BACK IN THE DAY: SAM BASS, DENTON'S ROBINHOOD

By Shaun Treat

From left: ‘Judas’ Jim Murphy, Sam Bass, and Seaborn Barnes.

One of our favorite local legends of Denton County doesn't get nearly enough play in the history handbooks, though that may be because he is a Texas bandit who made a damn big impression in a fairly short amount of time. Although many long-in-the-tooth Dentonites may be familiar with the reputation of Sam Bass, few may linger long enough to really chew on why this infamous outlaw became immortalized as a hero of the common folk. Well, pull up a chair and grab a cold beverage, as we take a gander back at the short life and tall tales of the legendary Texas Robin Hood on a Fast Horse who should be more famous than Jesse James, the smiling Texas brigand Sam Bass.

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Sam came to Denton in 1870 from his birthplace in Indiana, where the orphaned runaway had dreamed of Texas adventure gleaned from Wild West novellas. Barely 19, he got a job working the stables at the Lacy House Hotel on the Denton Square, a popular spot for cowboys to rest their herd while enjoying liquor and ladies before droving stock up the Chisholm Trail. Texas was still in the turmoil of Civil War Reconstruction under Federal Marshal Law and had just been readmitted to the Union, but these days of economic hardship and rampant lawlessness from destitute Rebs or Native American raiders plagued frontier outposts like Denton. Sam also took on work freighting supplies for Denton County Sheriff ‘Dad’ Egan, which gave him a knowledge of the county roadways and offpath trails that would come in handy later. By most accounts, Sam was a thrifty and affable lad with an easy smile who, like most teenagers, loved the fast horses that often raced on the dirt outskirts of town. Saving money from menial jobs to buy his own pony, Sam began winning races and gambling bets with a jenny that came to be famously known as The Denton Mare, a hard-charger notorious all across North Texas horse country for beating all challengers. Sheriff Egan became concerned and issued Sam an ultimatum, fearful that the fast life would corrupt honest work, but the young man’s group and his unbeatably fleet filly convinced Sam to go pro with horse racing and gambling. By 1874, the jovial Sam travelled across Texas and Oklahoma with his Denton Mare racing (and winning), but his gambling fortunes soon changed as did the company he was keeping.

Falling in with Joel Collins shady crew on a fast-money cattle drive north to the Black Hills, where the earnings were quickly squandered, the desperate ne’r-do-wells turned to robbing stagecoaches with modest returns. Things quickly became hot for the Collins Gang when a beloved stagecoach driver was accidently shotgunned by an itchy trigger-finger during a hold-up, which spurred the bold decision to attempt robbery of a fast-moving train. In 1877, with an unbelievable stroke of beginners luck, the bandits intercepted a Union Pacific train in Big Springs, Nebraska loaded with $20 double-eagle gold pieces fresh from the mint. The robbery haul was estimated at $60,000 in gold coins and another $1,300 in booty, a fortune in those days even divvyed up amongst the gang. To this day, it is still the single largest train robbery in Union Pacific history, a heist which attracted no small amount of attention from the railroad and the frontier press. In fact, Joel Collins and his gang were quickly hunted down and killed for the sizeable railroad reward, but Sam Bass barely escaped with a confederate back to Texas by cleverly posing as their own bounty hunters.

Sam Bass' tombstone in Round Rock, TX. 

Back in Denton by fall under a story that he had struck rich mining silver, Sam fell back in with his old pals Henry Underwood, Sebe Barnes, and Jim Murphy as he freely spent his ill-gotten gains carousing. Sam shared his easy money freely, “I’ve got the world by th’ tail, money’s only good ‘til yer dust!” Yet speculation on the fate of Sam’s impressive cut of the heist has fueled treasure-hunter legends about hidden gold in “Sam Bass’ Cave” for generations, since by 1878 the Sam Bass Gang quickly began a crime wave of robbing stagecoaches and trains within twenty-five miles of Dallas while hiding out in the thickets of the rural Denton County area. By now with a $1,000 reward on his head as one of the most wanted outlaws in Texas, Sam was being hunted by the UP Railroad’s Pinkerton Men, the Texas Rangers, and a covey of bounty hunters. Stories abound of Sam being aided by rural Denton locals with little love for the banks and the railroad tycoons during these hard Reconstruction days, and many tell of smiling Sam’s rascal charm when it came to parsing out money to help neighbors or stymie pursuers. One account has the bandits’ horses confiscated to Denton after Sheriff Egan spooked their camp, only to be reclaimed at sunrise by a mounted Sam awakening Egan by playfully exclaiming to his former employer: “Wake up, Bill! I hear there’s thieving scallywags roaming these parts!” To Egan’s eight year old son, Sam cheerily tipped his hat as he rode away, “Hello ag’in there, lil’ pard!” Another story tells of a Confederate widow whose home was saved from bank foreclosure by Sam gifting money to pay off her note, then robbing the banker on the trail back to Denton. Now targeted by the Texas legislature as much for his growing notoriety than his bold robberies, the Sam Bass Gang led the Texas Rangers and railway-hired Pinkerton Men on a spirited chase across the trails of North Texas in the months known as “The Bass War.” 

