Jacksboro Gazette-News (Jacksboro, Tex.), Vol. 134, No. 39, Ed. 1 Tuesday, March 4, 2014 Page: 3 of 10
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Opinion
Tuesday, March 4, 2014_WWW.JACKSBORONEWSPAPERS.COM_Jacksboro Gazette-News • Page 3
Who wouldn’t want
to be a reporter?
someone
I completed my fifth month as the r
tor for Jacksboro Newspapers and
asked me last weekend what I thought of the
job.
I answered instantly and honestly with, “It’s
not what I expected.”
That seemed a little surprising to the f
Sure, the news is as I expected
people I’ve met are as friendly as I expected.
What I didn’t expect were the staffing issues.
I don’t understand why it has been so hard
to find a reporter.
It’s hard to believe that there isn’t someone
around Jack County that wouldn’t be excel-
lent for the job.
5 perso
and tl
basic skills along with a natural curiousity
and the ability to tell £
Reporting is a job that requires some fairly
asic skills ;
lity to tell a story.
It’s a job like no other in Jacksboro, Texas.
Reporters get to go out and jump into the
thick of things and find out what’s going on.
Reporters get to meet all kinds of people and
learn all sorts of things about them, things
people who have known them for years never
knew. It still amazes me how much people will
share simply because someone cared enough
■y, if not many.
i learning about ...
it relates to their communities.
to ask. Everyone has a story, if not
constantly learning
Reporters
ythin*
erything as
>at includes learning and then explaining
es fit i
Reporters get tc
day in and day on
It’s an ever-chai
how their communities fit in a larger scope.
: to hone their research skills
{out.
hanging job. Each day’s work
brings something new. It never becomes bor-
ing or routine. Even when a reporter feels he
has covered the same story to death a dozen
Cherry
Picked
By Cherry Rushin
Managing Editor
times, there’s always the opportunity to make
it new and fresh or to broaden it contextually.
Reporters get to ask questions. In fact,
they’re paid to persistently, tenaciously ask
questions. If those questions are asked of
anyone who makes their living on or helps
spend tax dollars, they usually get answered.
“Refused to comment,” generally has nega-
a coincidence that Super-
man’s cover was as a mild-mannered reporter.
I’ll liken myself in no way to the Man of Steel
(I’m more a Green Hornet fan, anyway) ex-
cept that I strongly believe in “truth, justice
and the American way.”
I like to believe most people do, but as a jour-
nalist, I have a tool to advance those ideals.
Reporting is an exciting occupation. Can
anyone else in Jack County say they spent the
last week hanging out while cops played cops
in a tactical training, watching citizens ac-
tively participating in their government, help-
ing a man on a cross-country adventure on
horseback further his cause, and talking with
a group of students excited to learn a trade?
Sadly, there was murder in our headlines
this week, as well. Reporters have some diffi-
cult stories to cover and death is the toughest.
But anytime I think that aspect of my job is
rough, I think of the police, paramedics and
the judge that were on duty. And like those
guys, I’m sure, I thank my lucky stars I don’t
live somewhere the tough stories happen
more frequently.
five implications.
I don’t think it’s
Northern winds chill
the soul, scatter trash
Wind in Texas is a given. During the long,
hot summer drought, the wind blew. It moved
out of the southern desert that borders Texas
and Mexico building up speed, picking up
dirt, and burning the living matter into kin-
dling. Finally, when it burst into flames, we
took note. After all, we are so used to wind
that we can withstand a forty-mile-an-hour
gale and call it a lovely day.
The convection oven which is the core of
West Texas has withstood so many days of
dry, harsh wind, that the beauticians have run
out of spray-net, the sand-blasting companies
have gone out of business, and little children
have grown up thinking that the swings on the
playground are supposed to parallel the hori-
Now, it is winter and the north wind brings
with it secret, sly little ways to make us mis-
erable. That north wind rides along on the Jet
Stream until it tumbles out over Mount Rush-
more and heads for Possum Kingdom. By the
time it hits the Nebraska border, it has picked
up speed, carrying a blast of cold that could
put the Jolly Green Giant out of business.
Those trees and shrubs which were not
burned-alive last summer are hanging on for
dear life as the chill threatens to freeze-dry
their budded limbs and suck what moisture is
creeping up from the ground. We’re used to it.
I don’t know if this weather we’ve been hav-
ing the last few years is Global Warming or
Climate Change. A scientist was interviewed
the other day about why we’re having such
cold winters at the same time the ice caps are
melting. He blamed it on the wobbling Jet
Stream. He seemed to think we were just go-
Beth
Beggs
ing to have to get used to it.
My neighbor Leonard thinks that someone
should do something about it. He grew up in
Texas, raised his children in Texas, and gives
Wanda June a hard time because she was bom
in Oklahoma. He should know about the wind
and be ready for it.
