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THE "BOB-WIRE" FENCE J. C. Haynes of Gatesville. A posse was organized and Harko was captured and incarcerated in the County Jail. The settlers, however, did not propose to risk the prisoner a chance to escape. That night a mob surrounded the jail, secured the prisoner, and at sunrise his body was found hanging to a liveoak limb on the outskirts of town. This did not stop outlawry. Brigands infested the country for years, until the life of no man, nor his livestock was safe. During this period a trio of men--Reuben Queen, Bill Leverett, and Andy Wolff, conceived the idea of not waiting on the law for protection, for the law enforcement authorities were helpless. They, with others, banded themselves together under a bond to allow no outlaw to escape alive when once sighted. Official bodies of men often make errors, and it is quite probable that an act of the Coryell County Court, issued the following order: "Ordered by the Court of Coryell County: that all citizens of this County be and are hereby permitted by the authority of this Court to mark and brand all unmarked and unbranded cattle within the limits of this county. That is all such as are strays, that the owner is not known. Said unmarked stock shall be entirely separate from the mother, and be it further ordered all persons marking and branding the same shall report to the Clerk of the County Court under oath the amount thus marked and branded, and paying the sum of five dollars for year old, seven and a half dollars for two year olds, and ten dollars for three year olds, or cows and calves and by thus reporting and paying into the County Treasury the amount thus specified, vests the rights in the taker up; the proceeds of the same to be applied to the use and benefit of soldiers families in the service of the Confederacy" It is not hard to visualize the violation of this order by unscrupulous cattlemen in an open range country, where jealousies already were raging in the breasts of some cattle range men, and where the range was the most sought after wealth in the newly settled country. Some men accepted this order as a permit to license, and so used it. -- 99 -- "The Bob-wire Fence" A "bob-wire fence", posts broken off and out of line, some leaning this way and some that, wire sagging, broken and on the ground, is a very prosaic sight. Maybe it is forty, fifty, or sixty years, since that fence was built. If so it was here in the fast and furious days when the open range cattle business was being broken up, and when men were contending savagely for the grass. The open range cattle business reached its zenith in the fifteen years following the Civil War. 'There were small fields fenced with stone, or rails, or perhaps brush. Grass was free to any man who could acquire cattle. Many men, or companies of men, had large herds grazing on the open range. Each year would see great herds belonging to some cattle baron grouped together and started north to the markets eight hundred or a thousand or more miles away. Some herds were driven as fair as the Dakotas or Wyoming and Montana, taking long, long months to complete the journey. These herds were in charge of cowboys, booted and spurred, and with long leather leggins called "chaps" and six-shooters swung to their belts. The cowboys were organized and under the leadership of a man called "trail boss" who was in command of the outfit. The herds were driven over a route that afforded grass and water. The various routes north took their names from the trail boss or from men who first routed herds that way. At the time of which we write most of the cattle being driven north from Coryell County were grazed up the Chisolm Trail. A trail was not a narrow path across the country, but a strip varying from a few miles wide to many miles wide, which afforded water and grass enough to carry the herd thru to its destination in good marketable condition. All the way up the long trail the herd drivers had to contend with the physical forces of nature, and with cattle rustlers. Many a bloody conflict occurred along the historic old cow trails. Many a cowboy was killed in these battles, and was wrapped in his blanket and buried in a shallow grave far from any human habitation. In the open range days there was another form of rustling, -- 100 -- that, according to the law of the range, was sanctioned for a time by all old time cowmen. All unbranded cattle were known as "mavericks" and any man had the right to brand mavericks wherever found. This form of rustling became so common that farmers who turned their calves out at night to grass, often found them bearing a neighbors brand next morning. The big cow outfits were particularly industrious in this unethical practice. Enmities grew up. Killings followed. From that organized clans, and mob violence ruled. Many men were shot, or hanged on trees by opposing clans. The men hanged were not all criminals. A man could be too successful, or could learn too much of the operations on the open range, and was liable to become a marked man. The above conditions prevailed until a pall of gloom hung over the whole country. Every man's life was in his own hands. To