Articles - Page 5:
DR. CHARLES TERRELL WEST TEXAS CLINIC
ACCIDENT ON THURBER HILL BANKHEAD HWY
TRANSPORTATION SALLIE TARRANT
WINSETT SPRING
DR. CHARLES E. TERRELL - Doctor, druggist, entrepreneur, public
health officer, civic leader: Dr. Charles E. Terrell was all of
these, but he was best known as one of Ranger’s early doctors.
Charles Edwin Terrell was born near Terrell, Texas, Kaufman
County, May 28, 1863, one of five children—all sons—of Sarah
A. (Woodhouse) Terrell and Charles Jarvis Terrell.
Charles Edwin Terrell married Emma Catherine Riddel (some
incorrectly spell the name Riddle) in 1887. They had four
children: Caleb (Cabe) O., Truman Conner, Sandford (Sandy)
Dean, and Lucille. All three sons became doctors.
Sources differ as to whether Charles Edwin Terrell established
Ranger’s first drugstore. One source claimed that he did. A
more credible source says that Caleb L. Terrell (quite likely
Charles Edwin Terrell’s older brother Caleb Lafon Terrell)
opened a drugstore in Ranger in 1881. At some point after
arriving in Ranger in 1884, Charles Edwin Terrell began
operating the drugstore. He talked a Dallas pharmaceutical
company into letting him have a stock of drugs on credit, and
the Terrell Drugstore thrived. Ranger’s first telephone system
was established in the drugstore in 1898 and operated by O.R.
Riddel.
In 1903 Terrell joined in a partnership with John and Charles
Gholson to form Terrell and Gholsons General Store (also called
Terrell and Gholson Mercantile Store). After about ten years
John Gholson bought out Terrell’s interest, & the firm continued
as the John M. Gholson Company.
After the drugstore was doing well, Terrell began studying
medicine. Whether he apprenticed himself to an established
physician or studied only on his own is not known. He was
not able to attend medical school, but eventually his studies
enabled him to pass the exam of the State Board of Examiners.
It issued him a license to practice medicine. One of his
physician colleagues commented that if Dr. Terrell had had
the opportunity for college training, he would have been
recognized as one of the great physicians of the South.
As public health officer, he was at the center of caring for
the hundreds in Ranger who were infected in the nationwide
epidemic of 1918. Ranger did not have the facilities to care
for all those affected in the city. The Chamber of Commerce
and other local organizations borrowed tents and cots, and
Dr. Terrell and his colleagues recruited nurses from every
possible source. Dr. Terrell, Dr. Thomas Leroy Lauderdale,
and Dr. M. L. Holland operated Clinical Hospital on the sixth
floor of the Guaranty State Bank building, southeast corner
of Main and Austin Streets, at some point before the City-
County Hospital opened.
Dr. Terrell was one of the founders of the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows Lodge in Ranger in 1892 and served as its
for 25 years. He was vocal in his support of civic improve-
ments. One of his contemporaries commented that Dr. Terrell
exercised more influence over the community than just about
anybody else.
During the oil boom, which began in 1917, oil was discovered
on land Dr. Terrell and his wife owned west of town. The
Emma Terrell Well No. 1 was initially a heavy producer, with
9,000 barrels a day, and the Terrells became wealthy. Dr.
Terrell used some of their wealth to build the Terrell Build-
ing, North Rusk Street, in 1918. A large extension was added
immediately north of the earlier building in 1919.
Dr. Terrell died December 16, 1922. His obituary said that
he was loved and respected as a man, a citizen, and a doctor.
He had asked to be buried in Ranger, so his coffin was sent
by train from Fort Worth, where he had died in his daughter’s
home. The newspaper announced the train the coffin would be
on, since many people would want to honor his memory by being
at the train station when his coffin arrived.
