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4 The Ranchero Despite failing health, and beset by a bevy of creditors, the hard-drinking El Diablo was attempting a comeback in the community he had founded twenty years earlier. Kinney biographer Hortense Ward makes note of his rapid physical decline: “At 45, he was bloated and aged beyond his years from the frequent bouts he had had with tropical fevers and the brandy bottle.” By 1860 Kinney once again represented District 65—Nueces, Refugio , and San Patricio Counties—in Austin. But his numerous absences due to being “sick and not well” made it necessary that all legislation affecting Corpus Christi and Nueces County be advocated and carried through by another representative, Edward Dougherty, from Hidalgo. Despite his poor health, Kinney attempted to secure the position of ambassador to Mexico from the James Buchanan administration with the help of Governor Sam Houston. In his letter of support to Secretary of State Lewis Cass, Houston noted that Kinney was not only “a master of the language of that country, and most perfectly acquainted with Mexican character,” he was also “adroit, in fact, he is well versed in human nature.” Despite Houston’s recommendation , President Buchanan and his secretary of state were not persuaded, and Kinney failed to obtain the appointment.1 Henry Maltby had important decisions of his own to make. The fire in Brownsville that originated in Charles Stillman’s warehouse had destroyed his own property as well. As reported in the Nueces Valley, “Our ex-Mayor, H. A. Maltby, Esq., we are sorry to say, is reported a loser by the Brownsville conflagration to the amount of $2,000” ($55,200 in 2011 US dollars). For Henry there would be no more chasing rainbows. At twenty-nine he was no longer the starry-eyed young visionary who had been cajoled into buying a circus. Despite his recent election as district surveyor, he had little interest in continuing that line of work, but other possibilities were limited. Maria von Blücher underscored the difficulty her own husband faced: “Here anyone who does not have the capital to open a store or keep cattle must take some civic office, which keeps many men away from home for months.”2 In May of 1859, Mat Nolan, who was now county sheriff, appointed his friend Maltby as one of his deputies along with his own brother Tom, for- the ranchero  mer sheriff Berry, Lovenskiold, and Holbein, who remained as county clerk. For the third time Maltby was required to take the oath of loyalty to the US Constitution and the laws of Congress, swearing too that he had never been involved in any duels. He would take the oath a fourth time in December of 1860 when reappointed as deputy sheriff. Henry had not been deterred by the death of fellow deputy Tom Nolan, killed four months earlier while assisting his brother in making an arrest. There is no evidence that Henry was himself involved in any such fracas while a deputy sheriff, but the position did give him a greater awareness for what a sheriff had to deal with while risking his life—the lack of a jail. Since no funding from the county was authorized for either a prison or a guard other than a small allowance in county scrip, almost all the expense of feeding and housing prisoners was left to the sheriff himself. As Henry complained with justification, “It virtually amounts to letting the prisoner go.”3 Henry had made a decision that would affect the next eleven years of his life. Since the Nueces Valley ceased publication a year earlier, the residents of Nueces County were without a newspaper, so he would provide them with one. He strongly believed that the time was right, that Corpus Christi was no longer the “city of the dead” brought about by the removal of the US Military Depot to San Antonio. Through the “self denial and perseverance ” of the stock farmers, conditions were greatly improved. During the previous thirteen years Corpus Christi had had three newspapers, the first of which was the Gazette, published in 1846 during the occupation by General Taylor’s army. Operating the Gazette were Samuel Bangs, Dr. George W. Fletcher, and José de Alba. Soon after the army left, the Gazette ceased publication. Beginning in September of 1848, John H. Peoples, a war correspondent during the Mexican War, published the Corpus Christi Star in both English and Spanish. But caught up in the gold fever of...

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