A true Texas fact

woodman6415

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The Texas Quote of the Day:

"I'd rather be a dead Gram Parsons than a live Garth Brooks."

----- Kinky Friedman, musician, author, former candidate for Governor, gadfly
 

woodman6415

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The Texas Quote of the Day:

"Frontier judges were likely to lose patience with lawyers who spent too much time arguing over points of law. During a bitter altercation in a Texas court, one lawyer shouted at the other: "You are a lying son of a b**ch!" His opponent immediately shot back: "You are a lying son of a b**ch yourself." At this, the judge banged his gavel for order, then let silence hang over the room full of spectators who were certain he would levy a heavy fine upon the offending lawyers. Instead, the judge leaned forward, fixing his gaze first on one and then the other of the attorneys, and said slowly: "Now that you gentlemen have got acquainted with each other, we will proceed with the argument."

------ Marshall Brown, Wit and Humor of the Bench and Bar, 1899
 

Maverick

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Cool TX facts for me.... I grew up in Mesquite. my grandparents on my mom's side lived in Calvert TX and owned a home that had a historic marker placed on it a few years after they bought and restored the home. The house only had one story, but had 14' ceilings. I recall my grandfather showing me the square nails that it was built with. The marker says:

One of Calvert's earliest houses, Greek revival in style. Built about 1871 by George F. Randolph, local merchant, said to have been a kinsman of U. S. President Thomas Jefferson. Randolph and his bride, Lucy Garrett, lived here until he died in 1873 yellow fever epidemic. The widow married (1878) Scott Field, a rising statesman who in 1887-91 was a United States Congressman. House remained in the Field family until 1941. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970
 

Tony

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Cool TX facts for me.... I grew up in Mesquite. my grandparents on my mom's side lived in Calvert TX and owned a home that had a historic marker placed on it a few years after they bought and restored the home. The house only had one story, but had 14' ceilings. I recall my grandfather showing me the square nails that it was built with. The marker says:

One of Calvert's earliest houses, Greek revival in style. Built about 1871 by George F. Randolph, local merchant, said to have been a kinsman of U. S. President Thomas Jefferson. Randolph and his bride, Lucy Garrett, lived here until he died in 1873 yellow fever epidemic. The widow married (1878) Scott Field, a rising statesman who in 1887-91 was a United States Congressman. House remained in the Field family until 1941. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970

That's too cool! Do you have any pictures of the house?
 

Maverick

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Here is a picture from google street. I have not seen the house in over 30 years. I am pretty sure I climbed on a few of those trees as a kid. You can see the marker just to the right of the second post from the right.

upload_2020-1-20_13-25-3.png
 
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Wildthings

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Here's a closer look at the Marker on the house -- Been There Done That!! Too cool @Maverick

The plan is the classic one of a central hall with balanced rooms on each side. The three center bays are covered by a pedimented porch carried on Doric columns. The two interior chimneys are offset, left and right. The house was built by George Randolph of Virginia, who is thought to be a descendant of Thomas Jefferson.
 

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Thanks Barry. Reading the description of the interior brought back many fond memories. I spent parts of many summers and holidays at that house.
 

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The Texas Quote of the Day:

"I was just turning my sixth year when I ate my first biscuits. It's a fact, and I was lucky to get 'em then for flour was not in general use until I was about 20. People all raised little patches of corn and bread made from that was all we had. Father took a trail herd up the year I was 6 and when he delivered it and collected the money he spent some of it for a wagon and flour enough to load it to the full. When he drove home with all that flour it was some sight.

All of the neighbors came to see and share in it; for of course he let them have their part. I'll never forget it if I live to 100, how anxious I was to taste bread made of that white soft flour. Nor how good those first biscuits were. We saved every tiny crumb, for corn bread had never been plentiful enough to waste and biscuits were on a basis with cake those days.

I was 16 years old before I had a pair of shoes that I could actually wear all the time. Rawhide was our only shoe material and all you could say for it was the hair was taken off. Talk about hard, dry, stiff, unbendable leatherthat rawhide had the world beat and a mile to go on.

If they were big enough to avoid all this trouble you couldn't walk in them, especially hunting, and we just had to hunt, for it was no trick at all to kill a big buck deer or antelope, a buffalo or all the wild turkey we could carry. And it was too much fun to give up just to wear shoes.

A fellow with a grain of sense would rather trust to the calluses on his soles than to risk losing a shot and rubbing blisters on his feet with those rawhide hobbles.

I might say honestly that I never did have any real shoe or boot comfort until I got my first pair of high-heeled, high-topped, hand-made cowboy boots. I still wear that kind, too, and always will for th're as much a part of me and every other open-range cowpuncher as his leather leggings, spurs and broad-brimmed hat."

