of some of the most striking episodes of illicit sex, scandal, murder, and mayhem in Texas and the people who have perpetrated them and provides a glimpse of the state’s seamy underbelly.
Anyone who frequently watches true crime shows—not to mention other television programs and movies—has likely been struck by how many episodes are based on incidents that occurred in Texas.
Part of this, of course, can be attributed to the fact that Texas is so much bigger than other states and is thus simply proportionately more likely to be the site of unsavory activity. It is ranked second after Alaska in terms of geographical size and second after California in terms of population and, as of this writing, has a growing population of more than 25 million. For sake of comparison, 268,820-square-mile Texas is 64 percent larger than California and 17,300 percent larger than Rhode Island, and within that vast area there are at least seven large, distinct, geographical areas—each as large as many other states—the Panhandle Plains, Prairies and Lakes, Piney Woods, Gulf Coast, South Texas Plains, Texas Hill Country, and Big Bend Country.
Geographically and culturally, Texas is a virtual subcontinent and nation unto itself.
And, exceptional among U.S. states, Texas was indeed its own nation, existing as an independent republic from 1836 until late 1845, when it became the twenty-eighth state. It also seceded from the United States and was one of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865.
Its vast size and the commensurate number of crimes aside, there seems to be almost an assumption of good-old-boy malfeasance in Texas. An excerpt of an article from The Handbook of Texas Online, a site operated by the Texas State Historical Association, succinctly points to this attitude:
“Texas went through one of its traditional and periodic governmental scandals in 1971–72, when federal accusations and then a series of state charges were leveled against nearly two dozen state officials and former state officials,” the handbook says of the Sharpstown Stock Scandal (q.v.).
On a more metaphysical level, people have also always seen the devil in Texas, and his name appears in the names of desolate, isolated, or forbidding places throughout the state, a handful of examples being the Devil’s Backbone, Devil’s River, Devil’s Sinkhole, and the Devil’s Hollow. Other place names with a supernatural bent are also fairly common (e.g., Purgatory Road in Comal County). Perhaps the iniquity that has occurred in Texas has inspired people to see the devil in its landscape, or perhaps he really is present and has inspired much of the evil that has been perpetrated here.
Texans are not, nonetheless, an overly grim people, and there is a certain joviality associated with the Lone Star State, and much is made about how friendly its residents are (although one has to wonder if this may not just be an inside joke inspired by the fact that “Texas” itself is a Caddo Indian word meaning “friends”).
Many residents of the Lone Star State may indeed be somewhat friendlier than the denizens of many other states in general. But while most Texans are in no way being disingenuous, what is often mistaken by outsiders and newcomers to the state as friendliness is, in fact, a very deliberate politeness. It would thus be more accurate to say that Texans tend to be a very courteous people (although this has its limits as well, of course).
In all likelihood, this deliberate politeness is a result of the state having historically been a chaotic, dangerous, frontier society, where civility served as a way to manage and forestall violence, and understanding this can help one go a long way toward understanding Texas and Texans.
“It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners,” says Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, one of the protagonists in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. “Any time you quit hearin Sir and Mam the end is pretty much in sight.” And almost any local nightly newscast from a major U.S. city confirms this phenomena, via reports about urbanized folk who have been prompted to kill one another because one or more feel they have been “dissed,” or not given the respect they believed was their due.
The contents of this book have been organized into four broad sections, one each devoted to the four topics in its subtitle, “Sex,” “Scandal,” “Murder,” and “Mayhem.” A great many of the chapters that appear in one section, however, could just as easily appear in one of the others, and a few of the most complex and lurid have substantial elements of all four. So, inclusion in one does not necessarily imply a dearth of the things that could qualify it to be in another.
With an eye toward including as much as possible in this volume, the various chapters tend to be relatively brief snapshots of episodes that could be expanded upon nearly indefinitely. Almost any one of the topics covered in this book could, in fact, be the subject of an entire book devoted completely to it (and many have, some of those books serving as references for this one). A number of the chapters in this book are composite pieces that include multiple entries of various sorts (e.g., porn stars, serial killers, gangs), and many also include a variety of lists and sidebars containing supplemental information pertinent to the topics being discussed.
There is much that is not included here and a great many potentially promising stories had to be rejected during the creation of this book for various reasons. One is that this volume could only be so big and contain so much material. Another is that many relatively new stories had still not fully played out by the time this book had to go to print (e.g., the probable murder trial of Houston Dr. Conrad Murray, who was treating entertainer Michael Jackson at the time of his death).
It bears mentioning that all of the events described in this book are the products of human iniquity, inadequacy, or incompetence, and that natural disasters, no matter how much mayhem they may have inflicted, are not included. So, the apocalyptic hurricane that ravaged Galveston in 1900 is not covered, nor is the 1886 storm that literally obliterated the coastal town of Indianola and removed it from maps of the state. The acts of people, not God or nature, are presented here.
And those people certainly comprise a colorful rogues’ gallery of lunatics, corrupt politicians, prostitutes, murderers, and every other sort of scoundrel—to which has been added a smattering of UFOs, mythological beasts, zombies, and other paranormal oddities. Enjoy getting to know them and learning about the things they have done to earn their places on the seamy side of Texas history!
1
Texas Vice
PROSTITUTION WAS A FACTOR IN Texas society from its earliest days, even before it became a state or even an independent nation, and the Spanish had recorded its presence in San Antonio at least as far back as 1817. As settlers poured into the area and new towns sprung up and grew throughout it, prostitutes followed and set up business along with everyone else.
Military activity in the region was certainly one of the factors that encouraged prostitution. General Zachary Taylor’s troops were well served by women of ill repute during the eight months they spent around Corpus Christi prior to the 1846 U.S. invasion of Mexico. Bawdy houses also sprang up around military camps in the years during, and after the Civil War (1861–65).
Encouraged by the boom in ranching, the arrival of the railroads, and the establishment of permanent military bases—and, ultimately, the arrival of the oil industry—permanent vice districts became a distinct phenomenon in cities from the 1870s onward. Some of the most significant of these included “Boggy Bayou” and “Frogtown” in Dallas, “The Concho” in San Angelo, “Guy Town” in Austin, “Happy Hollow” in Houston, “Hell’s Half-Acre” in Fort Worth, the Postoffice Street district in Galveston, the “Sporting District” in San Antonio, “Two Street” in Waco, and the Utah Street reservation in El Paso. Many districts in smaller communities were also called Hell’s Half-Acre or had names similar to those in larger
