THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Jack Montgomery
PLACE: Weimar, Texas
INTERVIEWERS: J oan Ballard and Sid Ba l lard
DATE: March 14 , 1988
Joan Ballard interviewing Jack Montgomery on family history
and Weimar .
B: Jack , how'd your family first come here? And when?
M: Now you 're talkin' about Weimar.
B: Uh huh.
M: You're talkin' about this area here .
B: Yeah. This county.
M: O.K. My ... on my father's side , the Montgomery side,
my grandfather and a brother were brought to the Osage
area, which is northeast of Weimar, in 1851. My grand­f
ather was six years old at the time . The reason that they
came over here is b e caus e my great grandfather, Thomas
J efferson Montgomery, who i s a descendant of Samuel
Washington Montgomery , who i s the daughter ... I'm not c l ear
on this ... t he daughter o f the brother of George Washington.
Anyway , they came from Tennessee because his mother had
remarried a man by the name of Robert M. Campbell, and they
had a differ ent ... another family. The old bachelor by the
name of Ferd Caldwell ... Ferdinand and Eugenius Caldwell ...
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MONTGOMERY
M: he was a very noted Mason and ... in this area , he was
treasurer of the Weimar Lodge here, I think, for about 40
years ... something like that. Anyway, they bought land out
in the Osage area ... quite a bit of land ... at one time he was
the largest land owner out there. He died in 1903 ... 1 be­lieve
it was 1903.
Anyway, the Civil War came on. He, Uncl e Ferd ... Uncle
Ferd Caldwell ... and my grandfather , John David Montgomery
and his brother enlisted in the Confederate Army at Harvey's
Creek . Just a little note ... they have just discovered the
bones of his company commander and his first cousin out in
New Mexico. Maybe you read that little dea l that Marty had
in the paper. Anyway, they go out to New Mexico. My grand­father
was wounded at the Battle of Val Verde , and he was also
wounded and captured at the battle ... along with the rest of
the company ... at the battle of Glorietta Pass or Pigeon's
Ranch or Apache Canyon , depending on which side you're on and
who's saying it. He was in the hospita l of Socorro, New
Mexico ... oh, for two or three months. We have all his mili­tary
records.
Amd he literally walked from Socorro, New Mexico, back to
San Antonio, and got back horne in time to capture the
Harriet Lane on Christmas Eve, 1862, right in Galveston Harbor.
The first time the calvary has ever captured a warship. All
right. After the Civil War he went back to Tennessee, and I
won 't go into that.
On my mother's s ide ... the family name was Insall ...
I-N-S-A-double L. We get that down there somewhere. They
MONTGOMERY 3
M: were a bunch of characters. As the word goes, there
were only two kinds of Insalls ... lawmakers or lawbreakers.
And that's just about right. We had Texas Rangers; we had
people that did time in Huntsville; we had a bunch of char­acters
.
Anyway, they came from Louisiana. They came in here
into Montgomery County, which is no kin to us as far as I
know, except General Richard Montgomery who it's named after
is ... way back yonder ... my great , great, great ... whatever ...
grandfather. He was killed in front of Quebec on Christmas
Eve, 1776. They came here ... there was four brothers that
settled in this area ... and eventually they owned almost all
the land in this area ... the Insall family.
When Tom Insall died, the man who built the opera house
over here, it was the largest probate there'd ever been in
Colorado County. He had ... let ' s see ... 60 . . . 67 pieces of land ...
the smallest one was 125 acres, the largest was around 4000.
He owned all this land out on the Colorado River , up here.
To him is probably one of the main reasons that the railroad
came through here. I'm just gonna ... you want me to just talk?
B: Just talk. You 're doing fine. It's wonderful.
M: The ... the ... the .. . an old T. W. ~ierce and G. H. Nussay ...
incidently I have some G. H. Nussay original track ... also
original what they called fish plates then ... I even have a
G. H. Nussay switch key . .. Galveston , Harrisburg, and San
Antonio. He owned the l and out here ... what we call Borden
now, you see ... well .. .
MONTGOMERY 4
B: The city of Borden?
M: Yeah. Right out here, yeah. In f act, Borden used to be
Harvey's Creek ... that's where all these Confederates went in ...
that was the name of the place, and it was variously ... be­tween
the river ... you know where we call Osage now?
B: I think I do.
