Downtown San Angelo Summer '25 - Magazine - Page 17
Davy Crockett’s rifle, Betsy.
Photo Courtesy of TheAlamo.org
On August 23rd of 1882, after a wet
year, a heavy rain of some 6 inches
While Bart DeWitt is remembered with fell overnight and the river began
rising. By the morning of the 24th,
the lovely city park downtown along
the river, DeWitt held another tenuous people began to evacuate, too late for
claim to fame. The Nashville Tennessean the 65 people who perished. There
was substantial destruction in San
related on September 22, 1871, that
Angela (as it was still called) but
Davy Crockett’s rifle, affectionately
called “Betsy” by that coonskin-capped virtually the entire town of Ben
Ficklin was washed away. The flood
hero of the Alamo, passed after his
waters were so powerful that a barrel
death to “some Americans in San
of whiskey “was found seven miles
Antonio.” They restocked and
below Paint Rock, a distance from Ben
ornamented the gun with gold and
silver “so that her intrinsic value, apart Ficklin by the river course, of eighty
from her history, exceeded a hundred miles,” The Times-Picayune reported
on October 2, 1882. Most of the
dollars.” The gun then came into
possession of “a Mr. Dewitt, who lives survivors of the flood relocated to San
Angela, and San Angelo became the
near Fort Concho, in Texas.” DeWitt,
county seat and surviving center of
too, modified the gun with a shorter
enterprise in the Concho Valley.
barrel and kept it, loaded, at his
Today, only a historical marker and a
trading post. An unsuspecting clerk
cemetery (not the original; that also
added a second charge and fired the
weapon, seriously injuring that young washed away) remain to mark the
brief existence of Ben Ficklin.
man but destroying the gun–and
“[t]hus ended the career of one of the
Taylor and Metcalfe survivors of the
‘great guns’ of modern days.”
Ben Ficklin flood who wound up in
Gradually, the saloons along DeWitt’s San Angelo played major roles in its
growth. James Blakely “Blake” Taylor,
Concho Avenue were joined by other
nephew of Mary Jane Metcalfe, went
businesses. Bakeries, barber shops,
into business with Clint Johnson of
mercantile stores, hotels and banks
began to be built, beginning as humble Tennessee and, as of 1885, they owned
the largest grocery in San Angelo. The
picket and buffalo hide structures or
adobe but eventually replaced by more store began as a picket structure on
permanent brick and stone structures. Concho Avenue; a more permanent
structure designed by Oscar Ruffini
Ben Ficklin beat out San Angelo to
was built between Schwartz and Raas
become the county seat when Tom
(which still stands) and San Angelo
Green County was carved out of its
National Bank to the east. The new
original Bexar County designation in
store included a retractable awning–a
1874. The two communities were
marvel for the time. The Fort Worth
competitive with one another–for
Daily Gazette reported on August 13,
prestige, for patronage from the fort
and the farmers and ranchers, and for 1884, that the young partners, “full of
energy and nerve . . . handle
attracting investment and settlement.
groceries, making a specialty of fine
The competition ended when an
unforeseeable disaster decided the fate goods, and also confections, tobaccos
and all smokers’ articles.”
of the burgeoning towns.
Whiskey barrel being swept away by flood waters.
Johnson sold his interest to Taylor, who
moved the store to Chadbourne Street
under the name “Taylor and Company.”
Johnson went into business with John
R. “Sarge” Nasworthy running a livery
stable and stagecoach service to
Ballinger, the nearest railroad line.
Aside from being a long trip (some
seven hours), the stage was robbed on
occasion, including an armed robbery
which took place on February 5, 1884,
as reported in the Fort Worth Daily
Gazette: “Two men on foot ran out to
the road, hailed the driver and ordered
the passengers to get out, when Sheriff
Gerald and Turnbo opened fire, which
was returned by the robbers . . .
Sheriff Gerald was wounded in the
shoulder and the small of the back,
and there is very little hopes of his
living.” Gerald did in fact die of his
wounds and was buried in San Angelo.
Nasworthy had been in business on
Concho Avenue running a saloon and
billiards hall. A large landholder, his
properties included the site Angelo
State University occupies and extended
out to the lake which bears his name.
Tom Green Times covering the flood.
Photo Courtesy of Newspapers.com