The other morning, he rolled his trash bin
out to the curb. He made sure that the stack of
newspapers was in the bottom of the bin. He
tied down the tops of the plastic bags and put
them on top. The lid was easy to close.
He didn’t notice the wind as he went back in-
side to have breakfast with Wanda June. The
sun was just coming up when a large white
bird flapped its wings as it came from over the
roof and passed their breakfast room window.
“What was that?” Wanda June asked.
Another white bird flapped his wings and
made it over to the fence. “It’s not a bird. It’s
probably another one of those Walmart bags.”
Parts of the “bird” clung to the trees along
their rock fence. It was a page from a news-
er. Leonard, complaining about Walmart
the inconsiderate neighbors who would
leave newspapers in their yards while “good
people” put theirs in the bottom of the trash
bins.
The phone was ringing when he came in.
The lady who lives across from them was
calling to tell them that the neighborhood
had been “papered” by some vandals, and the
See BEGGS page 10
Crystal Falls rises,
then falls
It’s easy for a motorist to miss what remains
of Crystal Falls, a tiny village located at the
intersection of Farm roads 1481 and 78.
When you drive by it, it’s hard to imagine
that at one time the town named for a small
waterfall flowing off the banks of the Clear
Fork of the Brazos boasted numerous busi-
nesses. The original settlement began to grow
during the brief buffalo boom of the 1870s.
Buffalo hunters carrying their hides in wag-
ons stopped there to water their horses and
drink the precious sweet water. The popula-
tion soon grew to 175 and was large enough
to warrant a post office. Eventually, Crystal
Falls gained a general store, gristmill, livery
stables, steam gin, flour mill, Union church,
doctor’s office and blacksmith.
The mercantile store owned by Buck Rob-
ertson and Henry Black supplied machinery,
buggies, plows, wagons, harnesses, groceries
and dry goods. The general store also had a
telephone and an elevator, a hand-operated
contraption in the basement, according to
the book, “Doodle Bugs and Cactus Berries:
A Historical Sketch of Stephens County,” by
Betty Hannah.
Telephone lines connected the citizens of
Crystal Falls to Murray, Eliasville and Breck-
enridge. This introduced unheard of con-
veniences for folks living on isolated farms
and ranches. People could suddenly call in
a list of supplies to the store and expect to
get deliveries on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
And since the post office was at the store, the
country folk also received mail delivery on
the same days.
At the first of the year customers came in the
general store and made arrangements for the
supplies they needed for the next 10 months.
Store owners did not expect payment until af-
ter the crops came, and farmers and ranchers
usually paid with new calves, a colt or a litter
of pigs. Hanna wrote that sometimes the store
owner, Buck Robertson, traveled as far away
as Indian territory to obtain payment from a
North
Texas Tales
By Gay Sehlittler
Storms
family who moved without paying their bill.
People in neighboring communities gath-
ered at Crystal Falls every summer for a huge
stayed for an
entire month. Pioneers in covered wagons
pulled into the camp site from all direi
pulh
Thei
camp meeting and \
>nth. 1
o the i
days were spent singing, visiting, eat-
ing, playing games and listening to the eve-
ning sermons of a camp preacher. They
brought ice from Graham and buried it in pits
for the crowd. They drank strawberry and
lemon soda pop from bottles that had spring-
like tops, and each day the cooks butchered
a fresh supply of beef to feed to the hungry
crowds.
The brief oil boom from 1918-21 boosted
Crystal Falls’ population to 1,200 residents,
and subsequently more businesses, including
a hotel, a sweet shop, a hardware store
and two restaurants were built there. Many oil
camps were nearby, and gas flares from the
wells lit up the countryside. Long gone oil
camps sprang up nearby, and C.M. Caldwell
succeeded in getting a dam built which al-
lowed Breckenridge its first adequate water
a bank, a
supp
Ho'
idge its nrst adequal
tply from the Clear Fork River in 1921.
wever, eventually oil prices fell causing
most folks to move and storefronts to close
their doors. During that time, every bank in
Stephens County went bankrupt except for
one in Breckenridge. Crystal Falls acquired a
railroad station on the new Cisco and North-
eastern Railway during the 1930s and 1940s.
Despite the lucky break, the population didn’t
town
people and
trugghng
left with a population of only 150
ving business. The p
s surviv
spopi
revive or create new business. The struggling
itic
ng bi
? closed in the early 1940s, and after
1950s, the population declined further. An es-
timated 10 people continue to live in Crystal
Falls, and the church and cemetery are the
only official landmarks.
post
r the
Jacksboro Gazette-News
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Rushin, Cherry. Jacksboro Gazette-News (Jacksboro, Tex.), Vol. 134, No. 39, Ed. 1 Tuesday, March 4, 2014, newspaper, March 4, 2014; Jacksboro, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth707970/m1/3/?q=divorce: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Gladys Johnson Ritchie Library.