M: You've been out in that area? Anyway, my grandfather,
see , owned the land immediately in front of the railroad.
The railroad originally was designed to go through Content,
which is south o f here .. you're talking about Castella this
morning ... about ... that Content area is what you ... she was
telling you about. Then Oakland ... in that direction. But
the best way was close , straight ahead. So, it's always ...
the people in Oakland got mad and didn't speak to the Insalls
for years, but it doesn't make any difference. They deterio­rated.
Weimar was built and Oakland is gone ... so I guess it
worked out all right. But my grandfather and great uncle
sold the land to Pierce so the railroad would come through
here. And the land they owned was from the golf course here
all the way ... almost to Content ... on both sides of the rail­road.
Then ... let me see ... I don't remember whether it was be­fore
or after ... right in that time , see ... Tom Insall, the
guy that built the opera house .. . sold the land that Borden
is now, to Borden , to the man that invented the condensed
milk and the ... actually he's more famous for meat biscuit ...
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MONTGOMERY
M: he was hated in the south for the simple reason that he
was down here, see ... actually he ... Johnny Borden who's buried
in our cemetery out here and Gail Borden were brothers. And
they laid out the city of Houston ... did you know that?
B: No .
M: But they lived here. Johnny Borden is buried right out
here. He was the first commissioner of the General Land
Office. And they all lived out there together ... the Insalls
and the Caldwells and the Bordens and Campbells, Montgomerys.
B: Were they any kin to the Borden Milk Company?
M: That is the Borden Milk Company. That is the Borden Milk
Company. I've got a big piece of paper that I unearthed the
other day ... I'm president of the cemetery association ... ceme-tery
trust ... a nd, see, we agreed in exchange for an endowment ,
to keep up Johnny Borden's grave , I mean, they deeded the
whole cemetery ... the Oddfellows Lodge did ... over to us. In
return, we keep up his grave . It' s out there right now ...
you can see it. Just a little sidelight ... we ' ve got ... you
know what Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity is? Biggest in the
world ... one of the first ones ...
B: No.
M: We've got one of the founders buried out here, Dr. Cook.
O.K. They sold that land to Borden. But Borden, see, lived
here. Gail Borden, I'm talking about. He went back up north.
And he invented this meat biscuit up there, which fed ... actually
fed the Union Army. Just like if you ... well, Frank would
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MONTGOMERY
M: know ... maybe you all know ... you probably know ... C ra­tions
... it was the f irst ... original C and K rations , see.
That's right. And D bars and all that kind of stuff . But
it was a meat biscuit. And when he came back down here, no­body
had anything to do with him. Now Johnny stayed here. Of
course he was very well thought of , but Gail wasn't. So he
put in a meat packing plant out there at Borden, and years
ago you could still see where the old water wheel was ... right
south of the .. you know where the old Borden Cemetery is, out
there?
B: No.
M: Well, right to the north of that. But you can't see much
anymore . He died, was sent back to New York and he's buried
in Melrose Cemetery. Johnny's buried right out here. Now what
line do you want to go on from here? That 's my family ...
how they got here.
B: Well, just go on ... when you were born and your f ather ...
M: My father ... let's go on my father's side. My father was
born in Tennessee. Born in Brownville, Te nnessee . And he
ran off from home ... he didn't have very little education .. .
and he ran off from home when he was about nine years old .. .
with a circus. And eventually he went into ... he was self-taught,
self-made ... he went into engineering .. . got to be.
At the time that he retired, he was recognized as one of the
top engineering men in the state, even the south .
Well, he went to work for the Utah Construction Company
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MONTGOMERY
M: which at that time was a pretty big outfit. But even­tually
he wound up here. Among the things he built was ...
he built the Santa Fe from San Angelo to Slaughter, the
l ast major route of the Santa Fe in the state. That was in
1930. He built Santa Fe yards at Brownsville. He built al­most
al l the H.E .... Houston Belton Terminal which is the rail­road
around Houston. That was back in the '20' s and '30's.
The whole family were engineers . Blair was c hief engineer
for what they call the from Mountain ... that's Blair Montgomery ...
that's his ... Daddy was the youngest .. .
5B: Is he the one that built the first paved road there?
M: That's right. That's right. And I was gonna get the
railroads first and then get to the ... Then Mother and Daddy
were married in 1911. And this ... I don't remember e xactly
the date ... I've got it somewhere ... Marty's got it ... Well,
they built these roads down in the Valley , and they got a
contract and built this little old road.
