City Workers Tackle Water Treatment Problems

New membranes are prepared for insertion into pipes at left. Old ones are stacked vertically just to the right. 

At the City Water Treatment Plant, workers are currently replacing clogged membranes with new ones, which should alleviate recent problems with the plant’s ability to sufficiently reduce the minerals in the City water supply.

The hardness of Roscoe’s particle-rich water causes frequent clogging of the membranes, and their replacement is expensive. So, additional adjustments are underway to ensure that proper filtration of the water doesn’t become so expensive that it necessitates an increase in residents’ water bills.

City residents should once again have clear, filtered water by the end of next week. The City regrets any inconveniences these problems may cause.

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PLOWGIRLS DOWN TRENT 69-42

In a game played at Trent yesterday evening, the Plowgirls defeated the Lady Gorillas 69-42.

Score by quarters:
                          1          2           3           4
Plowgirls        21        35         53        69
Trent                6         22        29        42

Plowgirls’ individual scoring: Veronica Cuellar 12, Victoria Martinez 12, Kinzie Buchanan 11, Baylor Trevino 9, Alexis Arce 5, Liberty Saenz 5, Ellie Silva 5, Riley Sheridan 4, Bonnie Wilkinson 3, Hannah Ward 2, Ainsleigh Nelson 1.

The Plowgirls’ next games are in the Highland Tournament this weekend. Games begin on Thursday.

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THE PREHISTORY OF ROSCOE

Editor’s Note: In past issues of the Hard Times, I have written about old Roscoe and posted old newspaper articles and photos from those early times, but I have never said anything about what was here before then. So, since local news is short this week, I thought I’d write an account of this area’s prehistory, i.e., a Roscoe before there was a Roscoe. I’ve tried to keep it as short and sweet as possible, considering that I’m trying to cover a lot of time in a short space. I’ll divide it into two parts. Part 1 (this week) is about the original inhabitants of the area and the changes that came when the Anglo settlers moved in and pushed them out. Part 2 (maybe next week) will cover the coming of the railroad and the establishment of permanent communities, as well as the transition of unpopulated Katula to the settlement of Vista to the establishment of Roscoe.  

Up until the 1870s, the land on which Roscoe now stands was open grass prairie in a vast region teeming with wildlife—buffalo, deer, antelope, prairie dogs, wildcats, cougars, coyotes, wolves, bears, jackrabbits, rattlesnakes, and others, along with an abundance of turkeys and other birds of all sorts and sizes.

There were also people, not that many, and they were typically only temporary as they were nomadic, settling no lands and moving by season. In this area, they camped along Cottonwood and Champion Creeks, in Bird’s Nest Canyon, along Eagle Creek south of Roscoe, as well as the creeks to the north in Fisher County. And in all, they left evidence of their visits—arrowheads, spearheads, scrapers—some of which indicate that they were in the area as early as 9,000-10,000 years ago. Little else is known, though, about these early inhabitants.

Among the Plains Indians who roamed in Texas when the Europeans came, the Comanche dominated, but they themselves were relative newcomers. Arriving from the north only a century or two earlier, they were previously a poor, footbound offshoot of the Shoshones in the country where Wyoming is now.

Early map showing Comancheria, the land of the Comanche. (Inside red line.)

Their fortunes changed when they learned to catch and tame the wild prairie mustangs, also relative newcomers, descended from horses the Spanish brought from Europe. The Comanches became excellent horsemen, which greatly increased their prowess in both hunting and warfare. They grew in strength and population to hold sway over an area reaching from what is now southern Colorado and Kansas all the way to south and southeast Texas.

Even so, they weren’t the only people moving around the south plains capturing mustangs, hunting buffalo, and living off the land. There were also Apaches and Kiowas, and to a lesser extent Caddos, Cheyennes, and Kickapoos, plus a smattering of Spanish traders, known as Comancheros.

The Comanches were nomads and raiders. Critical to their survival were the great herds of buffalo that moved across the prairie. From them, they got their meat for food and their skins for clothing as well as covering for the tepees they used for shelter.

The Comanche culture prized warfare and domination of the peoples around them, and they succeeded with this lifestyle for many generations. Their warriors thrived on raids in which they took what they wanted and killed those who resisted.

Beginning in the 1830s and 1840s, a new people began to encroach on the Comanche lands from the south and east. These were the English-speaking Americans, both white and black, as well as Germans from the Texas hill country. They had been around in increasing numbers since the early 1830s, coming as colonists to what was then part of Mexico, and indeed the Mexicans initially welcomed their arrival because their settlements created a buffer between the Mexicans and the Comanche raiders. But in 1836 the Anglo settlers rebelled and broke away from Mexico to become the Republic of Texas, and, as new immigrants arrived from the east, a growing number populated the areas bordering the Comanche lands.

Then in 1845, Texas joined the United States, and shortly thereafter the U.S. government began building forts along the Comanche frontier and sending in cavalry to protect the settlers from Indian raids.

