USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 36
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Coleman county, aggregating about one thousand acres. Henry Paddle- ford, his father, and who came to Coleman county at the same time as the son, died in New Mexico.
Mr. Paddleford is prominent in the Masonic circles of the state, having attained the Thirty-second degree, and he belongs to both the York and Scottish Rites. He is also identified with Hella Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Dallas, is district deputy grand master for his dis- trict, a past master of the local lodge and the present high priest of the local chapter. Mrs. Paddleford was before marriage Sallie Waring, born in Liberty county, Texas, and they have nine children: Henry, Ruth, Della, Mary, Laura, Nannie, Kate, Fred and Charles. Henry Paddleford, the eldest son, is associated with his father in the implement and vehicle business.
J. E. BOOG-SCOTT bears a name distinguished in industrial circles as one of the west's most prominent breeders of high-class registered Here- ford cattle and as the owner of the famous Anson ranch in Coleman county. Mr. Boog-Scott was born in Roxburyshire, Scotland, in 1878, but he was educated in Warwickshire, England, and, through acquaint- ances and friends who had come to America and became connected with the great cattle industry of western Texas, he became interested in the business and in 1895 left his home and came to Coleman county, Texas. He went to work immediately on the range, and there in time he thor- oughly learned the cattle business. Subsequently he became connected with the famous Anson ranch in Coleman county. The place had been established in 1886 by Claud Anson, a wealthy Englishman, and later it was purchased by his brother, Frank Anson, who made further improve- ments on and extensions to the ranch. He in turn sold it to Mr. Boog- Scott, its present owner.
The ranch is a very valuable property lying in the richest section of western Texas. It contains about thirty thousand acres, and, beginning about fifteen miles north of Coleman in Coleman county, it extends well up into Callahan county. It is permanently and abundantly watered by the best possible supply of water, and it is crossed by Jim Ned creek, Tuttle bayou and other streams, and the supply is further augmented by a number of tanks that have been built on the ranch.
Mr. Boog-Scott is widely known throughout the country as a breeder and shipper of the highest grade registered Hereford cattle. Beginning with 1903, his herds have each year taken prizes at the International Stock Show in Chicago. He makes a specialty of cattle for feeding in the north, and at the 1907 International Stock Show his pen of twenty feeders won the championship prize. His Hereford bulls bring the high- est price paid for this stock, and they are eagerly sought for by stockmen. His ranch is also well known for its splendid Percheron horses, and in this branch of the business he has achieved splendid success. The Anson ranch is one of Coleman county's most greatly prized resources.
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
LEMAN BROWN has attained prestige in Coleman county through his identification with its public life, and he is now serving the county as its clerk. He is one of the very few native sons of Coleman county who are grown young men, but his parents, T. R. and Frances (Cayce) Brown, were early pioneers here, their residence dating from 1876. The father was born in Kentucky and came to the Lone Star state in 1873, and locating first in Hayes county he lived there some three years, and in 1876 came to Coleman county. This was at that time a frontier region, all open range, and the county was organized in that year and the new town of Coleman, selected as the county seat, laid out. Mr. and Mrs. Brown are yet residing here, living on their ranch eight miles northwest of the city of Coleman, at Mountain View, the birthplace of their son Leman in 1878.
The son was reared and educated here, and for some time in his earlier life was engaged in the grocery business at Coleman. In 1908 he was elected the clerk of Coleman county. and he is serving now most efficiently in that important capacity. He has six brothers and two sisters, and all, with the exception of the three eldest, are native sons and daughters of Coleman county. Mr. Brown's wife, before marriage, was Edna Hicks, born at Corsicana, and they have a son, Joel Ogden Brown.
GUS P. ROQUEMORE .- One of the most prominent of Coleman's busi- ness men is Gus P. Roquemore, a grain, hay, hide and pecan merchant and a bank director. He was born in Panola county, Texas, October 13, 1869. His father had located in that county in 1851. He was a Con- federate soldier throughout the war between the states, a member of the Seventh Texas Cavalry, and the command served east of the Mississippi river. Mr. Roquemore, the father, died in 1897, and the mother survived for years and died in 1906. The father was born in Georgia, a descend- ant of a French Huguenot family, and his great-grandmother was born in France and on immigrating to America located in Georgia.