WEST TEXAS CLINIC - By late 1920 Ranger’s oil boom was over,
but Ranger continued to flourish, although not at the pace of
oil boom years. There was still some oil production, and natural
gas and gasoline had become major industries. Too, Ranger was
still a manufacturing and distribution center for oil field
supplies. The population count in 1930 was 6,208.
Ranger City-County Hospital, also known as Ranger General Hospital,
had opened in 1924. Dr. Thomas L. Lauderdale, Dr. Charles E.
Terrell and Dr. M. L. Holland had operated the Clinical Hospital
in the Guaranty State Bank Building at some point before Ranger
City-County Hospital opened. Dr. Lauderdale had long felt that
Ranger needed and could support a full-fledged hospital in addition
to the City-County Hospital.
Dr. Lauderdale with Dr. J. L. Barnett built West Texas Hospital
for a purported $75,000. It opened March 11, 1928. Initially
the name was West Texas Hospital, but it also came to be called
West Texas Hospital and Clinic and also West Texas Clinic. Unlike
the City-County Hospital, funded by the City of Ranger & Eastland
County, West Texas Clinic was always privately owned and operated.
Located on the northwest corner of West Main and North Marston
Streets, the new hospital was described by the newspaper as
“conveniently located, being almost within the business district
but just far enough away from the center of commercial activities
to keep it from being too noisy for an ideal hospital site.”
The newspaper said further that the hospital was “well equipped,
having all modern medical appliances that could be expected in a
town the size of Ranger.” There were entrances on both West Main
and North Marston Streets: the West Main Street entrance was for
doctors’ offices, and the entrance to the hospital was on North
Marston Street.
Physicians at the time of opening were Dr. Lauderdale, Dr. Barnett,
Dr. O. H. Miller, and Dr. Van C. Tipton. Dr. A. N. Harkrider was
on the staff as a dentist. In 1930 Dr. P. M. (Pere Moran) Kuykendall,
who had been practicing medicine in Desdemona (also known as Hogtown)
bought out Dr. Barnett’s interest.
Physicians came & went at West Texas Clinic, but by 1934 Dr. Lauderdale
and Dr. Kuykendall were the only two general practitioners. Dr. G.
E. Haslem was an ear, nose, and throat specialist, and Dr. A. P.
Shirley was a dentist. By 1939 the only physicians were Dr. Lauderdale
and Dr. Kuykendall. Dr. Lauderdale died in 1940. Dr. Kuykendall
assumed sole ownership and possibly had already done so before that
time.
After Dr. Lauderdale’s death, Dr. Kuykendall needed help. He asked
Dr. I. M. (Isaac Mordecai) Howard from Cross Plains to join the staff.
Dr. Howard’s wife had died a few years earlier, and his son Robert
Howard, prolific author of fantasy fiction, including the Conan the
Barbarian stories, had committed suicide. Dr. Howard worked with Dr.
Kuykendall for two to three years until he became very ill. Dr.
Kuykendall took care of him, and when Dr. Howard died in 1944, he
left all his estate, including his son’s literary rights, to Dr.
Kuykendall.
Over the years Dr. Kuykendall was a strong supporter of civic develop-
ment. He was a major force in the effort to build a new rodeo arena
south of downtown and to promote rodeo events. Just how long he
ontinued to operate the hospital is unknown. He died May 28, 1959
at age 66.
The building was vacant for a time. In the early 1970’s it served
as offices for an oil company. It is now Ranger’s city hall.
ACCIDENT ON THURBER HILL - A horrific accident on Thurber Hill on
the Bankhead Highway November 15, 1941 involved several vehicles and
many people. The injured filled Ranger City-County Hospital (Ranger
General Hospital) and West Texas Clinic to capacity, and some of the
injured were taken to the hospital in Eastland. Eyewitnesses remembered
that mattresses were put down in hospital hallways in Ranger to try to
accommodate the injured.
A lumber truck going up Thurber Hill had stalled because of a broken
axle. The driver of a car going down the hill stopped to see if he
could be of help. In the meantime a truck loaded with people on their
way to east Texas to pick cotton was going down the hill.
