Essays
Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado
A salute to West Texas families that preserve West Texas History
June 7, 2006
“This location was the site for the first Texas Ranger Camp in this area,” Doris McClellan told me as we walked around her yard late one evening.
“It is a beautiful place – Signal Peak on the horizon to the west, native pecans around the spring. You are so blessed to live here.” We were at the Ellwood Spade headquarters. She and husband Bill had also taken me to the Renderbrook Spade headquarters– another beautiful ranch compound near another spring. Both ranches were once part of the old Spade ranch – a fabled ranch begun in the 1880’s. Bill’s father worked for the Spade, as had Bill for 60 years (for both Spade ranches.) The heirs of the barbed wire fortune that build the ranch had divided it up in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s.
I realized I had a chance to ask a knowledgeable person about the veracity of one of my stories that I tell schoolchildren. “Do you know if 80 John Wallace was ever a drover for the Spade, taking cattle up to the Spade land northwest of Lubbock? I tell the kids that he was the drover in the Stampede Mesa story. His story of being a slave, then a trusted hand, then a landowner, cattlerancher and philanthropist in Colorado City is such a wonderful story. The Maddox family has leased the Wallace land for years, and they have taken me to the old homesite a number of times.”
Doris and Bill both answered at the same time, “Could be…” and Doris added after a pause, “I think it is okay – it is important to keep his story alive.” Doris and I studied her photographs of wildflowers later in the evening – for years she gave talks from Lubbock to San Angelo about wildflowers and using native plants in landscapes. The Sibley Nature Center is converting the old 35-mm photographs to digital format, and plan to create a spiral-bound fieldguide to the wildflowers of the upper Colorado River basin with them. There will also be a small section on passalong plants used by the early settlers – Doris had earlier showed me her prize coralbean she had rescued from the old firehouse at Sterling City.
I drove on after dark to spend the night in a motel in Sweetwater. In the morning I joined a ranch tour of the 101 ranch, owned by Curt and Katy Hoskins. Katy has created a spiral-bound fieldguide for the 101, but hers discusses the mammals, reptiles, grasses, and fossils (as well as some of the wildflowers) found there. Katy taught 8th grade science in Van Horn for a number of years and had recently loaned me her curriculum notebooks she had created for the course. It is a grand example of bioregional education. As the Sibley Nature Center develops its bioregional curriculum her work serves a superb template.
After the tour and as we were eatinga late lunch I quizzed Curt about his family’s ranching tradition. “My great-great-great grandfather was one of the settlers that came with Stephen F. Austin. We first settled near Palacios.” I remembered Charlie Siringo’s book “A Texas Cowboy” and asked him, “Wasn’t that near Shanghai Pierce’s land – I love the stories about that man and his booming voice.” Curt laughed, “His sister married my great-great grandfather.” He pointed at an old photograph in the dining room, “That’s her on the end in that picture, sitting in the buggy.”
After I took my leave of the 101, I wandered down dirt county roads to Fort Chadbourne. Ranchowners Garland and Lana Richards were hosting a living history event and I needed to chat with some of the vendors present to see if they would come to the Sibley Nature Center’s living history event this coming October. The Richards are doing a superb job of rebuilding the old fort, and honoring its place in West Texas history.
I wandered about, howdying with a number of the reenactors who had been at the Sibley Nature Center for our event last year. I had not gotten a chance to observe their interactions with the public here in Midland as I ran about trying to make sure that things ran smoothly. Midlander Chuck Dixon portrays an Army engineer of the Indian Wars times. I found a shady corner of his tent (it was over 100 degrees) and watched him as he talked with an enthusiast who had visited many historical western forts. Chuck told an amazing number of anecdotes as he lifted up each artifact and told how it was used. When he told of incidents that occurred, history came alive – it was easy to imagine being in an engineering party surveying the early army roads.
When I left Fort Chadbourne, I took the county road to Hayrick, stopping to photograph the cemetery there. Hayrick was once the county seat of Coke County, but when Robert Lee became the county seat, the frame courthouse was hauled overland to the new site and Hayrick ceased to exist. I wandered then up to Sanco (named after the Comanche chieftain Sanaco), an old ghost town that still has several buildings standing. After wandering down the Silver Loop road, I found a county road I had been told about and turned up it. Midland history writer Patrick Dearen loves that road – on one stretch he has found countless Indian artifacts. (Dearen’s father was an old friend of Bill McClellan’s.) I did not find any worked flint – but I did have a long meeting with an old boar raccoon that refused to get out of the road.
As I zoomed along the Sterling City to Midland highway I cogitated on the previous 24 hours. West Texas has such a rich history. When a person learns about the history and ecology of their home bioregion, “the hills themselves talk.” Learning about one’s home connects a person to the land. “Love of place” develops, and that is the truest root of patriotism. I love learning about West Texas! And I salute people such as the McClellans, the Hoskins, and the Richards – they are heroes of mine for all of their efforts of teaching others about the region!