years in getting here, because, after four generations of faithful service to the taste buds of Texans, there is no fifth generation of Prauses to continue the tradition.

While I mourn the loss of most all of my beer bars, I welcome the surge of railroad tourism and preservation that has developed over the last decade or so. Flatonia has its railroad park, train museum and viewing platform where two Union Pacific lines cross, while La Grange has its Railroad Depot Museum (located at the intersection of North Washington and Lafayette streets, in its original location, a couple of blocks north of the Courthouse Square), which, unfortunately, is only open on Saturdays from 10-4. If you can make it on a Saturday, you can at least peak through the windows. The depot was built in the fall of 1897 by the Taylor, Bastrop and Houston Railway Co., to replace the original depot (built in 1880), which had burned down six months earlier. The TB&H was absorbed soon thereafter by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) Railroad. Passenger service ceased in the 1950s, and freight service in the 1970s. It entered service as a museum in 2006. The MKT was acquired by Union Pacific in 1988, and seven trains a day, on the average, still rumble past the depot, including a couple of coal trains from Wyoming that supply the LCRA’s massive coal-fired Fayette power plant between La Grange and Columbus (it burns about two trainloads [about 250-270 cars] of coal per day), two or three gravel trains headed for the Houston area, several general freights and trains of empty going back west. While we were there, one of the gravel trains rumbled through. Standing so close to the track, it is quite impressive. We regretted not seeing one of the coal trains; as they use pusher locomotives at the back, which is rare outside of the mountains. The Burlington Northern uses two locomotives in the front and two at the back; Union Pacific, which held the coal hauling contract until recently, used only one pusher.

The station’s most famous visitor was ex-President Teddy Roosevelt, who stopped here for a few minutes in 1911 and addressed the gathered crowd, as the photo on the office wall indicates.

With the help of donations and grants, the depot has been restored to its original condition, configuration and appearance: an office, two waiting rooms, and freight room. Original fittings include the pot-belly stove (found in a pigpen nearby and brought back to the depot), safe, and a bench in the main waiting room. The stationmaster’s desk came from the nearby Fayetteville depot. A display case in the main waiting room contains a gold cane presented to James Converse in 1880 for his efforts in bringing this “tap” line to La Grange. In the north bay window is the dispatcher’s desk, which offers a view of the track both ways, are the semaphore control levers and the telegraph operator’s set. The office, “white” and “colored” waiting rooms, and freight room look they did during the depot’s heyday, and a vintage Railway Express truck stands trackside, along with a caboose out in the parking lot. The depot also has numerous photographs, maps, display cases full of artifacts, several operating model trains, and hands-on displays for adults and kids. The time clock is not original to the station, but you can take a time card and stamp it with the time of your visit, as a souvenir. Kids can play with the wooden trains in the freight room.

“The Walking Tour of Downtown La Grange” is great new booklet now available, free of charge, at the Old County Jail/Visitors Center. I will be cribbing from it in the next edition of Central Texas, for those who wish to do their “homework” prior to a visit to La Grange.

The recently restored County Courthouse is a gem and a joy to behold, inside and out. The three-story atrium that forms the center of the interior is unique among Central Texas and Hill Country courthouses, with its skylight roof, fountain, plants and benches. Truly delightful. The courtroom is a gem, easily the equal, in its own way, of the Caldwell County Courthouse courtroom, but I would not relish sitting in one of its folding seat, theatre-style, unpadded wood spectator seats or benches. All the doors to the various county officials’ and department offices have hand-painted lettering on the glass transoms. The bottom two floors are finished in alternating, polished black and white marble squares in a diamond pattern, while the third-story floor is covered in period-correct linoleum. And since I am in the fire service, I enjoyed the original standpipes that run up opposite corners of the atrium walls, complete with the original hose hook-ups.

Hell! What a Place!

