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143 BADMEN RISE UP c h a p t e r 17 Whether this untamed region bearing the dark angel’s name molded good men into evil figures,or whether its isolation drew individuals predisposed to wickedness , no one can say. But robbery and theft increasingly became a way of life on the Devils—and gunplay a way of death. In spring of 1888, two Mexicans instigated trouble on a Sutton County sheep ranch managed by a man namedTaylor,who proceeded to Kimble County and notified authorities. A deputy sheriff named Smith accompanied him back to the spread,where in the company ofTaylor and the sheepman’s boss,he attempted to arrest the Mexicans. The suspects, however, had other ideas.They opened fire and compelledTaylor and his employer to surrender, leaving the deputy to face the smoking barrels alone. Emptying his pistol, he wounded one Mexican twice and forced the men to flee, the two riding double onTaylor’s horse. Deputy Smith quickly formed a posse and tracked the Mexicans south.On the Devils, the lawmen overtook one of the men, who evidently was now afoot, and shot him dead,then pushed on and came within gunshot range of the second Mexican .After an initial exchange of bullets, posse and fugitive engaged in a running fight all the way to Beaver Lake, where the posse finally rode the man down and killed him.1 Just weeks later in the Dry Devils country of Schleicher County, a party discovered two young men butchering a yearling just outsideWilliam Black’s pasture fence.Tom Palmer and his cowhands, investigating in mid-June, determined that the yearling had belonged to Black.Although the beef may have strayed, the law considered the unauthorized seizure a crime, and Menard County Sheriff Dick 144 DEVILS RIVER Russell soon arrested the suspects and escorted them to Menardville.2 By January 1889,the new community of Sonora had sprung up at the juncture of Dry Devils River and Lowrey Draw in Sutton County. Here where the SanAngelo and Fort McKavett road forked, Charles G.Adams and an associate named Meinecke drilled a 191-foot well and erected a Perkins windmill and 500-barrel tank.The original plat included ninety-two lots, all of which Adams offered for free, and by late March thirty-two parcels had been claimed. Although only R.W. Callahan’s general store and four or five other buildings graced the town site by spring, the absence of structures was more a reflection of the delay in obtaining lumber than a lack of interest. Indeed, in this heart of a sheep kingdom of 200,000 head, reported a newspaper correspondent, the hillside and valley were “literally bedecked with tents.” By the following January, Sonora sported not only Callahan’s operation, but also a saloon, beef market, barber shop, feed store and wagon yard, two-story hotel, two-teacher school with sixty-five pupils, two blacksmith shops, and at least thirty residences. In various stages of planning were a second hotel, bank, drug store, livery stable, newspaper, two additional supply stores, and ten more residences. Furthermore, a commercial hack provided tri-weekly mail-andpassenger service to and from SanAngelo, sixty-eight miles distant. Not surprisingly, in 1890 the boom town became Sutton County seat, gaining the nod over the small settlement ofWentworth four miles to the south.3 Despite problems with barbed wire and quarantines for Texas fever, cattle droves continued to trail across the Devils country in 1889. In spring, ColemanFulton Pasture Company leased 100,000 acres in Sutton and Schleicher counties above the quarantine line from J.B.Taylor.From Rockport on the Gulf Coast,the company brought in 4,000 beeves by hoof at an average cost of $1.11 per animal .4 Meanwhile on the Bar S—a Dry Devils outfit managed by Dave O’Keefe—fifteen -year-old Johnnie Roberts helped cut out thousands of steers and turn the herd north.Weeks later, the drove reachedAmarillo on the FortWorth and Denver City (FW&DC) Railway, culminating the first of two Bar S drives to the FW&DC shipping point in consecutive years.5 Net wire had yet to make inroads on the Devils, but the advent of fences encouraged sheepmen such as J. M. Campbell ofValVerde County to experiment with loose-herding in the late 1880s.By September 1889,however,Campbell returned to the shepherd system;wild animal attacks had made it infeasible to leave his flock unprotected at night.6 Still, the predator problem did...

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