Goodnight

On a desolate stretch of flat four lane highway about 40 miles east of Amarillo is the hamlet of Goodnight. If you did not know to look for it, you would certainly miss it. There is little more than a railroad crossing and a historical marker commemorating the last residence of Charles Goodnight, one of the true legends of Texas and the West.


Born March 5th, 1836 (the day before the Alamo fell to Santa Anna) in Illinois, the Goodnights came to Texas in 1846 and at 21, "Charlie" joined the Texas Rangers. These were the times of fierce battles with the Comanche and Goodnight was part of the troop that located Cynthia Ann Parker (a white girl abducted by the Comanche and who later became one of them). Not content with being a scout and Indian fighter, Goodnight signed up on the Confederate side during the Civil War.

From these experiences came the plan to supply the Army Forts as far north as Colorado and Wyoming with Texas beef. This was the era before barbed wire, of open range, where the Spanish introduced Longhorn roamed freely. Goodnight and his partner Oliver Loving practically invented the large scale cattle drive, blazing trails through hostile Indian territory, enduring storms, stampedes and drought. Sound familiar? The remarkable heart-wrenching scene in Lonesome Dove where Colonel Call brings Gus's remains all they way from Montana to Texas... That was Goodnight hauling the body of his friend Oliver Loving "home" to Weatherford, TX from New Mexico. Larry McMurtry's epic was no work of fiction.

And the Danny Glover character "Deets"? That was Goodnight's right hand man Bose Ikard, also buried in Weatherford with the memorable epitaph "Bose Ikard served with me four years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, never shirked a duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid behavior."

Wow! That was the real West!

In 1876, with the Army money paid for Texas beef in hand, Goodnight, with an investment from Irishman John Adair, founded the JA Ranch. Located around the Palo Duro Canyon in the southern part of the Texas Panhandle, the JA grew to be an enormous spread encompassing over 1.3 million acres and grazing 100,000 head of livestock. Goodnight was a renowned judge of cattle and horses, and worked to select and improve the breeds of both. He made peace with the Indians, preserved a herd of buffalo, started a college... The man was larger than life. In 1887, he pulled out of the partnership and later an ill-advised investment in Mexican silver mines in Mexico cost Goodnight his fortune. He died not quite broke but certainly not rich.

The JA Brand:


Goodnight did not have any heirs; ironically his second wife (whom he married at the ripe old age of 91 - she was 26) was also a Goodnight - they met as pen pals due to the same last name. Charles Goodnight died in the year of the Big Crash (1929), aged 93. His legacy is the legend around his name. He lived in one of the most exciting eras imaginable: the push Westward, the Indian wars, Civil War, cattle drives, huge ranches, the coming of the railroad, telegraph, electricity and the auto.

His biography was published in 1936, written by J. Evetts Haley, who knew Goodnight well and "faced the flow of tobacco juice and profanity" in order to capture all the epic stories. Goodnight was no wallflower and his directness was well-known. The resulting book "Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman" is an excellent read.

Jellico

About a half mile from our house, stands a Texas State Historical Marker, one of thousands of such placards scattered around the state. They commemorate events or places in Texas history, such as the Shrine of the Alamo or fierce Indian Raids. Ours is a bit mundane, it celebrates the short tenure of Jellico, a village which existed proper for about five years at the turn of the 20th century.

In 1888 a store was built by Mr. Robert Emmett Wilson on the corner of what is now FM 1709 and FM 1938. (To those not familiar with Texas roads, the FM stands for "Farm to Market").
In 1898, a post office was added and a town name was required. "Burr" was submitted and rejected, so the postmaster went with "Jellico", since a number of the locals hailed originally from Jellico, Tennessee. (As an aside, Jellico TN, is named for a type of coal found in Tennessee; the name can be traced to the Angelica plant, also abundant in TN).

Meanwhile back in Texas... The name Jellico was accepted and the town prospered in conjunction with the cotton growing industry and added a cotton gin, a blacksmith, a gristmill, a syrup press and a school. At its peak, Jellico served about about 300 people. In 1907 the price of cotton and cattle dropped and Mr. Wilson was forced to sell the gin and mill, and cattle press. He then opened a dipping vat for cattle but with the advent of the automobile, shopping became easier in the nearby communities of Keller and Grapevine and the Jellico general store ceased to be profitable. It was closed in 1912. The post office had been discontinued in 1903. The only reminder of Jellico today is a shopping center called Jellico Corners, built in 1984.

So there are the humble beginnings of Southlake. Undoubtedly, Robert Emmett Wilson was of Irish descent, named after the nationalist and martyr Robert Emmett (1778-1803).

So now when asked where do I live, it will be fun to reply "Jellico" and watch for the puzzled looks. I did not think I was the first Irishman in Southlake / Jellico and will not be the last. R.E. Wilson would no doubt be shocked to see Jellico today. The cotton fields are paved over and planted with lavish McMansions and where there was once a humble horse and cart, there now races a Starbucks-sipping Lexus-driver, late for their botox treatment.

Texas Tea

Yesterday, the boys and myself took a drive out west past Palo Pinto to the shores of Possum Kingdom Lake. We were doing some advance scouting for an upcoming camping trip. If Possum Kingdom sounds like a bizarre name - it is and it isn't. An early 20th century furrier who bought possum pelts used to refer to the local trappers as the "Possum Kingdom Boys". We did not see any possums but we did see dozens of pumpjacks, bobbing away and by golly reducing our dependence on foreign oil, if you buy into that kind of thing.


The wells reminded me of when we moved to Austin and gasoline was something like 85 cents a gallon. I met a guy then who at one time had worked in the oilfields in the Permian Basin out in West Texas. I was fascinated by the prospect of owning a share in a Texas oil well. We kicked the idea around but he advised that with oil under $10 a barrel (this was 1998) that many of the wells were just sitting idle. It was cost prohibitive to bring the crude to the surface at that price. And so my aspirations of being an oil baron were shelved. Of course, oil hit $126 a barrel in 2008 and is currently around $74 and based on the busy pumpjacks we seen, it is again profitable. I missed my chance to buy in at $8 and change... c'est la vie.

Possum Kingdom Lake looked cool and inviting in the afternoon heat but we may not end up camping there. It is a longer drive than I thought - over two hours from home. The lake itself is a result of a dam on the Brazos River and while I told the boys about John Graves and his famous book "Goodbye to a River", I doubt that much of it sunk in. In the 1950's, there were plans to build several dams on the Brazos and in 1957 Graves took a canoe trip down the river, hoping to see it in its pristine state before the valleys were flooded. The aforementioned book memorialized his trip. Ultimately, three dams were built on the longest river in Texas. The author is still alive, Texas Monthly interviewed him in the August 2010 issue.

While the boys may not recall much of my account of John Graves, they will undoubtedly remember the self proclaimed "World's Largest Wheelbarrow". It sits unexpectedly in a field just off the road - the nearest house in the tiny hamlet of Caddo is several miles away. Talk about a roadside curiosity. It must be about five feet high and serves no apparent purpose other than to get people to pull over and take a photo. It sure was quiet there though and somehow the giant wheelbarrow sort of fits right in.