Joe Herring Jr.

Recently I gave a presentation at the Schreiner Mansion, back when it was still part of Schreiner University, where I paired historic photographs with snaps I'd taken that day with my phone. I did this because I realized most people haven't studied area photographs as I have, and so it's sometimes confusing to know where an historic photo was taken. So I took a copy of each historic photograph with me, and tried to find the exact spot where the old photograph was taken -- and then I took a photo with my cellphone. Over the next few Wednesdays, I'll publish the results here. Please feel free to share these with your friends.

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Digging a swimming pool at the Louise Hays Park in Kerrville, 1950s.
A deep water pool was built, complete with a diving board.
Of course, during the next few floods, the pool was filled with gravel.

The site as it appears today.

Camp Verde, just south of Kerrville, as it appeared around 1940.

Our community has had a lot of famous visitors.
Robert E. Lee most likely visited Kerrville before the civil war, when he was a colonel stationed at Fort Mason and went to visit Camp Verde (about 12 miles south of Kerrville); Albert Sidney Johnston, too, was at Camp Verde.
The Kerrville they visited looked a lot different than what we call Kerrville today, and when they passed through our community, both men were thinking of camels.
Yes, camels.
Camp Verde was established in 1856 – the same year Kerr County was organized. It had been the idea of Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War in the Pierce administration, to use camels “for transportation purposes” across the deserts to our west.
According to Bob Bennett, in his useful history of Kerr County, Davis conceived this idea during the Mexican War of 1847-48, while serving with his father-in-law, Zachary Taylor.
A bill appropriating $30,000 for the purchase of the camels was passed by Congress in 1855, and a Navy store vessel, the “Supply,” was sent to obtain camels. The “Supply” visited Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and other countries, and brought 33 camels back to Indianola in April, 1856. Three Arab drivers came with the camels: Mico, “Greek George,” and Hadji Ali, known from here to Arizona as “Hi Jolly.”
The trip from Indianola to San Antonio took fourteen days; the camels were finally driven to their home at Camp Verde in August, 1856.
By the time of the Civil War, when Camp Verde was occupied by Confederate troops, the herd had increased to eighty head, not counting those in transport service from here to California, or those strays that had escaped the fort.
A Lt. Edward F. Beale was ordered to open a wagon road from New Mexico to California, and chose camels for the task, hoping to demonstrate their “practicability.” On this journey the camels “carried water on the desert for the mules; they traversed stretches of country covered with sharp volcanic rocks without injury to their feet; with heavy packs they climbed over mountains where mules found it difficult to go, even with the assistance of their dismounted drivers, and to the surprise of all the party, the camels plunged into rivers without hesitation and swam with ease.”
Two things doomed the experiment to introduce camels to the American west: the Civil War, and the fact that most Westerners had no experience with (or use for) camels.
The war ended the experiment because those involved were called to fight; many of those stationed in our area became generals in that war. The Confederate soldiers at Camp Verde during the war saw the herd increase to 100 head, but little was done with them during that time.
And those who worked with the camels had little use for them. According to Bennett, “Horses and mules had an unconquerable fear of them; packers and soldiers detested them.” These feelings were probably because the soldiers and packers had little experience with the animals.
It’s worth noting that the Beale expedition, mentioned above, included in its ranks “Greek George,” and “Hi Jolly,” two experts at loading and driving camels. That expedition noted the usefulness of the camels. Other expeditions, lacking expert guidance, didn’t fare as well.
After the war, of course, anything associated with Jefferson Davis wasn’t given a high priority by the federal government, so by 1869 the experiment and the fort were history. In 1866, the federal government got “out of the camel business,” selling sixty head of camels to Bethel Coopwood in San Antonio, at a price of $31 each. Camp Verde was abandoned November 30, 1869.
As for the camels other than those sixty sold to Coopwood, local lore says many were simply released into the wild. If you see a descendent of one of those Camp Verde camels, let me know.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who wishes his editor, Donna Hatch, the best of luck as she moves to Florida to be closer to family. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times October 3, 2015.