Gus P. Roquemore came to Coleman in the year of 1885, and this city has since remained his home. In 1901 he established his present business as a dealer in grain, hay, hides and pecans, a vocation in which he has been uniformly successful and prosperous. He is a member of the Texas Grain Dealers' Association. He is also prominently identified with the pecan industry, and as an item showing the importance and magnitude of this yet little known industry, Mr. Roquemore in 1907 shipped from Coleman sixty-five thousand dollars' worth of that com- modity. He has during the past several years been the Coleman repre- sentative of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, and he is a director of the Farmers' State Bank of Coleman.
He married Alice Davidson, who was born in Kaufman county, Texas, and they have four children: Bennie May, Lurline, Veoma and Paul Crawford. Mr. Roquemore is a member of the Knights of Pythias,
350 HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Woodmen of the World and Modern Woodmen fraternities, and he is a Royal Arch Mason.
ALLAN L. DICKINSON .- One of the most prominent of Coleman's promoters is Allan L. Dickinson, the manager of the Coleman Develop- ment Company and an influential worker in the building up of the busi- ness and industrial institutions of the city. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but was reared and educated in Chicago, Illinois, and in his early youth he became a traveling salesman and traveled for wholesale dry goods houses out of Chicago from 1881 to 1895, during a large part of that time covering the territory from St. Paul to the Pacific coast on the Northern Pacific Railroad, but during the latter part of the period he traveled in Texas. In 1892 he bought a ranch and went into the cattle business in Kendall county, but in 1898 he sold his interests there and came to Coleman county, where he resumed his cattle business and also engaged in farming and other interests. More recently he has engaged quite extensively in real estate development in Coleman, and with his associates has successfully promoted a number of important new enter- prises in this city, including a cotton compress and a cotton oil mill, and plans are in progress for a new hotel, a large brick plant and other indus- tries. He was one of the organizers and is the manager of the Coleman Development Company, which in the summer of 1909 placed on the market the Santa Fe addition to Coleman, an eighty-four acre tract situated in the northwest part of the town and laid off into building lots, with streets graded, water pipes laid and all conveniences furnished for the building of homes. The lots in this addition are particularly convenient for per- sons connected with the oil mill, the cotton compress and other industries located in the northwest section of the city, and it was in fact for their accommodation largely that the property was developed and improved. Mr. Dickinson took an active part in the securing of the Santa Fe cut-off for Coleman, and in fact many of the city's most prominent institutions owe their origin and development to him.
He married Josephine Forsyth, who was born in Florida, and they have two daughters, Marie and Josephine. .
WILLIAM A. COFFEY, born in Parker county, Texas, in 1858, is a member of one of the oldest pioneer families of western Texas and a son of Rich and Sallie ( Greathouse) Coffey. Rich Coffey was a noted pioneer in western Texas. Born in Georgia, he came to this state as early as 1856 and located on the extreme frontier in Parker county, but in 1862 he moved still further west and located in what is now Runnels county, on Elm creek, a short distance from the present site of Ballinger. In 1868 he settled at the mouth of the Concho river, on the Colorado river. where he established his headquarters, and from where he carried on his cattle business. This location remained his home until death, in February, 1897. Rich Coffey was a typical pioneer and cattleman of the old days. He made twenty-two trips over the West Texas plains to the
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
salt wells in western Texas, and on each of these trips he buried men that had been killed by the Indians. His widow is yet living at the old home- stead. This old homestead is now in the northeastern part of Concho county and near the line of Runnels and Coleman counties, the postoffice being Leaday in Coleman county.
William A. Coffey, or as he is more familiarly known as "Bill," was one of the sons of this noted pioneer and frontiersman, and he still lives at the old Coffey place and carries on general farming there. His brother, John W. Coffey, is in the sheep business in Kimble county. These sons were reared on the extreme western frontier, and with their father took part in the battles waged against the Indians and in all the struggles of frontier life. William A. Coffey and his brother frequently made trips over the old trails to Kansas. While getting together a herd of cattle these two brothers and some of their neighbors were attacked on the Ist of June, 1871, by Indians, and John W. Coffey was twice shot and two of the other boys were killed.
