Thamks, just heard some story about a Dob Shane and was wondering.

ST

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I was doing genealogy research and found 1912 map of Texas A&M on the digital Sanborn Map collection. I pieced it together in photoshop and put it on a website that utilizes the google map api. I have been putting some of these historical photos on the map as close as possible as I can get to the original location. I was doing a search for historical photos and found this posting on the forum here, so thought it might be enjoyed.

http://www.maplib.net/fullmap.php?id=1773&legend=1

[This message has been edited by wrinehart (edited 9/28/2007 9:43a).]

wrinehart ...

That is a very interesting map you have put together. I had not seen a map layout of the campus of that era. The location of streets at that time was hard to visualize from looking at photos taken from the roofs of those earliest buildings. (Actually, they were not streets but dirt paths that followed the meanders of students and faculty.)

F.E. Giesecke was named college architect at about the time those drawings were being made and no doubt one of his first tasks was to rearrange street locations to fit in with his concept of the campus master plan.

He was directly involved in the design construction of Sbisa and the Academic Building which were begun in 1912. He was the author of first master plan for the modern campus. Some of the buildings shown on the map were not constructed for four or five years after the date of the map (YMCA 1914, Power Plant 1915-1917, Laundry 1915-1920, Infirmary 1916.) Fermier Hall, the Mechanical Engineering Building was built in 1919 but not as shown on your map but north of that position.

You did some very good work piecing that map together and I am sure the University Archives would like to have a copy of it. A mylar overlay with the revised street locations and names as of 1920 would be a handy addition to your map to link it with the modern campus (i.e., until the ultra modernists began returning the streets to footpaths.)

Thank you for your skill, time and effort.

a railroad siding running to the Academic Building?

This aerial view of campus dated 1917 is about the best I could find to show the location of the old spur track that came on to campus.



The main college siding was located adjacent to the College Station across Wellborn Road. A spur track came from that, angled to the north across Wellborn and can be seen in the photo curving around the north side of the campus, north of Sbisa and ending at the Power Plant. The old hospital built in 1916 is visible and you will note an earlier track spurred off the main spur and that line went in front of the hospital and probably between Milner and Gathright.

In days before 1917, the only alternative to rail for transporting the brick, timber and other material for building construction was by wagon and mule or oxen teams. I would imagine that it was common that spur tracks would be extended or altered to get the railcars as close as possible to building sites. I would think also it was considerably less work to lay a few hundred yards track than transferring loads of material by hand to a wagon for movement on to the site ... although no doubt wagons and teams were probably used extensively in those days.

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/29/2007 9:35a).]

In a reply to a post last week by RaiderDad, I mentioned a story about a Ball Peen Hammer.

Yes, that curious hammer that occupies space in everyone's toolbox that most owners cannot explain or devise the purpose for the odd shaped round end. Oh, once in a great while a person will find it useful to spread a rivet before hammering it flat with the flat side ... but most times that round end never gets used for whatever it was designed for. A curiosity.



The fact is that hammer was in practical use in West Texas in those early days before the 1940s when most farms had a blacksmith shop of some sort to forge tools and metal works needed to keep the farm operating, and to repair metal parts that became worn or dull.

With a small forge, a young kid to operate the handle that ran the fan blower to increase the temperature of the burning coke, an anvil, an assortment of hammers and tongs, and some tools created in that small shop, a farmer skilled as a smithy could keep equipment running and harnesses in good repair.

Now, where the ball peen hammer came in mostly was in sharpening plow shares and points. In the process of tilling soil plows would get dulled to the point they, as the saying went, "wouldn't cut hot butter." So the plow points were brought into the shop for sharpening. Most of you would suggest that was time to get out the grinder and go to work ... but that was not the way it was done. True the cutting edges became dull but most of the original metal was still there, just compressed back and rounded ... as we called it "dubbed." Grinding would sharpen the points but in the process destroy good material. In early days, farmers would place the points in the forge, heat up to cherry red, place on the anvil and with a flat hammer beat the metal at the cutting edge back into its original taper and straightness to an edge about the thickness of a sheet of paper. After the point was cooled, the ball peen end of the hammer would be employed ... beating the points for a couple of inches from the cutting edge. You could see small "dimples" in the metal where the round end of the hammer had hit. In this manner of sharpening a plow share would last a long time ... whereas grinding would wear the points out in a season.

