Cattle, Cowboys, Commerce and the March of Civilization
by Darla Bracken
As towns on the prairie plains grew, civilization followed soon thereafter in the form of homeseekers and settlers, storekeepers and blacksmiths, preachers and teachers, doctors and lawyers. Looking at this vintage Friona postcard photograph, we can be truly thankful for photographers as well. It is hard to decipher sometimes just what is happening in an old photograph; that’s where the detective work comes in. Why is the tent there? Is it a temporary location of some business, possibly a cook shack or a laundry? There’s that smoke stack in one corner of the tent. My husband says it looks like an army tent when the troops are in the field and everything essential has to be there and be movable. As with any student of history with artifacts to examine, it is our duty to try to piece together all the information we can glean from the actual object.
We must pay close attention to every minute detail so that the true picture can emerge. If fortunate enough to have eyewitness accounts, either written or oral, to verify the information, the work gets much easier. Even these are not foolproof, however; memories fade and minds begin to fail. Sometimes stories are lost forever if it were not for history’s detectives—archeologists and historians.
Back to this post card photograph of old Friona, it is not dated but it is probably around 1910 according to what we can see in the picture. It states that the ‘cowboys see the march of civilization’. As you can tell, two of the riders have lariat ropes hanging from their saddles and there were definitely lots of cowboys around the area in those days. The tent is some type of temporary housing for hospital, laundry, cooking? Perhaps the tent is some type of recruitment area for the XIT since more sophisticated structures are visible. Very fortunately, this document is labeled that it is Friona, Tex., a feature missing from most photographs new or old.
Note that there are buildings on both sides of Main Street, and you may recognize some of them although the tent is in front of some of the buildings. A photograph such as this makes you want to widen the lens view and see also what was on each side, in front of and behind this area. Note the windmill and water storage area and the dark area under the smoke stack on the tent—probably fire fuel—wood or cow chips. It also looks as if there was a wide expanse of bare ground there, where the streets and the prairie meld together into town. Everything you see just makes you want to know more, right?
That’s the way history is if you can make it come alive for the researcher. So many of you have expressed an appreciation for these articles; I hope you are enjoying them and learning as much as I am. Thinking about all the different aspects of our history just seems to spur our memories on to trying to remember and piece together some other part of our own histories. I hope it has encouraged you to write down you own family’s history and its unique place in the story. When we know what was happening in world history in any particular era, it helps to put our own family’s activities into perspective. I always wonder why. Why they came to any new area of the country to settle. What made them make the decisions? Was it economics or a quest for adventure?
I don’t know how many of you saw a PBS series several years ago called The 1900 House. In it a modern day family lives in a 1900s period middle class house for 3 months or so. The house is as authentically retrofitted as possible and the family must wear period clothing, and do everything just as they would have done in 1900. Needless to say, it is quite an eye-opening experience for the family (and ultimately the viewer) as they face the challenges of cooking, washing, cleaning, bathing and personal hygiene. Life was a lot different 100 years ago. It would certainly make anyone appreciate both modern conveniences and yesterday’s simple pleasures more.
Just as layers of soil tell us the history of the earth, each layer of civilization adds its own unique mark upon any occupied area. I’ve heard that the tracks made by the wagon trains going westward made such an impact on the land that they could be seen from space. Why did they settle here as opposed to somewhere else—what made this a good spot? Water plays such an important role in any civilization and settlement as does food supply and safety. We recently read in the Charlie M. Jones Family History about Charlie Jones and his faithful German Shepherd dog, KING, that he served as night watchman in our town and later as the first City Marshall to enforce city ordinances sometime after our incorporation in 1928.
As the people followed so did commerce, the business of helping the people survive in an area—coal suppliers, livery and blacksmiths, grocers, lumberyards, hotels, bankers and farmers, doctors and pharmacists, as well as newspapermen and photographers to help tell their stories. Aren’t we glad they did?
NOTE: With this past weekend’s prairie fires, the plains nightmare become reality, it was so eerie remembering the Great Prairie Fire of 1906. Here it is 2006, one hundred years later, and the difficulty and devastation of this frightening phenomenon is still with us. Even with all our modern firefighting equipment, we are still no match for the wind-driven flames. As of this writing some one million acres are charred, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island and CNN are in Miami and McLean TEXAS; and 11 deaths, an 8 or 9 car pile up and a 700 or more vehicle back up occurred when I-40 was closed due to the fire and smoke. One windmill silhouette against a fiery background looked eerily similar to one of our beautiful landmark sunsets.