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417 Hays, around 1930.
The gentlemen are playing dominoes.
I believe this was the home workshop of Max Grona,
a blacksmith.

The site as it appears today.

The Grona home has been restored, and serves as the offices
of the Kerrville Board of Realtors.

The world is smaller than it was when I was a child.
Last week, I wrote in these pages about the camels at Camp Verde, an experiment of the U.S. Army to determine if camels would prove useful in the transportation of supplies through the rugged desert terrain of the American southwest. That column appeared in print on Saturday, the 3rd, and on my blog (www.joeherring.com) the following Monday, the 5th.
On the 6th I had an email from a longtime friend, John MacCrossan, who has a gift for research, and has often provided interesting facts for this column. He has helped solve several Kerr County history mysteries, including the three photographs of a parade in downtown Kerrville, where three marching groups seem to be converging on the intersection of what is now Water and Earl Garrett Streets. He not only figured out what the event was, but when the photographs were likely taken. They are some of the earliest photographs of downtown Kerrville.
He did all this from his home in Ireland, his native land. He is not a Texan, though he has two granddaughters who are; his son, Gerard MacCrossan, once worked with me at the print shop, and later served as an editor of the Kerrville Daily Times. It was through Gerard that I met John.
The email I received Tuesday from John in Ireland provided a link to an old army document: "Reports upon the Purchase, Importation, and use of Camels and Dromedaries, to be Employed for Military Purposes," which was printed in Washington, DC, in 1857.
It was a report sent by Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War, to James M. Mason, the president pro tem of the U. S. Senate.
"Sir," Davis wrote, "I have the honor to transmit herewith the correspondence and reports of the officers charged with the purchase and importation of the camel, and its employment for purposes of transportation in the military service of the United States....

Henry C. Wayne

"Under the appropriation of $30,000, made on the 3d of March, 1855, seventy-five camels have been imported. The aid furnished by the Secretary of the Navy in the use of a storeship returning from the Mediterranean greatly reduced the cost of transportation, and enable the department to introduce a much greater number of camels than was originally calculated....
"The limited trial which has been made fully realized my expectations, and has increased my confidence in the success of the experiment," Davis wrote in February, 1857.
Correspondence included in the report begins in May, 1855, with a letter from Davis to Major Henry C. Wayne. That letter instructs Wayne to head to New York, board the 'Levant,' a navy supply ship, commanded by Lieutenant D. D. Porter, USN.
"In the prosecution of your duties it may be requisite for one or both of you to go into the interior of Asia," wrote Davis, who also instructs Wayne to consult on "points connected with this special service, such as General Marey Monge, Colonel Carbuccia, and other officers of the French army who were connected with experiments in Africa, on the use of the camel in the military service of France. You had also better examine for your information the stock, training, and breeding of the Barbary camel, imported into Tuscany some two hundred years ago, and which, by careful breeding, is reported to have been greatly improved, both in size and strength."
Most of the camels which Major Wayne went to obtain ended up in Kerr County, at Camp Verde.
The experiment, of course, was interrupted by the American Civil War. Davis went on to be the president of the Confederate States of America, and Henry C. Wayne became a brigadier general in the Confederate army. (Wayne's father, James Moore Wayne, was a U. S. Supreme Court justice.)
For those who are interested in reading the official report of the camel experiment, you can find the entire report online at http://bit.ly/camelcorps In fact, you can even learn the names of some of the camels in the pages of the report.
Thanks again, John. This report was a great find, and adds to the history of our community.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who would love to walk around Camp Verde someday -- but needs permission from the owners of the property. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times October 10, 2015.

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Reiter's Garage, 900 block of Water Street, Kerrville, around 1940, possibly.
The Sinclair Station, Piggly Wiggly, and the Blue Bonnet Hotel are in the background.
This was across the street from the current sanctuary of Notre Dame Catholic Church.

The site as it appears today.