My granddad said that "peening" restored the strength to the steel that was taken out during the heating process. I accepted that as fact since granddad knew everything.

In the 1950s I was stationed in Missouri. The highway department was building a new highway near my house and had condemned a number of old homes for destruction. I was rummagine through one that was vacated and found an old time mowing scythe ... the kind the Grim Reaper is shown with.

I salvaged the scythe from destruction and showed it to my neighbor, an elderly gent who worked for Missouri Fish and Game. He was familiar with the instrument, having used it some years before, and taught me how to mow the tall grass near my house. The conversation grew to how I could sharpen it.

The manner he described for sharpening the scythe blade (about 36" was identical to the method my granddad used in sharpening plow points ... including the peening with a ball peen hammer. Mr. Thorburn explained that something to the effect that "peening strengthened the blade." He said he had never heard of a mowing scythe "wearing out" and that in earlier times before horsedrawn mowing sickles were introduced in Missouri that the scythes were the only means of harvesting grain and sorghum crops. That was interesting.

Now lets turn our attention from farming to the automobile industry. (Hang with me on this great leap in subjects ... it gets interesting at this point.

In the early days of building automobiles, engineers were inventing and devising new systems, parts, methods at a fast pace ... but were having difficulty with some parts such as axles, connecting rods, crankshafts, valve springs and the like ... they kept breaking.
They knew a problem existed in their metallurgy but could not solve their problems.

In the early days of fabricating auto parts since all had to be heated and forged into correct shape, all had a layer of scale that had to be removed. The early method of removing the scale was by sandblasting. This was an incredibly messy method and since the sand could not be reused, a wasteful method. Engineers began looking for different ways to remove the scale ... that made use of a reusable agent. By the 1930s they got around to trying steel shot (about the size of #8 birdshot) for the descaling. It worked great and they were able to recycle the shot for additional descaling.

But a marvelous thing happened. Suddenly, they discovered the parts descaled with steel shot was having fewer failures from fatigue. Something about the round steel shot had solved their unsolvable problem of parts failures.

Analysis revealed "dimples" in the parts that had been blasted with shot ... but it would be several more years before they discovered that the secret was "peening" ... something farmers in Texas had been doing for almost 100 years.

And that discovery led them to reopen the mystery of the secret of Toledo Steel that had been unknown from the start in about 1000AD. Toledo steel swords were known as the lightest weight, strongest, and most flexible of all warfighting blades in Europe through the Middle Ages ... and the process of forging Toledo blades was a closely guarded secret of Spain for almost a thousand years. Auto and metal engineers in 1970 examined old Toledo steel blade in great detail ... and discovered "dimples" along the length ... the mark of "peening." A ball peen hammer was the secret.

We have been brought up on the histories of great discoveries like electricity, incandescent bulbs, radio, etc., about how as soon at the discovery was made that others joined in the chase to develop all sorts of uses and applications in quick succession.

But that was not the case for Shot Peening as the new method of steel balls being fired at metal parts to increase their strength and durability. It was not until 1980 that the first convention of scientists and engineers was convened to share knowledge of the Peening process and to look for more applications of the new science.

Today, shot peening is used in virtually every part of automobile and aircraft engines ... and new uses are being developed in every industry that has metal moving parts in its product. New processes are being devoloped for "shot forming" of aircraft skins. Other materials are being studied, such as ceramic pellets, glass beads and laser beams, as a substitute for round steel shot.

And the thing that started all this commotion was that curiously shaped Ball Peen Hammer in the bottom of your tool box. (And to think, that West Texas farmers, blacksmiths, and Spanish foundry workers have known the value of that tool for a thousand years!)

Edit: My granddad and Mr. Thorburn, my neighbor in Missouri used the term of "strengthing the material" in regards to Peening. Actually they had no idea what was happening to the metal when they created a "dimple" with a ball-peen hammer ... the just knew it seemed to work in the manner they desired. In recent years after a great amount of study, engineers explain that the good effects from the "dimples" has to do with pre-stressing the metal for compressive loads and solving a problem of growing minute cracks under tension loads. My comment was, "Oh, OK."