Sam met his legendary end in Round Rock, Texas on his twenty-seventh birthday July 21, 1878, betrayed by his childhood friend “Judas Jim” Murphy who had cut a Devil’s bargain to free his Denton family from arrest for aiding the outlaw. Mortally wounded in a shootout with Texas Rangers, Sam confessed he had never killed a man prior to that final gunfight but stubbornly refused to give details of his associates. The Texas Robin Hood was buried in Round Rock, where his mourning sister erected a tombstone inscribed: “A brave man reposes in death here. Why was he not true?” In death, Sam’s legend only grew. A cowboy ballad long immortalized his life and death, frontier dime novels stoked tall tales, and stories spun out in radio dramas and several movies (like the 1949 western Calamity Jane and Sam Bass). There are plenty of stories about Sam Bass to share later, but we might wonder how it was that an outlaw bandit came to be a beloved Texas folk hero? I think knowing a bit of history sure helps to understand the difficult days of Texas Reconstruction and the Gilded Age of the Railroad Robber-Barons who killed desperate towns as they built their own empires. But ole Sam himself was a charming Denton rebel with an entrepreneurial spirit that you may begrudge, but you surely can’t deny.

Below is a moody rendition of “The Cowboy Ballad of Sam Bass” by Denton’s own Justin Hawkins, member of TrebucheT.

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Back in The Day is an ongoing WDDI contribution from Shaun Treat, an assistant professor in Communication Studies at the University of North Texas and founder of the Denton Haunts historical ghost tour. Doc Treat has written about numerous local places and personalities at his Denton Haunts blog, and is forever indebted to the great work of the fine folks with the Denton County Historical Commission and local keepers of history like Mike Cochran and Laura Douglas at the Emily Fowler Library for their tireless work in helping preserve Denton’s intriguing past.

DENTON'S GHOSTLY GUARDIANS

Written by Shaun Treat 

The Homer Flow Memorial Hospital built in 1950

 Halloween is upon us, which seems the perfect opportunity to revisit some of Denton’s most legendary ghost stories. Although most TV and movies tell us that ghosts are frightfully vengeful ghouls, there are also tales of dear departed Dentonites who linger on as guardian spirits. We're going to take this opportunity to warn you of a few of the ghastly souls you should be on the look out for this Halloween. 

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Most ghost stories that get sensationalized are about vengeful or malevolent spirits, like the terrifying tale of the Goatman of the Old Alton Bridge, but not all ghosts are scary monsters. In fact, there are a number of local spectres who are loitering as guardian spirits to our fair community. One is the ghost of Nurse Betty from the old Homer Flow Memorial Hospital.

Many a Dentonite claim their honest-to-Betsy local bonafides by having been born in the old Flow Memorial Hospital, founded with a 1949 post-mortem donation by Homer Flow who is himself buried in the IOOF Cemetery.

Apparently old Homer had donated his property and a chunk of change to the city and Denton County jointly on the condition that they bankroll a charity hospital that provided affordable medical care to the poor. A downright Christian mission that worked for almost forty years, until politics and some municipal tax disputes contributed to the controversial bankruptcy of the Flow Hospital in 1986. Developers have since turned its lot into student housing on Scripture Hill, but stories of a ghostly nurse had already been haunting the hospital grounds for decades.

An unidentified nurse outside of the old Denton City Hospital south of the square, which has it's own ghostly stories. 

Laura Douglas, a librarian at the Emily Fowler Library, has kept records on the ghost often called Nurse Betty after her mother’s own accounts as a nurse there were passed down. As early as the 1950s, night staff, security guards, and even patients had inexplicable encounters with a woman dressed in a nurse’s white gown and cap. Many told of a dedicated young nurse at the Flow Hospital, pregnant from a tryst with a married doctor, who had died in the elevator after collapsing from a botched back-alley abortion yet her spirit still lingered as a caretaker. A new mother groggily saw a nurse in “a vintage uniform” close a window and then blanket her newborn in the middle of a chilly night, but was later told by the night nurse on duty that there was no one else on the floor. Even after the hospital closed, one shaken co-ed claimed that a woman “dressed in a nurse costume” had spooked away a potential attacker during her walk home in the wee hours after the campus bars had closed. Most accounts of Nurse Betty are similarly benevolent or benign, even if often unnerving.