A. C. Schreiner home, Kerrville.
click on image to enlarge

Last weekend, this newspaper reported the old A. C. Schreiner home, which is just east of the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library, had been gifted to the City of Kerrville by an anonymous donor.
It came as no surprise, at least to this observer, that 'controversy ensued.'
At the meeting where the Kerrville city council accepted the gift at least one person spoke against taking the building, citing its numerous defects, including lack of handicap access, lack of air conditioning, and difficulties in accessing the upper floor of the home. If I remember correctly, another complaint was the amount of city staff time needed to develop a plan for the building, and for its inclusion into the 'library campus.'
Indeed, several have visited with me sharing similar complaints about the transaction. Many are concerned city government has a pitiful record when it comes to historic preservation, and most mention the city's lack of stewardship with the Arcadia Theater on Water Street. Still others bemoan the tax dollars the project will be spent on the project.
So, if you'll allow me, I'd like to step up on top of my soap box for a second.
A casual reader of this column will likely note I have a fondness for local history. In telling the story of our county, I have tried to build community; it's my opinion a community without a story is not a strong community.
We here are blessed with a strong story. The weakness has been so few know that story. We have a candle we've hidden under a bushel basket.
Our community has an even worse record of historic preservation. There have been a few attempts to collect items for a local history museum -- efforts that began as early as the 1920s. In each of these campaigns the ball never crossed the goal line; many of the donated historic materials ended up in the garbage or on a garage sale table. And we have no history museum.
Over the past few months I have been posting on my blog (www.joeherringjr.com) a series of historic photographs paired with photographs taken recently from the same spot. In the old photograph, you see an historic building or home; in the new photograph, you can see what's there, now. The series has garnered thousands of views, not only from local folks, but from viewers around the world, many of them former residents of our community.
Can you guess what the most consistent response has been to this series?
The most consistent response has been: I wish our community did a better job of historic preservation. Period.
And yet, when the gift of a historic home is given to the city government, the first thing people do is complain.
In the case of the A. C. Schreiner home, an anonymous donor purchased the property and donated it to the city, to be a part of the library system. The city accepted the gift.
Will the building project be expensive? Will it take city staff time and effort? Will someone complain about it? Will city government make mistakes in regard to the project? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
On the other side of the ledger, consider this: a historic home will likely survive another generation.
A. C. Schreiner was the oldest child of Captain Charles Schreiner; A.C. ran the Charles Schreiner Company, the mercantile store, while his siblings ran other of the family's enterprises. A. C. Schreiner was on the very first Kerrville city council. He and his wife donated funds to build the old sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church. He made numerous contributions to our community, as did his children, and their children.
The home there is likely the second home A. C. Schreiner built on the property; I believe the first was destroyed in a fire.
There are other structures I wish could be donated to the city: the Tivy Hotel; the Comparette House; the Arcadia Theater. I even wish the lot between the A. C. Schreiner home and our print shop could be donated to the city: the oak trees there were living when the founder of Kerrville, Joshua D. Brown, lived on that lot, and on the land on which the A. C. Schreiner home now stands. I call the large oak tree there "Founder's Oak," and I hope it, too, can survive another generation.
To the anonymous donor: thanks for your gift. I hope our community does a good job with it.
Until next week, all the best. I'm off of my soapbox now.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who thinks most people would be surprised to know who the 'anonymous donor' is.

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Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic School, which stood at the intersection
of Jefferson and Francisco Lemos streets. Probably taken in the mid-1930s.

The site today.