------ Cowboy/rancher Jim Rose, quoted in the Dallas SemiWeekly Farm News, April 8, 1927
 

woodman6415

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From my hometown... I knew him as did a Lot of San Angelo ... he always had a joke :


This is "Jalapeno Sam" Lewis, the inventor of the jalapeno lollipop and a man who made a fortune staging armadillo races around the world. He passed away in San Angelo in 2003. He was a true Texas character and his obituary is quite interesting. I apologize for any weird formatting:

Sam Lewis, 80, Tireless Armadillo Promoter

Sam Lewis, who made himself a Texas legend by staging armadillo races around the world, not to mention inventing the jalapeño lollipop, died on Jan. 10, 2003 at his home in San Angelo, Tex. He was 80.

The cause was cancer, his daughter, Kathleen Maxwell, said.

Mr. Lewis was representative of an exuberant breed of Texan who likes to push the boundaries of convention, whether at fight-to-the-death chili cook-offs, ersatz cowboy re-enactments or society balls attended both by people in formal address and by longhorn cattle. He was a nonstop Stetson-wearing promoter whose biggest brag was that he never did an honest day's work in his life.

Mr. Lewis's inspiration was to capitalize on the armadillo, an armored prehistoric-looking animal whose corpses have long been as common along Texas highways as mesquite trees and empty Lone Star beer cans. Not only did he race them, he rented them: to movie producers (one played opposite Kevin Costner in ''Tin Cup''); to the Rolling Stones, who used armadillos for an opening act; and to medical researchers who used them to study leprosy.

''We will send an armadillo to anyone who has a legitimate need for one, a legitimate need,'' he said. ''We won't send them to nuts.''

As owner and chief executive of the World Armadillo Breeding and Racing Association and president of the International Armadillo Appreciation Society, he maintained an armadillo ranch and an armadillo rental agency. He caught armadillos by hand and sent them to zoos around the world. He advised James Michener on armadillos for Mr. Michener's two-volume work, ''Texas.''

As the armadillo became central to the Texas chic that blossomed in the 1970's, Mr. Lewis led the charge. He created San Angelo Sam, an armadillo that was the West Texas answer to Pennsylvania's groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. In 1995, Texas finally heeded his lobbying and made the armadillo its official state small mammal.

Meanwhile Mr. Lewis had sold rights to his idea of jalapeño products, including olives stuffed with the peppers. He remained as a pitchman, never traveling without an armadillo and always driving because, he said, armadillos did not like to fly.

Samuel Thomas Howze Lewis was born in Mississippi, though family members are not sure which town. He ran away from home at 14 and ended up in San Angelo. He saw his first armadillo at 15 while raccoon hunting and was completely charmed. In World War II, he was a tail gunner on a B-29 and later managed a pizza parlor. In 1951, he came up with the idea of racing an armadillo against a horned toad. A bet had something to do with it, though nobody recollects which animal won. When Mr. Lewis later entered a high-stakes duck race, his armadillo was definitely not up to the challenge.

But armadillo against armadillo was something else. Humans are not allowed to touch the contestants but they can blow on their backsides. This excites the hair on the back of the armadillos' legs and they jump like crazy. Mr. Lewis said the speed record for an armadillo was 40 feet in three seconds.

His wife, the former Betty June Meek, died in 1999. In addition to his daughter, who lives in Irving, Tex., he is survived by his son, Samuel Jr., two grandsons, two brothers and four sisters. The family intends to keep raising armadillos.
''Why did the chicken cross the road?'' Mr. Lewis would joke. ''To show the armadillo it can be done.''

New York Times

53144DAD-5899-4BC3-898F-0470AAFE83B4.jpeg
 

woodman6415

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From my hometown... I knew him as did a Lot of San Angelo ... he always had a joke :


This is "Jalapeno Sam" Lewis, the inventor of the jalapeno lollipop and a man who made a fortune staging armadillo races around the world. He passed away in San Angelo in 2003. He was a true Texas character and his obituary is quite interesting. I apologize for any weird formatting:

Sam Lewis, 80, Tireless Armadillo Promoter

Sam Lewis, who made himself a Texas legend by staging armadillo races around the world, not to mention inventing the jalapeño lollipop, died on Jan. 10, 2003 at his home in San Angelo, Tex. He was 80.

The cause was cancer, his daughter, Kathleen Maxwell, said.

Mr. Lewis was representative of an exuberant breed of Texan who likes to push the boundaries of convention, whether at fight-to-the-death chili cook-offs, ersatz cowboy re-enactments or society balls attended both by people in formal address and by longhorn cattle. He was a nonstop Stetson-wearing promoter whose biggest brag was that he never did an honest day's work in his life.