have a gun and be quick "on the draw" was all important. One old cowman related that "we buckled on our sixshooters as often as we drew on our boots". The law enforcement bodies were powerless. Then something happened that had a very potent influence to bring about law and order. The barbed wire fence appeared. About 1880 a cheap fencing material in the form of barbed wire appeared on the markets. It was immediately adopted by the small farmer and stockman to enclose his lands as a protection to his crops against the range cattle, and to confine his own small herds. There was a fencing boom. Every cedar brake became a center of activity as men began cutting cedar to supply the demand for fencing posts. Within a few years the country was literally netted with wire fences. The small farmer and the legitimate cowman had found protection against horse thieves and cattle rustlers. Thousands of miles of fences had been strung. Rustlers could not easily shift cattle across the country. They had to follow prescribed routes of travel and were more easily apprehended. People of vision could begin to predict an end to the reign of lawlessness. -- 101 -- Then a new crime against society, against which there was no protecting law arose. The disgruntled thieving element could see their doom, but they had no idea of submitting tamely to the innovation of barbed-wire-fences. In order to hamper the improvement of farms and check the legitimate cow man, a fence cutting program was instituted. A farmer, or ranchman, many a time lay down at night to rest, only to awaken next morning to find his wire fences cut between posts, and probably many of his neighbors fences were also cut. Yet barbed wire and fence posts had sounded the death knell to horse thieving and cattle rustling. There were a few more mobbings. This time by the forces of law and order. Once a thief was captured he was hurried to a tree where one end of a rope was tied about his neck and the other end to a branch of the tree, and the horse suddenly whipped from under the condemned man and he was left swinging. Drastic measures to be sure; but necessary. Many a gnarled old liveoak in Coryell County sadly moans the dirge of the outlaw. Lawlessness was dying hard; but surely dying. The legislature enacted laws making fence cutting a felony. Cattle rustling and horse stealing were also felonies. It became hard for a horse thief, or cow thief, to evade the consequences of the law than it was for a man who had killed another in a gun battle to be freed of his crime. By the late 1880's Coryell County was settling to a more moral, and stable condition. Her people had waged relentless war on crime, had built churches and schools, and organized efficient law enforcement bodies. The climax of crime was reached in the murder that brought about the hanging of Powell and Leeper in 1891. Now let us pay tribute to the barbed wire fence for it was one of the most potent influences to blot crime out of the county. The influence of Coryell County cedar posts has spread from the Trinity River to the plains. For more than half a century cedar merchants have plied their trade at Moffat and Leon Junction, and other points so that a constant return of revenue enriches our county. -- 102 -- Franklin Avenue, in Waco, Texas, was once paved with cedar blocks sawed at Leon Junction. The blocks were about six inches long and placed on end along the street. On top of the blocks sand was placed and then dragged to fill in all vacant spaces between the blocks. Upon this crude pavement the traffic was turned. It was the most abominable pavement ever laid down. CORYELL COUNTY JAILS The Red Log Jail Insofar as I have been able to locate evidence in official records, a jail was the first public building owned by Coryell County. At the special term of court, June 2, 1855, the Court appointed a committee consisting of J. L. Montgomery, Sam Friend, J. C. Russell, T. H. Robertson and J. A. Hayes to draw plans for the erection of a serviceable jail. September 27, 1855 J. H. Chrisman received $984 for the erection of the first jail in addition for two extra jobs totaling $101.13 raised the total amount to $1,085.13. The walls were a double tier of post-oak logs, hewed and notched in, and keyed safely to their place with oak pins. Thousands of nails were driven into the logs to prevent prisoners from hewing their way out. There was no door in the bottom story. Prisoners were entered thru a tray door in the second floor. This bottom room was reserved for "tough characters". On the second floor there were two rooms, or cells, in which were placed the prisoners charged with minor offenses as "carousing, drunkenness, fighting, etc." This old jail was several times violated by having cow thieves forcibly removed by mobs and hung to nearby post-oak trees. It continued in active use until 1876, when it was replaced by the jail that later became known as the "Old Rock Jail", by J. R. Raby, Sheriff and S. B. Raby, Judge. The logs were hauled out to a farm about two miles northeast of Gatesville, and a one-story building re-erected on the farm now owned by Mrs. Blanche Powell. -- 103 --- |
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