USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 42
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J. F. Mckenzie, his son, born March 18, 1873, at Prairie Lca, in Caldwell county, was reared at the home in Guadalupe county and re- ceived his educational training in the country schools, A. and M. College of Texas and in the Vanderbilt University at Nashville. He prepared for the law principally in the office of F. M. Etheridge in Dallas, and was admitted to the bar in that city, and forming a partnership with R. E. L. Saner, he practiced in Dallas until moving in 1898 to Fort Stockton in Pecos, where he established the Mckenzie ranch on the Escondido creek in that county. This is one of the best ranches in western Texas and the Mckenzie brothers are noted for their successful enterprises in the cattle business. They have had a large and varied experience in this line in the west, they having been among the first to establish headquarters on the southern plains. They had an outfit in Andrews county in its early days, and moving from there farther north, on the line of Texas and New Mexico, they established a large ranch, and afterwards they located per- manently at the Pecos county ranch. While at Fort Stockton, J. F. Mc- Kenzie was elected and served as the county judge, and coming from there to Pecos in 1903 he has since been actively engaged in the practice of law and identified with the professional life of this city. He was elected and served as a member of the Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth legis- latures, representing the Ninety-ninth legislative district. He is an able lawyer and commands a large practice, and he also owns valuable prop- erty interests in the Pecos country.
Mr. Mckenzie married Blanche Terrell, a member of the Seguin branch of the well known Terrell family of Texas. Their two sons are James F. and Terrell Mckenzie.
DR. WILLIAM J. VINSANT was born in Marion county, Tennessee, and he was educated for the medical profession in the University of Ten-
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nessee at Nashville, where he graduated from the medical department with the class of 1900. But since then he has pursued general post gradu- ate work in the New York Post Graduate Medical School.
Dr. Vinsant came to Texas in the year of his graduation, 1900, locat- ing first at Mckinney in Collin county, but early in the year of 1906 he came to his present home at Pecos and identified himself prominently with the medical profession of this city, a partner of Dr. James Camp. He is a member of the El Paso County, of the Texas State and of the American Medical Associations, and he is a physician and surgeon of the highest standing, while, in addition to his professional work, he is an active and public-spirited citizen in all local movements for the upbuilding of his city and of the surrounding country. He is one among the body of enterprising citizens who are energetically bringing the Pecos country to the notice of the world, and he is a member of the executive committee of the Commercial Club of Pecos, and is a member of the city's board of aldermen. Both he and his wife belong to the Methodist church, and he also has membership relations with the Masonic, Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World fraternities.
Dr. Vinsant married Minnie Grace Overmier, of Aledo, Texas, and a son and a daughter-Collin Bennett and Gussie Lucile Vinsant-have been born to them.
JOHN Y. LEAVELL .- There is no citizen of the Pecos valley deserving of greater honor than John Y. Leavell, for twelve years the sheriff of Reeves county. During all those years he bore a well earned reputation throughout western Texas for a highly efficient officer, fearless and un- relenting in the discharge of his official duties, regardless of whom was affected. During the earlier years of his incumbency of the sheriff's office he was often required to deal with desperate characters, among whom might be mentioned the notorious Jim Miller, who made the Pecos country the field of his criminal operations for some years and whom Mr. Leavell finally arrested, put in irons and later took to Eastland. Texas, for trial, following the murder of Bud Frazer, Mr. Leavell's prede- cessor in office. He was active and fearless in establishing law and order, and too much cannot be said of his efficiency in ridding the Pecos country of many of its desperate and lawless bands and establishing the peace and security which the community now enjoys.
He was born in Garrard county, Kentucky, and coming to Texas in 1880 he located first in Tarrant county, but later moved from there to Young county, and in 1892 he came to Pecos. In 1896 he was elected the sheriff of Reeves county, and by successive re-elections continued in the office until 1908. In the meantime he had acquired an interest in the Pecos Valley Bank, and he declined a renomination as sheriff to become the assistant cashier of that institution in 1908, his present position.
Mr. Leavell married, in Young county, Texas, Mrs. Alice Williams. They are both members of the Baptist church in Pecos.
