The Junior Historian, Volume 15, Number 2, November 1954 Page: 19
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THE JUNIOR HISTORIAN
GEORGE H. CRAIG, SR., FORT WORTH
POLICEMAN
by SAMMY CRAIG
Arlington Heights High School, Fort WorthCtTWIDE OPEN TOWN" was
the name which cowboys gave
Fort Worth, the last impor-
tant town on the cattle trail to Dodge
City. Each year rowdy saloons and
dance halls multiplied, creating a social
blight which was intensified by the
coming of the Texas and Pacific Rail-
road in July, 1876. The railroad brought
commercial blessings to the booming
town, but it also brought growing num-
bers of gamblers, gunmen, and outlaws
to prey upon the townspeople and to
exploit the guileless cowboys. After
dusk decent women were afraid to go
out into the streets, and when night
came business men did not risk going
home without a pistol. By 188o the citi-
zens of the town began a crusade for
law and order, and by 1885 reform be-
came the order of the day.
The first permanent police force was
organized in 1887. On this first city
police force was a brave and daring
frontiersman, George H. Craig, Sr.,
who served as sanitary officer. Craig was
born in Dumfries, Scotland, on May I I,
1850. His family brought him to Massa-
chusetts when he was two. In his child-
hood he had heard tales of the West
and of Texas, and when he reached the
age of fourteen he decided he was big
enough to discover these western adven-
tures, for himself. He ran away from
home and took passage as a cabin boy
on a ship bound for Galveston. From
Galveston he journeyed to Houston and
began working for the railroads. Later
he worked for the Texas and Pacific as
it built toward Fort Worth. In 1873 he
settled in Fort Worth, and by 1883 he
had established his family in a pretty
and substantial house at 315 North
Cherry Street. The residence was razed
in 1939 to make way for the federalhousing project known as the Ripley
Arnold Center.
The position of sanitary officer was
but one of the many that Craig held
during his twenty-eight years of public
service. At the turn of the century
Police Chief J. H. Maddox, in need of
an able and fearless officer, commis-
sioned Craig head of the prison guards.
During this time the prisoners under
Craig were compelled to do construc-
tion work on the streets of the growing
town. Pick irons were locked on the
prisoners' ankles to make escape both
difficult and painful. At the end of the
day when the men were returned to the
prison, the locks and picks were re-
moved. If the prisoner proved to be a
steady worker on his first day, he was
rewarded by being required to wear
only a chain on the next day. If the
prisoner showed any sign of insubordi-
nation, however, he was forced to wear
double picks for the rest of his sentence.
In a letter to Craig, written on July Io,
19o6, Chief Maddox commented on the
pick and chain regulation:
You will please notify the prison guards
who work under you that I will ask the next
officer to hand in his resignation who allows a
prisoner to escape the chain gang unless the
prisoner escapes with either a pick or chain
attached to him. This does not include the
water man who is generally entrusted to go
where he pleases.
I shall hold you responsible of informing
them, and shall hold them both responsible for
the men who you give them to guard and shall
expect them to bring back all that they take
out.
After a day of toil the weary prison-
ers were usually quiet and Craig had
few problems of discipline; however,
when trouble arose he met it with fear-
less calm. An incident which demon-
[continued on page 81]19
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Texas State Historical Association. The Junior Historian, Volume 15, Number 2, November 1954, periodical, November 1954; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth391477/m1/21/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.