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 10/25/2007 5:32p).]

An important message I hope you got from the long history of "peening" metal is that this science did not originate in a college laboratory.

It was learned by trial and error over many years by craftsmen working in simple shops and, in most cases serendipitiously, discovering new and better ways of doing things. These improved techniques were freely shared by the smithy with his neighbors, with apprentices, and with his family members.

My granddad learned home metal working from his father growing up in Arkansas in the 1870s. My granddad shared his knowledge and skill with his farmer neighbors for years ... until the time came in the late 1930s that metal crafting was no longer a necessary skill to keep a farm running ... blacksmith shops and machine shops in towns replaced the forge at home. Tractors coming on line replaced horses and mules in the fields and that eliminated the farrier chore that accounted for the majority of the farmer's smith work prevously.

But the farmer working alone in his small blacksmith shop had developed the science of metal crafting and it was time to turn it over to the specialists.

I will pass along some more of granddad's shop secrets in future posts so they do not get lost in the passage of time.

By the 1930s every just about every town of any size had a blacksmith shop. (The term blacksmith was used to denote those shops that worked with black iron and steel, as opposed to the white metal craftsmen who worked with tin and galvanized sheet materials.)

And in that period before the 1930s, although shops were available, transportation was a problem for farmers and ranchers who might have to make a 20 50 mile round trip for a simple job that had him shut down in the field. Having a small shop located at home, equiped with the tools and supplies to fit his needs was a time and cash money saver. Also, in those early times replacement parts for harness and machinery and tools were not always available at the nearest mercantile store so often it was necessary to make the parts at the home place ... or do without.

So most farms and ranches had their own blacksmith shop and a person adept in the craft.

The basic shop consisted of a forge; an air blower of some sort; and 80-100 pound anvil; an assortment of hammers and tongs; a supply of soft coal, coke and coked coal; and an assortment of flat, round and square bar metal to choose from to fabricate the items the farmer forecast a need for. Other items that were stocked in larger shops were tap and die sets, chisels, punches, metal saws, etc. Many of the tools the farmer could make in the shop.

As for the stock of metal on hand, that depended on what the farmer expected as a need for future fabrications. Generally, these metal stocks might include round, bar, or flat pieces with the following characteristics:

Wrought Iron ... A product made from pig iron from which the carbon has been removed. It was popular in farm shops because it could be worked hot or cold and was easily welded using the forge and anvil.

Mild Steel ... A product also made from pig iron with most of the carbon removed. It was stiffer that wrought iron and was available in a greater variety of thicknesses or radiuses.

Tool Steel ... Specially prepared from pig iron with varying amounts of carbon that resulted in a number of grades of tool steel. As the name implies, this material was used for making tools.

The key unit of the farmer's shop was the forge. It produced the heat that allowed the metal pieces to be worked on the anvil with a hammer to the desired shape. You may be surprised to know that the farmer/smithy had no thermometer to guage how hot his fire was ... he placed the metal to be worked in the fire and went by the color of the heated material to know when it was ready to be worked.

There were some applications where the metal was heated to White Hot, which the forge could do, but this was the exception. Most metal working was done when the piece was Cherry Red (not Bright Red which was considered too hot.)

With the forge, anvil, and hammer the farmer/smithy could cut off the length of stock he needed to the item to be fabricated. If the round stock available was too large a diameter he could reduce the diameter to what he wanted in a process called "drawing." Or, if the diameter was too small for what he needed he had a trick called "upsetting" to increase the diameter. Square stock could be made round by working the square first into an octagon by hitting the corners of the square then work the corners of the octagon down to a round bar. These alterations were done on metal heated to Cherry Red on the forge, then worked down with a hammer on the anvil. In the same manner, the farmer could bend, shape, punch holes, split, in any manner desired. It may not look the same as International Harvester had originally intended but it would work.