William A. Coffey married Mary M. Haley, but she died in the year of 1894. He has five children : Robert W., Ed., John, Penny and Lonnie.
JOHN B. WARREN was born in De Witt county, Texas, in 1862, and he was reared in DeWitt county and came from there to Coleman at the age of sixteen, in 1878. Since that time he has been prominently identi- fied with the public and industrial life of this community, and has been influential as a pioneer merchant, as a member of the city council and as the city's treasurer. His first connection with industrial interests in Coleman was as a merchant, beginning the business with a general mer- cantile stock January 1, 1883, and in 1897 he established the Warren dry goods and grocery house, which he conducted successfully for eleven years. The business was destroyed by fire in 1907. During some years Mr. Warren also handled implements and vehicles quite extensively, his business extending over a large territory, and during many years he was widely known in Coleman's trade territory as one of its most active mer- chants. In 1909 he assisted in the organization of the Coleman Compress Company, of which he is the present secretary, and this corporation has added to the substantial industries of Coleman by building a new cotton compress, completed in September of 1909. In many other ways Mr. Warren has been a public spirited citizen in helping to promote the com- mercial and industrial growth of the city. He is a member of the city council and is the present city treasurer.
Mrs. Warren was before marriage Ollie L. Berry, and two sons have blessed their union, John B. Warren Jr. and Pat Ray Warren.
WILLIAM L. ROSE .- In reviewing the events which form the history of Coleman county the name of Rose figures prominently in its public life and in its growth and development, and the name of William L. Rose has gained distinction as a cotton oil mill operator and as a pioneer. He was born in Fairfax county, Virginia, in 1856, and he came to Texas with
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
his parents in 1858, the family locating in Fayette county. He was reared by his older brother and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Rose, and came with them to Coleman county in 1876. As pioneers of this community they witnessed and took part in its frontier life and its rapid development to one of the richest communities of the commonwealth and became active factors in its interests. The brother, Judge B. F. Rose, died in 1904, and at the time of his demise he was serving his twelfth year as the judge of Coleman county.
Following his arrival here, William L. Rose went into the cattle business and later into the livery business, and for a time he operated a stage line from Coleman to Ballinger. At the completion of the railroad to Ballinger, and before it reached San Angelo, he operated the stage line between those two places, making his headquarters at Ballinger, and during that time he took an active part in the building up of the city. Moving his ranch headquarters to Runnels county in 1879, he dealt in cattle there for some time, and during many years was connected with the cattle and horse business in both Coleman and Runnels counties. In 1906 the oil mill of the Coleman Cotton Oil Company was built, and Mr. Rose was made the secretary and manager of the company. This is one of the largest industries in the city. Mr. Rose is also interested in two cotton gins, one in Coleman and one in Talpa. He is a Mason, an Odd Fellow and a Woodman, and he is one of the representative citizens of Coleman.
DR. GABRIEL B. BEAUMONT is the pioneer physician and surgeon of Coleman, a practitioner of the highest standing in his profession and a citizen of worth and influence. He was born in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1845, and his parents, William and Susan (Cook) Beaumont, are both deceased. The father was born in Yorkshire, England, of French an- cestry, and in his young manhood he came to America and located at Clarksville, Tennessee, where he engaged in the tobacco business. Mrs. Beaumont was a daughter of Valentine Cook, from Kentucky.
Although born in Tennessee, Dr. Beaumont was reared in Texas, his parents having moved to this state in 1848, locating on the Gulf coast in Calhoun county, and he was educated in various schools in LaGrange, Reutersville and in Soule University at Fayetteville. While yet a boy he was a member of that famous organization of the Confederacy known as Terry's Texas Rangers, being a trooper in Company A. He enlisted for the entire war, but was permanently disabled from further service at the battle of Murfreesboro by a bullet wound in the shoulder. He was only sixteen years of age when discharged from the service. Mr. Beaumont then took up the study of medicine, at first under private tutelage, and. passing the required examinations, he began practice in Harris county, about twenty-four miles from Houston, while following this period of practice he entered the medical department of the University of Louisiana at New Orleans, now Tulane University, and graduated from that insti- tution with the class of 1869. He then located at Navasota, in Grimes
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
county, and after eighteen years in practice there he came in 1886 to Coleman, which has ever since been his home and where he has continued as a successful physician and surgeon.