Emily Fowler at the library front desk in 1949. 

Another public servant who continues her mission even after death is a well-known namesake of Denton’s public library. Emily Fowler was a dedicated crusader for free public literacy who served as librarian from 1943 to 1969. After her passing, numerous witnesses have had enough strange occurrences in the library to warrant several teams of paranormal investigators. In one of our favorite tales, a paranormal team was taking readings and recordings for EVP by prompting ghostly response with questions. When they reviewed their tapes, they were surprised by a faint but firm response: “Shhhhhhh!” Apparently, the lingering librarian likes her peace and quiet! Ms. Fowler also has a habit of stacking improperly indexed books in the middle of the floor, maybe because she is a real stickler for abiding by the Dewey Decimal System. Because of this, Laura Douglas has been working on having The Emily Fowler branch officially designated as a haunted library.

Denton has other guardian spirits, like Blind Sheriff Hodges and his boxer Candy or the mischievous Mr. Harrison of the Campus Theater, who still patrol our favorite local haunts. We’d like to think that when someone remarks on our fair town’s pretty remarkable community spirit, we can wink at each other knowing it also includes some civic-minded Dentonites from back in the day who are still lurking about.

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 Back in The Day is an ongoing WDDI contribution from Shaun Treat, an assistant professor in Communication Studies at the University of North Texas and founder of the Denton Haunts historical ghost tour. Doc Treat has written about numerous local places and personalities at his Denton Haunts blog, and is forever indebted to the great work of the fine folks with the Denton County Historical Commission and local keepers of history like Mike Cochran and Laura Douglas at the Emily Fowler Library for their tireless work in helping preserve Denton’s intriguing past.

BACK IN THE DAY: SCHOOL SPIRIT

by Shaun Treat

Early turn-of-the-century graduates of Denton College, who had to walk for miles uphill both ways in the sweltering Texas sun.

As students yet again return to UNT and TWU for the golden beginnings of another academic year, we Dentonians often roll our eyes at the throngs of fresh faces wandering the Square crosswalks with noses glued to their smartphones and the inevitable wrong-way cars drifting cluelessly down traffic-packed one-way streets. Its a familiar fall ritual here, since Denton has long been a university town – nay, a proud two-college town – that locals cherish for the thriving arts and music scene which accompany the noise and bustle of rowdy students. Denton’s 1959 Centennial Committee report proudly observed that “the citizens of Denton have always been ‘Schoolminded’,” so we figured we’d take a brief look back at why this has indeed been the case since way back in the day.

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Soon after the town lots were sold in January of 1857, Denton sought to make good on an 1836 provision in the Constitution of the Republic of Texas to dutifully “provide by law a general system of education.” Easier resolved than done, since the upheaval of the Civil War and its aftermath insured that the Texas legislature would be about as helpful in supporting a quality public education system back then as it’s bumbling Austin antics are today. Regardless, populated by plucky immigrants who knew the importance of education, Denton’s citizens had established numerous privately-funded schools with at least 47 teachers who variously “taught a Literary school in Denton” between 1858 and 1884, when the first public school opened.

The first schools in 1858 were taught by James B. Ford in Denton’s courthouse, and James W. Bryson taught another on South Elm Street. These subscription school “cessions” were usually short and covered the most basic fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic during the summer months between harvest seasons for families who could pay tuition. After the 1860s Civil War, with little help from the carpetbag government, two fraternal orders dedicated to educating virtuous democratic citizens would step in to provide building space and needed funds for school teachers. The Stanfield Lodge No.217 and the IOOF Lodge No.82 provided their facilities to rotating Sabbath services of various denominations and “free public school purposes” under their own board of trustees or education superintendents.

Sponsoring war orphans and poor Masonic kin, these charitable groups provided an invaluable contribution to the future of Denton during economic hardship. Denton finally received funding and taxes for a free public school in 1884 when the Odd Fellows’ schoolhouse on South Locust was sold to the city for $300, after more than a few years of haggling, and it then became the Denton City School before it was the Robert E. Lee public school of Denton. Take THAT, Yankees!

The first building at Texas Normal College, 1891.

