Upon his return, he got into an argument with Blount over the bill, and had him killed. He was brought here for trial and sentencing. One day, he asked to use the phone, and when he had completed his call, could not find the jailer. The front door was open, so he just walked out.
Walking down the street, he happened to remember some American movies where they turned a prisoner loose in order to shoot him, so he turned around and walked back to the jail.
Ray died before sentence could be carried out. Another escape occurred when two men were put into one of the side cells where they could reach the bars on the windows. Apparently, someone smuggled a saw blade into them. One morning, the milkman asked the sheriff's wife if she was drying laundry out the second-floor window.
When she went out and looked, it was discovered that they had cut the bars, used their sheets for rope, and escaped. Another escape occurred when a prisoner locked a jailer and a trustee in a cell and fled the premises. From the corner of the museum, look over toward the county courthouse. In the early days of Brownwood, most of the business section of town was built around the square. The courthouse was moved because they were unable to find a decent well, because of salt water, to provide adequate water.
In a second story was added to a building that was to serve as a Masonic Lodge. When title to the land proved defective, the courthouse was moved to its current location where a courthouse was built. This courthouse burned in , and the county had to move into temporary quarters over on what is now Fisk Street. There was no courthouse from to , just a vacant square. A new courthouse was built in on the same site as the one that burned, with the cornerstone being laid on October 30, That is, however, not the courthouse you see here today.
In , the county decided to repair or remodel the courthouse, and in so doing, the courthouse was so thoroughly torn down and repaired that only the vault and a few walls from the courthouse survived. The remodeling was completed in The courthouse of today is known as "classical revival brick".
If you go into the present Justice of Peace office, you will find the outside wall of the old courthouse, as the inside wall of his office. It curves back at an angle to the outside wall. Cross the street, staying on the same side of the street as the museum, going east.
A land surveyor report that in there was a hotel by the name of "The Son Hotel" located on this North side of the square. It consisted of a room on the north side and a room on the south side, with a passageway located between the two rooms.
The passageway had a lean-to in which the cooking and dining room were located. There were two beds in each room and pallets for the floor. The hotel was built of logs and was operated for many years by W. On this corner, directly across the street from the jail, where you are now standing, was the Knight Hotel built in It was a three-story building with a basement. This building changed owners and names many times. About , the building was added on to by Dr.
Jewel Daugherty and became the Central Texas Hospital. The first floor was built of stone walls with the upper two floors being mason walls. It had about thirty beds. It offered a nurse-training course, which was authorized to issue Registered Nurse certificates. The hospital finally closed in It has had several owners and business since then with Technakill Elimination Service being the present tenant. There was a blacksmith shop next to it.
Continue walking down the street until you come to the next corner. See that house on the other side of the street, on the NE corner of N. Broadway and N. There has always been a home there since It was the Hall home, owned by Tom Hall. About , the present home was built there and is still occupied. This second home was built of brick but the owners were not fond of the brick so they added rock to the outside. The house is made of concrete with very thick walls and ceilings.
It originally had gaslights, which were later replaced by electricity. Each bedroom had its own door to the outside so people could come and go as they pleased. Eddie Watson lived in the home and lived there from until Cross the street and turn right, going south on what is now a parking lot for the county courthouse. Continue down the parking lot side of the street until you come to the flag pole and little park at the South end of the street.
Coleman, a grocer was located here at this end of the block and later, it became the location for Looney Mercantile. The Looney store was completed in and was in business here until In the early days of the store, it carried a full line of groceries, hardware, agricultural implements and dry goods. This area is now known as "Rotary Square," a mini-park built by the Brownwood Rotary Club in late as a project in honor of the American Bicentennial.
Fisk Street was named after Greenleaf Fisk, because he donated sixty acres to the town and one hundred acres to the county for a courthouse and civic center. He died in , at the age of eighty-one, and is buried in the Greenleaf Cemetary, named for him because he donated the land. Now look across the street toward the South side of the courthouse. On the corner was Happy Jack's Saloon in the late 's. Later, the Corner Drug was located there.
