| |
Shackleford
County Courthouse
©2007 Bill Morgan. All
rights reserved
SHACKELFORD COUNTY - As you head west from where
I live in Dallas County, the rolling, tree-topped hills begin to flatten out
where bois d'arc and elm give way to sage and juniper. It dawns on you that
you've left the congested city behind and are in cattle country.
That
would be in the vicinity of Shackelford County, home of one of my favorite
Texas courthouses and my very favorite story among the hundreds I heard in a
dozen or so years of listening to old-timers' stories. Cattle country means
cowboys, and cowboys mean tall tales, but I'm not about to question the
veracity of this account:
His name was George Washington Greer and I
failed to find anyone in Shackelford County who doubted his story. Having met
some of the area's octogenarian cowhands who were still around as late as the
1990s, I believe that things happened for George Washington Greer just as the
story has been handed down.
Greer settled the land 30 or so miles
north of Abilene soon after Shackelford was carved out of Bosque County in
1858. He hacked out a living with hard work and a small pack of working and
hunting dogs. One day he found the savaged remains of one of his dogs amid
signs of a mountain lion. Greer followed the cat's track to a two-foot hole in
the ground, sure sign of the mountain lion's home. So he bearded the den.
Clamping a long knife between his teeth, he squirmed his way through the narrow
tunnel. Man and beast had it out three or four feet underground in mortal
hand-to-claw combat. Man won.
"Wasn't aiming to let that devil get
away with clawin' up my best dog," George Washington Greer told his neighbors
after demonstrating that there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Buy A Print
11x17 prints on sturdy stock
of the Shackleford County Courthouse are available on my ordering page. The
cost is $20 for the first print and $16 for additional prints of this, or any
of the other 11 courthouses, purchased at the same time. (Add $3 for
shipping) |
|
|