A map of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, from around 1900
Click on map to enlarge

An Autumn story from my files:
In the autumn of 1887, only 128 short years ago, the railroad came to Kerrville, allowing the small city to grow economically and also in importance to her neighbors.
The line was a spur of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad, a line that came up the hills from San Antonio. Captain Charles Schreiner was instrumental in getting the line here, even donating a portion of the costs to run the line. It wasn’t pure altruism that motivated him. He stood to make money, good money -- though it was a gamble.
Kerrville wasn’t much, yet. It wasn’t the town we’d recognize. It was a tiny place.
Part of the reason for its small size was its isolation.
Bob Bennett, in his excellent history of the county wrote, “Before the advent of the railroad, travel to and from the outside world had been by stagecoach, by hack, or by wagon, and even by horseback. Freight was hauled by ox, mule, or horse-drawn wagon over dirt roads which had been ‘blazed’ but had little other preparation for vehicle travel. It usually required two days to make the trip from Kerrville to San Antonio with an empty two-horse wagon, the night being spent in camp near Boerne. When a load of freight had been placed in the wagon at San Antonio, a much longer time was required for the return trip, especially if rains came. When the roads were muddy from heavy rains, the wagon wheels often cut ruts to the hubs.”
Image that every item on storekeepers’ shelves, except those which had been locally made or grown, had to be hauled in from distant cities by wagon. Variety would have been meager and quantities would have been small. It would be hard to build a community with such difficult supply problems.
And the community was still a frontier town.
When the railroad came here it provided a way to ship goods in and out of the community. I was surprised to read that Schreiner’s cotton factoring firm shipped over 10,000 bales of cotton from Kerr County in 1910. Wool was also a big product that went by rail, as well as livestock. Another surprising product, at least for me, was cedar fence posts, headed to markets in deep west Texas where no lumber grows.
And Kerrville’s importance grew in relation to her neighbors. Kerrville became the nearest shipping point for the livestock, agricultural products, and other commodities produced in neighboring Junction, Fredericksburg, Rocksprings, and Leakey. Though Fredericksburg did finally get a rail line built (they had difficult terrain to overcome, and their line was very expensive), it came much later and was never very profitable. Fredericksburg’s line only ran for a short while.
Kerrville continues to serve these communities as a market center, but only because of the initial impetus of the railroad here, followed, I suppose, by the arrival of Interstate 10 in the 1970s.
There was also a lot of passenger travel on the new Kerrville railroad line.
Bennett writes “the big event for the entire populace of Kerrville was when the fair at San Antonio or other festive occasion induced the railroad to put on a special train with excursion rates. Sometimes the round trip, set as low as $1.50 or $1, brought out a huge crowd of excursionists that jammed the train full of passengers. Great times were enjoyed when the hill folk journeyed to the big city to see the sights.
“For years the regular Sunday train reached Kerrville about noon, and usually a big crowd gathered as the train pulled up to the depot to see who had been to San Antonio or other faraway points. It was a big event in those days to take a railroad journey. During the summer months special rates to Kerrville were advertised and this induced many visitors to come to the hills during the warm months of summer. These were the forerunners of the great host of summer tourists which now come to the Hill Country.”
Indeed, reading many of the era’s newspapers you will find many inches devoted to the travels of Kerr County’s citizens – and usually a listing of visitors to the city.
The community, as we know it, really began 128 years ago, in the autumn of 1887, when the train rolled into town.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who is old enough to remember seeing trains rumbling through Kerrville. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times October 24, 2015.

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Water Street, downtown Kerrville, looking at the 700 block, and facing southeast.
This was an old postcard. I'm guessing the photo was taken in the mid-1950s.

The scene today.

The home of Charles Schreiner on Earl Garrett Street in downtown Kerrville.
Note the balcony on the left side of the building.
Click to enlarge image.