Another sidelight on that. A brother of my Mother, Jess
Insall, who wound up as general superintendent of Austin Road
and Bridge Company ... he's still living in Dallas ... he's 91
years old. We've got him in a rest home. He devised a means ...
we had a cotton o i l mill here ... I'm just rambling now ... We
got a cotton oil mill here ... the first one in Texas ... and if
you know ... a concrete road you got a solid deal now ... the
whol e thing is ribbon now ... but used to, it was ...
5B: Joined?
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MONTGOMERY
M: Joined, uh huh. O.K. They couldn't figure out what was ...
SB: Expansion ...
M: Expand. So Uncle Jess devised the idea ... why not try
cottonseed? So that's what they used, back in the '20's, they
used cottonseed. They used it on that road down there.
B: From the cotton oil mill?
M: That's right. And, anyway, they got the contract, and
they built this paved road, and it was an experiment ... nobody
had ever built one before.
SB: I remember. One of the first paved roads I was ever on.
M: All right. That 's ... then they went up ... it was at ... the
name of the company Lone Star Construction Company. They
built ... have you been ... you live in San Antonio, don't you?
B: Right.
M: Do you know where San Antonio College is?
B: Uh huh.
M: Have you been up in that area that paved with red brick?
B: Right. All the time.
M: Well, Lone Star Construction Company put that in .. . it was
the fi rst brick paving in Texas. Now let me ... let me keep on
going on that bunch. When the depresssion came on , well , my
uncle ... we had bought this ranch out west of San Antonio.
You know where Montgomery Road is on 90, out there?
B: Right.
M: You know who that's named for?
B: Your family, I ...
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MONTGOMERY
M: We owned that ranch . Strauss Medina Ranch was our ranch .
That was ours. It went all the way from 90 al l the way down
to the river. Got 14 miles of rive r front . That's where I
grew up . Also went to T.M.I. I understand T.M.I. owes 7 . 6
million dollars ... they're going broke.
SB: I t's terrible .
M: Anyway, when the depression came on , about 1930, well, they
split up. What I mean is ... they didn ' t go broke ... went out of
construction business because there wasn 't any . And Daddy
went into road building . Then he went to work for Brown and
Root. You know who Brown and Root is? O. K. Do you know who
gave Herman Brown his first job? W.T. Montgomery and J.H .
Montgomery , my uncle and my grandfather . See, I was their
only child . There was 11 kids ... There was one ... one child ...
the youngest son had a child. And he lived ... the last two
that lived was my father who was the oldest ... he was 72 ...
and Uncle Monty who was the oldest one ... he died in ' 98.
Have you been in t he coliseum?
B: There in San Antonio?
M: Freeman Coliseum? Have you seen that plaque on the wall ...
the only one there?
B: Just haven't paid that much attention ...
M: Next time you go i n there .. . W. T. Montgomery .. . it's the
only plaque in there. He was director of Texas A & M .. . Now
this is myoId uncle. I was his heir . In fact , we still
have the ran ch . He said I didn't like cattle. Well , he
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MONTGOMERY
M: was right. I was an engineer . But l et 's see, we sold
that ranch in 1947. He became quite a ... he was president
of the American Hereford Assoc i ation . President of Texas
Hereford Association. Was director ... lifetime director .. .
before he died. And at the time that we sold the ranch .. .
it was the largest Hereford transfer that there had ever
been, and we had an old son, cattle people, and old son of
Prince Domino, old Director Domino the Third was one of the
original Herefords that carne over here from England. Tha t
was back about 1917, 1918, before I was born .
Let's see, Daddy branched out, went to work for Mr. Brown
who gave ... they gave Mr. Herman a job many years ago , old
Tennessee and Brazos Railroad from Houston north into Dallas.
So he stayed with Mr. Herman. One of the big jobs that they
had, the very first job, was Buchanan Darn. They did all the
clearing. Daddy did all of that. Then we moved down to the
Marshall Port. I still call it Marshall Port; it's Mansfield
now. And we built that.
I graduated from high school in '37, and I went into the
University that year . They were still working on that. We
built allover east Texas--Beaumont to Texarkana. Of course,
we started the Corpus Christi Naval Ba se . I went in that .