An old settler, who requests his name not be used, was asked yesterday how long he had lived in Austin. “Why, sir, I have always lived here!” was his reply. He then explained that he came to Austin when it was nothing but a cluster of log houses. Just after the town was established.

Austin in those days existed only in the imagination – it was a big city only in the mind. One day I went across the river and stood on the bluff where the deaf and dumb asylum is situated, and here I had a bird’s-eye view of the capital. I had been here but a short time – do you know what I said? I was given a little in those days to profanity, and when I gazed upon this capital of a great republic, I simply said, “Hell! What a place!”

All there was of Austin at the time was about 15 or 20 little log houses and the most ungainly structures that human genius could devise, and these were stuck into openings between scrubby trees. A man full of poetry might say the wild uncouth landscape was grand – but poets are great liars. It was the most barren and desolate looking spot I had ever set my eyes on. The white barren rocks glared in the sun like the very perfections of destitution, upon which only a few sickly, dwarfed and gnarled live oaks sat like death on a ship quarantined with yellow Jack. I had read the glowing description of the commissioners who selected this perfection of desolation for the capitol of the republic and before I cam to Austin I had my fancy wrought up to a high point of glory. I did not think men could lie so, and as I stood on the bluff that day, I said, and no wonder I said it, “Hell!”

 

A Regiment of Drummers

Today, we introduce a new category, “The Bum Rush, or Straight from the Rush’s Bum”; a sort of what-if, “What Would Rush Say?”, if the master Bloviator had been around “back in the day.”

And to start things off on the right foot (in the mouth) …

“The Kids Aren’t Alright”

Or

“Cornpone and Sowbelly for Thought”

This gem originally ran in The Galveston News, March 25, 1875:

A Regiment of Drummers: The Labor Question.

The hostility of the average American youth to manual labor is a national calamity. The aversion of all mankind to the curse that followed the fall of our first parents is exhibited in a greater or less degree among all peoples. But the contestation must be made that here in America, under a republican form of government, and where labor should be regarded as manly and honorable, we have a shirking of the duties therein entailed which neither does good judgment nor sense of independence much credit.

We are led into these remarks from the tenor of a letter received in the NEWS office the other day, from New Orleans, stating that in answer to an advertisement that appeared in this paper a short time ago by a New Orleans firm, requesting the services of a “drummer” for Texas, the house had received three hundred applications. This might be pointed to as an evidence of the value of the NEWS as an advertising medium, but that is not the object of this article. It is of more import to show to the country generally that there must be something wrong in the social and material system of the commonwealth when three hundred men can be found on exceedingly short notice ready and willing to undertake such service as that required of a commercial solicitor. Now, it is not to be inferred from this that the position of a commercial traveler, or “drummer” as he is generally termed, is not one of responsibility and arduous exertion. On the contrary, it is a very hard life, and requires both tact and persevering industry. In fact, as business is now conducted, this class is indispensable to its prosperity. But the assertion is ventured that had a similar advertisement been inserted requiring the services of a good man to undertake a job of blacksmithing, or wheelwrighting, or any other task requiring the expenditure of a fair amount o£ elbow-grease and muscle, there would have been no three hundred applicants for the situation within a week.

And that is just what is the matter with too many who have to complain of hard times and nothing to do. The aversion to laboring with the hands is the cause of a great deal of material prostration. And not only is this the case in the South, for the North and West have the same complaint to make. Some time ago an article appeared in the Cincinnati Commonwealth showing the danger to the country from this cause. That journal represented that the skilled labor in the foundries and machine shops of the North and West was nearly all imported from Europe—that the youth of these sections evaded such work and sought clerkships and other light employment, and that in the event of a war of long duration with a European power, the country might feel grievously the want of such skilled labor. Of course this is a far-stretched supposition, but it proves that labor in America is not hold in that esteem which makes it honorable as in other lands.