Since Saturday was Halloween, I thought I'd share some ghost stories from my files:
Over the years I have heard numerous Kerr County tales of haunted mansions, scary cellars, and walking spirits. And once, when I was in middle school, a friend and I thought we saw a ghost downtown.
Here a few of the most repeated ghosts stories of our community:
Schreiner University: for many years residents of Delaney Hall have reported seeing a young cadet, in military uniform, who appears, salutes, and then disappears. He's been known to open doors for students, as well.
Nearby, between Delaney Hall and the creek, are the seven gravestones of the Harris family who once lived on a farm there. The stones are flush to the ground, they're hard to find, but stories are told about the air being unusually cooler near that part of the campus.
Several sites in downtown Kerrville have ghost stories attached to them.
The old Arcadia Theater building once housed offices and shops on its second floor, including a jeweler who died in his little shop there. Some have claimed to hear the tapping of a small jeweler's hammer near the spot his workbench stood.
The Kerr County courthouse is the spot of two separate stories:
The first involves a young couple who argued on the courthouse square, back in the late 1800s. Their disagreement turned deadly when the jealous young man shot and killed the woman, then later turned the gun on himself, right there in front of the old courthouse. Some people say, on moonless nights, you can see the pair in the shadows, and hear them yelling at each other, their fight never ending.
The second story involves what was, for a while, the county jail. Looking at the front of the courthouse, you'll notice a basement, two stories, and then a smaller third story at the top of the older part of the building. That third story was the county jail at one time. I've been up there -- it's creepy even in the daylight. County employees felt the old jail was haunted by an inmate who died in custody years ago. Some report the room has many strange noises, like keys turning a lock, or metal banging against the old steel bars.
Camp Verde, to the south of Kerrville, is also a spot with many ghost stories. Some have seen a ghostly line of camels, walking in line, passing through the trees and shrubs near the old fort. Others have seen troops running across the bridge there.
Workers at the Camp Verde Store used to have stories of a ghost in the basement, an apparition they called Ruthie. She was a Civil War-era spirit who was a regular customer of the store when she was alive; the old stories say, when she's agitated, Ruthie moves pictures on the wall, rearranges cash drawers, throws merchandise across the room. I read about Ruthie in an article published here ten years ago -- I'm not sure if she's still active there.
And now for two stories a little "closer to home" for me.
It's not that I believe in ghosts - it's just that I've worked with some people that do. In fact, two of my former co-workers at our printing company reported seeing a ghost in the back room of our front office.
One of the ladies even took the time to draw what she had seen: a woman in a long dress - a dress like you'd see in a western movie. The ghost had long hair that was put up in a bun. The other of my co-workers said she saw the exact same "woman" by the back door leading into the same room, and together they discussed the drawing, refining their mutual memories on the paper.
"What was the ghost doing?" we asked.
"Oh, she was working on something and she looked up at me," replied the person who'd just seen her. "I just saw her out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned to look at her, she disappeared."
I looked back toward the area she mentioned, and noticed a shaft of light coming through the transom of the room's back door, where the evening sun was beaming brightly through and bouncing warmly off of the red floor. I was doubtful.
"Could it have been the sunlight?" I asked.
"She was in the sunlight," she said as she worked on her drawing. There was emerging on paper a very clear picture of a turn-of-the-century woman. She looked kindly.
Of course, word of the sighting carried quickly through the print shop and it was the subject of much discussion, most of it very doubtful, until a presswoman saw the picture.
"Oh, I've seen her several times," she said. It was very plainly spoken. This particular presswoman was known for her bluntness and her matter-of-fact demeanor. She was talented and didn't mind telling you what she thought.
"I never told any of you because I didn't want you to think I'd flipped."
Together the two continued discussing the drawing, each adding details to the other's memory, until a fairly complete picture emerged, even down to the color of the dress and the color of the hair of the kindly ghost.
I have never seen the ghost at the print shop, though I am reluctant to work there alone after dark. The old building makes lots of strange noises at night.
I have, however, seen what I thought was a ghost at the old Charles Schreiner mansion on Earl Garrett Street in downtown Kerrville.
I remember as a boy being convinced that the Charles Schreiner Mansion on Earl Garrett Street was haunted.
In those days it wasn't a museum. It was just a big vacant mystery, filled with cobwebs and the stale smell of emptiness.
I remember one October night, many years ago, seeing the flickering light of a candle moving from the second story windows of the turret room and heading slowly, creepily toward the store; the light moving steadily, stiffly through the big ballroom on the upper floor. As it approached the last window, half-hidden by the bent pinion pine, it stopped and moved closer to the window pane. The oval of a face was faintly illuminated, a small man with a silver mustache. It peered through the window, out toward the street, and looked at us, two boys scared to death.
Our faces must have been white with fear. The eyes looked calmly at us. The lips moved slightly, forming a hint of a smile. And then suddenly the candle went out, and the window was black. My friend and I understood instinctively that we needed to be moving along, and right then, so I don't know what became of the old kind face in the window. Maybe it's there tonight, looking out across Mountain Street, wondering where the Tomlinson Building came from, waiting for the two boys to come back.
Ghosts -- do you believe in them? I know some folks who do, who've seen and heard some strange things. One thing is for sure: ghosts sure make a good story.
Happy Halloween to everyone.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times October 31, 2015.