What else do you want? Now you talk.
B: Well, when did you corne to Weimar?
M: I was born here. You see, my mother's father was city
marshal for many years. Henry Insall. He died in 1917,
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MONTGOMERY
M: two years before I was born. Actually, all the Insalls,
with the exception of me, and Henry Mudeckak are gone, have
been for years. Well, the Montgomerys never were here;
they were out at Osage. Never actually were part of Weimar.
B: Why did they build this cotton oil mill?
M: Why, well.
SB: This used to be cotton country.
M: This was cotton country. You know where Flatonia is up
here? At one time, Flatonia was the large st cotton shipping
point on the Southern Pacific; the little town of Flatonia.
This was cotton country by the barrels. I can remember,
let me see, one, two three, four, five, six ... there were six
gins he r e when I was in high school in 1936 and 7. And they
were still here when I came back from World War II. This was
big cotton country. And gradually , it just went away .
But the Hillje's that lived over at High Hill ... do you
know where High Hill is?
B: I do.
M: It started at High Hill and the old foundation stuff is
still over there. I've got the whole history, but I just
don't have it in my mind. But they moved over here when
Weimar was founded in '73.
Schulenburg was founded the same time; they had one too.
But the Hillje brothers moved over here, and it was originally
a sugar beet factory. All did the same thing ... just crushed
the ... crusher's all it was, and just let the juice run out,
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MONTGOMERY
M: and they heated it and put it in silk bags and compressed
it.
B: Well, now. You went to grade schoo l here?
M: Uh huh. I went to grade school here but high school
mostly over in east Texas ... Stephen F . Austin. I graduated
from here 50 years ago this past May. And I went to the
University of Texas. I stayed in Texas 'til the war came
along , and I went into the Marine Corps. The day after I
got out of boot cam~ I was on the train going to Utah State.
That's right. Logan, Utah. I went in as E-ll, E-7 ... I'd
have to look at some of the papers. And I graduated as an
electrical engineer from Utah State.
B: Utah State. You said something about going to TMI.
M: I went to TMI in '3 6 .
B: Just for short time? Since you graduated from the ...
M: Yes.
B: What was the school like? Here in Weimar.
M: It was the old school. It was a good school. It
wasn't consolidated then. They brought al l these little
schools in during World War II and right after World War II.
I served on the school board for 12 years--the longest term
outside of Brasher that's ever been.
You ask me some questions . Give me some leads because
I don 't know ...
B: Well, that's what ... we're doing great so far. Cotton
seed oil and things like that ... that's what we 're after;
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MONTGOMERY
B: what schooling was like. What kind of entertainment
did they have here then?
M: Picture show. Swimming pool.
B: You had a swimming pool back then?
M: Yeah. Creek right here west of ... east of town ... Blue
Hole and Clear Hole.
B: Blue Hole and Clear Hole.
M: The swimming pool was built here, if I remember right,
in '34, '34 or '35, somewhere in there. It was here when I
was in University.
B: But that wasn't where you swam as a child .
M: No, we went up the creek.
SB: I was just out of the Navy then.
in '33.
I got out of the Navy
M: You know I know you from some place. I can't place you.
I will though.
B: What else did you do for entertainment then? You went
swimming in the creek . Did you go skinny dipping or did you
have your clothes?
M: Depended on whether you had girls along. (laughter)
Really, there wasn't too much that went on here. We had
little local dances, but at that time the Baptist church and
the Methodist church and whatever was all against dancing.
The dances we had were in the homes.
There were little dance halls all around, but there was
only one where the post office is now, where city hall was.
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MONTGOMERY
M: They had an upstairs deal. And they had dances . That's
about the source of the entertainment outside the picture
show. We had a little softball that went on.
B: Did you have a team?
M: Oh yes . There was little l eague, local league. Weimar
did have a baseball team. But you get better people, you
need to tell you about that. While that was going on I was
in the University . I wasn't around.
But really, outside the picture show and just whatever
you could find to do, that's about what it amounted t o .
There wasn't all that much stuff in ... Of course, there was
plenty of trains through here ... now I traveled. But I'm talk­ing
about ... you asked about local. I traveled. I went all
over the country.
B: On the trains?
M: Yeah. We had passes, you see.
B: Why?
M: Because my daddy was contractor. Everybody had a pass.