Mr. Lewis's inspiration was to capitalize on the armadillo, an armored prehistoric-looking animal whose corpses have long been as common along Texas highways as mesquite trees and empty Lone Star beer cans. Not only did he race them, he rented them: to movie producers (one played opposite Kevin Costner in ''Tin Cup''); to the Rolling Stones, who used armadillos for an opening act; and to medical researchers who used them to study leprosy.

''We will send an armadillo to anyone who has a legitimate need for one, a legitimate need,'' he said. ''We won't send them to nuts.''

As owner and chief executive of the World Armadillo Breeding and Racing Association and president of the International Armadillo Appreciation Society, he maintained an armadillo ranch and an armadillo rental agency. He caught armadillos by hand and sent them to zoos around the world. He advised James Michener on armadillos for Mr. Michener's two-volume work, ''Texas.''

As the armadillo became central to the Texas chic that blossomed in the 1970's, Mr. Lewis led the charge. He created San Angelo Sam, an armadillo that was the West Texas answer to Pennsylvania's groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. In 1995, Texas finally heeded his lobbying and made the armadillo its official state small mammal.

Meanwhile Mr. Lewis had sold rights to his idea of jalapeño products, including olives stuffed with the peppers. He remained as a pitchman, never traveling without an armadillo and always driving because, he said, armadillos did not like to fly.

Samuel Thomas Howze Lewis was born in Mississippi, though family members are not sure which town. He ran away from home at 14 and ended up in San Angelo. He saw his first armadillo at 15 while raccoon hunting and was completely charmed. In World War II, he was a tail gunner on a B-29 and later managed a pizza parlor. In 1951, he came up with the idea of racing an armadillo against a horned toad. A bet had something to do with it, though nobody recollects which animal won. When Mr. Lewis later entered a high-stakes duck race, his armadillo was definitely not up to the challenge.

But armadillo against armadillo was something else. Humans are not allowed to touch the contestants but they can blow on their backsides. This excites the hair on the back of the armadillos' legs and they jump like crazy. Mr. Lewis said the speed record for an armadillo was 40 feet in three seconds.

His wife, the former Betty June Meek, died in 1999. In addition to his daughter, who lives in Irving, Tex., he is survived by his son, Samuel Jr., two grandsons, two brothers and four sisters. The family intends to keep raising armadillos.
''Why did the chicken cross the road?'' Mr. Lewis would joke. ''To show the armadillo it can be done.''

New York Times
 

woodman6415

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The Texas Quote of the Day:

"Cowboys could perform terrible labors and endure bone-grinding hardships and yet consider themselves the chosen of the earth; and the grace that redeemed it all in their own estimation was the fact that they had gone-a-horseback. They were riders, first and last. I have known cowboys broken in body and twisted in spirit, bruised by debt, failure, loneliness, disease, and most of the other afflictions of man, but I have seldom known one who did not consider himself phenomenally blessed to have been a cowboy, or one who could not cancel half the miseries of his existence by dwelling on the horses had had ridden, the comrades he had ridden them with, and the manly times he had had."

———- Larry McMurtry, “In a Narrow Grave,” 1968
 

woodman6415

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The Texas Quote of the Day:

"One of the most ghoulish characters in Texas history [was] Black Peter. The huge man seemed immune to cholera and when he appeared to request employment as city undertaker [in Victoria, 1833], he was speedily appointed. His fee was $2.50 and a quart of whiskey for each body taken to the public graveyard. Each night and each morning Black Peter made his rounds, knocking at each door and shouting out the sickening cry to "bring out your dead." If there was no answer, Black Peter entered the house and conducted a thorough search. At the height of the cholera epidemic the alcalde notified Black Peter that the town could no longer pay him. That night Peter made his rounds as usual collecting his corpses but, instead of carrying them to the city graveyard, deposited them all on the alcalde's front porch. Next morning the alcalde resumed payments. From Victoria, Black Peter went on to New Orleans to pursue his grim trade."

----- Curtis Bishop, "Lots of Land," 1849
 

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The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:

At one time, Lubbock was the center of a prairie dog colony that spread over 37,000 square miles and counted some 400 million residents. And that was just one colony. As late as 1903 there were an estimated one billion prairie dogs in Texas. Prairie dogs are good eating, by the way, said to taste like squirrel. In the old days, when rangers were out of buffalo regions, there was often nothing to eat but prairie dogs. The only fault they could find with prairie dogs was that they were too small and very hard to get. Rangers always tried to keep a little flour on hand to thicken soup and prairie dogs, being very fat, made good soup. But prairie dogs were apparently not very satisfying because, after a meal of prairie dogs, rangers often complained of being hungry again in two or three hours. They would boil a prairie dog or two ------ the more dogs in the kettle the better ----- and with a little flour and maybe some spices, make quite a pot of soup

All this talk of prairie doges made me glad that Traces of Texas reader Jim Magnum generously shared this AWESOME photo of two prairie dogs in the act of being prairie dogs at what is perhaps my favorite state park, Caprock Canyons State Park near Quitaque. Prairie dogs are very affectionate and form tight bonds with one another and I guess this shot shows that. Jim took it his own self and it is quite a photo, indeed.

