A trivial incident on-board a Central Texas passenger train on Jan. 20, 1894 set in motion a series of violent events that led to a three-week manhunt and five fresh graves in the cemetery.
The dominoes began to fall when a conductor booted DeWitt “Dee” Braddock off a train in Colorado County for refusing to pay the fare. The hot-tempered freeloader chunked the nearest rock at the ticket-taker as the train pulled away and then fired a single shot through the sleeping car.
The irate railroad worker reported the incident at the next stop, the small community of Weimar. The mayor summoned the local marshal and several able-bodied citizens, and together they followed the tracks to the source of the trouble.
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