USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 41
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Mr. Boydstun raised the first cotton in the Big Springs country. He hauled two bales a distance of sixty-nine miles, to Sweetwater, where the nearest gin was then located. He is now owner of valuable agri- cultural tracts in the vicinity of Big Springs.
Mr. Boydstun married, in Warren county, Kentucky, Miss Julia Williams, a native of that county. She bravely bore with her husband the hardships of pioneer life in a new country and in cheerful spirit contributed by her own labor in establishing a home and properly rear- ing the children, of which there are seven: Mrs. Nannie Davis, Mrs. Jennie Cook, Mrs. Belle Long, Noble, Henry, Mrs. Delia Gillespie and B.P.
LAWRENCE B. WESTERMAN, who now resides in the city of Big Springs, the judicial center and metropolis of Howard county, has been a resident of Texas for about a decade, within which he has gained dis- tinctive success and prestige as one of the representative building con- tractors of the state. He has secured and completed contracts for the erection of many fine buildings in western Texas, as well as in Galveston, Dallas and other cities, and the high reputation he maintains in his line of productive enterprise bears ample testimony to his sterling integrity and his technical and executive ability. He has been a resident of Big Springs since 1907, and in the interim he has undertaken and carried to successful completion the contracts for the erection of manv large and important buildings along the line of the western division of the Texas & Pacific Railroad.
Lawrence B. Westerman is a scion of one of the old and honored families of Kentucky and is a native of Newport, Campbell county, that state, where he was born on the 24th of April. 1874. He is a son of E. F. and Martha (Rowland ) Westerman, both of whom were born and reared in Kentucky, where the former long held a position of promi- nence as a contractor and builder. The parents are now in Fort Worth. Texas. He whose name initiates this article was afforded the advan- tages of the public schools of his native state and was reared to maturity in Paducah, Kentucky, which represented the family home for a number of years. There he became associated with his father in the latter's contracting and building operations, and he learned the business in all of its practical details, so that he eventually became well equipped for independent work along the same lines. He is recognized authority as to value of materials, cost of detailed construction and efficiency and value of work performed, so that he is able to conserve both economy and exact observance of plans and specifications in all contracts assumed by him. He continued to be identified with contracting and building in
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Kentucky until 1900, when, after the devastation and virtual destruction of the city of Galveston by the disastrous storm and flood of that mem- orable year, he located in the stricken city and for about one year was actively concerned in reconstruction and other important contract work. He then removed to the city of Dallas, where he maintained his home and headquarters until March 7, 1907, when he established his permanent residence at Big Springs. In Dallas he completed a large number of important contracts and erected many substantial modern buildings. Among the more noteworthy of these were the fine buildings at Lake Cliff, the attractive and popular resort near that city. These are ex- celled by no structures of similar order in the state, especially the casino and skating-rink buildings. During one year he gave special and prac- tically exclusive attention to the erection of cottages, and within this interval he erected fifty-two such buildings in Dallas. He held the con- tract for the erection of the fine court house of Howard county, and this ornate building, a source of pride to the citizens of Big Springs and of the county in general, was completed by him in 1908. In 1909 Mr. Westerman completed the splendid building of the Pecos Mercantile Company, at Pecos, Texas, which was erected at a cost of thirty thou- sand dollars. The building is of gray brick and is the largest and most modern in the business section of the city. In 1910 he completed the First Baptist church of the same city, erected at a cost of thirty thousand dollars, and this is one of the most elaborate and substantial church edifices between Fort Worth and El Paso. In 1909 he erected the sub- stantial and attractive high school building at Odessa, Ector county ; he built the county jail of Howard county, at Big Springs ; and his successful work as a contractor is given tangible evidence in several of the leading towns and cities of newer growth in western Texas.
Even as he is alert, progressive and enterprising as a business man, so also is Mr. Westerman loyal and public-spirited as a citizen, and he is held in unqualified confidence and esteem by the people of his home city. in whose progress along civic and material lines he manifests a constant and lively interest. In politics he is aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the Republican party, but he has never had time or inclina- tion to become a seeker of public office.