EDMOND L. COLLINGS has gained a prominent place in the industrial life of his community as controlling owner and manager of the Reeves County Telephone Company. In July of 1907 he purchased the Reeves county telephone system, and with the ensuing period of time he has in- creased and extended the system and has conducted the business under
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its present name. In addition to the local exchange he has long distance lines amounting to one hundred and twenty miles and extending to Grand Falls, Dixieland, Toyah, Saragosa, Balmorhea, Grand Forks, as well as various lines to the surrounding ranch headquarters and connections with Fort Stockton and Monahans. This system is being gradually increased with the present rapid growth and settlement of the country about Pecos and the Toyah Valley.
Mr. Collings was born in Erath county, Texas, in 1861. His father, Lewis Collings, born in Illinois, came to Texas when he was sixteen years of age, coming with his father, Thomas Collings, who settled first in Dallas county. An interesting event in the history of Dallas, particularly in con- nection with the development of the Trinity river for navigation purposes, is that this Thomas Collings operated the first ferry over the Trinity at that city. This was in the early years of the forties. The family later moved to Erath county, which during the early part of the Civil war was in the path of the most murderous Indian raids which afflicted the frontier of Texas at that time, and Lewis Collings became a member of Captain Monroe Whitesides' Company of Texas Rangers for protection against the redskins. And he was later killed by them, an arrow piercing his heart in a battle at a point then known as Paint Creek in Haskell county, on the Ist of August, 1863. He was at that time a member of a scouting party composed of rangers from Captain Whitesides' company, reinforced by a small detachment from Captain M. B. Loyd's company, their object being to recapture some horses that had been stolen by the Indians. Mr. Collings was a sergeant in Captain Whitesides' company when they went into camp on the Brazos river, July 30, 1863. The following day he went through the camp seeking volunteers to go with Lieutenant Stockbridge on the trail of the Indians, and the next day the following party started : Lewis Collings, Tom Rodes, Dan Rodes, Steve Trimble, Tom Powers, Bill Tankersly, A. Howard and D. W. Reece, of Captain Whitesides' company, and Stockbridge, Hester, Vernon, White and Sharp, of Lieu- tenant Stockbridge's men, and three others whose names are not known. They formed camp and placed a look-out, but the Indians soon being sighted the party remounted their horses and started in pursuit. On being overtaken, the Indians fought fiercely with arrows and spears, and the soldiers were beginning to retreat, when Mr. Collings called to them to stand and shoot, being hit at the same instant with the arrow which caused his death wound. Just before he breathed his last he called Tom Powers and said, "Tommy, tell my folks," repeating this three times be- tween hemorrhages.
Mr. Collings' body was buried at old Fort Belknap. Mrs. Collings still survives her first husband and is now the wife of the Hon. J. T. Tucker, a prominent citizen of Merkel, Texas, a former member of the state legis- lature. Mrs. Tucker has a daughter by her former marriage, Mrs. Nancy J. Perkins, living in Jones county.
While Edmond L. Collings was a young child the family moved to near Oak Grove in Tarrant county, where he was reared. He lived in Tarrant county until in 1879 he settled in Taylor county, and for a time followed ranching there. He came to Pecos in 1892 and is numbered among the pioneer business men here. For some years he successfully conducted a furniture and undertaking business, but disposed of that in- terest on the Ist of January, 1908, and in the following July he became
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the owner of the local telephone system. He is also in the fire insurance business, representing ten first-class companies.
Mr. Collings' wife was before marriage Miss Katie Beall, and she was reared at Arlington in Tarrant county, a daughter of Captain W. D. Beall, a member of the well known Beall family of Texas, and a cousin of Captain Thomas J. Beall of El Paso and of Dr. Beall of Fort Worth. Mr. and Mrs. Collings have six children: Mrs. Dora Gertrude Means, Lewis Dent Collings (a prominent young lawyer ), Henry Earl Collings, Sarah Katharine, Nannie May and Annie Warren Collings.