Just like with Peening, my interest in recent years has been about how the knowledge was developed through the ages and how it was passed down with few written texts. I suspect much of it was handled like old family recipes ... one person with a keen eye would notice something that yielded a better result and he would pass that idea to family and neighbors freely.

The best example from the farmer's blacksmith shop had to do with Tempering Steel to make tools ... or to retemper after a tool had lost its temper.

Temper is a quality hardness given to a piece of steel to permit it to perform a desired task. A tool with too little Temper will bend. A tool with too much temper will chip easily. The correct temper for an application was developed through trial and error, based on heat and COLOR. How does COLOR enter in?

Let's take for example the farmer/smithy wanting to make a cold chisel ... now to perform its task of maintaining a sharp point while cutting steel it must have a hard temper.

First, the farmer would cut and shape an eight inch of bar stock into the desired size and shape of the chisel he wanted. At this time the chisel would be of relatively soft material and would not "cut hot butter" without losing its sharp point. So the farmer would Temper it.

First, the chisel would be put back into the forge and heated to Cherry Red state.

Then, the farmer would pull the chisel out of the fire with his tongs and quickly plunge the first couple of inches of the chisel into a pail of water, swishing it around to cool the point quickly.

The the farmer would quickly remove the chisel from the water and clean the point to clean metal with an emery cloth.

Then the farmer would watch the area cleaned closely to observe the changing colors of the point. As the residual heat from the body of the chisel moved back down to the cooled point the colors of the point would change in the following sequence: Light Straw to Dark Straw to Light Brown to Dark Brown to Purple to Blue to Grayish to Black of natural steel.

The correct amount of Temper he would want for a chisel would be Dark Brown and when the chisel reached that color he would plunge it back into the water to stop the hardening.

Lathe tools that the farmer might want to sharpen frequently the farmer might stop the hardening at Light or Dark Straw. For a screwdriver he might stop it at Blue color.

I just took Granddad's word for the colors changing because I could never see it closely enough. But, he said that if a person was not sure of the color or the timing, the process could be repeated as often as necessary until satisfied.

I am glad that some places have demonstrations of blacksmithing for visitors to observe. It was something that fascinated me as a kid and I would like to know that other folks are interested in the way things were done in "the old days."

would you care to elaborate on what is "pig iron"?

One reference that I remember from an old John Wayne movie, "The Quiet Man" was when he was asked what they fed him in America for him to get so big and he said "pig iron steel" or something to that effect. I have never known exactly what he was talking about other than hard work in a steel mill.

Pig iron is raw iron, the immediate product of smelting iron ore with coke and limestone in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, typically 3.5%, which makes it very brittle and not useful directly as a material except for limited applications.

The origin of the term "Pig" was based on the way ingots of raw iron were formed. Molten iron was released through a trough into an area where molds were prepared in sand. There was a center channel with ingot shapes branching off. Some considered the layout of the cooling ingots had the appearance of "piglets" connected to a "sow" which they fancied the main channel to be.

Pig iron with its high carbon content could be remelted and poured into molds to make cast iron parts. Blacksmiths normally did not work with cast iron because it could not be welded on the farm and because of the high carbon was brittle and could not be worked into shapes like the low carbon varieties.

I had not planned to discuss this medical condition that was common in the "old days" because the circumstances were so painful and unpleasant that I thought it best the subject not be revisited.

Besides that, chances are that most readers would not know what I was talking about. If you are younger than 50 years, it is probable that you will have no knowledge of the affliction that was so common among teenagers up through the 1950s. Thus for a first hand accounts of this subject I recommend that you youngsters ask your grandparents or great grandparents. They will remember.

The subject I am approaching with care and trepidation is Boils, aka Risens, aka Carbuncles

The reason I even bring the painful subject up is a recent rash of news reports about staphylococcus aureus bacteria strains that are now resistant to antibiotics and are becoming a growing health menace.

Staphylococcus aureus is a bacteria prevalent on the body of people (most often in the nose) that on occasions can become active and cause deep infections and death.

The same staphylococcus aureus was the bacteria that caused the Boils, aka Risens, and Carbuncles that we endured in the "old days."