Young men leave the country and come to towns seeking light employment and rapid promotion; the youth of our cities are all after “easy-going things,” and, as a consequence, the mechanical arts and useful industries are neglected and avoided. It is difficult to say where an innovation should commence here, but much remains with the parents undoubtedly in inculcating a respect for labor and enforcing a compliance with its exactions. Three hundred applications for a single situation as drummer inside of a week shows there are too many that way bent in Texas for the good of the State. That number of men upon good Brazos bottom land could raise two thousand bales of cotton a year, and corn and meat enough to do them. Just think of that, ye aspirants for commercial honors, and seriously and honestly go to work.

Along the Old Post Road from San Marcos to Buda

Last week I trundled down I-35 down to San Marcos for a doctor’s appointment (Where he leads, I will follow.). Rather than face a return drive along I-35’s unrelenting ugliness, as well as stop-and-go traffic beginning south of the Hwy. 71 interchange (now a standard feature any weekday beginning about 11 in the morning, I decided to toodle up the Old Post Road, past Kyle and through Buda, before taking refuge along the brief stretch of toll road that leads from just north of Buda to US 183.
The pristine, 1950s-era stainless steel train passenger coaches are still resting in their open-sided shed on a spur of the old IGN tracks as you leave San Marcos. I have never mentioned these classic cars in Hill Country or what is now is Central Texas, for fear that they would disappear from the scene (I hate it when I put something in one of the books and then it goes away before the next edition, making me look stupid.), but maybe I will now since they’ve been here for well over a decade and I am putting more of a railroad emphasis in the next editions of both books.
As I have noted before, development has encroached farther and farther out from San Marcos over the last three decades, pretty much to the Blanco River low-water crossing, which, thankfully, hasn’t been replaced, as is also the case with the massive, high, limestone-pier, IGN railroad span bridge across the Blanco, which, I believe is the original bridge built in the early 1880s.
I have reported on this drive on my blog before, and nothing much has changed in the intervening months, but I must make a few corrections, one of which is flat-out embarrassing. In Central Texas, I give an accurate description of the historic Kyle cemetery, but in best brain-fart tradition, I place it approximately 0.3 miles north of the entrance road to “Claiborne Kyle Log House” (2400 S. Old Stagecoach Rd.) , instead of its correct location, 0.3 miles south of the cabin entrance. The Skyview cemetery is located 0.3 miles north of the Kyle log cabin entrance; it has some graves dating to the 1880s but lacks the historical pedigree of the Kyle cemetery.
I parked at the entrance to the cabin and ducked under the gate for the brisk 5-minute walk to the cabin grounds, which are fenced in by a high wire-mesh fence. Bluebonnets, verbena, winecups, and a couple of Indian paintbrushes were in bloom along the dirt path.
Soon I was at the 4-way intersection with Cypress Rd. to the west, and the road into Kyle, which becomes Center St. once in town.
As long-time readers of Hill Country/Central Texas know, Cypress Rd. leads eventually to the old Ezekiel Nance homestead and mill. Contrary to what I state in the current edition of Central Texas, Cypress Rd. is not closed to the public beyond the gate; the Nance family property owners just want you to think so. The road is county owned all the way to its dead end, so feel free to open the gate, drive through, close the gate, and drive on to see and enjoy the old Nance homestead. The gate is just there to keep the cattle from straying off their property. But don’t trespass along the way; stick to the road and you’ll be OK.
Once in Kyle, a brief look at the old Auction Oak reveals that it is not too much worse for wear from the drought.
One of Kyle’s most historic structures has been heretofore excluded from previous editions of Hill County/Central Texas, because, I suppose, of its altered features. But what the hell, I’m mentioning it now, and it will be included in future editions. This being the old D.A. Young building, one-story, built from rough-cut limestone blocks, notable for being Kyle’s first permanent store, built in 1881 by David Alexander young who had come from Tennessee in 1857 and settled in Hays County. He and his wife moved here from Mountain City with the coming of the railroad. The chief alteration consists of a three-bay wing with three roll-up doors, leading me to suspect it once housed the fire department. It is located at the corner of Burleson and Miller streets, one block south of Center Street. Turn right at the Burleson Street traffic light, just after passing the Porter house.
The old IGN depot by the tracks is about to undergo restoration, as previously described.
On my last trip through Buda, the old stage stop house and post office were still undergoing renovation and were closed to the public. Work has been completed, and though the tiny post office is locked up, the house is open to the public and quite a pleasant little visit. The original look has been mostly restored, but as it serves as parks and visitor center office, it sports all the necessary modern conveniences. Several display cases are full of local artifacts and a variety of local history books, booklets and calendars are for sale, as well as free tourism pamphlets and such.
If you want to see the original IGN bridge across Onion Creek, built in 1881 and similar to the bridge that crosses the Blanco river, take a left on the gravel road just before you cross the railroad tracks as you leave “old” downtown Buda. Go past the park pavilion and facilities, and before long, you come to the bridge. The road dead ends soon after, so there’s no chance of getting lost.