CHARLES F. THOMASON .- No adequate memorial of Charles F. Thomason can be written until many of the useful enterprises with which he was connected have completed their full measure of good in the world and until his personal influence and example shall have ceased their fruit- age in the lives of those who were about him when he was yet an actor in the busy places of the world. He left the impress of his forceful in- dividuality upon almost every line of progress and improvement of the city of Pecos, and his life's span of over forty years was an era of splen- did achievement. During the early formative and struggling period of the city he proved of inestimable value as a conservative citizen, and as a man the highest tributes were paid to him at the time of his death, on the 17th day of May, 1898. During many years he had been accorded a place of the highest standing from every viewpoint of character. He was a constantly busy man, full of energy and resources, but always open handed in works of charity. His commercial business was built upon the highest ideals of honor and integrity, and the work which he performed for his city and fellow townsmen is an enduring monument to his memory. He lies buried at his old home town of Waco.
Mr. Thomason was born at Pontotoc, Mississippi, on the 20th of November, 1857, but in infancy he came with the family to Waco, Texas, where he was reared and educated and where he obtained his start in commercial affairs. Leaving Waco in 1883 he came to western Texas and located at Colorado City, where he secured a good position in the store of John Walker. In 1886 he came to Pecos and started in business for himself, in time building up a large and successful commercial establish- ment, and commanded a trade which extended over a wide expanse of ter- ritory in western Texas. His business house was a thoroughly substantial two-story structure built of Pecos red sand stone, and after his death and the discontinuation of the business the building was occupied for several years by the Pecos Mercantile Company. Mr. Thomason established the original quarry from which the famous Pecos red sand stone is obtained. He developed the industry in a thorough manner, and the business is con- ducted under the name of the Pecos Red Sand Stone Company, of which he was the president. He also took a deep and abiding interest in the early development of irrigation for agricultural purposes in the Pecos Valley and established what still remains one of the best irrigated farms in this section, located a few miles above the city. Through his never failing industry and ability as a business man Mr. Thomason earned a comfortable fortune, although he was scarcely over forty years of age at the time of his death, and this competence provides substantial resources for his family.
Mr. Thomason is survived by his widow, nee Miss Rosa Ward, to
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whom he was married at Pecos on the 15th of April, 1896, and a daughter, Rosa Thomason. Mrs. Thomason is the daughter of A. C. and Julia (Hampton ) Ward, the former of whom is deceased and the latter is re- siding with her daughter in Pecos. Both the mother and daughter were born in the ancestral, home of the Wards at Independence in Grayson county, Virginia. Mrs. Ward comes of distinguished ancestry, and is a daughter of Wade Hampton of Grayson county, who was a nephew of General Wade Hampton. Mr. Thomason descended from a branch of the Robert E. Lee family. He was a prominent Mason, a Knight Templar and a Shriner, and his religious home was in the Methodist church. The Thomason home in Pecos is one of the most beautiful residences in west- ern Texas.
E. D. BALCOM has been a successful irrigation engineer in the west and south for the past fifteen years, and he is prominently and widely known at the present time as engineer in charge of the Toyah Valley Irri- gation Company, and manager of the Swenson Land Company, Chicago, Illinois. Reared and educated in Nova Scotia, he came to the west while still a youth, and located first in Nebraska, and later, for a short while, in Colorado. His position in each one of these states had more or less to do with irrigation farming, and after being in Colorado a short while, was employed by the Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company of Eddy, Pecos Valley, New Mexico, in whose employ he remained for several years, until the separation of those companies, holding various positions, and in 1899 became general manager for the Felix Irrigation Company, owned by the Hagerman interests of Colorado Springs and Roswell, New Mexico, which district has become famous as a great alfalfa and fruit growing district. While acting as general manager and chief engineer for this company he installed the first system of measurement for this district ever operated in New Mexico, and is now being taken as the standard of use in practically all plants being operated in the territory. In 1906 Mr. Balcom became interested in the Toyah Valley, forming a company known as the "Toyah Valley Live Stock Company" and "The Toyah Valley Irri- gation Company," which he operated and started on its successful career, and in 1908 put the first lands in the Toyah Valley upon the market, or- ganizing and operating what was known as the "Toyah Valley Land Com- pany,"-a selling company handling exclusively Toyah Valley lands owned by himself and associates.