Boils can best be described as a pimple on steroids, not uncommonly reaching the size of a golf ball. Science, after the fact, said they were caused by the staph bacteria entering the skin by way of hair follicles and then causing an infection deep under the skin. (A Risen was a smaller version of a Boil, and a Carbuncle was a cluster of Boils in close proximity.) As the Boil grew in size it developed a hard core of infection at the bottom of its painful pit ... and the Boil would not go away until that core was maneuvered out. The main problem with Boils was the depth of the core under the layers of skin that meant a lot of tissue that had to be traversed for the core to popped out.

Boils probably were more common in hairy parts of body such as underarms, crotches and on the neck but they were almost as common on hairless parts of the body such as on the back, the shoulders, on the tailbone and smack dab on the gluteus maximus.

Now in those early days, all three of the malevolent lesions were most common in school age kids ... with high schoolers most affected. They were so common that in a class of 20 or so students, at least one was a victim of a Boil in some stage of development. Older persons got them occasionally but were more prone to suffer in silence … not so with the younger set … if a kid had a Boil he/she wanted the world to know!

You cannot imagine how painful those things could be. Even a touch was unbearable but a solid blow such as walking into a classmate, a friendly slap on the back, or any sports normal contact, was a paralyzing, scream-inducing experience. I saw big old farm boys cry like babies when they received an accidental lick on a big Boil.

Risens would last a week but a Boil or Carbuncle would last at least two weeks. It remained as long as the core was in tact and would not heal until the core was removed. The sign that the removal was now possible was the appearance of a white "head." But puncturing the head only meant that some of the pus could shoot out (some relief) but it did not mean the channel through the skin down to the core was large enough for the core to pass through. Usually one had two choices, either drawing the core out with the salve Icthamol, or lancing deep enough for core to be squeezed out. (Farmers during those days would not ordinarily resort to seeking out a doctor until after one or two unsuccessful attempts of taking care of it with a razor blade or pocket knife ... fun times!) That final squeeze would bring a grown man to his knees!

It was strange to me that as common as the problem was, no one really knew the cause. Some speculated that poor hygiene contributed in those days before running water on farms, but city kids were as prone to Boils as the rest of us. The prevailing theory in my county was a lack of “Iron” in the blood. This gave rise to "spring tonics" of foul tasting stuff to tone up the body, or equally foul tasting patent medicines such as Syrup of Black Draught to thoroughly clean the innards of all things foreign. I was pleased when someone came up with the observation that Raisins were a good source of Iron so that was my choice of preventive medicine.

But in the 1960s the prevalence of Boils seemed to die out ... and from that time I have not known of a single case in my extended family. I assume the reason was some change in the way we are raising kids for the past 40 or so years ... I emphatically believe the change was brought about by the routine and frequent prescription of antibiotics in the past few years for any and all ailments. The systems of young bodies are now a repository of antibiotics of every sort so that weak bacteria although prevalent on the body are now kept in check by the systemic medicines.

For lack of better knowledge or science, I will stick to that theory. But it does bring to question, if my theory is correct, that we could be in for a resurgence of the malady of Boils, etc., as resistant strains of staphylococcus aureus become more common on the bodies of today‘s youngsters.

That is a medical condition that you do not want to see a recurrence of.

Have a good West Texas connections story myself.

This summer I was in a small shop in Munich, Germany, and heard three people speaking English. I looked over at them, and saw that they were wearing badges for some sort of conference, with their names and home cities. These 3 happened to be from El Paso, so of course I stopped to talk to them. Turns out that they not only knew of my hometown of Monahans, but one of them had a cousin who lived there- and was my high school Spanish teacher!

It was really neat to make that kind of connection with someone, thousands of miles away from home!

ttt

ttt for the newbies to prove this Forum has not always been dead as a doornail ... (I have heard that expression in West Texas for 70 years and still have no idea what a doornail is.)

Fossil, I always wondered about that to....(and my F-i-L owned a hardware store for 40+ yrs....

good lord !

Fossil ask a question without an answer
I had to search it, but here's one definition

the nails or studs on a wooden door

quote:

---

a standard term in carpentry. If you hammer a nail through a piece of timber and then flatten the end over on the inside so it can’t be removed again (a technique called clinching), the nail is said to be dead, because you can’t use it again. Doornails would very probably have been subjected to this treatment to give extra strength in the years before screws were available. So they were dead because they’d been clinched.

