Sins of the Pioneers: Crimes & Scandals in a Small Texas Town

By James Pylant. Softbound (2009), 234 pp. + viii, illus., indexed.

When the Civil War ended, many disenchanted Southerners poured into Central Texas, toting guns and grudges. Shots of whiskey loosened tempers and soon bullets were flying. Within a few years, the Lone Star State had become the nation’s murder capitol.

The small town of Stephenville, where 139 people were hauled to prison between crimes 1864 to 1891, dealt with Comanche warriors, restless outlaws, crime rings, and the ruthless vigilante group known as “The Mob.”

Sins of the Pioneers: Crimes & Scandals of a Small Texas Town explores Stephenville’s emergence from wild frontier to bustling village. Studded with shocking tales—sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant—it tells of crooks, bigamists, prostitutes, saloon brawlers, and mysterious murderers.

James Pylant chronicles John Gilbreath, the intimidating, determined sheriff who bent rules to jail criminals—including his own kinfolks; Julia Williamson, Stephenville's hell-raising madam; armless Jack Hollis and his jail escape; accused horse-thief Jennie Sadler; schemer Gordon Bradshaw’s “accidental” shooting of his wealthy bride; lovely teenaged axe murderess May Bruce; and Annie Cooper, who risked exposing her shady past to rescue a troubled girl.

"James Pylant's meticulously researched tales of all the Indian raids, crimes, hangings, scandals and general hell-raising that went on in the small Texas town of Stephenville proves that no harm is done to good history by making it something that someone would enjoy reading. Stephenville might not have been as tough as old Tascosa during its wild and woolly frontier days, but it was tough enough—as Pylant's riveting stories document."

       —Bill Neal, author of Sex, Murder and the Unwritten Law

$15.95, plus shipping and handling.

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Also available from these Texas bookstores:

• Texas Star Trading Co., Abilene
  
• Hastings, Brownwood
  
• Comanche Chief, Comanche
  
• DeLeon Free Press, DeLeon
  
• Stockyards Museum Gift Shop, Fort Worth
  
• The Booksatchell, Mineral Wells
  
• Cactus Book Shop, San Angelo
  
• Hastings, Stephenville
  
• The Literary Lion, Stephenville
  
• Stephenville Museum, Stephenville
  
• Hastings, Wichita Falls
  

Vigilantes to Verdicts: Stories from a Texas District Court

By Sherri Knight. Foreword by Judge Donald R. Jones. Softbound (2009), 244 pp. + xii., illus., indexed.

From reminiscences of old timers to the dusty pages of the court files of Erath County, Texas, the history of justice was recorded. Fed up with the inability of the court system to take care of outlaws, frontiersmen took matters into their own hands by administering swift but sure retribution to those who stole livestock or committed murder. A strong sense of right and wrong traveled with the “nightriders.” Operating in groups, the only evidence of their activity was left hanging from trees. District judges traveled twice a year to sparsely settled counties to administer justice. Law and order was imposed through the efforts of judges, sheriffs and citizens who wanted to back away from anarchy. Slowly, but surely, after Reconstruction the legal means to punish wrongdoers took back control from the vigilantes. Read about the incidents that turned the wheels of justice toward progress. From the quick dispatch of horse thieves, an overturned stagecoach driven by a drunken teamster, the trial of John Wesley Hardin to the hanging of Tom Wright, the pages of Vigilantes to Verdicts: Stories from a Texas District Court will keep you riveted to the events of the nineteenth century. Travel with frontier men and women whose stories built the judicial history of a Texas district court. Sit alongside the judges on the bench who served to bring order to a turbulent and chaotic time.

$16.95, plus shipping and handling.

Order from:

• GenealogyMagazine.com
  
• Barnes&Noble.com
  

Also available from these Texas bookstores:

• Hastings, Brownwood
  
• Comanche Chief, Comanche
  
• DeLeon Free Press, DeLeon
  
• The Three Sisters, Dublin
  
• Stockyards Museum Gift Shop, Fort Worth
  
• Cactus Book Shop, San Angelo
  
• Hastings, Stephenville
  
• The Literary Lion, Stephenville
  
• Stephenville Museum, Stephenville
  
• Hastings, Wichita Falls