The Peripatetic Kyle City Jail

Back when Aquarena Springs was a hokey tourist resort, complete with Ralph the diving pig and a submarine theater featuring Texas State University co-ed mermaids, one of the less cloying attractions was the Texana Village, a collection of old area buildings and reconstructions. The Merriman cabin, built in 1846 by Dr. Eli Merriman, was San Marcos’ oldest standing home. The saloon was a recreation, but the front bar was from Fredericksburg’s famous White Elephant Saloon. Kyle’s city jail from 1884-1925 had also been moved to Texana Village. Small and simple, it is of a very rare construction technique. Sawn 2-by-4 boards are laid flat like logs and built like a two-pen log cabin, layer stacked atop layer of boards, reinforced by iron bars and braces. In 1884, when Kyle was still a wild child of a town, it is said that the Hays County Commissioners Court decided Kyle needed its own jail and moved a cell from the original, 1873 county jail in San Marcos to a spot just north of Center St. and old Hwy. 81 (the current I-35 frontage road). I personally fail to see how the current structure, as is, could have been part of the old county jail, but that’s the official wisdom. At any rate, the two-room jail was used until 1925, and stood vacant until moved to the Pioneer Village on the Aquarena Springs grounds in 1964.

 

One of the mysteries following the dismantling of the Pioneer Village was where various of its components went. The Merriman cabin was moved to a spot adjacent to the 1867 Charles Cock Home, at Allen Parkway and E. Hopkins. But when I contacted Aquarena Springs’ management several years later, no one was able to tell me where the other items and structures of interest to me had gone, specifically, the White Elephant Saloon’s bar and the old Kyle City Jail. Unbeknownst to them and me, the jail had been rescued from destruction at the last possible moment and moved onto the grounds of the grounds of the second-empire-style, Hays County jail (used 1884-1936). It sat there for seven years, hidden from view by the vines and assorted brush that had grown up along the chainlink fence that enclosed the jailhouse lot, until it had to be moved again, when the old county jail preservation project began, to its present location in a field behind a building on the grounds of San Marcos Academy. It now belongs to the Hays County Historical Commission, which is now seeking the funds necessary to restore it and move it to a more prominent location, hopefully back in Kyle. It was named to the 2012 Preservation Texas Annual List of Texas’ Most Endangered Places, which will hopefully aid in the necessary fundraising. I still don’t know where the White Elephant’s bar ended up.

 

The Hookers’ Balls: 126th Anniversary

Perhaps — no, probably — the greatest events in Austin social history. Never before, and certainly never again, even in “Weird” Austin. Michael Barnes and Stephen Moser, eat your hearts out.

April 1, 1886

THAT BALL.

THE WILD CIRCEAN ORGIES LAST NIGHT.