---

very old expression, dating back to 1350

also later in a line of Shakespeare's Henry IV

similar versions at several word source websites



[This message has been edited by TheSheik (edited 8/5/2008 6:05p).]

Thanks for the legwork on that.

quote:

---

So they were dead because they’d been clinched.

---

I remember the term clinched used when describing a farrier (horseshoer, for those in Rio Linda )doing that to the nails after he put on a shoe.

It makes sense now.

A Blue Star for The Sheik.....

It's Back!! theres a world of history in this thread. Should be published in hard copy.

We have drifted away in recent years from the original subject of this thread, Strange West Texas Connections. Let's revive that theme.

The fellow I am going to introduce is a complete stranger to the most of you ... but your granddaddies will recognize the name, Uncle Bud Russell.

To establish Bud Russell's West Texas connection, one has to go back to the late 1890s when he worked a couple of years as a cowboy on the Matador Ranch up in Motley County. After that he got a job in central Texas as a constable for a few years before joining the staff at the Texas Prison System in about 1904. Between 1904 and 1944, Bud Russell was a frequent visitor to every county in West Texas.

His job with the Prison System was Chief Transfer Agent. That duty entailed whenever any county in the state had a prisoner being held in its jail who was bound for time in the State Penitentiary at Huntsville, it was Uncle Bud's duty to travel to that jail in his "air conditioned" van to collect said bad boy and transport him to Huntsville. The van could accommodate 10-12 prisoners and with the assistance of his son, Roy, Uncle Bud brought them in.

Over a period of 40 years, Bud Russell and his assistant transported 115,000 prisoners to Huntsville. He only had one to escape during transport and that took place near Abilene in the 1930s. Bud figured that his travels about the state from 1904 until his retirement in 1944 amounted to 3,900,000 miles (and many of those miles were before paved highways became popular.)

Uncle Bud's van was known by his unwilling passengers as "The One Way Wagon" or "Black Betty." When word got out that Uncle Bud would be in the county seat on a particular day to pick up a prisoner, a crowd was always on hand to watch the proceedings. The van itself was quite a show and kids in particular were shocked into best behaviour at the sight of it. The threat of having to take a trip with Uncle Bud worked as well on adults.



I was fortunate to have seen Uncle Bud and his One Way Wagon at the Fisher County jail a couple of time in my pre-teen years ... the late 1930s and the men and the truck looked the same as in the photo, except Uncle Bud had a long barrel six shooter which I figure was a .44.

Bud and Roy Russell transported some of the meanest outlaws to ever roam the streets of Texas in the early days. To learn more about his exploits go to the link below.

http://texashideout.tripod.com/russell.html

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/21/2008 9:47p).]

We all enjoy rags to riches stories about our neighbors in West Texas, and we are saddened when one of the stories progresses from rags to riches to rags again in a short span of time.

Such is the nature of things for the next gentleman with a West Texas connection that I am going to introduce you to, Charles Steen.

Firstoff, I will tell you that Charles Steen because of poor eyesight was disqualified from military service in WWII, but in his later career played a major part in the US winning the Cold War and even today plays a principal role in maintaining our nuclear deterrence dominance in a threatening world.

Who is this fellow, Charley Steen, and what is his connection to West Texas? Charles was born at Caddo, Texas, a few miles east of Breckenridge. He attended John Tarleton College in Stephenville before transferring to Texas School of Mines and Metallurgy at El Paso (now known as UTEP) where he received a Geology degree in 1943. While WWII raged, Charles spent a two years in South America doing geology work.

Returning to the states after the war, broke, Charley tried working for companies with no success. Then he read in a trade publication that the US Atomic Energy Commission was opening up public lands for Uranium prospecting and would pay a premium price for anyone locating a source in the US. The previous sources of Uranium for the A-bombs dropped on Japan were Canada and the Belgian Congo.

