r/texashistory

On a recent trip through Central Texas, I stopped at the old cattle crossing on Brushy Creek in Round Rock.

The town got its name from a distinctive round rock in the creek that served as a landmark for travelers.

During the cattle-drive era, thousands of head of longhorns passed through this area heading north toward Kansas. The crossing also carried wagon traffic, and traces of those old routes are still visible today.

It’s remarkable how much of the Old West is still sitting right alongside modern highways, largely unnoticed.

Thought y’all might enjoy seeing a little piece of cattle-drive history that’s still there.

*Heman, not Herman, sorry for the typo.

Sweatt had been denied permission to attend the school four years previously (due to the school's segregationist admission polices) and sued in the case of Sweatt v. Painter which, though he lost in State court, he won before the US Supreme Court in a decision on June 5, 1950.

It would be another 13 years before Texas A&M admitted their first African-American student.

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).

Thanks to vaccination Smallpox has been eradicated in the United States since 1949.

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!

I can’t let the first, fall feeling, morning pass without posting another true origin Texas ghost story. This one takes us to southern Llano County, largely an area between County Road 308 and the west entrance of Farm to Market 3404 (Slab Road) with Highway 71. A rather large area known as Dancer’s Flats, and supposedly haunted by the wandering spirit of its namesake.

Revered Jonas Dancer came to Llano County in 1857, when the region was still barely brand new on the map of Texas. Initially he wanted to get involved with an early mining boom that had stirred up some excitement in the state about gold and silver in the Llano area. But not finding much success, as most did, he stayed with his true profession as a Methodist minister and established the first house of worship in the community of Honey Creek Cove.

The Reverend Dancer was never seen absent of a Bible within reach of his large hands. A man of God, he was most frequently amongst labor crews and common workers, helping them with their work and tending to their religious needs.

In 1859, a new road was planned to connect the Honey Creek area to either Llano or a larger trail that would head towards Austin (there is telling of both). On the morning that the work was to begin, the crews were to meet at a local spring near the present County Road 308 and larger Honey Creek vicinity. Despite being cautioned about Comanches also frequenting the same site, Reverend Dancer wanted to be the first one at the watering hole so he could hold a brief worship before the work began.

Dancer apparently had arrived to the site either very early in the morning or possibly the night before. No one knows the exact details, but when the work crews arrived, they found Dancer propped up against a rock. Several arrows were protruding from his heavy frame, his scalp was bloody and bare, and there are some versions that say his white minister’s collar had been tore away from around his broad neck. Whatever the case may be, his Bible was still sitting next to him, ripped and now crimson stained.

The work crews buried Dancer’s body near the spring, which has since (or maybe already was) nicknamed as “The Blue Hole.” Bible and all. Scouts were dispatched to try and track the murderers, but the group was already long gone. In his memory the area was christened as “Dancer’s Flats” and the work went-on.

Not even long after his murder, stories were told of the Reverend Jonas Dancer still being seen in the area. Mostly at the watering hole where he met his untimely end. He has never been described as terrifying or frightening, just as the ghostly image of a preacher still carrying his blood stained Bible and dark blotches on his robe from where the arrows had once protruded. Some say he is devoid of scalp, but other stories claim otherwise.

The most infamous appearance of Jonas Dancer is said to have taken place around 1873. A young bandit is said to have stayed one evening at the Blue Hole, and the ghost of Reverend Dancer visited him and convinced the crook to surrender himself to both the law and God. It is said that the bandit rode back to whatever place he had robbed, returned everything he had stolen, and begged for forgiveness which was given. He later became a preacher himself and would frequently relate his, not-so-harrowing, encounter with the dead Methodist pastor.

Being raised in the area, I don’t know of anyone who has personally witnessed the spirit of Jonas Dancer. But clearly, someone must have, or the story wouldn’t exist.

Text is from “Indian Depredations in Texas.”

Till next time, stay spooky!