On the 26th of July, 1895, Mr. Westerman was united in marriage to Miss Nellie Bingham, who was born and reared in the state of Ohio and who is a daughter of the late Major John Bingham, who was a prominent and influential citizen of Athens, Ohio, and who served as an officer in an Ohio regiment in the Civil war. Mr. and Mrs. Westerman have three children-Kathleen, Laurys and Burwick-all of whom re- main at the parental home, which is a recognized center of gracious hos- pitality. Mr. and Mrs. Westerman are members of the Methodist Epis- copal church, South. Having decided to locate in West Texas, Mr. Westerman has just completed the most substantial residence, at a cost of seventeen thousand five hundred dollars, in Big Springs, it being considered one of the most modern and beautiful homes in the section of the state.
JESSE EVANS, whose home is on a ranch fourteen miles northeast of Lamesa, in Dawson county, where he has been enjoying life in ease and contentment for several years, is one of the noted old-time cattlemen
PECOS
NINNATETTE) DRUG STORE
Bajo
BATTERY OF AUTOMOBILES, PECOS, TEXAS, 1910
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
of Texas. He is one of the few men still living who experienced the fortunes of the cattle business when it was still an infant industry in Texas and continued to follow it through the remarkable changes of sub- sequent years.
Born in Cleveland county, North Carolina, in 1834, he came to Southwest Texas in 1853, and during the years before the war was identified with the cattle industry in the region around San Antonio, in what is now Wilson county (though then still a part of Bexar county). During the war he had charge of the mail route between San Antonio and Victoria. Returning to the cattle business, he was for some years engaged in taking cattle to market over the great trails from the South- west Texas frontier north through the Indian nations. He was also a cattle trader, well known among the cattlemen of that time. For three years after the war he lived at New Braunfels, but then went into the cattle business on a ranch on Medicine river near Dodge City, Kansas. During his career he has worked cattle all over the frontiers of West and Southwest Texas, and also in Oklahoma and Kansas. For a time he had his ranch headquarters at Fort Supply, in what is now north- western Oklahoma. Among the well known cattlemen then associated with him was Charles Colcord, the wealthy and prominent citizen of Oklahoma City. On the Evans ranch, near Fort Supply, occurred the fight between the United States troops and the Cheyenne Indians under Chief Dullknife. Mr. Evans has had his headquarters in the Big Springs country since 1885, and has pitched the camp where he intends to rest during the remaining years of his life.
He has a comfortable home and a happy family. He was married while living in Southwest Texas, to Miss Emma Beall. She was born in Georgia. Their six children are: J. D., W. H., Mrs. Emma Graham, R. L., Brinkley and Mrs. May Smith.
REEVES COUNTY
In 1883 the northwest portion of Pecos county, including an area of 2,721 square miles, or three times the size of an ordinary county, was set off under the name of Reeves county. A county government was organized in 1884. In 1880 Pecos county, an immense region, bounded on the south by the Rio Grande and on the east and north by the Pecos river, had a population of 1,807, three-fourths of whom were Mexicans. Old Fort Stockton was the county seat.
During 1881 the T. & P. railroad was built across the northern part of old Pecos county, and the Southern Pacific across the southern part. Settlement began along the former road, merchants and mechanics and farmers locating here in the midst of what had for some years been occu- pied solely by stockmen. It was as a result of this settlement that the new county of Reeves was formed.
The population of the county in 1890 was 1,247; in 1900, 1,847. In 1899 the Pecos River railroad was built north from Pecos City to the New Mexico line. In 1903 the assessed value of the county's wealth was $2,342,989; in 1909, $7,065,548.
Reeves county lies in the dry-farming and irrigation region of West Texas. The Pecos river forms the entire northeast border of the county, while at right angles and flowing centrally through the county is Toyah
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
creek, the watercourse of the now noted Toyah valley. In these valleys during recent years have been undertaken some large projects of irriga- tion development, besides the many individual enterprises in dry-land farming.
Pecos City, the county seat of Reeves county, was founded about the latter part of the year 1881, when the railroad was completed. The town was at first located nearer the Pecos river, about a mile and a half east of the present site, to which the town was removed in 1885. It has been the county seat since the organization of the county in 1884.