Charley loaded his family consisting of a pregnant wife and three small sons into his car, borrowed $1000 from West Texas relatives and left for Colorado to search for Uranium. His prospecting eventually led him to Utah.

In Utah the family lived in a tar paper shack and subsisted on beans and poached game. Charley could not even afford the new gadget of a Gieger Counter that other Uranium prospectors found handy. In addition, Charley was considered handicapped in that contrary to the collective wisdom, he figured that Uranium would be located in geologic anticlines in the way oil is found in West Texas.

In 1952, Charley hit it big ... the largest Uranium deposit ever located in the US, even until today. He did it with a borrowed diamond drill and verified his core sample with a borrowed Gieger Counter.

Charley Steen and family were instantly fabulously wealthy. He immediately built a $250,000 mansion in place of the tar paper shack. Not one to allow money to gather dust, Charley went on a spending spree of high living and a variety of investments (most of which were marked by failure or misfortune.)

Then, in 1960, his sole customer for the sale of yellowcake Uranium, the Atomic Energy Commission, decided that it had enough Uranium on hand and needed no more. The market for Uranium ore died immediately.

Charley Steen did not surrender but continued to invest in various enterprises and an extravagant lifestyle until the US government in the form of the IRS came calling. The IRS claimed all of his assets.

In 1968 Charley Steen declared bankruptcy. Charley continued to struggle on for a few years until Alzheimers came calling. Charley had been seriously injured in a drilling accident a few years earlier and never fully recovered. Charley died in 2006.

I am saddened that the story did not produce a more positive ending, but doggone it Charley, it was a fantastic ride while it lasted. You left your mark, Charles Steen, and the country is a better and safer place for your passing our way.

Condolences for all the Steen kin in West Texas and best regards to all of you from your caring neighbors.

The land in western Texas that we West Texans consider to be West Texas can nowadays be described as all parts west of I-35.

West of the present I-35 right-of-way was truly considered the frontier until the raiding Comanche bands were run out of state in 1875. Life on the frontier before 1875 was tenuous at best for the hardy folk who dared venture into that portion of Texas. So 1875 was the date of the beginning of the settlement of West Texas as thousands of persons who had been displaced by the Civil War into counties in northeast Texas began to move westward.

Spurred by the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1885 that linked the eastern US with Dallas/Ft Worth and with El Paso, West Texas began to take shape. As pre-surveyed counties gained 150 permanent settlers local governments began to organize and form county seat towns. As a token of their identity most took names of Civil War or Republic of Texas heroes for instant recognition, but many of the names came from more obscure sources and are even today a puzzlement for recent arrivals.

Two adjoining counties and their county seats located on the southern breaks of the Caprock come to mind, Borden with its county seat of Gail, and Garza with its county seat of Post.

The names of those towns and counties were related to early giants in the food industry. What the heck? Gail Borden developed a method of condensing milk that required no refrigeration and was the founder of the Borden Company. C.W. Post in Michigan invented the drink Postum and presented the world with Grape Nuts Flakes and Post Toasties. Both men have interesting stories for backgrounds but unfortunately over the years their tales have become entangled with retelling over the past hundred years and particularly in the case of Post great accomplishments have been forgotten.

This post is planned to separate fact from fiction about two important fellows and their Connection with West Texas.

First let us consider Gail Borden for whom Borden County and the city of Gail, the county seat, are named.

Gail Borden was a functionary on Galveston Island during the days of the Republic of Texas and played an important supporting role in early day development of the Republic. After Texas gained statehood Borden remained active but spent much of his time tinkering with various food products that did not require refrigeration. His one idea that gained him fame and fortune was to condense milk in a vacuum for safe room temperature storage as you see it on the shelves today, and a development that found great favor during the Civil War.

Borden died in 1871 without ever venturing onto the West Texas frontier or visiting the vicinity of the Caprock. The names of the city of Gail in a county named Borden came from his service during Republic of Texas days and not his inventive genius. Borden died in 1871, Borden County was not organized until 1891.

Unfortunately, his name did not inspire settlement of his namesake city or county. Gail had a population of 126 in 1890 and has never had more that 200 citizens since. Borden County had 726 citizens in 1990 and has fewer today, although it did get up to 1,500 in the 1930s.

