Cowboy Capital of the Texas Panhandle

The town of Tascosa was once known as The Cowboy Capital of the Texas Panhandle. Unofficially, it was also known as the Gunfighter Capital of the Texas Panhandle. Tascosa came into being in the mid-1870’s on the vast prairie of the Texas Panhandle. It was surrounded by huge ranches like the LS Ranch which grazed 50,000 head of cattle and covered 4 counties as well as part of New Mexico and the 3-million acre XIT Ranch. The Dodge City Trail ran right through the middle of town which was there strictly to serve the cattle drovers and cowboys who worked the ranches – supplies, whiskey and girls. Less than a mile east of Main Street was “Hogtown,” so named for the collection of “less beautiful” girls who serviced the cowboys.  Homely Ann, Gizzard Lip, Rowdy Kate, Boxcar Jane, Panhandle Nan, Slippery Sue, Frog Lip Sadie and Big Dog Jenny all were kept busy by the boys who came to town after spending weeks out on the lonely trail or riding the prairie with none but other men and cattle for company.

In the 1880’s, the population reached a high of 400, but the entire region was lawless. Billy The Kid escaped his pursuers from New Mexico to spend time playing cards, racing horses and having shooting matches with Bat Masterson. The first permanent resident of Boot Hill was Bob Russell, a former cowboy who quit to open a saloon in town. Unfortunately, Bob was by all accounts a mean drunk and he all too frequently imbibed in his own product. He got into an argument with a local store owner, Jules Howard, and a few evenings later, after a large amount of liquor, he staggered into Howard’s store, pulled his gun and fired off a shot, missing Jules by a wide margin. The store owner, who was stone cold sober, had seen Bob heading his way and was waiting with his 6-shooter drawn. After Bob’s wild shot, Jules fired three shots, hitting his target in the chest, head and trigger finger. Bob was placed in a pine box and buried the next day, minus one finger.

Tascosa's Boot Hill

Several months later, the second resident of Boot Hill was planted. Fred Leigh came to town while driving a cattle herd to market up north. After spending most of the day in a saloon, he drunkenly mounted his horse and rode through town shooting his revolver. At one point, he shot the head off a resident’s pet duck which chose the wrong time to cross the dirt street. The county sheriff arrived and with a posse of four men, including the duck’s owner, confronted Fred. When the cowboy reached for his gun, the sheriff blasted him off his horse with his double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun.  Within the next year, eight more men would be buried in Boot Hill. All died of gunshot.

In 1886, a gunfight erupted over a girl. A cowboy was caught flirting with the girl another cowboy considered his. He shot and killed his rival, but then the dead man’s friends came after the killer and then his friends got involved. By the time it was all over, there were four dead, including an innocent shop owner, and four more men badly wounded.

Still maintained, but rather sad and lonely
out in the middle of nowhere

Until the early 1890’s, there was an average of a gunfight every two weeks. Fortunately for the participants, most occurred after much alcohol had been consumed and the bullets either missed a vital organ or totally missed their intended targets. Often, sobering up after a day in jail, the combatants would shake hands and go back to cowboy work. However, not all fights ended so amicably. A total of ten gunfights were recorded with fatalities. All became forever residents of Boot Hill.

During the late 1890’s, Tascosa began to decline as cattle drives ended and roads made it easier to go elsewhere. In 1915 the county seat was moved to Vega and Tascosa’s business owners and residents went with it. The adobe buildings were abandoned and began to crumble into dirt piles.

Cal Farley’s Boys Town now occupies the old town site. All that remains is the 1884 stone courthouse, the reconstructed schoolhouse and Boot Hill, the forever home of pioneer Tascosans who lived, fought, and died in the Cowboy /Gunfighter Capital of the Texas Panhandle.

Who Fired The Actual 1st Shot of the Civil War?

Historical photo of William Simkins

William Stewart Simkins was born on August 25, 1842 in Edgefield, South Carolina. In 1856, he entered the Citadel, a South Carolina military academy. Simkins was on guard duty as the sun began rising on January 9, 1861 when he saw an alert signal from a guard boat in Charleston Harbor. The guard boat had detected the arrival of the Union steamship Star of the West entering the harbor. Since South Carolina had declared she had seceded from the Union several weeks earlier, this was considered a military incursion by a foreign power.

The Star of the West was a 172-ton steamship built in New York in 1852 for Cornelius Vanderbilt. She made regular runs to Nicaragua, Havana and New Orleans until she was chartered to the War Department on January 1, 1861. She was loaded with ammunition, food, uniforms and sundries in New York before being sent to deliver the supplies to Fort Sumter. 

After alerting the other cadets, Simkins loaded his cannon and fired upon the "Star of the West." Within seconds, his mates joined in. Although not damaged to a great degree, the ship was hit three times and the captain of the Star of the West considered it too dangerous to go on. He ordered the ship turned around and, with both paddle wheels churning, fled from the scene. Although the bombardment of Fort Sumter would not take place until April 12th, three months later, William Simkins had effectively just fired the first shot of the Civil War.

Grave of William Simkins & family

Due to the inevitability of the coming war, Simkins and his fellow cadets were graduated early on April 9th that year. Three days later, he was on duty once again and participated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter, marking the official beginning of the war. 

Simkins was commissioned as a first lieutenant of artillery and fought in a number of battles during the first two years of the war. He was named inspector general for General Hagood in 1863. He survived the war and surrendered as a colonel under General Joseph Johnston in 1865. After he surrendered, he and his brother moved to Florida and eventually organized the Florida Ku Klux Klan. He became a lawyer in 1870 and moved to Corsicana, Texas in 1873 where he established a law practice. In 1885, he moved to Dallas and established a law practice with his brother. The firm was very successful, but he moved to Austin to be a law professor at the University of Texas in 1899.

At the university, he became a very popular professor and his publications became standard textbooks across other schools in Texas and many campuses across America. He became professor emeritus in 1923, but still lectured once every week until he died in 1929. He is buried in a family plot in Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas.

Simkins was such a popular teacher and held in such high esteem that a new residence dormitory was named Simkins Hall and a green-space park on the campus was named Simkins Park. Simkins' history with the Ku Klux Klan in Florida was rediscovered and in 2010, the African American trustee, Printice L. Gary, made the motion to delete the name "Simkins" from the dormitory. The motion was unanimously approved and the dormitory name was changed to Creekside Residence Hall. The park was also renamed and the name "Simkins" has been disassociated from the University of Texas.