|
THE EARLY HISTORY OF DIMMIT COUNTY, TEXAS
Source: "Branches and Acorns" SWTGS Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 1 - September 1988
Program presented by Mr. Verner Bell of Carrizo Springs, Texas, at the Fourth Quarterly Meeting of the Southwest
Texas Genealogical Society, held June 4, 1988, at the Balia Inn, Carrizo Springs.
It was during the late 1840s that Levi English, on a Texas Ranger foray far west of his Goliad area home, first
set eyes upon the gushing Carrizo Springs. Named for the dense cane (Carrizo, in Spanish) thickets near the banks,
the water formed a deep, emerald-green pool in the dappled shade of mesquite branches interlocking overhead. It
was a lush and welcoming oasis for the thirsty Rangers in an empty land of far prairie horizons. This was Southwest
Texas west of the Nueces.
The prospects this area offered for a future homestead lingered in the memory of Levi English for twenty years.
He saw his dream to settle here come to fulfillment in 1865, guiding a train of wagons with settlers there from
Goliad. Many were of his kin. The families Bell, Beal, Dickens, Tumlinson, Vivian, Vermillion, White, Lemmons and
English, among others, would all settle here and further west along Pendencia Creek. They would be cattlemen, mustangers
and, later, farmers of the rich prairie sod.
But first there were homes to build and claims to secure from fierce and nomadic Apaches and Comanches, who staunchly
contested the interloping of these Scotch-Irish settlers upon their prior territorial claims. These, however, were
not the first Europeans seen here by the Indians. Two centuries before, Spanish explorers had passed through, claiming
the land for Spain while blazing new roads and charting its water courses. They found and named Espantosa Lake
a few miles northeast of where English found his springs. The Spaniards were only itinerant travelers here, with
no ideas of settlement, unlike the English party, who "came to stay, and did."
A settler fort was built near the springs soon after the caravan's arrival. It offered adequate protection for
sharpshooting frontiersmen during frequent Indian sieges. (Today's location of the old fort's site would be between
the dance hall and the Church's Fried Chicken building in central Carrizo Springs.)
Growth and development of the new settlement was slow but steady as newcomers trickled in from both east and west:
cattlemen from mainstream Texas to the east, and Mexican vaqueros with their families from Mexico to the west -
they, to gather the cattle for trail drives to northern markets. Thus was seen here the commingling of not two,
but three ethnic culture groups: Anglo, Mexican and Negro, for many of the first settlers brought their former
slaves with them.
The 1870 census listed 205 people in the Carrizo "area." It showed that there were more Mexicans than
Anglos, and that at least eight Negro families were residing there.
During the decade of the seventies, cattle became the economic kingpin for Texas' post Civil War recovery, and
the wild region of Texas west of the Nueces to the Rio Grande - the notorious "Nueces Strip" - was a
major source area for wild longhorn cattle. Many thousands of these grazed the prairie grasses in the vicinity
of the English settlement.
The "Strip" became a mecca that attracted the law-abiding and the lawless elements alike. Some came to
earnestly gather the longhorned source of riches, while others sought out this lawless area where sheriffs' posses
stopped short of entering. It was an era during which some said the population was comprised of "60% outlaws
and 40% good folks." There was neither law nor order to protect those "good folks." For them, it
was time to seek some added protection for themselves and their interests. Thus, there entered into this area a
new name, a young man, with local kin, sent for from Goliad - a fast gun.
His name was King Fisher, and he, too, came to stay. He was extremely effective at his trade, and soon brought
order, if not law, to the area, prospering in personal wealth and power along the way, some say at the same enterprises
he was brought in to squash. His personal charisma and charm won him the adulation of the "good folks,"
while also attracting a band of brigands to his side and employ.
By 1875, he had a reputation that caught the attention of Texas Ranger Captain Leander McNelly and his special
Force Company, who were effectively cleaning up the outlaw element in the Nueces Strip. They came to King's home
one night on Pendencia Creek, and there the captain "read him from the book."
That little set-to with McNelly, Fisher later said, changed the course of his life. He later became a Uvalde County
Deputy Sheriff, a promising career cut short in 1884 by a San Antonio gunman.
Dimmit County became officially recognized in 1880, named for Phillip Dimmit of Texas Revolutionary War fame. By
then, McNelly's Rangers had eliminated the outlaw element, and Levi English deeded in 1880 land that would become
the official town site of Carrizo Springs, the County seat.
The first courthouse was erected there in 1880, at a cost of $1,700; and area Masons, needing a place to meet,
constructed a two-story building with a lodge upstairs. Downstairs was a school for Anglo students.
A severe drought in the mid-eighties saw the devastation of a burgeoning sheep raising industry. But it also ushered
in the first irrigation well in the county in 1884. The drought and associated hard-times also brought about an
interesting era known thereabouts as the "Javalina War." The hides of these locally abundant wild peccary
were sought and used as "legal tender" at local stores. They were refunded in hard cash by local merchant
J. L. McCaleb and shipped "up north" by the wagonload to a waiting market.
The rains came again in '88, picking up the cattle business and heralding a new economic era for Dimmit County.
Irrigation farming came in on a big scale from deep wells and a string of artificial lakes created along the Nueces
River.
Outside entrepreneurs introduced the culture of Bermuda onions and established the Bermuda Colony. Some 105 onion
farms came into being thereabouts. Most of them, such as Asherton and Winter Haven, were sprung from the former
grassy prairies to accommodate promoters' and developers' dreams of a "Winter Garden" area, and new people
came in to buy and settle.
Asherton grew so fast during this era that it threatened the status of Carrizo Springs as the county seat. But
Carizzo citizens' ingenuity countered this challenge by attracting the S.A.U.&G. Railroad (shortened by the
localities to become the "sausage line") to Carrizo Springs to "save their bacon" - or county
seat, as it was.
The 88 years in Dimmit County since the turn of the century have seen good times and bad at both extremes. An oil
industry, along with cattle and irrigated farming, have seen seasons of boom and bust, over and again. And these
cycles will surely continue, seeing people old and new come and go, prosper and fail, as anywhere else. But, there
is eternal optimism among many citizens here that was best expressed in Verner Bell's closing remarks to his audience
this past June 4, 1988: "We come back from some pretty rough times here in Dimmit County, and we'll surely
come back again this time."
The generation of Levi English would be proud to hear that after 123 years, this "came to stay" attitude
is still alive among their many local descendants.
[Submitted by Amanda Jowers]
|