The city of Post in Garza County, located immediately to the north of Borden, had a very different story.

In 1906, before Garza County was organized (named for an early Texas family) a very rich person from the East sent agents into West Texas to scout out a location for a model city he wanted to build from scratch. They bought 176,000 acres of ranch land, partly on and partly off the Caprock, near the creek headwaters of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River. The model city would be named Post City.

To get things moving on Post City, in Garza County that boasted a population of 185 at the time, Post stopped off in Kansas City where he bought 120 Missouri mules and 24 heavy frieght wagons. These items would be used to haul all materials for his city and farmhouses from the nearest railroad crossing at Big Spring located 80 miles to the south.

Charley Post laid out the plan for his town, every commercial building and home, and fronted the money to build it. Workers and craftsmen were brought in, housed and fed. The surrounding area was surveyed out in either 80 or 160 acre blocks and homes were built on those. He brought in agricultural experts to experiment with different crops, fruit and vegetables to be grown on his land. He bult a cotton gin and later a cotton mill that would turn out finished products. Many of his innovations were their firsts for west of the Mississippi. C.W. Post was on-site to personally supervise the project and to infuse money when and where needed.

Post brought in a geologist to locate a site for an oil well. Drilling began but was given up after a few hundred feet (had he drilled a few hundred feet more he would have opened up the Snyder Field 50 years earlier than happened.)

All of the commmercial properties and farms that Post built, he sold to new arrivals at modest prices and with convenient terms.

The city that Post built was in no way connected with religious fervor or political/economic idealogy. Charley Post just wanted to build a planned town and community and watch it thrive.

It is a fascinating story and one that has not caught the attention of many West Texans ... or the nation for that matter. Work was fast and furious on C.W. Posts dream and every main part was in place within eight years. Unfortunately, Charley was not able to see it to completion as he died in 1914. By 1920 the town of Post had grown to a population of 1,436 and has ranged in the numbers of 3-5,000 ever since.

Read the story of C.W. Post's venture into city building at the link below. It is one of the best stories to come out of West Texas.

http://www.posttexas.com/storyCopy.htm

Photos in the link below illustrate the difficulties overcome and the handiwork of genius in the building of Post, Texas by C.W.Post.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txgarza/photos/caprock.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txgarza/photographs.htm&h=300&w=480&sz=140&hl=en&start=18&usg=__tzjFcw7EaCkiDfIzf_v-PH75wNY=&tbnid=v5EiGdyJ__a_9M:&tbnh=81&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcaprock%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG



[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/28/2008 3:35p).]

When I first started at KTXS-TV, Steve Kersh set me up on a blind date with a girl named Jennifer Parnham. Jennifer and I also lived in the same apartment complex. Actually now I can't ever remember if it was date, or what happened, but I remember that we talked on the phone, but we never really got to know each other.

10 years later...I'm in Tulsa and I end up interviewing a familiar looking Jennifer. Yep, she lives in Tulsa now. She's married with her own kids now, and of course I'm married too--not everyone re-meets someone during a live TV interview! GF

George! I had the pleasure of watching you at KTXS when I was growing up in Abilene, and then again this summer while I spent 3 months working in Tulsa. It was nice to see a familiar face amongst so many strange ones I saw day in and day out.

thanks fossil, for some great memories. I played basketball at Hawley in the 50's with our big rival being Avoca, another non-football school. The district winner usually bought a ticket to the state tournament. Between the two of us, we beat a half dozen or so 3A and 4A schools (no 5A's then)each year. Life was good in the small towns of the Big Country.

ttt

this thread is a must read.

Thank you felows. I appreciate all that you have done for me, I will express the same someday. fossil ag

fossil!

you sound (type) like you're recovering well

welcome back fossil...hope you are feeling better and had time to think of more tales for us

Finally finished! (for now!) Incredible read for those of us with a strong love for the big side of the state. Thank you Mr Fossil, Sheik, FishrCO, and others who contributed.

Still alive and kicking. Greetings to all friends.

Welcome back!

Howdy ! fossil_ag

Hello TheSheik. I hope all is well in your corner of West Texas.