Dr. Beaumont married, at Navasota, Nannie Duke, from Grimes county, Texas. Of their sons, Dr. Edgar Chetwynd Beaumont is also a physician and surgeon, practicing with his father. He received his liter- ary education in the Northwestern University at Evanston and studied medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in St. Louis, and graduated from the medical department of Fort Worth University. Dr. Gulielmus A. Beaumont, another son, is a successful dentist in Coleman, a graduate of the dental department of Northwestern University, where he also received his literary training. Dr. and Mrs. Beaumont have four other children: Mrs. Gertrude Gay, Mrs. Salome Hortense Stevens, Mrs. Stella Beaumont McCord and Aubrey Duke Beaumont. Dr. Beaumont belongs to the Methodist church and to the Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias fraternities.
RUNNELS COUNTY
One of the counties laid out by the legislature by act of February I, 1858, and named in honor of Governor Runnels, this county was not per- manently settled for twenty years afterward, and was finally organized in 1880. On Oak creek, just beyond the west boundary of the county, Fort Chadbourne was established in the '50s, and was garrisoned by federal troops until the Civil war. Under this protection a few settlers had located in Runnels county, but they were traders or wandering stockmen, and during the troublous times of the war decade the county was prac- tically abandoned.
During the 'zos the cattlemen took possession of Runnels county, driving the buffalo before them and establishing their camps all along the Colorado and its tributaries. By 1880 the T. & P. Railroad had been built through Abilene, about twenty-five miles from the county, and for many miles on both sides of that route the stockmen and settlers began permanent occupation. Ini 1880 the population of Runnels county was 980 (15 negroes). Agriculture had · hardly been attempted, merely enough to test the productiveness of the soil. When the county was organized the place selected as the county seat was given the name Run- nels. In 1886 the G. C. & S. F. Railroad was built through the county, and the town of Ballinger, founded on this line, soon afterward became the county seat and has since been the metropolis of the county.
In 1890 the population of the county had increased to 3,193; by 1900 it nearly doubled, being 5,379 (33 negroes) ; and by the last census, 1910, nearly a quadruple gain is shown, the population being 20,858.
The development of the county, as revealed in assessed values, has likewise shown remarkable gains. In 1881 taxable property was assessed at $665,077, nearly half being represented by live stock. In 1882 the Vol. 1-23
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county had about 42,000 cattle, 30,000 sheep, besides other stock. In 1903 the taxable values were $4,188,000; and in 1909, $10,571,775. Since the '8os, the county has changed from an exclusive range to a well diversified farming country. In 1903 over 15,000 bales of cotton were raised in the county, and Ballinger claims to have the largest wagon receipts of cotton among all the cities of Texas, 54,000 bales having been brought into town in 1909 over the country roads. In the meantime the number of live stock has decreased, though the values, under conditions of modern stock farming, are greater than thirty years ago. In 1909 about 12,000 horses and mules, 18,000 cattle and 11,000 sheep were assessed. About three thousand acres are now irrigated, and by this and other means the county's area is being adapted to productive agriculture.
The population of the principal towns in 1890 was: Ballinger, 1,390; Runnels, 416; besides a number of small places without separate enumera- tion. The census of 1900 gave Ballinger a population of 1,128; Runnels, 416; Winters, 138. Miles, Rowena and Winters are now the largest towns outside of Ballinger. From Miles to Paint Rock, the Concho, Llano & San Saba Valley Railroad (seventeen miles) has recently been completed, and the Abilene Southern is partly constructed.
C. A. DOOSE, as a banker, capitalist and as a public-spirited promoter of local enterprises, has attained a distinguished place among the men of affairs in central Texas. Although born at Hallettsville, in Levaca county, February 4, 1875, he came with his parents to Runnels county in 1884, two years before the town of Ballinger was started and two years, before a railroad had entered the county. He was only nine years old at that time, and he is practically a product of Runnels county, for he was reared here, and since his early youth he has been a hard and incessant worker for its interests and upbuilding.
