Texas History Notebook

Iron Mountain Ranch

In 1881, a retired sea captain by the name of Albion Shepard came to the Big Bend area while working as a surveyor for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. In newspaper and other articles, his last name might be spelled Shepard, Shepherd, Shepperd or some other variation. In this article we will use the spelling Shepard.

Ron Ely, Actor

Ronald Pierce Ely was born in Hereford, Texas on June 21, 1938 to Vernon Howard Ely and Sybil Ely. His father Vernon died at the age of 38 the following year, after which his mother raised Ron and his sister. A 1966 newspaper article in the Clay County Reader out of Henrietta, Texas noted that Ron was born and raised in Texas and that he had worked in the summers shoveling grain and working in the oilfield near Amarillo.

John and Cornelia Adair

John George Adair was born in the United Kingdom. His date of birth is thought to have been around 1823 in Ireland and his date of death was March 4, 1885 in St. Louis, Missouri at around the age of 62. Adair had started out as a land owner in Ireland, having invested in parcels that he acquired during and after the Irish potato famine drove real estate prices down. Adair continued in business there until he visited the United States in 1866 where he became engaged in a banking business, primarily making loans to American businesses with an expectation of earning higher interest rates than could be achieved in the United Kingdom.

Enid Justin

Enid Justin was called the world’s only female boot manufacturer. She was born in Nocona on April 8, 1894 and was the middle child of Herman Joseph Justin (1859 – 1918) and Louanna F. Allen Justin (1865 – 1939). Enid’s father Joe had come to Texas in 1879 after learning the basics of shoe repair while serving as an apprentice in his former home of Lafayette, Indiana. After settling near the Red River on a cattle trail, Joe slowly began to make his own name as a boot maker. He finally set up shop in Nocona where he lived and built a boot factory. The children worked in the factory on Saturdays and after school and learned the business. Enid began working there at around age ten. She was bright and a good student, but dropped out of school at age thirteen to work in the factory with Joe and the older siblings.

Lufkin, Texas

The town of Lufkin, Texas was founded in 1882 as the Houston, East and West Texas Railway planned a stop on its line to connect Houston,Texas to Shreveport, Louisiana, per the Texas Almanac. The article continues to say that the railroad company’s president, Paul Bremond, named it for his friend Abraham Parker Lufkin.