The driver of that truck tried to stop, but the brakes failed. The
truck plowed into the lumber truck and the car that had stopped to
offer help. There was not enough room to go between the two vehicles
and no room to go around. Shoulders did not exist, and the Bankhead
Highway was narrow by today’s standards. A number of people in the
truck were injured from that collision. Whether any in the truck
were killed is unknown.
The driver of the lumber truck had set out warning flares. A fire
broke out on the lumber truck, presumably caused by a flare. Fire
trucks and ambulances from Ranger went to the scene, followed by
many people from town who wanted to see what was going on. One
bystander realized that there would be an explosion if the fire
reached the lumber truck’s gasoline tank. He was able to puncture
the tank, and the gasoline ran harmlessly down the hill. However,
he did not realize that the truck had another gasoline tank.
In the meantime many onlookers had gotten out of their cars to get
a closer view. Two Greyhound buses had come along, and many
passengers got off the buses. Thus there were dozens of spectators.
When the fire reached the second gasoline tank on the lumber truck,
there was a massive explosion, and burning gasoline sprayed over
many of the onlookers.
Seven people died at the time of the accident, and an estimated 30
to 40 died later from complications. One of the injured who survived
was Don Ervin (Donald M. Ervin, 1922-1988), at the time of the
accident a 19-year old from Ranger. He and his brother James L.
were with a friend, Robert Johnson, also from Ranger, on their way
to Ranger from Dallas.
They were among the first to stop after the accident to see if they
could help. James and Robert escaped permanent serious injury, but
Don’s clothing caught fire. With burns on 95 per cent of his body,
he spent two years in the hospital. He never fully recovered, but
after he got out of the hospital, he operated a jewelry store in
Ranger for a number of years and repaired watches.
The names “Thurber Hill” & “Ranger Hill” have been used inconsistently
over the years, and sometimes one name or the other has been used to
refer to the entire several-mile rise in elevation in that area. The
names also refer to two different hills, separated by several miles.
Ranger Hill is on Highway 80 east and now near an exit to and from
Interstate 20. Thurber Hill is about seven miles east of Ranger,
now on the Interstate but at the time of the accident on the Bankhead
Highway, a precursor to Highway 80 built later a short distance south.
A newspaper article two days after the accident described Scenic Point
at Thurber Hill as a death spot that Saturday night. Scenic Point
was a roadside park, and the Scenic Point Restaurant, Gas Station,
and Motor Court were nearby. Yet another newspaper article described
the accident as taking place about halfway up the hill.
BANKHEAD HIGHWAY - Ranger has been on two transcontinental highways,
the Bankhead Highway and U.S. Highway 80, and near another one,
Interstate 20. Of the three, the Bankhead Highway undoubtedly
had the greatest positive impact on inter-city travel for Ranger
and other towns on the Highway’s route.
Before the Bankhead Highway, roads were often little more than dirt
roads or rutted wagon trails. Some roads had been “improved” with
the addition of gravel or some other topping. Roads around Ranger
were almost impassible after the torrential rains that followed a
long drought.
One observer in 1919 commented that it might take half a day to go
the ten miles from Ranger to Eastland. Boyce House, early editor
of The Ranger Times, said that the roads were either blinding dust
or deep in mud, with traffic moving at a snail’s pace much of the
time.
With the nationwide increasing popularity of the automobile—and
memories fresh from World War I and the possible further need for
efficient military transport—the so-called Good Roads Movement
became a popular cause, including at the federal government level.
It was one of the favorite causes of Senator John Hollis Bankhead,
who in 1916 sponsored the Federal Aid Road Act. It authorized
millions in federal funding to help with highway construction.
During his lifetime the bill was referred to as “the Bankhead Bill.”