I have seen people with as high as a hundred passes. Used
to be a fad--collect passes. The pass entitled you to ride
in the chair car. Didn't entitle you to the Pul lman . You
had to buy the Pullman. But every railroad had a pass.
There was a guy in Bastrop, can't think of his name now.
I've seen his passes. And he had a whole wall of passes.
Railroads you never heard of .
B: You kept the pass?
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MONTGOMERY
M: I don't even have one. I wish I did. I threw all of
mine away. But this guy kept all that he had.
B: You used the same pass for each ... ?
M: No, you had a separate pass for each railroad.
SB: Each railroad had a different pass. But you kept them
your lifetime as long as you were going on that railroad?
They didn't collect it each time?
M: No, it's just like a credit card. It 's exactly what it
was. Our passes were the Missouri Pacific, Santa Fe and the
... well, actually, do you know anything about railroads?
B: A little.
M: I'm talking about the mechanics, the administration of a
railroad.
B: No, I just rode them.
M: Everything, like going through there . This was the Texas,
New Orleans line. As you got a little farther , it was
different. The parent company was Southern Pacific. But
you had about five different lines between New Orleans and
San Francisco. Just like the Missouri Pacific that went out
of St. Louis and headed, wound up, down in the Rio Grande
Valley . You had a whole bunch of different ... and each one
of those issued a pass.
B: Uh huh.
M: At one time the Montgomery Brothers or the Lone Star
Construction Company , I don't know which it was ,_ sold all
the ballast for the Missouri Pacific. You know what ballast is?
MONTGOMERY
B: Uh huh.
16
M: The stuff that the rails, ties, ride on. And I had one
I kept for a long time, Missouri Pacific . Can't think of
the old chief engineer ' s name. But he bought a ranch right
next to our ranch . Actually, it ' s where the west side of
Lackland is now.
B: Uh huh.
M: Ponder ; old man Ponder we called him. He was chief en­gineer
of Missouri Pacific. He talked Uncle Monty into buy­in'
this little, hell, it was 500 acres and Uncle Monty run
it for him . Old man Ponder would just come out there just
every now and then , go out on the lake and shoot ducks . Shoot
deer. Shoot! Tell me what else you want. ( laughter)
B: You were just now talking about shooting; did you hunt
when you were a boy? What did you hunt?
M: Oh, yes. Hunted allover the country. Deer, birds.
B: Was it because you needed the food to eat?
M: No, we didn't need the food . Gave it away .
B: Did you raise your food?
M: No. Never raised food. Now we did out on the ranch ;
raised everything they ate out there. I ' ll tell you a little
something along that line now that you asked about food. When
my wife and I got married. Like I said, she was one of the
first women in the Marines. And we met out in San Diego
after I come back from overseas. After we got married, see ,
they had all this food here in Texas . I knew it , she didn ' t
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MONTGOMERY
M: know it ... and we were on stamps out there. She would go
to the commissary but before you could eat out, you know.
One day , this great big box arrived , Montgomery ranch,
and in there was ham, bacon , and sausages. We invited half
the company out to eat. What I was going to tell you was
funny. You know what a kipper is? * (*Usually herring . EGM)
B: Uh huh.
M: Ham, of course ... been hangi n' out in the smoke house.
They had a tremendous smoke house . We kil l ed our own hogs;
we killed our own sheep; we killed our own steers. Best thing
we had, we killed old cows. That's where you get the best
steaks from. Anyway, we had these little kippers. Anyway,
she wouldn 't eat ham; she said there are worms in it. Well,
it did, but they were good , you just cut the worms out ,
scraped it off; tht's all there was to it.
B: When were you married then?
M: November the 24th, 1944 .
B: Coming back to Weimar then. These train stations ... was
this main one that's now the library?
M: Yup.
B: That was your main train station .
M: Now that 's not the original station. But that was the mid­west
station ... that's the only one I remember. I remember
when they stuccoed it. I think in the early 30's. Basically,
it's in the same position it's always been . I have an old
Weimar map , 1896, shows all locations.
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MONTGOMERY
M: See the railroad actually; are you familiar how the
railroad moved, the Union Pacific and everything else? They
didn't buy the land if they could help it. They had it granted
to them by the states,United States, Texas, when they come
into the Union, they brought their own land with them. This
is the only state that has its own land. All the rest of the
states , it's United States government land. But in the State
of Texas, it belongs to the state .