Yet Denton wasn’t content with these little schoolhouses on the prairie, especially when there is money to be made from taxpayer dollars. Seeking innovative ideas to stimulate our economy in the 1890s depression, the City of Denton contracted with Professor Joshua C. Chilton to establish a private college with aspirations to become a state university. The deal had been prodded by an influential group of ten men belonging to the Denton Board of Trade and fraternal orders, collectively known as “The Syndicate,” the backroom wheeling-and-dealing soon yielding more than a little insider trading on real estate ventures and construction contracts for Masonic bretheren. An enrollment of 70 students attended their first classes in 1890 on the upper floor of a hardware store on the northwest Denton Square (now Ethan Allen’s Furniture), but the next year moved into a newly constructed building on The Syndicate’s 240 acres of land that would become profitably annexed by the city to eventually grow into today’s University of North Texas campus.

Lower-than-expected enrollments and financial problems were compounded by Mr. Chilton’s resignation due to health problems (he died within a year) but, after several unsuccessful attempts, the private college finally became a state school in 1899 called the North Texas Normal College & Teacher Training Insitute. As a condition of such lucrative accreditation, the City of Denton agreed to donate all the Normal School property to the State of Texas, including all land, buildings, and “an abundant supply of artesian water.” I’m betting “The Syndicate” was smiling through their cigars and bags of cash, laughing all the way to the bank. When it opened for registration as North Texas Normal College in September of 1901, the university had 14 faculty and about 200 students and thus a college town was born. By 1917, the NTNC Yucca yearbook dubbed themselves “The Athens of North Texas” (though not one of UNT’s official six name changes over the years).

We don’t know for sure if these 10 men are “The Syndicate,” but we also don’t know they ain’t.

Denton City School, est. 1884

If you think the history of Texas Womans University is any less saturated with behind-the-scenes political intrigue, think again. It was established by Gov. Joseph Sayers signing into law a 1901 bill creating the “Texas Industrial Institute and College for the Education of the White Girls of the State of Texas in Arts and Sciences.” A past column has already explained the sketchy circumstances of how Denton’s African-American township-within-a-town neighborhood of Quakertown was forcibly evicted in 1921, after a slow-burning showdown when the “Girls Industrial College of Texas” was established as a state university in 1903. But there are indeed many proud moments in Denton’s history of racial integration, especially with North Texas State University’s 1950s athletic program.

Few may realize that these teaching colleges began above the Denton Square in 1901, like a few subscription schools in Denton during the late 1800s, they quite progressively taught women as well as the children of freed slaves and some indigenous natives. The first “free colored school” was established in Denton’s Quakertown as The Fred Douglas School in 1878, one of the few opportunities for the education of freed slaves in North Texas. From its beginnings, Denton has always valued education and this commitment seems written into our community DNA.

Old Main Building of TWU, est. 1903

Denton actually had a third college at one time, but it didn’t take. The private John B. Denton College was also established here in 1901 but soon became “Southwestern Christian College” when the Church of Christ assumed its administration in 1904, moving it to Cleburne in 1909 before finally settling as the Abilene Christian College. That site on Congress Street is where Calhoun Middle School was until 1957. The private Selwyn School of Denton was also established in ‘57, one of many that would replace other schools now long since gone. As you can see, compared to other frontier towns and Texas outposts, Denton has pretty much been an educational hub since the get-go, a proud tradition of neighbors-helping-neighbors that continues in our community today!

Recently, the local United Way, Denton ISD groups and our civic leaders have teamed up for a program called MENTOR DENTON, a grassroots project for volunteers to donate one hour a week for one year helping an at-risk student in our public schools. One more way we can continue the tradition of community involvement helping to aide eduction for all in Denton.

1913 Educational rally on the Denton Square, ‘cuz we love a parade.

1888 officers of Denton’s Stanfield Lodge, early education boosters.

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Back in The Day is an ongoing WDDI contribution from Shaun Treat, an assistant professor in Communication Studies at the University of North Texas and founder of the Denton Haunts historical ghost tour. Doc Treat has written about numerous local places and personalities at his Denton Haunts blog, and is forever indebted to the great work of the fine folks with the Denton County Historical Commission and local keepers of history like Mike Cochran and Laura Douglas at the Emily Fowler Library for their tireless work in helping preserve Denton’s intriguing past.

BACK IN THE DAY: JOHN B. DENTON

Shaun Treat​

This is the first post in an ongoing collaboration with our friends over at Denton Haunts. They'll be providing us with a monthly history lesson to help us better understand the crazy and colorful past of our awkwardly awesome little town. This month they've provided us with a story about the infamous John B. Denton. 

