Texoso

Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott was a well known cattleman, banker, cotton oil mill and cotton gin owner and real estate investor in Tarrant County. He was one of at least nine children born to Samuel Haden Scott (1792 – 1873) and Catherine G. De Graffenreid Scott (1811 – 1872) in Kentucky. His year of birth is sometimes shown as 1847 and other times shown as 1849. Like many people his age, one would only need to look back a few generations in his family lineage to find individuals who had served in the American Revolutionary War. His mother’s maiden name may be familiar to Texas people as well. Catherine De Graffenreid is from the same family as was Gaines De Graffenried. Gaines was known as a long time McLennan County resident and collector of Texas history artifacts. Although the spelling of their last name is slightly different, their family trees converge. There is no obvious relationship between this Scott family and that of General Winfield Mason Scott, the well known United States Army officer and presidential candidate.

Tex Austin, King of the Rodeos

The Albuquerque Journal issue of October 29,1938 carried this paragraph on page 10.

The death of Tex Austin removed to the big corral of “the Boss in the sky” one of the nation’s greatest showmen. Texas was an actor always, when staging a rodeo on the plains, in New York or London, or when merely walking down the street or welcoming guests in his cafe and bar in Santa Fe. He brought world-wide attention to New Mexico because he was the Barnum of the cowboy show business.
Albuquerque Journal – October 29, 1938

Dr. May Owen

Dr. May Owen was a pioneer for women in the field of medicine. She was born Lillie May Owen on May 3, 1891 to Andrew Jackson Owen (1849 – 1931) and Lillie Falkenhagen Owen (1857 – 1901) in Falls County, Texas. She was one of at least seven children of the couple to live to adulthood. The Owen siblings ranged in dates of birth from 1875 to 1898. Her mother Lillie died when May was nine years old. Her cause of death is not stated. The family story is that May worked hard on the farm even as a youngster. In this family, as with some farm families at that time out of necessity, work was valued more than education. However, in some interviews, she mentions that her father was not supportive of her educational pursuits. After her mother’s death, she was allowed to attend school in Falls County but only through the seventh grade. She then moved to Fort Worth to live with an older brother where she attended and completed high school in 1913 and earned an undergraduate degree from Texas Christian University in 1917.

Franco-Texan Land Company

The Franco-Texan Land Company was formed in 1876 in connection with the State of Texas’ desire to provide incentives for rail lines to develop railroads in Texas. The Memphis, El Paso and Pacific Railroad (MEP&PRR) had received a grant from the State of Texas in 1856 for it to create a railroad across the entire state from east to west, from a point on the Red River to El Paso. In all, the State made grants to five railroad companies around this time. MEP&PRR had been chartered about three years earlier. The original arrangement was for the railroad company to receive 640 acres of land for each mile of road and eight sections of land per mile for grading the roadbed, subject to certain conditions. The company had begun to complete its initial work by surveying land from the east to the Brazos River and had graded fifty-five to sixty-five miles of roadbed when the Civil War broke out in 1861, bringing the process to a stop. No track had been laid. Numerous deed records across North Texas refer to the MEP&PRR Survey.

The Munger Family, When Cotton Was King

The Munger family got its start in the cotton industry in the Mexia area. Henry Munger was the patriarch. He was born in Colchester, Connecticut in 1825. When he was still a child his parents, Sylvester Munger (1787 – 1838) and Asenath “Sene” Ingham Munger (1777 – 1840), moved to South Carolina. By 1840, both of his parents had died in South Carolina and Henry came to San Felipe, Texas with his older siblings. He clerked at a mercantile store and briefly tried his hand at gold mining in California. Henry appears to be listed in an 1850 census there, but soon he was back in Texas.