As rumored and as was made known to scores of young men by special invitation cards the public ball announced for last night came off. It was given by Georgia Frazer, a Fille de Joie, and mistress of a notorious bagnio of ill repute, and a few days ago she sent out cards of invitation. For the nonce the houses of ill fame in the city were emptied of their evil-minded, unconscionable inmates, and under the protecting wings of the city government, they were permitted to publicly occupy a public hall and engage in wild, dissolute Circean orgies.

 A score or more, considerably more of girls were present, rigged out in all the catching frippery tawdriness, paint and tinsel, peculiar to such women. Some few were in gorgeous attire and sparkling diamonds flashed from numerous hands. To make themselves attractive was the object, and all the wiles and cunning of hell itself were invoked to accomplish this end.

“Was the ball attended?”

“Did any body go?”

“Were men there whom I know?”

“Yes, they were there.”

“Fifty were there.”

“Over a hundred were there.”

“Alas, it is safe to say that during the night five hundred were there.”

“Five hundred.”

“Yes, five hundred, from the country, boys from the country attracted by the music and by street reports.”

“Strangers were there.”

“Scores of well known young men were there dancing with girls in all their silkiness.”

 For the time, dissoluteness, debauchery, and voluptuous orgies ruled the hour, and all under the protection and by the permission of your city government.

 Thus it is under the sanction of your city government are your sons publicly debauched and lured to eternal ruin.

 Under the protection of your city government with a police force detailed to do duty at the ball last night, are the lives of your sons marred forever and they hurried on the way to disgrace, and to dishonorable graves. Are you astonished that a long list of violent and mysterious murders have cursed your city? Is it not time to call a halt? Abandoned women and dissolute men cannot be permitted to publicly exhibit themselves. It is a disgrace to the city and dangerous to society.

 April 2, 1886

ANOTHER BALL.

Some More Lushy Baccanallan Doings.

Last night the immortal first ward opened out its Cetaroon denizens, who under a permit from Mayor Robertson, took possession of the hall occupied the night before by Madam Frazier, and throughout the night, they and scores of colored admirers, and, alas, some white ones, too, danced, guzzled beer, and turned themselves loose in licentious debauchery. Messalina, herself, would have rejoiced to have been in Austin during last night and the night before. In her day, city government didn’t grant permission for such orgies because it was not necessary, nor did they afford protection, because life was not counted of much value. Now, things have changed. Civilization has advanced, and you have to get permission to carry on, in a public hall, in the center of the city, on a public street, indecorous, dissolute, libertinism. Life is of more value, now, too, and police are detailed to suppress and keep in bounds the maddening passions of drunken lustful men and women, who engage in these evils.

 Now, this is all wrong. If it is necessary for the city to grant permission for such orgies as have disgraced this city for the past two nights, by all means confine them to the premises on which these women live. If these balls are kept up, look for more mysterious murders. Lust, licentiousness and consequent jealousy was at the bottom of every murder in Austin last year.

(The reporter, in the last sentence, is referring to the infamous Servant Girl Murders.)

 

 

Going Up Windy

Like all 3-year-olds, nephew Jonas loves trains. So yesterday afternoon (Friday) we boarded the CapMetro Redline at MLK Jr. Station for a round trip dash to Lakeline station. I would have preferred to go all the way to the northern terminus at Leander, but at this point in time, you can only do this round trip in the morning, boarding the 7:17 downtown, arriving Leander 8:19; leaving Leander 8;30, returning downtown at 9:32.

As some of you may know, the Redline follows the original Austin and Northwestern route, which was originally built as a narrow-gauge line, 1881-82, to Burnet. It went bankrupt barely more than a year later. But the reorganized line’s fortunes were revived when the decision was made to build our present state capitol with pink granite (16,000 carloads) from Granite Mountain, near Marble Falls. Dozens of huge blocks of granite that spilled from the train during wrecks and derailments lay scattered picturesquely all along the line. Accordingly, the ANW was extended to Granite Mountain, Marble Falls, and eventually to Llano in 1892. The line was acquired by the Southern Pacific system in 1891 and the line was converted to standard gauge the same year.

