Heritage, Volume 5, Number 3, Autumn 1987 Page: 22
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BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE:
The Rockshelter Homes of Early Settlersby Solveig A. Turpin
7 or thousands of years, the
native inhabitants of the area surrounding
the mouth of the Pecos River made
their homes in rockshelters hollowed
from the limestone walls of entrenched
tributaries to the Rio Grande. Epidemic
diseases, displacement by warrior
tribes from the Plains, the slaughter of
the once-vast bison herds, famine, heated
military activity and, finally, the
coming of the Southern Pacific Railroad
in 1881 eradicated the Native Americans
and opened the area to settlers as
tough and sturdy as the stock they
imported. Many were young, poor and
optimistic about their chances of carving
ranching empires from the unsympathetic
environment of the Lower Pecos
region. Some, like their ancient predecessors,
recognized the advantages of
natural shelter, living in caves until they
became prosperous enough to construct
homes. Often, the shelter dwellers
were bachelors who eventually married
and built houses for their families.
Erasmus Keyes Fawcett was one of
the earliest stockmen to homestead on
the Devils River. Orphaned at the age
of 3, he was brought from Natchez,
Mississippi to be raised by relatives in
Gonzales. In 1883, when only 18, he and
three other drivers helped George
Ames drift sheep to Devils River. His
pay was $15 a month. Fawcett decided
to stay on and established his home in a
rockshelter overlooking Dolan Springs
while he built a log cabin on a nearby
knoll. Starting with his own small homestead,
he accumulated land and stock
over the years until he owned a 68,000
acre spread.
In 1902, he married the daughter of
another pioneer Devils River family,
Frances Baker of Baker's Crossing.
Their first home, built of barrel staves
cemented with adobe, still stands on the
Fawcett Ranch headquarters amidst a
complex of more recent buildings including
two later and larger homes,
barns, bunkhouse, bath house, smokehouse,
acetylene generating plant,
22raised garden plot and workers' houses.
Although Keyes Fawcett's rockshelter
home has been scoured by flooding of
the Devils River and the original log
cabin was destroyed by fire, the headquarters
remains largely intact, preserving
an architectural history of early
ranching on Devils River.
John and French Ingram were
brothers who worked as cowpunchers
before coming to Val Verde County in
the early 1900s. There, they established
their home in a rockshelter on the Pecos
River. A small seep-spring flowed
from the cave wall into a natural bowl
in the bedrock, providing ample drinking
water. Both brothers were to acquire
large holdings along the Pecos River,
lands still held by the family.
Aaron and Lizzie Billings came
home to Langtry from New Mexico in
1904, travelling the entire way in a
horse-drawn wagon. They acquired a
small herd of goats and, with their 2year-old
son, moved into a rockshelter
on a high hill between the Pecos River
and the Rio Grande. Mrs. Billings, who
is now 101 years old, recalls they lived
largely on fish her husband caught. An
unexpected freeze wiped out their
entire stock and they moved into Langtry
after several months of tenancy in
the shelter. The low rock wall they built
around the shelter mouth still stands
and a few scraps of metal are intermixed
with the debris of prehistoric
occupation of the same site.
Whether an aftermath of the Depression,
or a result of hardships during
World War II, the shelters on the
Mexican side of the Rio Grande saw
heightened activity in the 1940s.
Smugglers were active, bootleggers
transporting their cargo of illicit tequila
across the river in small boats, unloading
it on the bluffs below Langtry. The
sad tale of an anonymous elderly
woman who lived in a rockshelter on the
Mexican side of the Rio Grande in the
1940s is recalled by Jack Skiles and
Pete Billings of Langtry. She mysteriously appeared one day and was often
seen around her shelter home. Residents
of the American side left food
and clothing for her on the banks. When
someone realized she hadn't been seen
for a few days, they went to investigate,
finding her dead in the shelter. Another
grave, that of a child, overlooks the Rio
Grande from a hillside of the Mexican
side. This is all that remains of another
family who lived in rockshelters across
from Langtry during this era.
Not all the modern occupants of
rockshelters were as nobly inspired as
the early settlers or the impoverished
people of the 1940s. The rugged terrain
of the canyon country provided a refuge
for renegades and ruffians. Perhaps the
most famous villain to hide out in a Lower
Pecos Rockshelter was Sam Bean,
youngest son of Judge Roy Bean, the
patron of nearby Langtry. In his book,
Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos, C. L.
Sonnichsen describes the incident that
sent Sam Bean, "a quarrelsome, overbearing
fellow," on the lam. Sam had
been harrying a respectable citizen of
Langtry named Charlie Upshaw over
some trifling incident with a Mexican
blanket. One fateful day in January,
1898, Sam ridiculed Upshaw for the
last time in front of a group of men
sitting on the porch of the Jersey Lily
saloon. Upshaw gave Sam Bean a
thorough drubbing and turned to walk
away. Judge Bean purportedly goaded
Sam, telling him no Bean ever stood for
such treatment. Sam gabbed his longbarreled
rifle and shot Upshaw twice.
Upshaw died in the street in his wife's
arms and was buried in the Babb Cemetery
in Langtry.
Although Sam Bean was indicted
for the murder and scheduled for trial
in Del Rio, the Judge managed to intimidate,
bribe or otherwise coerce the
witnesses. Sam was acquitted in March,
1899. He was to die in a knife fight in
San Antonio less than 10 years later.
According to local legend, Sam went
into hiding while awaiting trial, leaving
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 5, Number 3, Autumn 1987, periodical, Autumn 1987; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45439/m1/22/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.