Clayton Gartman, before the accident, at his printing press at our print shop.
Photograph by James Partain

Just over a month ago, on September 17, Clayton Gartman suffered a horrible traffic accident. Many of you have asked how you can help.

For those who don't know about the accident, Clayton was on his lunch break from his work at our printing company, riding his bicycle on the sidewalk of the bridge between Gibson's and Mosty's Garage, in the 100 block of Water Street in downtown Kerrville. The driver of a van drove up on the sidewalk and hit him. (News reports here: http://bit.ly/1l6ec9C )

The impact left Clayton with four broken ribs, fractures in his spine and pelvis, a broken arm, and a skull fracture. His vision was damaged, and may never fully return. He was in the hospital for 42 days, first at San Antonio Military Medical Center in San Antonio, and then at Peterson Regional Medical Center. He has months of challenges ahead. He is lucky to be alive.

We hope he will make a full recovery some day, though that is uncertain. In the short term, however, he has critical needs. Modifications must be made to his mother's house to accommodate his wheelchair, and later his walker. He will need other modifications because of his impaired vision. There will be numerous expenses over the coming months.

We are asking for your help today. Our company has contributed to an account set up to benefit Clayton; members of our family have made personal donations to the fund. We are asking you to join us in donating money to help Clayton through these next few weeks. Thanks in advance for considering this request, and for your generosity. Thanks, too, to all of you who have prayed for Clayton.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Thanks for your help,

Joe Herring Jr.

Please feel free to share this email with your friends.

If you'd prefer to write a check, please make the check payable to

Clayton Gartman Fund

c/o Herring Printing Company

615 Water Street

Kerrville, TX 78028

A kind reader forwarded an old article from "Texas Wildlife: Newsmagazine of the Texas Wildlife Association," written by Charly McTee, and published in 1992. The article was titled "Where have all the cowboys gone?" I found its argument compelling, and since it has a tie to Kerrville's history, I thought I'd share parts of it here with you.

I'm old enough to remember when there were a lot more folks employed in ranching. While we have ranchers today, and a lot of young people who wear western wear, it seems to me there was a time, when I was very young, when many of the folks you'd encounter around town wore boots (and even spurs) -- not as a fashion choice, but as a practical choice.

In those days more people had jobs which kept them on horseback, working livestock. They weren't trail drivers, as the old-time cowboys were, but they worked from horseback most every day, especially during certain seasons of the year.

Likewise, when I was younger, it seems like we didn't have nearly as many deer in our neighborhoods as we do today. Even as recently as the early 1990s, when one of our nephews visited from Houston and wanted to see deer, we had to drive to a big field on the outskirts of town. It took some searching to find the boy a deer at which to look.

Today one bumps into at least three deer taking the trash to the curb -- and five more when checking the mailbox.

What's changed?

According to McTee's article, the change happened because of work done right here in Kerrville at the USDA's Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory: the program that led to the eradication of the screwworm.