Now, there's a lot of Federal land in Texas, that's very
true, but they bought that. But in 1846, or '45, whenever it
was , Texas went in the Union, well they kept their own land.
One of the deals that was made .
SB: I know when they started to put the state capitol,
there was no land to be had any place but England. They gave
England about two counties and got five million dollars.
M: Did you know, you probably could find out from this ...
one time most of the Panhandle was owned in Scotland and
England. So was New Mexico for that matter. They had the
capitol. We didn't have any capitol.
And also , they needed the beef; a lot of the beef went to
England and Scotland.
B: What kind of transportation did you have when you were
growing up?
M: We always had an automobile.
B: Al ways had an automobile. What age did you learn to drive?
M: Probably about six, seven (laughter). My father bought ...
you know who the Brashers are over here?
MONTGOMERY
B: Right.
19
M: My father bought the first car that Henry Brasher ever
sold.
B: Now Henr y would be . ..
M: He ' s dead.
B: Right . How would he be related to the Brashers now?
About father, grandfath e r ?
M: This Brasher here is not ... that's an offshoot. Old man
Henry was a big wheel. He started to work for John Hubbard
in the lumber yard over here . Oh, I've heard this story a
whole lot. My mother and Henry Brasher wer e ... they were not
that c l ose in age, but they had always been friends, the
family was friends.And Daddy arrived here on the train one
day and I think . .. i t was, what was interesting it was 1912 ...
mother and daddy had j ust been married. Daddy got off the
train and went and looked up Henry. Of course , he knew he
worked on cars. And he said , "Henry, I wan t to buy Nance a
car . Can you get one?" He said , "Yeah, I think so ." So,
Mr. Henry got on the car, on the train , and went to San An­tonio
. Of course, it 's, let's see what is it now? In those
days, i t was San Antonio Buick Company . He bought a many a
car from San Antonio Buick Company . So he bought this car
and brought it back ... we have a picture of it .
B: Do you know what year it was?
M: 1912 .
B: 1912 Buick .
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MONTGOMERY
M: 1912 Buick open touring car. That's all they had. And
he brought it back down here. That was the start. Daddy
always bought mother a Buick from .. when Henry Brasher died,
that's when we transferred over to Fords.
Of course, Kathryn, Kathryn and I we grew up together.
She didn't have any brothers, and I didn't have any sisters,
so we kind of gravitated together all of our lives.I'm older
than she is, but we're still pretty damm close.
B: There goes one of your trains through. Still goes through.
Wh~t kind of medicines, what did you have in medicines when
you were growing up? What kind of medical care did you have?
M: We had one of the top doctors in the country here. Dr. T.
C. Cook. I was one of his widow's executors. I have all of
his papers and uncancelled notes that a hell of a people in
this town have still got. Mean they never did pay if you know
what I'm talking about. And then I told you about Dr. T. C.
Cook.
B: No. Oh yeah.
M: He was a civil surgeon, Confederate Army. I have his
battlefield saws and things to take the bullets out. I've
got all that.
B: Oh. That would be interesting.
M: We had a whole lot of his stuff ... are we running out o f
time? Tell me when.
B: I can turn it over. We have another 45 minutes yet.
M: I can't go that long. We sent a whole lot of his stuff
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MONTGOMERY
M: to Scott White. His little medicine bag, a lot of his
books and stuff.
B: Do you remember offhand what he charged ... Dr. Cook charged
for making calls, for an office visit?
M: No, but I can go back and look and give you exactly be­cause
I ' ve got all his books.
B: When we come back ...
M: I'll have to look that up. She might know; she's been
through all that stuff . I tell you what we do have. We have
a little leather .. . she's got that ... a little leather deal
where he gives remedies for various and sundry things. You
know what asafetida is and all that stuff . I'll ask here and
see if she can look that up. Now that is one of the most
interesting things in this town.
B: That is. That is very interesting.
M: A little leather book where he had written down .. . separate
pieces of paper ... what he did for various and sundry things.
I don 't know where it is; she'll have to f ind it. Take her
two years to find it. (laughter)
B: That would be very interesting.
M: I had forgotten all about that 'til you brought that up.