It is now the offices of Charlie V. Gamblin, Attorney. In the 's the White Elephant Saloon was next door, with its sign, a white elephant on a pole, out in front. Next door to this saloon was Hodges and McCord, a general mercantile store, followed by another saloon known as the "OO Saloon. The corner store was occupied by the Looney Dry Goods and Grocery. Broadway, earlier in Now let's cross the street at the light and continue South to the block of N.
Stay on this side of the street. They employed five men and met all the trains in town. It had barns all the way past Pecan Street to the banks of Adams Branch.
Wash Hall bought an open bus-type conveyance that he rented out to local people with a driver for the horses. The conveyance became known as "The Booze Wagon" because the first group that rented it got roaring drunk. Businessmen used the rented wagon for trips to nearby towns, and families rented it out for picnics. The first telephone line in Brown County ran from Hall's Livery Stable to the city water pump station which was located on the stream nearby.
The phone was used to know when to increase the water pressure in case of fire. One time the pump master raised the pressure so high it buckled the pipes in the street. By , there were six phones in town.
Now, let's continue down the street to the block of N. Fisk, still staying on the East side of the street to N. This also became Cheapskate Chandler's in the 's. Ova S. Chandler, who lived upstairs, had to have a wall taken out to get a grand piano into her home. Incorporated in Around problems over water supply and a disputed land title induced many citizens of Brownwood to move from the east to the west side of Pecan Bayou. Early was not considered to be a separate community until the midth Century.
In a new school district, named for Walter U. Early, an attorney, who donated land for several school buildings was formed on the site, and the Anderson, Ricker, Delaware and Jenkins Spring schools consolidated with Early. In , when the town had an estimated inhabitants and Cumberland Presbyterian, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches, the first bank was opened and a schoolhouse was built that also served as a town hall and a church.
Because Brownwood lay on a feeder line of the Western Trail , stores and saloons served the needs of the cowboys who drove the herds through town.
A cotton gin was built in town in as the state of Texas began to offer the land to farmers. The s and s were decades of dramatic growth for the community, as the population increased from in to 2, in and 3, in The town became a center of the Farmers' Alliance with the building of the West Texas District Alliance Cotton Yard and the establishment of an alliance paper, the weekly Freemans Journal.
In the Brownwood Daily Bee became the town's first daily paper. The courthouse burned in , and a new one was completed in In , when Brownwood incorporated, the town had two banks, nine general stores, five saloons, two hotels, and steam cotton and grist mills.
The following year the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad built through Brownwood, and in the town built its first waterworks. An opera house was built in the late s.
By the town had five churches, an icehouse, a fire department, and a sanitarium. There were also significant developments in education during these years. Several local schools were consolidated to form the Brownwood Independent School District in Daniel Baker closed, and its campus became part of Howard Payne College in By , the city was dominated by the cotton industry.
The approaching herd of cattle was a signal for merchants to close their doors until the herd had passed through the town and the dust had settled. Wagon Trains and other travelers who came up the same roads were welcomed. Many times they camped along the Bayou and stayed a few days.
Brownwood was the last town on the frontier. The local people heard news from the outside world and there was a lot of trading between the locals and travelers. Some of the families decided to stay in the area and build homes. Transportation was the greatest problem that faced the citizenry of Brownwood. The nearest city for Brownwood to get supplies from was one hundred and twenty miles away.
It took at least two weeks and even a month for Brown County freighters to go after supplies and return. Those who drove the oxen teams went toward Austin because of good grazing. Freighters with teams of mules or horses got the supplies from Waco or Fort Worth because they could buy feed from the farmers. In it was announced that the railroad tracks were to be laid into the area. A town who wanted tracks built into their town had to raise a certain amount of money and get the right-of-ways prepared.
Residents of Brownwood raised the amount needed and purchased the right-of-ways for the tracks. The first train rolled into Brownwood on December 1, and regular train service began in February of The coming of the railroad was to change Brownwood completely. A little town that had struggled for thirty years became the trade center of Central Texas.
Freight and passenger trains came and went from all directions.
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