The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959 Page: 402
617 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
changes in the cultural, business, and political pattern that char-
acterized the transition. Higher education, twentieth century in-
dustrial development, the depression, and two wars are given their
share of treatment.
The book is chock-full of interesting details: of fights with
Indians, fence-cutting crises, tournaments and goose pullings, and
picnics and barbecues. It tells of the early-day Brownwood Lit-
erary Society, made up principally of young men but having a
few young women members; of debates with large and apprecia-
tive audiences; of plays and Negro minstrels.
It took men and women of tough fiber to make Brown County.
There was Elisha Childers, the "bear-hunter preacher" and Meth-
odist circuit rider who invariably rode with a shotgun and six-
shooter and would preach with his shotgun leaning against the
wall and his six-shooter on the table beside him. Ben Wilson, a
Baptist preacher of early days, would accept as pay meal, meat,
potatoes, and corn, "but would much prefer to have money."
It must have called for great faith when seven people organized
the First Presbyterian Church of Brownwood; and the two men
and two women who organized St. John's Episcopal Church must
have had both faith and courage. Some Brown County officials
were ingenious: witness the commissioners court that had author-
ity to repair the courthouse only but ended with a new courthouse
with only a few parts of the old one in it as a sort of fence against
the law.
A sketch of Brownwood's newspapers makes a good story. The
Sunny South, published by Ed P. Mickle and brothers, built itself
into a widely circulated publication mainly by giving away cheap
watches as prizes. The business called for a large building and
thirty employees. The Age of Reason, a Greenback organ pub-
lished by Mickle, had wide circulation; and another Greenback
organ, circa 188o, was Judge Charles H. Jenkins' Investigator.
Judge J. C. Roseborough's Pecan Valley News was a staunch Dem-
ocratic organ. For a period the Blanket Herald served the com-
munity of Blanket. The oldest newspaper still being published
is the Brownwood Banner. Will H. Mayes, who combined the
Banner with the Brownwood Bulletin and called his paper after
1887 the Banner-Bulletin, founded the School of Journalism at
the University of Texas402
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959, periodical, 1959; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101173/m1/471/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.