The Horrell Wars: Feuding in Texas and New Mexico

Chapter 10: “A Shooting Picnic at Lampasas”

Chapter 10 “A Shooting Picnic at Lampasas” Peace lasted a week into June following the Rangers’ departure. On June 4 the courthouse was burglarized. The burglar or burglars knew exactly what they wanted. One news account notes that the door had been forced open. The perpetrators “entered the District Court room and carried away all the papers relating to proceedings in the District Court.”1 According to one source, when Pink Higgins and Bob Mitchell heard “of the destruction of their bonds, they decided to come to town and see about entering into new bonds.”2 Higgins brought with him a dozen men, most of whom were left outside of town. Accompanied by Mitchell, Bill Wren, and Ben Terry, Higgins then rode into town from the northeast, arriving around 10 o’clock on the morning of June 7. Scattered around Lampasas at the time were the Horrell brothers and some of their supporters: John Dixon, Rufus Overstreet, Bob McBee, and Jim “Buck” Waldrop.3 Mart Horrell and McBee were in a store on the southwest corner of the square. Tom Horrell and Waldrop were at the 122 The Horrell Wars post office on the north side of the square, and Dixon and Overstreet were at the home of Dixon’s mother. As the Higgins party entered the square, gunfire erupted. Who fired the first shot is unknown. The Horrells were already in position, and it is likely the shot was fired from their forces. Mitchell and Wren dismounted and took cover. Higgins and Terry, in an exposed position , fled back to their waiting forces. While they were in flight, Wren attempted to cross the street to join Mitchell and was shot in the hip. Mitchell managed to get his friend to safety on the second floor of a law office. Bill Wren informed L. R. Millican in 1930 that The truth of the matter is this on the 7th of June 77 Pink Higgins, Bob Mitchell, Ben Terry and my-self rode in town and the whole Horrels bunch was in town and Pink and Ben Terry got cut off and my-self and Bob to fight it out with them. They had all the advantage of us as we were in the street and they had the corner of buildings as a result I got shot that laid me up 4 or 5 weeks one of the Horrell bunch was killed and Frank Mitchell (a brother of Bobs) who had never had taken any part in the melee just happened to be in town that day and when he saw that I was shot took my six shooter and pitched in was killed by Mart Horrell. 4 Wren is correct in his general assertions. Both Frank Mitchell and his father Mack were in town. After the fighting commenced, Frank took Wren’s pistol and started firing at the Horrells, hitting Buck Waldrop. Mart Horrell returned the fire killing Frank Mitchell. Waldrop died the following day. While the fighting was going on, Pink Higgins gathered his reinforcements and returned about an hour after the fight began and “the battle was renewed with great ferocity.”5 The battle continued until 1 o’clock when citizens persuaded the warring parties to cease fighting. Under the headline “A SHOOTING PICNIC AT LAMPASAS” one newspaper gave a report from a letter dated June 7 “in which the following choice bit of news is vouchsafed”: The writer reported that at “11 o’clock this morning I met two men, armed with Winchester rifles, “A Shooting Picnic at Lampasas” 123 near Gooch’s drug store. In jest I remarked, ‘I surrender.’ They laughed some sort of reply, and we parted.” The brief levity was shattered a few minutes later when gunfire “commenced on the north-west corner of the public square” prompting citizens to flee to their homes or, as the writer commented with dark humor, “rats to dens.” The writer saw “one man borne to a house across the way from me, dead or dying.” The author of the letter noted that the “row grows out of an old feud among the Howells [sic: Horrells], Higgins’ and Mitchells, and most of the people in the county are involved.” He added that the “Howells took a stand in an unfinished stone building, about 4 feet high, the Higgins’ are in the house where the firing commenced, the law is in abeyance.”6 The Statesman...