Texas Confidential. Michael Varhola
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 cities (e.g., “Feather Hill,” “Hog Town”).
Often tacitly blessed by civic leaders as a means of segregating vice, these districts generally encompassed several city blocks, were located within a short distance of the downtown business area and railroad station, and included brothels, saloons, gambling dens, dance halls, burlesque theaters, and the little shanties used by many prostitutes.
Some streetwalkers in larger cities like San Antonio and El Paso had pimps, but most prostitutes were associated with brothels, where they were protected and managed by madams. The names of most of these have been lost to history but a few of them are known—at least by their working names—among them Blanche Dumont in Austin, “Miss Hattie” in San Angelo (q.v.), Mary Porter in Fort Worth, and Jessie Williams in La Grange (q.v.).
Cost for a session with a prostitute in the latter half of the nineteenth century depended on many factors but generally ranged from 25 cents at one end to $5 at the other. Depending on the demographics and purpose of a particular community, customers included cowboys, businessmen, convention goers, drifters, farm hands, laborers, ranchers, soldiers, oilfield workers, politicians, sailors, students, and gamblers.
Permanent vice districts became a phenomenon … these included: Guy Town, Happy Hollow, and Hell’s Half-Acre.
Hispanic prostitutes were the norm in the early days but by the era of the Civil War had been joined by many white women as well and, by the 1880s, blacks.
“In Austin half or more of the prostitutes during the 1880s and 1890s were white, most of them born in the United States, while about 40 percent were blacks and some 7 percent Hispanics,” wrote David C. Humphrey, author of several detailed articles on prostitution in Texas. “In Houston in 1917, 60 percent of the women who headed households of prostitutes in the vice reservation were Anglo, 35 percent black, and 5 percent Hispanic. Hispanic prostitutes were more common in San Antonio, El Paso, and Laredo, at army forts in West and South Texas, and generally in communities closer to the Mexican border. Anglo and black prostitutes lived and worked near each other in vice districts, but race had a significant bearing on how the districts operated. Whites predominated in brothels, while blacks predominated in cribs. Most bawdy houses maintained color separation in their employees, and Anglo houses refused as a rule to accommodate black men. On the other hand, many white men patronized black as well as white prostitutes.”
Not all prostitutes were wholly devoted to their occupation, and some only turned tricks when they had to or also served in other capacities (e.g., as laundresses around military camps). Most were women in their twenties, but they ranged in age from their teens to their sixties. Many were itinerant, following the spread of the railroad or the establishment of new communities around railheads, ranchlands, and oilfields, or being driven out by periodic anti-vice campaigns.
Life was, in any event, rough for the majority of prostitutes in Texas, and most were constantly threatened by disease, violence, and municipal authorities and lived on the verge of poverty (although prostitution paid better than most jobs open to women, an enticement to widows and abandoned wives). Many