Interview
with J. D. Shannon, Early Settler
"We came
here (Wichita Falls), from Pottsboro, Texas,
over near Caddo in the Choctaw nation. But I
was born originally in Illinois, and the
family came to Texas about 1872.
"When we came here there wasn't anything
here but ranches and a store or two. I
worked on ranches as cowpuncher around here
and in the Territory. There ain't no more
real cowpunchers any more. This ridin' fence
ain't nothin'. We ain't got any but
Sears-Roebuck cowboys now, and what do they
know about real cowpunchin', like when we
had eight or ten thousand head of longhorns.
Ever' mornin' we'd have to top off our
horses. Maybe there'd be forty or fifty
horses pitchin' at once, most of 'em
four-year-olds that'd been runnin' loose on
the range and hadn't felt a rope since they
was branded. The cowmen wouldn't let you use
a bridle with bits. You had to use a
hackamore so the horses wouldn't get their
mouth sore and cut up. Then they wouldn't
graze good and would get in bad condition.
Then, too, they'd run along in chasin'
cattle and sling their head from side to
side which kept them from watchin' their
rootin' and they was liable to fall, and
maybe break a leg.
Drivin' a herd on the trail you couldn't
take your own horse. You had to use the cow
outfit's horses so you couldn't quit the
outfit on the trail.
"One time we was goin' up the trail and got
into the Territory, and we had a good big
bunch of horses and about ten thousand head
of cattle. I was about thirteen years old. A
bunch of Comanches and Kiowas jumped the
boys ridin' guard on the herd and killed
four of the boys. I wasn't in that as I was
at the camp at the wagon. They come up on us
soon after sundown, so we couldn't skyline
'em. "We punchers maybe wouldn't get to town
more than once in six months, but the folks
in town would probably remember us till the
next deleted six months was up.
"A bunch of - about twelve of us went over
to Denison once,when it was the nearest
place of any size. We were all armed with
six shooters and saddle guns. We got drunk,
and decided to raise a lot of excitement by
doin' some shootin'. We wanted to be as
showable as we could. The sheriff and all
the citizens it looked like got after us and
run us plumb to the Red, and we jumped in
and started swimmin' across, leavin' the
sheriff and his bunch lined up on the bank
because they couldn't follow us into the
Indian Territory. We made it all right, none
of us got drowned. But one of the bunch, Key
Durant; he was a full blood Choctaw, saw a
forked log comin' toward him and his horse
with one fork stickin' up. He thought it was
an alligator, and got scared and left his
horse and swam off downstream. He had a sort
of a hard time gettin' across because the
Red has got a mean current for swimmin'
across to the Oklahoma side, it keeps goin'
toward the Texas side. Key had been down
about Bonham and saw some alligators in the
swamps around there.