In his honor a planned new transcontinental highway reaching about
3,000 miles from Washington, D.C. through Alabama (Senator Bankhead’s
home state) to San Diego was called the Bankhead Highway The
Bankhead National Highway Association was formed to promote its
development. Senator Bankhead became known as “the Father of Good
Roads in the United States Senate.” He was the grandfather of
actress Tallulah Bankhead.
The Bankhead Highway entered Texas at Texarkana and exited at El
Paso. The segment between Texarkana and Dallas ultimately became
part of U. S. Highway 67, and the part between Dallas and El Paso
became part of U. S. Highway 80. However, the Bankhead did not
always coincide exactly with those routes. In 1917 the Texas
Highway Department designated the Bankhead as “Texas Highway
No. 1.”
There were alternate routes in Texas as in other states. For
example, an alternate route went from Fort Worth to Mineral Wells
to Breckenridge and Albany, and on to Abilene. The Bankhead
Highway in Texas was a total of about 850 miles. It opened for
traffic in the early 1920’s. In Eastland County planning had
begun in 1919, and construction lasted into the 1920’s. In some
areas of the state the Bankhead was paved with concrete, but in
other areas it was paved with bricks, many from the Thurber Brick
Company.
In Ranger, going from east to west, the Bankhead went on what
would a few years later become the asphalted U. S. Highway 80
from Ranger Hill to Strawn Road, near the intersection of Blundell
Street and Highway 80. It went on Strawn Road and Hunt Street
west to Oak Street. The Bankhead Filling Station was near the
present location of the Eastside Church of Christ.
The Bankhead went one block south on Oak Street and one block
west on Lamar Street before crossing the railroad tracks. It
continued south on Commerce Street, alongside the railroad tracks.
Farther south it turned under the railroad at an underpass and
went to Eastland, Cisco, Abilene and on west.
Once the Highway was completed, traffic far exceeded expectations.
In 1927 a study by the Bureau of Public Roads found that 1,000
cars a day traveled the Bankhead. Another study found that
approximately 75 per cent of travelers stopped along the route
for gas, drinks, food, vehicle repairs, and/or lodging. The
Bankhead thus had a very positive influence on local economies.
In the early days caravans of boosters, sponsored by the Bankhead
National Highway Association, would travel the route advertising
it to attract tourist traffic. The nickname “Broadway of America”
was the product of an advertising campaign.
The Bankhead Highway’s importance as one of the nation’s early
cross-country transportation corridors has been widely commemorated.
For example, there is a Bankhead Highway Visitor Center in Mount
Vernon, Texas. In 2009 the Texas Legislature proclaimed the
Bankhead as the state’s first official Texas Historic Highway
in the Texas Historic Roads and Highways Program.
A number of cities, including Abilene, Texas, have a Bankhead
Historic District. In April 2016 a Texas Historical Commission
marker was erected at the Eastland County Safety Rest Area at
the top of Ranger Hill and a short distance from a part of the
original Bankhead Highway. Many other communities along the
route have erected similar historical markers.
TRANSPORTATION - An 1880 picture, one of the first made in Ranger
(pictured here), shows a wagon train with new settlers and/or
merchandise. Ranger served as a trade center for a wide area
after the arrival of the railroad in 1880, and wagons were used
to transport people and goods not only locally but also to places
without railroad connections .
Wagons were drawn by either horses or oxen. It took more oxen
than horses to pull a wagon, but oxen were steadier although
slower. One observer said that during the torrential rains that
followed a long drought in Ranger, oxen would sometimes be up to
their bellies in mud as they pulled wagons through deep mud holes.
Ranger had a number of wagon yards. A wagon yard was a usual pick-
up/drop-off place for drivers hauling freight to and from other areas
as well as for farmers who came to town to market their cotton and
other products and to buy supplies. Too, the yard was a place to
feed the team. Even after the coming of motorized vehicles, wagons
were used for transport. During the oil boom they were used to haul
oilfield equipment and supplies. Many of the roads to oilfields
were so primitive that it took a wagon to get there—and sometimes
even that was all but impossible.
