r/TarrantCounty

The B-36 was built in the Convair factory in Fort Worth is now a Lockheed facility. The numbered individuals are identified as: Raul Lopez Sanchez (1), Ignacio Morones Prieto (2), Fernando Foglio Miramontes (3), Raul Garate Legleu (4), Jesus Jaime Quinones (5), and Maria G. Grimaldo (6).

The man in the middle of this 1892 photo, Jim Toots, is just about to be hanged in Fort Worth. There are only two problems: his name is not Jim Toots, and he was never hanged. Y'all might want to get a cup of coffee, because man oh man did I ever go down a Texas history rabbit hole!

"Jim Toots" was actually the alias of a man whose real name was Jim Burrus (sometimes spelled Burris). He was a gambler who frequented Fort Worth’s notorious Hell’s Half Acre, the district of saloons, gambling houses, brothels, and assorted troublemakers on the south end of downtown.

On June 28, 1892, Toots encountered Fort Worth police officer C. Lee Waller, a 24-year-old policeman walking his beat with fellow officer Henry Townes. The encounter took place around Twelfth and Rusk streets, in the heart of "The Acre." According to the Fort Worth Police Department’s historical account, Toots had a confrontation with the officers, left the scene, obtained a pistol, and subsequently ambushed Waller, shooting him four times. Waller died on June 30.

A contemporary newspaper account published 10 years later provides additional details. According to that version, the trouble began when Waller attempted to arrest an African American woman who was creating a disturbance. Toots, who was accompanying her, objected and threatened to knock the policeman senseless with a brick. Waller arrested Toots after a struggle, but Toots posted bond and was released. Roughly half an hour later, he encountered Waller again and shot him. The newspaper's retrospective differs from the police memorial on some details, including the precise circumstances and timing of Waller's death. I'm still trying to sort all of that out but I seem to have hit a wall.

Toots fled Fort Worth and was eventually captured on July 9, hiding in a Texas and Pacific Railroad boxcar at Big Spring. But getting him back to Fort Worth presented a problem: according to the newspaper account, authorities learned that approximately 3,000 people had gathered at the Fort Worth railroad depot, intending to lynch him before he could be delivered to jail. Rather than bring him into the city, officers diverted him to Cleburne, where he remained until the immediate danger had passed.

Toots was subsequently tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death.

And here is where the story gets particularly interesting and also a bit frustrating, at least from the point of view of a researcher like me.

Governor Charles A. Culberson commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in 1895. Seven years later, in 1902, Governor Joseph D. Sayers granted Toots a full pardon. The Fort Worth Police Department confirms both acts of executive clemency. I cannot figure out exactly what the reasons for either of these things were.

The surviving photograph is particularly striking because it captures a man standing at the very instrument intended to kill him, yet he ultimately walked away from the entire affair a free man.

I TOLD y'all it's a great story.

Photo courtesy the fabulous archives of UT-Arlington's Special Collections library.

Goodness gracious they've got so many remarkable images!