Retracing to the days when Runnels county was a commercial non- entity and given up to the cattle and ranch business, the building of the Santa Fe Railroad, the organization of Runnels county with "old Runnels" as the county seat, and the creating of Ballinger and the moving of the county seat thereto, there gradually rose upon the scene an aggressive real estate and land dealer, with modern ideas and straightforward methods. Having been taught his primary lessons in the real estate and land business from early boyhood, C. A. Doose took the initiative and was the originator of the scheme in western Texas, to buy up cattle ranches or large tracts of land, subdividing them into small farms and colonizing them. With a full knowledge of the future possibilities of the great West Texas country, he directed the greater part of his attention to people in the older settled parts of Texas, Mr. Doose's eminently correct judgment yet simple idea being that Texans are always Texans seasoned to the climate, adapted to the modes of living, farming and productions. How wise and well he reasoned is best told in the story of his future successes.
As noted above his principal field of effort has been in connection with the opening up of the old cattle ranches and subdividing them and colo-
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nizing them with intelligent farmers for agricultural purposes. Within the last few years Runnels county has become noted far and wide for the richness and extent of her agricultural products. This culminated in. 1908 with wagon receipts of over fifty thousand bales of cotton in the city of Ballinger alone. It should be said, as a credit to Mr. Doose that these splendid results are due in large part to his constant energy in promoting immigration to Runnels county to occupy the lands he had subdivided. Merely getting people to the county, however, would not have been so beneficent in itself had he not backed this with financing and encouraging his customers in every possible way. A great majority of the farms he sold on a very low initial payment, allowing the balance to be paid through a number of years, and many of the farmers of exceedingly small resources that he started in this manner are now financially independent. As the original colonization missionary of western Texas, Mr. Doose has trans- acted some of the largest as well as some of the most attractive proposi- tions in the history of West Texas, one deal alone involving one hundred and twenty thousand dollars and another one hundred and ten thousand, and all these have worked to the good of the country and its people. C. A. Doose and Company's magnificent twelve thousand dollar office building is situated on the corner of Hutchings avenue and Seventh street, and is quite in contrast to the "shack" in which Mr. Doose began business in 1895, and which was located on Eighth street. The abstract department is an important feature of the business, and its facilities for furnishing correct and accurate abstracts on short notice are unexcelled.
Mr. Doose is thoroughly familiar with all the movements of progress in Ballinger. He was one of the promoters and aided in financing the Ballinger end of the Abilene and Southern Railroad, which was completed into this city from Abilene in 1909, his efforts therewith being all the more commendable from the fact that they were expended during the hard. months following the panic of October, 1907, and he has succeeded in a remarkably short time in giving Ballinger what she has long needed, an- other railroad outlet. He was one of the organizers in 1903 of the Citi- zens' National Bank. He was made the president of the First National Bank in January of 1905, and these two banks, on the Ist of August,. 1909, were consolidated, retaining the name of the First National Bank, of which Mr. Doose was the president until January, 1910, at which time he resigned in order that he might give his undivided attention to his extensive real estate business which he has established in the past twenty years. This consolidation made one of the strongest and soundest finan- cial institutions in western Texas. It has a capital stock of two hundred thousand dollars, with surplus and profits exceeding fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Doose is also a stockholder in the Higginbotham-Currie Mercantile Company, and he is vice president and a director of the local Business Men's League.
His wife was, before marriage, Emma Richardson, born in McLennan county, Texas, and their children are Collis P., Marguerite, and €. A. Doose Jr. The family worship in the Cumberland Presbyterian church.
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EDMUND D. WALKER has been associated with the life of Ballinger since the period of its formation to the present time, and his name is en- rolled on the pages of its history as the builder of its first business house. He was born and reared in Polk county, Texas, born January 21, 1861, and he received the most of his education at Add-Ran College at Thorp Springs. Moving to Brown county in 1880, he taught school there, later teaching in Polk county for a year, and then locating in Coleman county he taught at old Camp Colorado. In 1885 he came to Runnels county and engaged in business at old Runnels, the little town that was originally the county seat of Runnels county, located about four miles north of the present city of Ballinger.
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