Stephenville Historical House Museum

06/22/2026

06/22/2026

By Gone Days Fair at the museum grounds
October 10, 2026

06/22/2026

John Wesley Hardin, the outlaw said to have killed 42 people, and his gang were camped six miles west of Comanche in 1874, to be near his family that lived in the area. Texas Rangers found out about the camp which was at a pool of water in an otherwise dry creek. The Rangers were driven away by gunfire and decided to let the numerous vigilante groups help out. The Rangers returned a few days later with hundreds of vigilantes from Erath and Comanche Counties. The Hardin gang, riding race horses, rode down the middle of the crowd so they couldn't shoot without hitting each other and escaped. When Hardin reached Austin he heard that the vigilantes took out their wrath on his brother Joe, who was hanged along with two cousins; two other cousins were shot in their beds. In his autobiography Hardin said he got even with many of the vigilantes but wouldn't explain how "without making myself liable." Hardin was killed in an El Paso saloon in 1895. Robert McCubbin, The Life of John Wesley Hardin, As Written by Himself. University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

06/21/2026

Beginning in the 1890s small rolling-block .22 rifles were very popular and hunting was an everyday activity. Hawks of all kinds were referred to as "chicken hawks" and were killed in great numbers. I remember my father going for his .22 with all the urgency of finding a rattlesnake in the yard when he would see one in the distance. I don't know if Erath County folks made the connection but the rat population boomed. Early Stephenville newspapers contain grisly stories of rats in the henhouse. So in 1921 there was a county-wide rat-killing contest. Rat tails were tied in bundles of ten as proof of kill. The winner was from Huckabay who won $50 for 6,800 rat tails.

06/20/2026

What's Not To Love

Bluebell Gentians aka Texas Bluebells have an ancient history. I wrote about it in my Great Bluebell Hunt ebook.

This photo was taken July 10, 2018 in Washington County, Texas.