One interviewee reminiscing in the Oral History of the Texas Oil
Industry (Center for American History, University of Texas) said
that often there would be as many as 200 wagons waiting to be loaded
with pipes, boilers, and other oilfield supplies and equipment.
R. C. (Bob) Stuard ran a drayage business. He and his crew hauled
Thurber coal from the train depot to gins to be used for fuel. They
would also haul cotton from outlying areas to cotton yards. Bob
Pitcock and Sons hauled merchandise from the train station to
merchants, among their other jobs.
J. M. Rice ran both a wagon yard and livery stable. Before the
advent of the automobile and for a time thereafter, Ranger’s several
livery stables flourished. They kept horses, buggies, and surreys
for rent, either with or without a driver. Blacksmiths were kept
busy re-shoeing horses because their shoes wore out so quickly on
unpaved, rocky roads.
When Ranger’s streets were too muddy to cross on foot, one could
hire a horse-drawn sledge to cross the street. One observer said
that he saw a man in hip boots giving people piggyback rides across
a muddy street.
According to one source, Ranger’s first automobile was an International
Harvester Company “auto wagon,” as it was called, made sometime in
the first few years of the twentieth century. Henry Ford introduced
the Model T in 1908. In that year his company manufactured over
10,000 Model T’s and sold them for $850 each.
Morris Leveille, who along with Ed Maher set up a Ford dealership
in Ranger in 1919, had been hired by Henry Ford to set up the first
Ford assembly plant in Dallas. Parts were shipped from Detroit and
put together in Dallas. Leveille and Maher predicted that they
would sell 300 cars in Ranger in the first year of their dealership,
but they sold 800.
The Model T became the most popular car, but other makes were increas-
ingly available. A former society editor of The Ranger Daily Times
reminisced that the “ Ranger elite,” as she referred to them, usually
drove Studebakers. One of the earliest stretches of pavement around
Ranger was the road leading north out of town, referred to as the
Caddo Highway. Carloads—each car could hold six people—would drive
up and down the road for sport.
Although downtown was paved during early civic improvements, and the
Bankhead Highway provided better access to area towns, many other
roads remained unpaved. If a driver came to a deep mud hole, there
might be a farmer or rancher sitting off to the side with a team of
horses. He would offer to pull the vehicle through the mud hole for
$5—or maybe $15, depending on what the traffic would bear.
After the rains stopped, these entrepreneurs would be reluctant to
give up this source of income, so they would fill up the holes with
water in order to continue extracting a toll. There were even reports
of some creating a mud hole just to keep their towing business going.
For transportation further afield, an early 1920’s Chamber of Commerce
brochure pointed out that Ranger had trains going both east and west
and north and south and three bus lines providing transportation in
all directions. Too, Ranger eventually had an airport, one of the
oldest in Texas. (Photo courtesy of the Ranger Historical Preservation
Society)
SALLIE TARRANT - At the time Sallie Tarrant was interviewed by the
editor of The Ranger Times in 1959 for a feature article, she was
quite likely the only resident of Ranger still living who had been
born in slavery. Affectionately called “Granny” by most, she did
not known her age, but she knew that she was about a year old at
the time of the Emancipation Proclamation.
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on
September 22, 1862, and it went into effect January 1, 1863, freeing
slaves in states in rebellion against the Union. Texas was the
most remote of the slave states, and the Emancipation Proclamation
was not enforced there until after the Civil War. The Thirteenth
Amendment, ratified by December 18, 1865, outlawed slavery throughout
the country.
Census records differ on the year of Sallie’s birth: some say
“about 1864,” and others say “about 1861.” Since she knew that she
was about a year old at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation,
her birth date was almost certainly closer to 1861.
Sallie lived at the Little Jim Hotel in Ranger, on North Marston
Street, in the block north of Walnut Street. Lola Harris, her
daughter, ran the Little Jim Hotel until 1958, when she died.