The Life and Legend of John B. Denton

Last weekend was Denton Countys 167th birthday, so it seems a perfect opportunity to recall the life and legend of our namesake, John B. Denton. Even longtime locals may scratch their chin if asked for details about the local hero interred in the grave-site on the Courthouse Square. Luckily for us, Shaun Treat of Denton Haunts is full of local stories and almost-forgotten lore about places and people like this pioneer, himself a fascinating mix of history, mystery, and myth.

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Few verified accounts of John B. Denton exist, and even those are often highly romanticized. All agree that he was an eloquent speaker and beloved community leader who left an indelible mark on North Texas. Orphaned in Tennessee at eight and a runaway working as deckhand on an Arkansas River flatboat by twelve, Denton would became a circuit-riding Methodist minister who journeyed the untamed wilderness borders of what is now Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas for a decade. This was treacherous travel in unforgiving elements for meager pay, keeping him away from his growing family even as he navigated uncertain weather, savage terrain, and the roving raiders of the Indian Nations with only his Bible, rifle, and wits.

By 1830, Denton settled his wife and five children near present-day Clarksville to become a frontier lawyer as the contested territories seethed with tensions that would lead to the Texas Revolution for Independence in 1835. In 1840, Denton lost a bid for Texas Congress but he was made famous in his campaign, beloved by children, respected by elders, and admired by acquaintances. Denton was commissioned as Captain in Col. Tarrant’s Fourth Brigade of the Texas Militia in 1839, tasked with protecting the lives and property of the scattered frontier settlements from the recurring attacks by roving Comanche and other Native American raiders of open-range livestock on moonlit nights.

We may today comfortably debate the ethical merits of Westward Expansion and Native American cultural difference, but for Denton’s contemporaries, theirs was a daily struggle for uncertain survival in an often unforgiving frontier. While some tribes and settlers attempted to forge relations for tenuous coexistence from mutual understanding, others would trade brutalities of prejudice; and perhaps thus it has always been.

What is certain, however, is that after a murderous raid of a neighbor’s Clarksville homestead in April of 1941, Denton rallied his militia of Rangers. By May, a company of Tarrant’s 4th Brigade militia under Capt. Bourland left Fannin County to recover livestock and exact revenge upon the raiders. Captain Denton, commanding a small detachment of scouts with Henry Stout, located Indian encampments along Keechi Village Creek (near present-day Arlington) and proceeded to raid then burn the first two villages with little resistance.

Denton and Stout split into separate units to scout further, stumbling upon a sprawling streamside community now alerted to their presence. Stout cautiously halted his men but the fiery-tempered Denton fearlessly charged ahead into an ambush by rallying braves. In the fire-fight, Captain Denton was killed immediately and Stout was wounded while their unit scrambled to withdraw. Learning that the Keechi villages contained over a thousand braves, now returning from a hunt, Tarrant called the retreat. The fleeing brigade buried Denton’s body under a tree beside the creek as they hastily crossed into what would become Denton County, later so named in 1846 to honor their fallen hero.

Yet the story of John B. Denton does not end with the Battle of Village Creek. When a grave was discovered by some boys along Oliver Creek in Denton County in 1856, Denton County rancher John Chisum (who would become a legendary cattleman and one namesake of the famed “Chisholm Trail“) recalled the stories of Denton’s death and burial told to him by his father Clabe, also a member of Denton’s Texas militia company. The cattleman investigated with survivors of the raid, who identified the bones by the blanket they were wrapped in, an old broken arm, and some gold teeth. Chisum took the remains back to his home and buried the box in a corner of his yard to await reclamation. When Chisum sold his property to J.M. Waide years later, he left a written account authenticating the grave with his friend J. W. Gober.

By 1900, the Old Settler’s Association of Denton County wanted to bury John B. Denton in the town that proudly bears his name. They placed an advertisement in the paper which John Gober answered, producing the letter written by Chisum authenticating the remains. These remnants of Captain Denton were exhumed once again and buried during a large ceremony on the southeast corner of the Denton County Courthouse lawn on November 21, 1901, then 60 years after Capt. Denton’s death and 44 years after the city of Denton was founded in 1857.

There are also ghost stories of Denton’s restless spirit, tales that are best told another time, but the colorful story of Captain Denton nevertheless reminds us that our history can inform intriguing insights into our present and future.

Shaun Treat is an assistant professor in Communication Studies at the University of North Texas and founder of the Denton Haunts historical ghost tour. I’ve written about John B. Denton at my Denton Haunts blog, but am forever indebted to the great work of fine folks with the Denton County Historical Commission and local keepers of history like Mike Cochran and Laura Douglas at the Emily Fowler Library for their tireless work in helping preserve Denton’s colorful past.