Essays
Moseying: Locations of Interest
Edith, Texas
December 4, 2002
Most of the time, just like most folks, I zip right by historical markers. When Deborah and I are out gallivanting, though, we make a point of stopping. We stopped at the historical marker for Edith, Texas, a couple of weeks ago on our trip to Buffalo Gap. It as good a place as any to get out and stretch our legs. After reading it, we lackadaisically walked the fence line, identifying and admiring the indigenous plants, and watching a fussy verdin go in and out of its just-finished winter nest.
Edith is nine miles west of Robert Lee, on State Highway 58. About five miles further west is a favorite rest stop with a picnic table. I have stopped there many times, to climb over the stile and go wandering through the pasture, which is a wonderful forest of cedar, mohr oak, texas redbud, and flameleaf sumac that fills a rocky canyon. The plants there are almost always showing off, with blooms, berries, seeds, or even the weathered wood of old cedars. (It is not every landowner that will allow travelers to find some privacy for urgent matters!) This time it had been filled with a family of a half-dozen kids, so we left it to them.
Edith was begun in the 1880’s with a store, gin, blacksmith shop, church, and lodge hall as well as a number of residences. The Colorado River makes a ninety degree turn just to the north of Edith, and by 1900 the valley was filled with farmers. Well over a hundred families created a thriving rural landscape. Three one-room rural schools were in the valley, as well as those in Sanco, Edith, and Silver. Now there is only a handful of ranchers left, plus the few retired folks that live year around at developments along the high-and-dry shores of Spence Reservoir.
For the last six months I have been searching out stories about places within 150 miles of Midland, going (when I can) to every library, museum, used book store, and surfing the Internet. About a month ago, while cruising the Internet I found the correspondence of a courting couple written in 1897. The woman lived in Edith, and the man had a small ranch up at Iatan, fifty miles away. As we walked I mentioned this correspondence to Deborah, but when she questioned me about the particulars I could not remember.
Deborah likes high-tech toys. “We need a lap-top so we could go on-line right now! Wouldn’t that be cool – to see how much we could find about the places we visit, as we are visiting?”
The letters that went back and forth between Delora Lamb to R.A. Humble in 1897 traveled via a mail hack on a two-day ride. The mailman had to ford the river and open and close several dozen gates. The earliest ranchers were free-range users, claiming chunks of land without clear title. In 1883 rich Yankees and Kentucky gentry began buying up the range and fencing it. The biggest was the Spade Ranch, (also known as the Renderbrook) and owned by the Ellwoods, who brought barbed wire to the country. The free range cattle could no longer water at the river, so their owners cut the fences, and left behind signs with the buzzwords of a populist-socialist broadside.
“Down with monopolies! This country does not need foreign capitalists! The soil of Texas belongs to the heroes of the South!” Bands of men would leave Colorado City at sundown, not returning until sun-up, after cutting fence all night. The Kentucky gentry, an iron-willed “do-it-by-the-book” lady by the name of Mabel Day, who had the gift of political persuasion, soon began lobbying the Texas State Legislature to create stiff penalties for fence-cutting. It took almost a year before she was successful. Until then her fences were cut as soon as they were put up. After 70 men came in broad daylight, tore down the fences, burned the posts and caught her pastures on fire she finally hired a cowboy with a gunhandling reputation to guard the fence. Miss Day eventually moved on in 1889 to New Mexico, where she married Captain Joseph Callaway Lea. (Lea was the captain of the unit of Quantrill’s Raiders that included the James and Youngers brothers of later outlaw fame, one of the founders of Roswell, and for whom Lea County is named.) The Lea-Day courtship is a different story, however.
“Miss Delora Lamb; Dearest little girl, I am sad to report two of my best milk cows are sick. One of my neighbors lost five of their range cattle, and others are losing more. The cows have cost me a lot of hard work, and I can’t stand by and see them die without doing all I can to save them. I wouldn’t care so much if it were not that I wished to be able to make you a good living and make you one of the happiest girls in the world. One of my neighbors says if his cattle all die, he is done with this country. But I am here to stay, and in September I shall be a happy man rich or poor – I would not give your love for all the cattle in the state of Texas.”
“Mr. R.A. Humble; My dear friend, I was so lonesome while you were gone on the trail drive, and I did not get any letters. I have been enjoying myself tolerably well. Sunday I went to Mr. Benson’s to spend the day picking all the peaches and plums we could eat for weeks. I hope to go to a picnic at Robert Lee tomorrow. I am sorry your cattle are dying, but if you lose them all, don’t get out of heart. I don’t think anyone should grieve over losing his property. You need not care for my sake, for I know anyone can’t help having bad luck now and then, and besides, I am used to hard times.”
Deborah is right. It would have been fun to sit at that historical marker and read the complete Humble-Lamb correspondence, and then walk through the Edith cemetery looking for folks that were mentioned, and with our imaginations ranging far and wide to creating an image of their life.