Leona Warren, Lola’s daughter, then took over the management.
It was chiefly a boarding house catering to blacks, but it also
prepared take-out barbecue for a wide variety of customers.
Sallie Tarrant was born on the Pinkey Simms farm in Ellis County,
Texas. Like all slaves, she took the last name of her master.
Annie, her grandmother, was one of the first slaves bought off
the block in Mississippi for the Simms farm and brought to Ellis
County when the Simms family moved westward.
Annie Simms and Richard Cunningham, from the Cunningham farm,
fell in love, but Richard was not able to convince his owner
to buy Annie so that they could be together. Nor was Pinkey
Simms willing to buy Richard.
If a slave wanted to go anywhere, he or she had to get permission
from the master. Richard asked for pass after pass so that he
could court Annie. Finally he was caught slipping away from
home without a pass and was sold on the block to the highest
bidder. Annie and Richard never saw each other again. Records
give Sallie’s maiden name as Cunningham.
Annie and Richard’s daughter, Molly, was born and lived with
her mother on the Simms farm. Simms bought her a husband, Lee
Smith, from the Smith ranch. His last name became Simms after
he was bought. Annie and Lee had a daughter, Sallie. Lee died
soon after Sallie’s birth. Sallie and her mother continued
living on the Simms farm until they were freed. They left
the Simms farm and share cropped.
Sallie grew up, and she and John Tarrant (John Emmerson Tarrant,
also appears as John Em Tarrant and John M. Tarrant) fell in
love. He had belonged to General F. H. Tarrant, a veteran
of the Texas Revolution. Tarrant County is named for him.
John went to Waxahachie, the county seat, to get a marriage
license, and he and Sallie married. They came to Ranger
during the oil boom. John died in 1936. [I was unable to
establish Sallie’s death date.] She described Ranger in the
oil boom days as “Booming to high heavens.”
Like most other slaves, Sallie never learned to read and write.
It was feared that if slaves could write, they would write
their own passes. Instruction, if any, was confined to the
Bible. Most people learn about President Abraham Lincoln
and the Emancipation Proclamation in school, but when Sallie
Tarrant said, “God bless Abe Lincoln,” it came from first-hand
experience and the heart.
NOTE: The picture of Sallie Tarrant taken by the author when
he was about ten years old. THANKS to Dorothy Elrod and
Mac Jacoby for help with this article.
WINSETT SPRING - No one knows how long the spring on a hillside
about three miles east of Ranger has flowed. This natural
phenomenon may date back hundreds or thousands of years. On
private property, it began to be called Winsett Spring, or
Winsett Springs, after John Milton Winsett bought the land in
the area in about 1902. An earlier name was Anthony Springs.
The hill on Farm to Market Road 571 near the spring is known
as Winsett Hill, and the stretch of highway in that area is
known as Winsett Road.
Apparently Indians camping near the spring had somewhat staunched
its flow by driving large timbers into the spring. Milton Winsett
worked at getting the spring to flow freely again. One source
said that the Texas Rangers had a camp near the spring when they
were fighting Comanche Indians.
The spring was a watering place for people and horses coming from
or returning to the rural communities southeast of Ranger: Cross
Roads, Cheaney, Alameda, and Salem and all the farms in between.
Wagons would rarely pass the spring without stopping for water.
It flowed regardless of the season. However, R.C. (Bob) Stuard,
longtime operator of a drayage business in Ranger, and others
said that there was a twelve-year period during which the spring
went dry.
The typhoid epidemic of 1912 in Ranger was thought to be caused by
drinking water from contaminated cisterns. Winsett Spring served
as an alternate source of water, since there was no safe, dependable
municipal water supply. When Ranger’s population soared during the
oil boom, Winsett Spring served as one source of water. Men would
haul barrels of water in wagons drawn by horses or mules and sell
the water in town for as much as $1 a barrel.
FINAL ARTICLE - END OF SERIES.
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