We had the same care. I remember the old druggist over here,
,Mr. Joe Bartash, across the street who married one of the
Hill girls who founded the Hill bank here ... where he mixed
all this stuff . Now , you know , you go over there, and they
pour it out of a bottle, and if you can read, you know what
it is. But back in those days , they had scales and they
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MONTGOMERY
M: mixed it all up and put it in the little powders ,
capsules. I used to stand over there and watch him because
my aunt worked for him . And she did a lot of that stuff.
What else?
SB: That's something. You see that's the kind of thing I'm
after. Can you think of anything else? Did they have a jail
here?
M: Well, they had what they called a calaboose up there . It ' s
gone now. We used to p l ay in it. This was when my grandfather
was marshall here. And then they built this little cage down
there. You've seen that.
B: Uh huh .
M: O.K . That cage was from the old calaboose.
B: Where was the calaboose located?
M: Right where the water plant is.
B: Do you remember, did they put many people in jail there?
I remember when we went there there was just one big room,
kind of a little room , really.
M: You're not old enough to see that other one .
B: No. Not the calaboose.
M: When old man Loess built this ... where the little cage is
down there ... they moved that in there. Oh there was a killing
or two down there .
B: Oh! Do you know anything about those?
M: Oh yes. That's all in The Mercury. It's easier to read
something like that.
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MONTGOMERY
B: In what Mercury?
M: The Weimar Me rcury. There was one of the, oh , I can't
think of his name. Anyway , he was a deputy, and he went in
there to feed this guy, and he grabbed something, I forget,
and he killed him. And they run him down. This was while my
grandfather was marshall. They caught him out here south of
town, and they calmly brought him and hung him to a telephone
pole here. The old section house used to sit right across ...
you know where the water plant is?
B: Uh huh.
M: O.K. The house is a brick house across the street. It
was the Southern Pacific section house. They hung him there .
Oh, there's all kind of silly tales about that. You could go
on for that for years.
Right over here in the opera house there was a pretty
good killing. My uncle owned t he Opera Saloon. Let's see
if I can remember this exactly. There was a guy sittin' there
and he was ... something like shootin' a ... I can't remember
this exactly. I might not tell it right ... kind of like shootin'
an apple off somebody's head. But anyway, he missed, and he
hit the guy right here--killed him. Eventually the guy left
and went over to La Grange and eventually committed suicide.
One day over there ... I told you about the Insalls ... "all
law makers or law breakers~
B: Uh huh.
M: All right, the law breaker, he was a noted cattle rustler.
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MONTGOMERY
M: He was in the back room. There's always a back room in
a saloon (laughter) . And he was sittin' back there drinkin'.
I guess my grandfather was marshall, and his f irst cousin
owned the saloon. So after he took his nap in the a fternoon ...
in those days all men, and women too, took a nap after lunch.
That's unheard of now. So he ambles from his home, and he
went over to the saloon. He had arrested some of the boys
from Ubella out here--Germans. Caroused around and somehow
had raised the ire of the community, so they 're going to whip
the old man Insall, and his cousin Tom Insall.
Well, thi s tough Insall in the back had two 45's--not
just one, but two . He used 'emJtoo. Well, they all crowded
in there, and this guy just opened the door ... just like in an
old movie. (This has come down through the years.) Says ,
"There 's goin' to be any killin' or whippin' down here with
Insall , you better start on me." (laughter) Within 30
seconds there wasn't nobody in the saloon but three Insalls.
Everybody else was gone.
the Mercury somewhere.
(laughter) That's written up in
B: The opera house. What kind of plays ... did they have
plays t here?
M: Yeah. They even had a reunion a t one time of Green's
Brigade, this one that was out there in New Mexico where they
dug up those ...
B: Glorietta.
M: Yeah, Glorietta. It was built about lS--two sections.
We have a picture of the original ... 1 S76. And then it was
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MONTGOMERY
M: built again about 1880. I have the original bill of
sa l e .
B: What kind of plays or whatever? What did they have there?
M: I can't answer that. Marty probably could answer it.
They had balls over there. We have an invitation ....
SB: I wonder if Langtry stopped here on her way out to ...
M: I don't know. I can't answer that. She probably did,
because it was the first one between Houston and San Antonio ,
on the G H and SA. The one in Columbus was built in 18 ...
ten years later ... 1886, 1887 ... somewhere a long in there.
SB: Langtry was a popular .. .
