On March 31, 1879, a West Texas judge fined a local hell-raiser five dollars for a drunken spree that left a bystander short an ear and ordered the inebriated victim to fork over five cents for winking at the sharpshooter, when he bent down to pick up the body part.
What little law that existed on the Lone Star frontier was often dispensed with a humorous touch. The most gruesome event could tickle the funny bone of those adventurous souls living on the edge of civilization. Well aware the next day might be their last, they found a way to laugh to keep from crying.
Texans in the wide-open west took crime and violence in stride. With the exception of horse theft, that rugged breed accepted fist fights, gunplay, robbery, rustling and murder as occupational hazards of the frontier settler.
Not everyone shared this easy-going attitude toward rampant lawlessness. The editor of the Fort Griffin Echo complained, “Not a paper comes to us but contains accounts of shooting and stabbing affrays. Northern journals comment in severe terms upon us as a community of murderers and robbers, and can we with truth deny the accusation?”
Yet even this squeamish social critic made light of grisly crimes. When the decapitated corpse of a cook was discovered, the newspaperman could not help but marvel at the carving skill of the anonymous assassin.
After monotonous weeks on the range, cowhands liked to blow off steam by “taking a town.” This dangerous ritual involved riding down the main street at breakneck speed, peppering buildings with random pot shots and high-tailing it out of town one step ahead of the law.
This pastime proved a mite more difficult for soldiers since regulations prohibited private use of army-issue mounts. If off-duty cavalrymen wanted to take a town, they had to do it on foot.
In time the perilous practice became old hat. To give the custom a fresh twist, several bored cowboys at Pecos decided to “take” nearby Toyah by rail.
As the train approached the station, the pistol-packing pranksters started firing out the windows. No sooner did they step onto the platform, however, than the engineer hit the throttle cutting off their escape. The ill-conceived lark ended in tragedy, when the merrymakers were met by a score of angry citizens and three Texas Rangers.
Between 1876 and the mid-1880s, the stage holdup was all the rage. Modern movies and television westerns to the contrary, passengers rarely were reckless enough to resist and only an occasional posse went to the trouble of tracking down the perpetrators.
But by 1887, the train had replaced the stagecoach as the target of choice of professional highwaymen, and those that stuck to the old routine ran the risk of almost certain capture. As the Ballinger Ledger reported, “Enough men went to hunt the stage robber to eat the little fellow with salt and not give them a bad taste in their mouths either.”
The fastest way to wind up in boot hill was to deprive a man of his most precious possession – his horse. A petition was circulated in North Texas in 1876 asking the state legislature to spell out the following punishment for horse thieves: first offense, the whipping post; second offense, whipping and branding; third offense, hanging.
A West Texas newspaper took issue with the three-step suggestion. “Get out with your nonsense. Hang ’em first, then if they persist in their innocent amusement, cremate them.”
Until the 1890s, anyone caught with someone else’s horse usually did not live long enough to face a jury.
Swift and severe justice was the way of the western settlers. As fearless pioneers they took pride in solving their own problems, and no stigma was attached to the vigilante short-cut.
When disputes did make it to court, the outcome was sometimes just as unruly. At Fort Griffin in 1877, a decision went against a tough customer named Carn. Without a word, he knocked out the judge, the clerk and the prosecutor and walked scot-free from the courtroom.
In another frontier town, a lawyer was accused of using “boisterous language.” Outraged by an objection from the prosecuting attorney, the defendant broke a chair over his head. Either impressed by the two-fisted tactic or thoroughly intimidated, the jury quickly returned a not-guilty verdict.
To this day, many law-abiding Texans balk at calling the police or dragging an adversary into court. “I’ll take care of it myself” is a familiar refrain which frequently serves as a prelude to violence. While this may not be the rational reaction in an ostensibly civilized age, we Texans definitely come by it naturally.
Bartee’s three books and “Best of This Week in Texas History” column collections are available for purchase at barteehaile.com.