Perhaps the chief charm of the city is its residence section, beautiful, home-like places surrounded by pretty lawns and embowered among the cypress-cedar trees which have been imported from California and flour- ish in this vicinity. The altitude is about 2,600 feet, the average rainfall is eleven inches, and the climate is one of the valuable assets. In the business part of the town the sidewalks are of cement, though the town has not advanced far in this kind of municipal improvement. Artesian wells are in all parts of the town, and hydrants are placed along the streets in the business section, so that there is an ample supply of pure water for all purposes. There is also an electric light system. The city is incorporated, and its property assessment for 1908 was about $800,000.
Commercially, Pecos City has for years been the business center for a large section of West Texas, and several of the mercantile firms transact a business that is larger in the aggregate than similar establishments in the large cities of the state. The Pecos Valley Bank has been an institu- tion from the early history of the town, and a national bank was recently established.
W. D. COWAN, president of the Pecos Valley Bank, was born in Gonzales county, Texas, in 1851. He has been identified with ranch and range and similar interests all his life. He spent his boyhood in Fayette county, his parents moving there in 1852. In 1871, when he was twenty years old, he made his first trip to the north over one of the old cattle trails. His business interests have run along the same direction ever since.
Mr. Cowan is one of the pioneer settlers and stockmen of the Pecos valley. He located his ranch headquarters at Alpine, in Brewster county, in 1883, and the following year moved his outfit over on Toyah creek, in Reeves county. At that time the only farming done in the Toyah valley was in the primitive, unenterprising fashion followed by the few Mexican farmers who dwelt there. This young ranchman was therefore among the first to introduce thorough American methods into this region, and from that time to this has been an important factor in the develop- ment of the Trans-Pecos country. In 1888 he moved his home from Tovah creek to his present ranch in the western part of Reeves county. His place of residence was in the town of Toyah until 1894, when he moved to Pecos City.
The Cowan ranch is one of the largest of the many extensive Texas ranches, the main body of land consisting of about one hundred and twenty-five sections, a portion of which he owns. Originally. this was the old Clayton and Cooksey ranch. Mr. Cowan also controls, with his sons, William and Sidney, a large tract north of the Texas and Pacific
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Confederate States of America, WAR DEPARTMENT Richmond April 30 186#
There are hereby infringe that the President fra appointed your Majore
38th Georgia Regiment
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Immediately are cept herenf . pleased to communicate' to this Department , through the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, your acceptance of non acceptance of said promtement, and with your letter of acceptance, return to the Adjutant and Propon Goout the DATE, herewith enclosed properly filled up, SUBSCRIBED and ATTESTED, reporting as that samel tema your" AGE, RESIDENCE when apprented, and the STATE in which your
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Major The. K. Bower
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Railroad, in Reeves and El Paso counties, comprising sixty sections, part of which he owns and part he leases.
In Pecos City Mr. Cowan is a man of great business power and influence. He is president of the Pecos Valley Bank, the oldest bank in the city, which was founded in 1891 by W. D. Johnson and associates, and through hard and good times has remained a solid and thoroughly reliable financial institution. Mr. Cowan became president of this bank in 1900, and has since given close care and attention to the affairs that come under his supervision. The bank has a capital and surplus of over $100,000. Mr. Cowan is one of the old-time stockmen who realize that the trend of events means the development of the country for agricultural purposes, and has given his encouragement to the advancement of these modern economic principles. He is a member of the executive committee of the Commercial Club, and has numerous local financial interests. He is owner of Cowan Park addition to the city of Pecos. He is a member of the Baptist church and was ordained a deacon in 1873, at the age of twenty-three, in the Elm Grove Baptist church in Fayette county, Texas. He has been a member of the executive board of the El Paso Baptist As- sociation since its organization.
Mrs. Cowan is a native of Missouri. Before her marriage in that state to Mr. Cowan she was Miss Letha Porter. Their seven children are named as follows: William, John, Sidney and Marvin, the four sons, and three married daughters-Mrs. Lou Duncan, Mrs. Frances Prewitt and Mrs. Myrtle Thomas.