During the period which Mr. Balcom operated this company (at the same time pushing ahead development of his other company in which he was interested), he brought to the Toyah Valley a great many actual set- tlers and successfully put on foot the new town of Balmorhea, named for himself and associates. In 1909, to further the advancements of the Toyah Valley proposition, Mr. Balcom was the means of inducing to locate here, one of the best land firms operating out of Chicago-the "Swenson Land Company"-which company later became the owners of the Toyah Valley Live Stock Company and the Toyah Valley Irrigation Company, Mr. Bal- com retaining the actual management of these companies as the irrigation engineer for the Toyah Valley Irrigation Company, and manager for the Swenson Land Company, in charge of their large farming interests and developments at Balmorhea.
These companies represent one of the most modern irrigation sys-
John M. Newell
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tems, being laid out and installed upon the same plan as the work hereto- fore in charge of Mr. Balcom in his other enterprises. The plant covers approximately twenty-five thousand acres of land, of which about seven- teen thousand acres are at the present time in actual cultivation. This company is pushing to completion this splendid irrigation system, under the direction of Mr. Balcom, and by the end of the season 1911, will be considered one of the most perfect systems of irrigation, based upon sure business principles, in operation in Texas. The source of supply from which this irrigation system is taken is from inexhaustible springs that never diminish in flow during the longest dry season, while another fa- orable feature is the splendid supply of pure drinking water free from alkali or other injurious ingredients.
The Swenson Land Company maintain large selling offices at Bal- morhea, Pecos (Texas), and Chicago (Illinois), and are carrying on large advertising campaigns to bring prospective settlers to the Valley, operat- ing private cars for this work. Its work in this direction has been very thorough, and is bringing splendid results, as the magnificent develop- ment of the many beautiful farms being opened up in the Valley will attest.
In 1897 Mr. Balcom married Miss Emma Ream of Elgin, Illinois, and with two children now reside at Balmorhea, where they have their home.
JACKSON G. LOVE is numbered among the young men who have achieved success and a splendid standing in the southwest, and he is a good example of what a young man who is alive to his opportunities can achieve in this resourceful country. He is the cashier of the Pecos Valley Bank, one of the oldest and best known financial institutions in this sec- tion of Texas. The bank was founded in 1891, and its name is a synonym for solidity and conservatism. It has always had behind it men of the highest character and of large financial resources.
Jackson G. Love was born in Cass county, Texas, in 1871, and he was reared and educated in Marion county, but at an early age started out for himself and came westward to Texas. Here he became connected with the Texas and Pacific Railroad Company in a clerical capacity in the sta- tion department, and that position brought him to Pecos in 1893, where for some years he was with the company as cashier, etc. In the meantime he had begun to invest judiciously in lands in the vicinity of Pecos, as well as in city property. In 1900 he entered upon his connection with the Pecos Valley Bank as a bookkeeper, and through continued promotions he has become the cashier of this widely known financial institution. He, with H. T. Collier, own a fine cattle ranch in Reeves county, twenty-four miles south of Pecos on Toyah creek, and this is one of the richest sec- tions of the Pecos country. He is thoroughly identified with all the for- ward movements in the commercial life and agricultural development of the Pecos country, and he belongs to the time honored order of Masons.
Mrs. Love, nee Ludie Owen, was born in Llano county, Texas. They have a daughter, Aileen.
JOHN N. NEWELL .- The city of Pecos numbers John N. Newell among her earliest pioneers and real builders. He has been a Texan since the early years of the seventies, at that time connected with the westward
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construction work of the Texas and Pacific Railroad then building toward El Paso. It was thus that he came to the Pecos Valley, and he arrived in what is now the city of Pecos in the summer of 1881, although the road did not reach here until late in the following fall. The town was started in a very small way at about the time of the completion of the railroad to this point, and thus Mr. Newell is practically the "oldest inhabitant" of the city, his arrival here antedating its organization, and throughout all the intervening years he has been one of its most efficient workers. During several years he was one of the best known cattlemen of the Pecos Val- ley, his first headquarters being on Toyah creek, and selling his interests there he bought a ranch three miles south of Pecos, but he has in later years also sold the most of this place, retaining only a small portion of it. For several years he was also in the hotel business in Pecos, but he is now practically retired from an active business life, only looking after his property interests in Pecos. He owns several residence properties, and his own home is a substantial residence which he has built on his property in the southern part of the city, one of the most favorable locations of Pecos.
