OK, we are in the Old West part of the country

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

So has anybody tried to find old locations of historical old west sites in their town?

I know Doc Holliday had his first gunfight of his life in Dallas, somewhere near Ross and Market Streets in a saloon, and that Doc worked his way west over the next few years spending time in Ft Worth and then Fort Griffin and then other points west.
I know some gangs worked out of the Austin area and frequented many of the caves as hideouts in the area.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid both frequented Ft Worth and there had to be many others over the years.

I don't think Billy the Kid ever came into Texas but he might have hit west texas for a while after the range wars.

Remember that Trains were already over a lot of the state when the wild west was going strong though Texas was dealt a crappy hand by the carpetbaggers and politicians from the North after the war.

So lets cover some of our Old Wild West Heritage!
Yeah most of the buildings may not be around but you never know what is still there until you look! A lot of these events are around 140-100 or so years old and that really isn't that long ago.

Was talking to some of the guys wrangling the longhorn heard that was paraded through Downtown Dallas a couple weeks ago and a guy standing nearby never knew how the longhorn breed occured, he thought it was an old old breed and not a natural selection of cattle just released to the wild by ranchers before going off to fight in the Civil War-hence no true Longhorns exited before the late 1860's or early 1870's.

We could also do an "Oil" type thing also since we have Spindletop in Houston area, the big east Texas oilfields and then of course the fields in west Texas.

[amadjuster]

If the buildings are still there, get pictures before they disappear. Our here in the Panhandle, a lot of things happened but the structures have been lost to time. The Red River War was fought in 1876 and included the 2nd Battle of Adobe Walls and the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon. This campaign ended the Comanche Nation as a threat and opened this part of the country to settlement. Bat Masterson was at Adobe Walls but the hero was Billy Dixon, who shot a medicine man named Isa-tai off his horse at over 1,500 yards with a borrowed Sharps. That's mighty fine shootin'. Since Isa-tai had a "bulletproof" vest on, he sort of lost his credibility. The only thing left of the stores at Adobe Walls are diggings and monuments. The old adobe just melted away. The Battle of Buffalo Wallow was also a part of this campaign and it is important in that it is the only battle in US history in which EVERY member of the US force was awarded the Medal of Honor, including 2 civilian scouts. One of these was Billy Dixon. Later the army took back the civilian medals but Billy wouldn't give his back because he said he "earned" it. It is now at the Panhandle Plains Museum in Canyon, donated by his widow. At Palo Duro Canyon, Col. Randall McKenzie's troops successfully climbed down the sides of the canyon, surprised the winter camp of the Kwahadi Comanche whose war chief was Quanah Parker, and captured something like 1,200 horses. The Comanche walked back to Oklahoma and McKenzie gave about 200 of the best horses to various people and the rest were shot. For all the intensity and historical significance of this campaign, there is nothing left like structures, so get 'em if you got 'em.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by DEMDeepEllumMusic

snipped

I don't think Billy the Kid ever came into Texas but he might have hit west texas for a while after the range wars.

Snipped

Why everybody knows Billy the Kid wasn't killed in New Mexico but lived and died in Hico, Texas.

Billy the Kid = Bushy Bill

[johnastovall]

For the locations of old west Fort Worth check out Rick Selcer's Hell's Half Acre: The Life and Legend of a Red Light District.

For more recent Killers and Bad men from the infamous Jacksboro strip, look at, Gamblers & Gangsters: Fort Worth's Jacksboro Highway in the 1940s & 1950s.

For gunslinger in San Antonio give a look at King Fisher His Life and Times.

A list of Texas outlaws.

[johnastovall]

Finding old places, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps are a great resource.

"The Sanborn map collection consists of a uniform series of large-scale maps, dating from 1867 to the present and depicting the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of some twelve thousand cities and towns in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The maps were designed to assist fire insurance agents in determining the degree of hazard associated with a particular property and therefore show the size, shape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories as well as fire walls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, and types of roofs. The maps also indicate widths and names of streets, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. They show the locations of water mains, giving their dimensions, and of fire alarm boxes and hydrants. Sanborn maps are thus an unrivaled source of information about the structure and use of buildings in American cities."

For Texas, they are on-line. You need to see your local public library for a TexShare login.
Which will allow you to access the Texas digital collection.

[amadjuster]

Originally Posted by johnastovall

Why everybody knows Billy the Kid wasn't killed in New Mexico but lived and died in Hico, Texas.

Billy the Kid = Bushy Bill

He looked like Emilio Estevez.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Ft Worth's Hells Half acre would have been a great place to have documented in the 50's, wonder if the morgue in the Ft Worth Star Telegram has a lot of photos taken in the area, but it was dozed decades ago and is where the Tarrant County Convention Center and some parking lots are now. It had to be over 1/2 an acre in size though I would guess since it would have been at least a couple blocks wide and long to support several saloons and the girls who worked upstairs.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/...s/HH/hph1.html
After reading the above it looks like the core may have been where the convention center and water gardens are now but it also went outside of that area. So if there are any pre-1900 buildings in that area still standing they could have been part of HHA.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by DEMDeepEllumMusic

Ft Worth's Hells Half acre would have been a great place to have documented in the 50's, wonder if the morgue in the Ft Worth Star Telegram has a lot of photos taken in the area, but it was dozed decades ago and is where the Tarrant County Convention Center and some parking lots are now. It had to be over 1/2 an acre in size though I would guess since it would have been at least a couple blocks wide and long to support several saloons and the girls who worked upstairs.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/...s/HH/hph1.html
After reading the above it looks like the core may have been where the convention center and water gardens are now but it also went outside of that area. So if there are any pre-1900 buildings in that area still standing they could have been part of HHA.

There is a good chance now to still document the old Jacksboro strip places.

In the 50's it was the Hell's half acre of it's day.