Mr. Cowan's first marriage took place in Fayette county, Texas, to Miss Josephine Darling, where she was born on a farm near Cistern Post- office. She became the mother of the above mentioned children, save Marvin. Her father was a soldier under Sam Houston, in 1836, and was in the battle of San Jacinto.
MAJOR THOMAS H. BOMAR has become notable in Central and West- ern Texas for his work of many years in the development of the Toyah valley and the Pecos country, and he is also prominent as a civil engineer. He was born near the city of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1842, and was edu- cated in the Georgia Military Institute at Marietta. He left that institu- tion to accept a captaincy of a battery of light artillery for service in the Confederate army at the time of the breaking out of the war between the north and the south, receiving his commission when but nineteen years of age. During all of the first part of the war he was retained in the artillery service. At the siege of Charleston, one of the most notable naval sieges of history, he had charge of a battery on Sullivan's Island and com- manded what was at that time the heaviest siege gun in the world. In May of 1864 he was transferred to the infantry service in the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Gordon. He participated in the raid across the river into Maryland, his command being in sight of Washing- ton, but his most extended service in Virginia was in the Shenandoah valley, and on going into that state he received his commission as major of the Thirty-eighth Georgia Infantry. He was captured at the battle of Cedar Creek, where, in command of the rear guard on the extreme left of General Gordon's line, he held the enemy in check until the greater part of the general's command had passed safely across the celebrated Stone Bridge. Major Bomar was imprisoned at Fort Delaware, and when the
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
war closed all of the Confederate troops in prison there were released with the exception of Major Bomar and sixteen others, who refused to take the oath of allegiance, this refusal being merely for the purpose of making it easier for them to carry out their cherished plan to join Maxi- milian's army in Mexico, but on learning of the untimely end of Maximil- ian's projects, Major Bomar and his comrades complied with the neces- sary requirements and were given their freedom from prison in August of 1865. General John B. Gordon, in an informal reception given him at the Pecos Valley Bank, Pecos, Texas, spoke of Major Bomar in the following highly complimentary manner : "There goes one of the bravest men I ever saw."
Returning from the war to Georgia, Major Bomar accepted a posi- tion as rod man with the surveyors on the Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line Railroad, subsequently becoming instrument man and still later entering seriously into the engineering profession. For several years he was a civil engineer in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, chiefly with the Western North Carolina Railroad Com- pany, the Richmond and Danville, and latterly the Southern. He was in charge for a number of years of the intricate and costly work through the Blue Ridge mountains at Round Knob. He also executed the engi- neering work on the noted Cumberland Gap tunnel on the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap and Louisville Railroad. This tunnel work has been notably successful, and in later years he has erected a tunnel in New Mexico for the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Company, and re- ceived particular commendation for his splendid work. The latter made the thirteenth tunnel constructed under his supervision.
Major Bomar came to the Pecos valley in the winter of 1890-1, and as an engineer became connected with various irrigation projects that have had a successful development here, but his most important connec- tion for several years has been with the irrigation possibilities of Toyah. lake, of which he owns the larger portion of this remarkable body of water. And throughout his connection with this country he has in addition to his irrigation work been in the land business as a member of the Bomar Land Company. His name is almost synonymous with the development of the Toyah valley and the Pecos country generally, and with the growth and expansion of Pecos City, for which he sees a splendid future. In about the year of 1878, in connection with the Hon. Peter Cooper, he donated valuable property for the establishment of the Female College at Limestone Springs, South Carolina.
Major Bomar married Mary Wilson, from Morgantown, in North Carolina, a daughter of the Hon. James W. Wilson, the father of the railroad commission of that state and its first chairman. Major and Mrs. Bomar have an only child, a daughter, Miss Louie Bomar. The Bomar summer home is ten and a half miles south of Pecos, on the shore of the beautiful Toyah lake.