According to the grand Texas tradition of “cheapness,” the ANW was built on the cheap; narrow gauge roads cost a lot less to build and promoters touted that they could carry almost as much freight as the more expensive standard gauge railroad. The ANW was just one among many narrow gauge lines built across the country in the 1880s, as “cheapness” swept the nation. Narrow gauge roads have their proper place in the world of railroading, principally in mountainous regions where tight turns are necessary; narrow-gauge trains are ideally suited for this.

The phrase, “Going Up Windy,” (“Windy” as in “winding,” not as in lots of wind) came from the road’s tortuous path. In order to minimize building costs, the route followed the contours of the countryside as closely as possible, minimizing the number of expensive bridges to be built and grading to be. In fact, the line runs due east for well over a mile before it finally turns north and eventually veers northwest, as its name implies. This anomaly earned it a spot the O. Henry short story, “Friends at San Rosario.”

In 1986, the Southern Pacific sold the ANW line to the City of Austin and Capital Metro. The Austin Steam Train Association began running a weekend excursion train a couple of years later between Cedar Park and Burnet. SP steam engine 786, which sat in a tiny downtown Austin park for more than 30 years, was resuscitated to pull a string of vintage passenger cars along that stretch of the line. The better part of 10 years ago, No. 786′s boiler was discovered to be in dangerous condition, the result of a serious wreck during its working years and a half-assed repair job. It was yanked from service and has been in the shop ever since, hopefully to run again someday. In the meantime, the tourist train chugs on, pulled by a vintage diesel locomotive.

At $5.75 for the round trip to Leander, the Redline is an entertaining way to pass a couple of hours and change. From downtown, be sure to pick a seat on the left (west) side of the train. Once you are out of Austin, the scenery on that side is much more pastoral. the bluebonnets are just coming now, and for the next 6 weeks or so, the wildflower viewing should be topnotch.

I am now working on a new chapter for the next edition of Hill Country about the ANW, called “Going Up Windy,” of course. The trip route will run from downtown Austin up to Llano, and will involve rides on the CapMetro Redline, the ASTA weekend excursion train, and some auto driving. Rail enthusiasts in Llano are trying to get tourist train service from Llano to Burnet, but that has yet to translate into reality. But in anticipation, Llano now has a railroad district with a reconstruction of the old ANW station, the last of the old railroad hotels, and an old rail car or two.

Go on now, and “Go Up Windy,” while the flowers are out. If you like trains, you’ll love the ride.

Lockhart Correction

After eating some great Lockhart barbecue, it’s time to eat some words. On page 211 of Central Texas (Shiner-Lockhart Pilgrimage), I state that the Emmanuel Episcopal Church sanctuary was used as a horse stable by federal troops during Reconstruction days. This was the conventional wisdom around Lockhart for many years. But according to the congregation’s website, “Research shows that the Union troops were actually stationed in Austin, and when sent out on patrol to Lockhart, camped at springs near the old ice house, adjacent to the Livengood Feeds property. Some cut nails found under a wooden floor laid in 1899 lent credence to this story, but apparently there is no truth in it.”

And while I’m at it, the construction of the damnable toll roads between Lockhart and Austin has totally altered — that is, ruined — what little beauty there is along most of the route. And besides being a pox on the landscape, they will be, at best, only lightly used. But big bucks were stuffed into a certain statewide-elected official’s pockets by the contract winners as a result. Republicans brought the carpetbagger mentality to Texas, and like herpes and malaria, once you’ve got it, it’s here to stay. We used to have to import the greedy, unscrupulous sons of bitches; now we grow our own.

Livengood Feeds property. Some cut nails found under a wooden floor laid in 1899 lent credence to this story, but apparently there is no truth in it.