It took three days to clean the pots, haul away the mountain of beer cans and sober up the last of the revelers, but by Oct. 24, 1967 everything was back to normal in the Big Bend ghost town.
The Terlingua Chili Cook-Off had been a rousing success, but no one thought at the time that they had started an annual shindig that would become a Texas tradition.
It all began that summer with the publication of an article entitled “Nobody Knows More About Chili Than I Do” in the August issue of Holiday magazine. The author was New York humorist H. Allen Smith, who showed he had a gift for getting under Texans’ skin.
The Chili Appreciation Society International (a Dallas-based organization of newspapermen, lawyers, television personalities and miscellaneous public figures) took strong exception to the Yankee’s heretical boast. Frank X. Tolbert, The Morning News columnist whose book A Bowl of Red was chili lovers’ bible, traded public insults with Smith in a lively exchange that culminated in a put-up-or-shut-up challenge.
To settle the issue, CASI agreed to host a two-day cook-off at Terlingua, a boomtown gone bust in the wilds of Big Bend. Smith would face Wick Fowler, the war correspondent and public speaker whose chili was considered the best in the world.
The choice of Fowler as the Lone Star champion made more sense than the selection of Terlingua as the site. Located 12 miles from the Rio Grande on the western edge of Big Bend National Park, the deserted mining town had less than a dozen inhabitants and offered few creature comforts. But it did have the 200,000-acre Terlingua Ranch and the promise of co-owners Carroll Shelby of Cobra fame and attorney David Witts to provide discriminating attendees with room, board, booze and barbecue prepared by President Johnson’s personal chef.
Taking over for Tolbert in the pre-competition trash talking, Fowler admitted he had yet to taste his opponent’s chili. He added mockingly, “I saw a punch bowl of it recently (and) it makes a very clever centerpiece.”
Smith retaliated by calling the Texan “hen-headed.” Warming up to the subject, he wrote, “A fowler is a despoiler of little birds. A wick is a hunk of rag stuck in a container of oil. It burns with a flickering, smelling flame. This Wick Fowler, I believe, will burn with the searing flame of ignominy at Terlingua next Saturday at noon.”
“He is a very funny man,” responded Tolbert. “The funniest thing he ever wrote was that chili recipe,” which called for vegetables and canned pinto beans. The whole concoction reminded him of “a chili-powder flavored low-torque beef gruel.”
CASI permitted each contestant to pick a judge of their own choosing but stacked the deck in Fowler’s favor by giving the third and deciding vote to Shelby’s partner Witts. Fowler went with a personal friend, a brewery executive from San Antonio, while Smith chose a justice of the peace from Alpine, the last outpost of civilization 70-odd miles north of Terlingua, who happened to be his cousin.
After fortifying themselves at a mid-day cocktail party near Dallas Love Field, CASI squeezed their dues-paying members, camp followers and a large media contingent into three chartered planes for the two-and-a-half hour flight to Big Bend on Fri., Oct. 20, 1967. The Big D squadron joined 17 other private aircraft lining the single dirt runway at Terlingua International Airport.
The festivities began at high noon the next day before a boisterous crowd of 500 chili “heads.” Smith appeared rested and ready to go with a pistol dangling from his belt, while Fowler, who was battling a mystery virus, looked like he had not slept a wink.
Master of ceremonies Bill Rives, sports editor at the Dallas Morning News, led the tipsy throng in the singing of “Hello, Terlingua,” a silly ditty he had composed himself for the grand occasion. He then read a letter from Gov. John Connally making Smith an honorary citizen of the Great State of Texas, which the New Yorker impolitely declined.
With the formalities finished, the two contestants got down to the serious business of cooking. As the moment of truth approached, Smith seemed to lose his nerve.
“What chance do I have?” he whined. “Last week Tolbert claimed in his column that a Texas Baptist preacher invented the airplane. Before this is over he’ll be saying that Wick Fowler invented caviar in Swampnose Park on the Pecos River. There is no end to what these people will do!”
The taste test went according to script. The brewer cast his ballot for Fowler’s entry, and Smith’s kinswoman kept her vote in the family. However, when lawyer Witts took his tie-breaking taste, he choked on the mouthful of red and gasped, “I have to see a doctor!” before fleeing the scene.
And that was how the first Terlingua Chili Cook-Off ended in a draw. But the publicity generated by the 1967 kick-off, most notably a feature article in Sports Illustrated by “washed-up sportswriter” Gary Cartwright, kept it going for the next half century.
Copies of “Unforgettable Texans,” Bartee’s fourth and latest book, are still available. Get yours by mailing a check for $28.80 to “Bartee Haile,” P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393 or order on-line at barteehaile.com.