FANNIN WOODYARD JOHNSON .- The career of Fannin Woodyard Johnson, of Pecos City, corresponds very closely with the history of Central and Western Texas. He began his career on what was then the frontier in Coleman county about thirty years ago and gradually moved westward until he reached the valley of the Pecos. In this same thirty years is comprehended most of the history of this remarkable region, in
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J. F. MCKENZIE
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
which time its railroads have been constructed, its towns founded, and its vast ranges passed under the dominion of the stock farmer and agri- culturist.
F. W. Johnson is probably the best known and most highly esteemed citizen of Pecos City. He has been characterized as "the whitest rich man on earth," which seems to signify better than anything else the de- gree of esteem in which he is held in his home town.
He was born in 1851, near Brenham, Washington county, Texas, and is a member of a well known Texas family. His father, J. H. John- son, came from Illinois to Texas in 1836, the year of Texan independ- ence. He was a prosperous planter in Washington county and a man of mnuch influence.
Fannin W. Johnson was reared on the home estate in Washington county, and lived there until he was twenty-two years old. He then be- came interested in the cattle business, and in 1876 moved his cattle outfit to the frontier in Coleman county. A little later he was in the sheep business in Nolan county, at a time when the sheep and wool industry was a very attractive one in Texas.
He has been identified with the Pecos country since 1886, in which year he again took up the range cattle industry. The open range still prevailed, there being hardly a fence in all western Texas. Mr. Johnson took up his residence at Pecos about the time the town was moved from its original location on the river to its present site about three miles west. W. D. Johnson and J. L. Johnson, his brothers, also cattlemen, came to Pecos about the same time, and the three have been associated more or less closely in business since that time. The two brothers, however, are no longer residents of Pecos, W. D. living in Kansas City and J. L. in Fort Worth. The Johnson Brothers' ranch is one of the largest in western Texas, and also in the world, consisting of about twelve hundred sections of land in Winkler, Loving and Ward counties. The ranch headquarters are about thirty miles northeast of Pecos City. Among the most success- ful cattlemen of the state, the Johnsons have always possessed the enviable reputation of having acquired their wealth through honesty and fair dealing, and it is this character no doubt that has gained them such marked esteem among their fellow citizens.
F. W. Johnson is a member of the executive committee of the Texas Cattle Raisers' Association. He is also president of the Pecos Commer- cial Club. In 1891 the Johnsons established the well known Pecos Valley Bank, in which they still own large interests, and of which F. W. John- son is vice president. This bank is a landmark in the financial history of the Pecos valley. It was established when the development of the country was just beginning, and has continued a strong resource through a period which has been marked by depressions and by a general expansion of industry throughout this great scope of country.
Mr. Johnson and wife are among the leading members of the Baptist church at Pecos City. Mrs. Johnson is a native of Wharton county, Texas. Her maiden name was Zemula Day.
HON. J. F. MCKENZIE is one of the most talented and prominent of the members of the Reeves county bar, and he is also a member of a family prominent in the pioneer life and history of Texas. Thomas N. Mckenzie, his father, came to this state from Henderson county, Ten-
I
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
nessee, in 1839. He was then but a lad of eleven, and the journey hither with his parents was made by boat down the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, thence across the gulf to Matagorda Bay, landing at the old town of Linnville, and they were not there long until the town was sacked and burned by the Comanche Indians, the family barely escaping with their lives by taking boats and rowing out in the bay. On this same raid the Indians burned the town of Victoria.
Thomas N. Mckenzie was early inured to the cattle business, which remained his life-long occupation, and he, with his sons, was among the earliest cattlemen of the Texas frontier. In his early life he owned a large ranch in Atascosa county, and later owned an outfit that operated west of San Antonio. His home for a time was at Prairie Lea, in Cald- well county, from whence he moved to a place across the river in Guada- lupe county, and there he resided for some years. He was one of the old-time rangers and Indian fighters, and among other expeditions in which he took part was with the famous Callahan Rangers that crossed the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass and had the fight with the Indians and Mexicans at Piedras Negras that came very near involving Mexico and the United States in an international complication. He served in the Confederate army, and upon the capture of the Harriet Lane by the Con- federates he was one of the first to board the ship. He continued in active life until an advanced age, and he died at Fort Stockton on the 18th of February, 1909, and was buried at San Marcos on February 21, 1909.
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