Celebration in front of the Bank Saloon in Sonora, Texas
Saloons, dance hall girls, lively piano music and shootings in the streets will conjure up the image of an old west town.
For a small little village starting out in the 1800s, that sort of lawlessness might have an impact on the growth of the town. Many community founders back then really did not want the town to have a reputation that lent itself to raucous behavior and instead, wanted the town to have a reputation of having law abiding citizens and all things good. So, when you peruse pages of the papers of the time, you will see mostly positive and optimistic articles to let the outside world know things are just fine and dandy. After all, that image will make the town attract more residents and business. What was actually attracting folks to Sonora was opportunity. The country was new, and unfenced. Young cowboys saw an opportunity to set up shop and make a life.
Even though the founding families really wanted the reputation of being in a law abiding town, Sonora, Texas had its fair share of lawlessness and shootouts. One of the first happened as workers laid the foundation for the courthouse. The only water well was on what is now the courthouse grounds. Everyone had a certain time to water their animals. It has been agreed that the watering time favored a man named Miers. However, a man named Adams brought his sheep to the watering troughs and of course, an argument ensued. Adams walked to his nearby home, retrieved a pistol, and returned to the well. He shot and killed Mr. Miers.
Such began the history of shootings in Sonora.
Ed Looney and Al Haley had become the best of friends. Looney had the beginnings of a fine ranching operation. Haley likewise ranched near Sonora and had intentions of building a home in the fledgling little town. Both men did a lot of trading in the day, and a minor dispute developed between the two, and Looney may have used some strong and threatening language. At least that is what some of the courthouse records might show.
Of course, cowboys get a hold of such things, and before you know it, it is being said that Looney was spouting off that one of them would not leave town alive. Sure enough, that got back to Haley and an argument developed in the hotel restaurant. After supper, both men filed out to the Maude S Saloon. Sometime later, shots rang out in the night. Folks rushed to the Maude S to see Haley coming out of the saloon walking toward them. He blew the smoke off the barrel of his gun and placed in the scabbard under his coat. He told the folks he hated what he had done; that he had shot the wrong man. Years later, after all the legal wrangling that could be done, Haley was acquitted of killing his best friend.
Two gamblers at the Ranch Saloon shot it out. Walter Sap and Frank Johns came busting out the doors of the Ranch Saloon and commenced shooting. There was not a winner as they killed each other.
Even though there was law and order in the little town, we must fast forward to 1901. Most people knew Will “News” Carver. He worked as a cowboy on a lot of the ranches in the area, and folks in Sonora could recognize him on site. Carver had joined up with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and was one of the Wild Bunch. He is pictured in the famous photograph that is said to have led to the end of the Wild Bunch gang. It seems Carver would continue taking what he wanted and spending it the way he saw fit. When he needed to lay low, there was plenty of country to hold up in around Sonora and he knew that country well. He would come into Sonora during the dark to get things that he needed. Stories really differ at how all this came about, but be that as it may, Will Carver and one of his sidekicks were gunned down in a bakery on the main street of Sonora by the Sheriff and several deputies. The sidekick lived to tell the Sheriff that Carver was innocent of the crime he was being hunted for. Carver died in the courthouse where he had been carried after the shooting stopped.
There are witness accounts for these three stories! Now, how a town can hold all that information so close to the vest is beyond imagination. But, the town did. To this day there are some that would really rather not discuss it and would put it away-not in a history book.
Events like these do tend to carve a town’s character. Sonora grew up and out of the shootout era, and became one of the richest centers for ranching, and then oil was discovered west of there. That portrays another chapter in the life of Sonora Texas.
**The first three shootings were told to me and others by my Grandmother Lottie Stephenson Turney, or Mrs. Frank Turney.
In the shooting at the well, she related that as a ten year old, she was responsible for getting the water for the day. She had a little wagon that she carried buckets in to the water troughs. Miers helped her load the water in the wagon, and told her and the other kids there to not play in the water as they usually did, because he wanted it to clear up before he brought in his stock. She heard the argument between Miers and Adams and hid beneath the porch of a nearby house and saw the shooting.
The year Ed Looney was shot and killed must have been in 1896 because my Grandmother said she was a waitress at the Decker Hotel and was 16 years old when it happened. She was serving when the argument between the two broke out. After the shots were heard at the Maude S Saloon, she, Mr. Decker and several others rushed to the Maude S to see what happened.
I do not know many of the details of the shooting between Walter Sap and Frank Johns other than what my Grandmother reported, as she was standing across the street when it happened.
The shooting of Will Carver is well documented. As far as comments from my Grandmother are concerned, she was married to Frank Turney in 1900. She had varying accounts about her whereabouts when it happened, and really did not discuss it much. I will say, she told me a much different account of what happened. She claimed everyone was so scared of Will Carver and his sidekick that they went into the building guns ablazing and the two had no chance. I have not been able to confirm that anywhere but in conversations with my Grandmother.
#
short stories 