M: Yes. It's very possible. But they had, let's say ,
roving troupes that came in here . And they we r e a l ways
having various balls and dinners and so forth. I have a
whole case of the strangest shot glasses you ever saw f r om
the Opera Saloon . They're straight up and down; they were
ounce shot glasses, about that high, about that big around .
I found them ... they're up in the attic. I saw 'em yesterday.
B: Can you remember a ny more incidents that happened like
the old time gun fights or anything like that?
M: Really, there wasn 't too much of that went on . There
was killings. There was a bartender in Knebel's Saloon ...
we called it Knebel's Saloon ... but that's not the right
word, that was killed. They never did figure out who killed
him. He's buried out here and has got a very mournful deal
on there . He l eft a widow and I don't know how many
MONTGOMERY
M: orphans. Never did find out .
SB: They had an assassination here.
M: Oh, yeah.
SB: They never did catch whoever .. .
26
M: My grandfather killed two or three Mexicans. But
they were transients . I mean there never was ... of course we
had the feud here now.
B: Could you tell me about that? I've heard a little bit
about it. Who was it between?
M: Well, they called it the Townsend-Stafford feud . But
actually, it wasn't the Townsend-Stafford feud . It was more.
The Staffords got out of it right quick. They were killed
in a saloon down in Columbus, and that was the end of that.
My family, I guess you ' d say , was on the Townsend side.
The funny part about it, my daddy was always called cousin
by Mrs. Reese on the other side. (laughter) They were all
Osage people. They are buried out at Osage; they're buried
here. Hardly any of ' em buried in Columbus.
B: Let me change it (tape) over. I don 't want to lose ...
M: I'm not going to . Miss Lillian Reese , who was on the
other side of my family from the feud , wrote a book, and it
was a rather nasty book. And at the time my daughter who
was with the Ins titute back in the original days. She was
still in high school then. This was about .. Nancy graduat ed
in '63 .. it must have been about ' 61. Nobody up here would
buy a book . And I heard about the book . Of course, I knew
Miss Lillian well. She called my grandfather, Jack Montgomery,
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MONTGOMERY
M: and my grandmother, Susie. She called 'em Aunt Susie
and Uncle Jack. Now this is the other side of the feud, see.
There was one woman on one side and my grandfather, grand­parents,
on the other side cuz they were kin to the Burfords.
He was the sheriff down there.
So I said, "Hell, I'm not afraid of Miss Lillian. I'll
go down and get a book." Well, I went down and got a book.
And Nancy and I went down there ... she was crazy about Nancy ...
and when we got back up here, they wore my book out reading it.
(laughter) Eventually, I wound up with two more books. I
had to go scrounge for 'em. Marty swears one of our cousins
got a hold of the book and burned it up. And I don't doubt
that at all. And I'm not going to tell you who she suspects,
but it's a good friend of ours. But the book was rather nasty.
It wasn't true to fact. We had an autographed copy of
Sonnichsen's book, "I'll Die Before I'll Run." Are you
familiar with that book?
B: No.
M: They're bound to have it in the Institute. He was a
professor of what was then Texas Mann out at El Paso. My
aunt up in Dallas sent me an autographed copy of it. Well,
it disappeared with this deal. We never did find that;
it's gone. But really the feud, it was senseless. My uncle,
W. T. Montgomery, cattle man in San Antonio, he was walking
with Arthur Burford, who is buried out here at Osage, and
he was killed at Bastrop at a court trial--whatever. And
MONTGOMERY
M: one of them down there at Columbus-- we tried to get
him to talk about it. He never would. Most people wouldn't
talk about it. It's hard to talk about . The whole thing was
silly-- sense l ess . But we got along with both sides for
some strange reason.
B: Do you know what really started it? Or is it just one
of those things that happen?
M: It just happened; it just started ... a thousand different
reasons why it started. And there's 10,000 different reasons
why it kept on. The whole thing was silly.
Just like my great uncle, Tom Insall, built the opera
house, who was a big cattle man, and he got accused of kill­ing,
or having William Ragsdale killed ... west of Schulenberg.
Well , did he or didn ' t he? Nobody knows. We know who killed
him; he killed himself down here at Sandy's Creek about 1881,
82 . But nobody knows a ll those facts.
B: That's all I can think of for right now.
SB: There's the Weimar Special coming through (train whistle ).
END OF TAPE I, Side 1, 45 minutes.
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