It is now a ghost town in Hutchinson County, far north in the Panhandle, but in the 1800s it was a community that briefly came together during what would be the latter days of buffalo hunting in north Texas. It is also the site of two battles between the mostly Anglo inhabitants and the native tribes that came together to try and eliminate them.
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The Lubbock Brothers
Three brothers figure into the history of Texas. They are Thomas, Francis and Henry Lubbock. Colonel Thomas Saltus Lubbock is the brother for whom Lubbock county and the city of Lubbock is named. He was born in South Carolina in 1817 and came to Texas early enough to participate in the Siege of Bexar in late 1835. He was also a participant in the ill-fated Santa Fe Expedition in 1841. Thomas was captured in New Mexico while Texas troops were on their way to Santa Fe. He was taken to Mexico and imprisoned, but was one of two individuals to be able to escape. He later made his way back to Texas. When the Civil War broke out, he first served in an irregular unit comprised mostly of former Texas soldiers and Texas Rangers as scouts for the Confederate Army. He and some others later joined the Confederate Army and were founding members of “Terry’s Texas Rangers,” the 8th Texas Cavalry. Lubbock was promoted to Colonel and put in command of the regiment after the death of Benjamin Franklin Terry but happened to be ill with typhoid fever at the time. Thomas died the following day on January 9, 1862 before he could take command. He is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas.
Clinton McKamy Winkler
Clinton McKamy Winkler was a lawyer, judge and a member of the Texas Court of Appeals for many years. He was born in North Carolina in 1821 to David Tate and Lavinia Cates Owen Winkler. He moved with his family first to Indiana in 1835 for a few years before relocating to Texas in the early 1840s. They settled in what is now Robertson County to be near other Winkler relatives. The family was said to be descended from German immigrants, but his grandfather was born in North Carolina according to traditional genealogical sources. McKamy was also an old family name and many of these McKamy relatives were also residents of North Carolina.
Gustave Eiffel and Paris, Texas
The Fort Worth Gazette issue of August 8, 1889 carried a small paragraph that read as follows under the headline in all caps that read “TO OUTDO THE FRENCHMEN.” The paragraph read, “A Washington architect, anticipating the great world’s fair to be held here in 1892 in honor of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America, and wishing to lay the Frenchman who conceived and built the Eiffel tower completely in the shade, has submitted plans for a tower to astonish the thousands who will gather here at the great exposition. It is to be 1500 [feet] high or 500 more feet more than the wonderful tower in Paris.”
Thomas Jefferson Rusk
(Image credit: Findagrave)
Thomas Jefferson Rusk is considered to be one of the fathers of Texas. He was born in South Carolina on December 5, 1803 to Irish immigrant John Rusk and his wife Mary Sterritt Rusk, and was one of seven children. He had a modest upbringing as his father was a stone mason. The family lived on the estate of John C. Calhoun who was his mentor. Rusk studied the law and was admitted to the South Carolina bar.