In north Texas, Fort Worth, established in 1849, was at that time civilization’s western edge, and anything beyond it was Comanche hunting ground. Nevertheless, settlers continued to push west, and other forts west of Fort Worth were built not too long after—Fort Phantom Hill (present-day Taylor County) in 1851, Fort Chadbourne (near Bronte) in 1852, and Camp Cooper (Throckmorton County) in 1856. From the south, Texans and the Germans northwest of San Antonio were also venturing north into Comanche country, prompting the establishment of Fort Mason (Mason County) in 1851 and Fort McKavett (Menard County) in 1852. These frontier forts never housed that many soldiers; nevertheless, their presence served notice to the Indians that their raids would be resisted and their lands disputed.

Even though there were sporadic attempts at peace and the occasional signing of treaties, the nature of the two cultures was such that war was inevitable. The Anglo-American settlers were not about to let Comanche warriors come into their settlements to take horses and anything else they wanted without a fight. And the Comanche had no intentions of giving up their way of life to these strange, new people who were encroaching on land they considered theirs.

When civil war broke out in the United States in 1861, the federal troops in Texas were called away from the frontier forts to go fight the Confederates back east, and life became more precarious for the pioneers living on the Comanche borderlands. Some Texas-based Confederate troops manned the forts for about a year, but when they were also called away, the only protection provided settlers was usually by local volunteers and the Texas Rangers, although the latter were few and far between. As soon as the Indians figured this out, they attacked, and depredations increased from 1863-1867.

After the Civil War was over, though, federal troops returned to the frontier with the express intent of beating the Indians back and forcing them onto reservations in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). A wave of buffalo hunters also entered the area, eager to kill the buffalo and sell their hides. Both the settlers and soldiers welcomed the influx of hunters because they knew that wiping out the great herds would destroy the Indians’ way of life.

The U.S. Army built new forts, among them Fort Griffin (near Albany) in 1867, which became a gathering and jumping-off place for buffalo hunters, and Fort Concho (near San Angelo) also in 1867, manned by black troops, most of them former slaves who had come west to start a new life. Their dark skin and curly beards reminded the Indians of buffalo, so they called them Buffalo Soldiers.

For the next decade, the buffalo hunters roamed west Texas, including the prairie where Roscoe now stands, hunting and killing the buffalo. At the same time the U.S. soldiers, Texas Rangers, settlers, and others engaged the Comanche in major skirmishes, among them the battle at Adobe Walls, where they soundly defeated the native warriors and broke their will to fight on. By 1876 almost all the Indians were on reservations in the Indian Territory, no longer a significant threat to the Anglo settlers; and by 1878, almost all the buffalo had been slaughtered, forever changing the ecosystem of west Texas and destroying any possibility of a return to the old ways that had prevailed up until then. The Comanche nation had been brought to its knees in just a few short years, and its former domain was now open to exploitation by the Anglo-Americans.

Cattlemen began to take advantage of the prairie grasslands formerly inhabited by the buffalo, establishing large cattle ranches. In a short while their herds increased, and for many years cattle were taken in trail drives to the railhead at Abilene, Kansas, where they were then taken by rail in cattle cars to their final destination, the meatpacking plants of Chicago.

In 1876, with the Indians’ defeat imminent, the Texas legislature formed several new counties on land that up to then had simply been considered a small part of the greater Comanche hunting ground. Among them were Nolan, Fisher, Scurry, and Mitchell counties. At that time, there were only a handful of Anglos in the area, and most of those were transient, either buffalo hunters or cattlemen and their hands.

In present-day Snyder, buffalo hunters sold their hides to Pete Snyder, who had a store there in a small settlement known as Hide Town. A similar settlement grew up in what is now Colorado City, where hunters sold their hides and bone-collectors sold bones gathered from the surrounding prairie, which was littered with the decomposed carcasses of buffaloes.

In 1877, Billie Knight established a small store, which began as a dugout, on Sweetwater Creek about three miles southeast of present-day Sweetwater. It primarily served buffalo hunters in the area, and by 1879 a small number of settlers had located there. The settlement was known as Blue Goose, and later that year Knight’s store got a post office called Sweet Water.

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WEATHER REPORT: BEAUTIFUL FALL DAYS

Blue skies over Roscoe at sunrise.

The weather this past week has been as about as nice as it ever gets in west Texas. Thanksgiving Day was beautiful with sunshine, little to no wind, and mild temperatures. The high that afternoon was 72°F. Friday and the weekend followed suit with sunny skies and highs of 79°F on Friday, 68° Saturday, and 72° Sunday. On Monday, there was southwest wind and a high of 76°, and yesterday the temperature rose to 78° before a norther blew in yesterday afternoon and cooled things off. Lows were generally in the forties, although on Thanksgiving morning it was only 38°.

The forecast is for slightly cooler temperatures for the next three days with highs of only around 65° and lows in the forties. Saturday will warm up to 72°, Sunday 73°, and Monday 71°, and all three days with winds from the southwest. Lows will be in the fifties.

Rain is a possibility next Tuesday and Wednesday. Forecasters are currently giving this area a 40% chance for both days. This area could use a rain (what else is new?), but farmers who still have cotton in the field are probably hoping it will wait just a bit longer, at least until they can get their crop stripped.

No freezes are predicted before the middle of next week.

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