Although so long and prominently identified with the life and inter- ests of the Lone Star state Mr. Newell is a native son of Alabama, born in the county of Lee in 1844. He was reared there, and there enlisted in the Confederate service for the Civil war, joining Company D, Twenty- fourth Alabama Regiment. He began active service at the battle of Cor- inth, and from there was in service through Kentucky, Tennessee, the Dalton campaign in Georgia and the beginning of the Atlanta campaign, from the latter point returning with the portion of the army which re- turned to Nashville, and he took part in the battle of Franklin and in all the engagements of that campaign. He was also with the troops that sur- rendered to General W. T. Sherman at Bentonville, North Carolina, at the close of the war.
Mr. Newell married Mollie Haseltine Moore, also from Lee county, Alabama, and their eight children are Henry Tolbert, Claude, William R., three that died in youth, Mrs. Beulah Brannon, who is living near Green- ville, Texas; and Beattie, deceased, who married Frank Ratliff and who died on March 21, 1909, leaving two children, Ruth and Joe.
A. T. WINDHAM .- The Pecos country claims A. T. Windham as one of its pioneers, and he is also one of the frontier cattlemen of western Texas and has passed through all the phases of the old range cattle in- dustry, with its accompanying dangers and inconveniences from Indian raids, cattle thieves and the desperate characters which made their home here in the early days of the state's history.
Mr. Windham, familiarly known as "Trav," was born in Kemper county, Mississippi, December 17, 1856, and in 1872 he came with his parents to Texas, the family locating at Stephenville in Erath county, which was then on the Texas frontier. He was then but a bov, but soon afterward he started in the cattle business on the old range and in a short time was a typical cowboy. He first came to the Pecos country in 1879, coming from Abilene with the outfit of the Continental Cattle Company, familiarly known as the Hash Knife Outfit, one of the large cattle com- panies of those days of the open range. Their headquarters were at Abi- lene, and Mr. Windham was on the trail from there to the west with five
XBGibson
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
different herds for that company for nearly nine years, and afterward was employed for about eight years with the Seven Rivers Cattle Com- pany of Colorado City, Texas, principally in a managerial capacity. He then went into the cattle business for himself, which has proved his life- long occupation, and since 1882 his home has been practically in the Pecos country. He operated a large ranch in Reeves county, south of the city of Pecos, until June of 1908, and selling his interests there at that time he settled down permanently in Pecos and has since confined his business to looking after his large land holdings in the Pecos country. For about five years he owned a livery stable at Carlsbad, New Mexico, but the most of his financial interests are now in lands in the Pecos country.
Mr. Windham married Annie Goedeke of Abilene, and their two children are Lee Windham and Mrs. Bonnie Ferguson. Mr. Windham is a member of the Odd Fellows and Woodmen of the World fraternities.
JAMES B. GIBSON .- Prominent among the members of the Pecos bar is numbered James B. Gibson, a prominent and successful lawyer, an hon- ored pioneer citizen and a business man of well known ability. He was born in Burnet county, Texas, but was reared and educated in the San Antonio region and he came to Pecos in 1886, thus winning his honored title of pioneer. In 1889 he was elected the county and district clerk of Reeves county, and served in that capacity by successive elections until the year 1904. In the meantime he had studied law, and since his admis- sion to the bar at Pecos in 1904 he has been successfully and prominently engaged in the practice of his chosen profession in this city. He is also in the general land and cattle business in partnership with Judge Ross, their firm name being Ross and Gibson. Mr. Gibson has one of the handsomest homes in the Pecos valley, located on the western edge of Pecos, and it is one of the show places of the city. He also has a valu- able ranch twenty-five miles south of Pecos, which he owns in partner- ship with his brother-in-law, George Mansfield. His wife was before marriage Miss Ney Mansfield.
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