Thank you, Jim. Super duper!

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The Texas Quote of the Day: "As Justice of the Peace and leading saloon keeper [Judge] Roy Bean gradually became a sort of alcalde to the neighborhood, performing wedding ceremonies, christening babies and arbitrating family troubles. Marriages constituted a steady source of revenue. Even Bean himself appreciated the humor of the situation, especially in the days when he was not a legal justice of the peace and thus had no lawful right to perform marriage ceremonies. 'Juan,' he said in a typical ceremony, 'do you take this woman for your lawful wife?' The answer is 'Si, Senor.' Obtaining the befuddled promise from Juan, he turned to the girl. 'Mafia, you want to marry this sorry maverick?' With the proper answer extracted from the participating parties, he dismissed them with, 'And Lord have mercy on your pore souls! Five dollars!' When the young husband did not have the five dollars, as was frequently the case, Justice Bean would permit him to work out the fee. 'Judge,' a downhearted cowboy bemoaned one day, 'that weddin' you give me shore didn't take. I caint get along with that gal atall!' Bean stroked his beard. His face brightened. 'By gobs!' he exclaimed. 'I guarantee all my weddin's. If yores ain't satisfactory, why, I'll just divorce you; but it'll cost you ten dollars.' He reasoned that it was worth twice as much to get out of a bad bargain as to get into it; and he found the cowboy willing enough to pay." ----- Ruel McDaniel, "Vinegarroon, The Saga of Judge Roy Bean," 1936
 

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The Texas Quote of the Day:

"Well, I never froze on the trail, but I I did starve for water, and I don't mean maybe either. It was my first drive, too - that was what made it so hard on me. In the spring of 1869 we left Pick Duncan's ranch with a bunch of W Cross L's for the head of the Concho to go from there to the Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. We left that good, clear Concho with one barrel of water, intending to refill at Hackberry water hole, mid-way on the plains. Halting to answer the cook's 'come and git it' at noon, we went on until dusk, when we pitched camp (no where near that water hole) and when supper was finished, so was the water - fourteen men and not a drop, not to mention the stock, and three days to go.

We did not bed the cattle as planned but hit the trail all night and at nine o'clock next morning we stopped to rest an hour; then prodded 'em up and on toward that water hole. Finally when within a mile of it the boss said he would ride ahead and reconnoiter. He was back right now with 'It's so confounded dry you could bury a man in the cracks, they're so deep.' That settled it. We kept the herd hoofin' until three o'clock, halting for another hour, then trailing it straight through until the next day noon when we hit the canyon, twelve miles from Horsehead Crossing.

The cattle got wind of the water and pulled out plumb pert. It was half an hour by sun when we got there, and when we got to that river not one of the fourteen boys could speak above a whisper and several could not shut their mouths for swollen tongues. If any of you have ever been as thirsty as we were, you know just how good water just plain, brackish, alkali, Pecos River water can taste. It was so good we laid up three days drinkin' our fill and enjoyin' ourselves.

Water logged, full of good grub, rested and fresh as daisies, we started up the Pecos to the falls. There the horse wrangler, named Kuykendall, dismounted on herd and stood his gun by a bush. Remounting, he caught it by the barrel, the hammer caught in the brush, pulled back and blew his head off. We buried him and continued on to Hondo, thence to Denver where we delivered the cattle."

------ Charlie Harmon, an old Texas cowboy, quoted in an interview in February, 1930
 

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The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:

Directly southeast of Rusk, Texas lies what used to be the town of New Birmingham. At one point it had 400 buildings, electrically lighted streets, a brick business district, and even a streetcar system. But today nearly all traces of it have almost entirely disappeared. It was established in 1888 as an iron-smelting town, flourished for a few years, but then was killed off by the financial panic of 1893. At one point the population of New Birmingham reached 1500 people. The town had a fantastic hotel, the Southern Hotel, which featured hot and cold running water, electric lights and call bells, restaurants, a smoking area, a billiard parlor, reception rooms etc... Such luminaries as President Grover Cleveland, railway magnate Jay Gould, and Texas governor Jim Hogg stayed in it. The hotel was the last intact building in New Birmingham but was destroyed by fire in 1926 and its shell demolished to make way for highway 69. Pretty much the only thing that remains of the town is the preserved Tassie Belle furnace and a few other relics at Tassie Bell historical park.
 

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Interesting post, I graduated from SFA in Nacogdoches, so I used to drive through that area fairly regularly. Love the history, thanks for posting these.
 
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