A screwworm is something you'd find in a horror movie, "the most horrible thing imaginable," McTee writes. "The process is simple enough: a fly lays its eggs on an open wound in an animal -- a wire scratch, antler gouge, navel sore, or even a tick bite. The eggs hatch into larvae, which then sustain themselves by feeding on the flesh around the wound -- in effect, consuming their host while it is still alive. Since the wound stays open, more flies can lay their eggs, and the process goes on. As the larvae mature, they pupate, fall to the ground, and hatch out into still more flies, and the process continues until eventually the animal dies and is consumed."

I told you it was horrible.

"Any animal larger than a cottontail rabbit could support screwworms long enough for the larvae to mature," meaning pets, livestock, and deer were targets of the pest. Humans, too, were occasional victims.

Because of the danger of the screwworm, ranchers had to visually inspect every animal "at least twice a week during fly season," or face catastrophic losses.

Such labor-intensive inspections meant a lot of people working on horseback in this part of the world.

The early work to eradicate the flies was done in Menard, in 1937-39. Dr. R. C. Bushland had developed a technique for artificially raising screwworm flies -- initially to test medications to fight the pests. Another scientist there, Dr. E. F. Knipling, noticed there were "relatively few screwworm flies in nature. Another curious observation was that the female screwworm fly, the egg-layer, seemed to breed only once."

An idea was formed: if the female screwworm flies bred with a sterile male, "then the eggs would not hatch, and there would be no larval infestation."

After World War II, the lab was moved to Kerrville. Another scientist, Dr. A. W. Lindquist, "happened across a scientific paper which described radiation producing sterility in flies."

Knipling and Bushland began experiments to see if sterile male screwworm flies could exterminate a wild population of screwworm flies.

And the idea worked, though getting funding and acceptance of the idea took many years.

Sterile flies in boxes were dropped from airplanes, systematically blanketing areas. And the screwworm menace eventually came under control.

With less need to inspect livestock twice a week, fewer were employed in that occupation. With fewer screwworm flies, more deer survived, multiplying and moving into town with us.

Meaning: fewer cowboys, more deer. Happy hunting!

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who remembers a lot of the folks who worked at the USDA Laboratory over the years. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times November 7, 2015, just in time for hunting season.

I've been interested in local maps for a long time, and recently I ran across a map in my files which was created by Aaron Yates a few years ago.
Mr. Yates, whose family has a long history with local maps and surveys, took two separate images and combined them: an aerial photograph of downtown Kerrville and the November, 1916 Sanborn map of the same area. It was, in effect, a "mashup" of two technologies: a nearly 100-year-old hand-drawn map, and a photograph taken from an airplane, probably around 2011.
What you have when combining the two is quite interesting.
First, it's remarkable how closely the hand-drawn map lines up with the photograph. Buildings that are in both images line up fairly well. The Charles Schreiner Mansion, on Earl Garrett Street, for example, fits almost perfectly. Either the 1916 map makers or Aaron (or both) did a good job lining things up.
It's also interesting noticing the changes in the city's downtown area over the last century. Gone are most of the private homes, replaced with commercial structures. Blocks that held many homes now hold none.
Some places which were vital to our community in 1916 have been gone for several generations, now. Some examples:
Near the intersection of Water and Washington streets, on the river side, once stood a water-powered mill. Originally built by Christian Dietert, the complex, by 1916, was owned by Charles Schreiner. The map shows buildings labeled "cotton gin,""flour mill," and "grain elevator," along with a building labeled "old light plant, not used." Two separate grain elevators were listed, with a combined capacity of 42,000 bushels. By 1916, some of the mills were powered by sources other than the river; a coal bin is also shown.
On Earl Garrett street, between the river and Water street, is a building marked "windmill warehouse and shop." This was a wooden structure, and stood about where the Cascade Pool would later be located.
There were also two separate "camp yards" on the map -- a place where ranching families could camp when they came to town to trade or shop. One was in the 700 block of Water, behind today's Arcadia Theater and extending behind the old Favorite Saloon building, which holds Hill Country Living today. The other camp yard was in the 800 block of Water, behind what is now the Rivers Edge Gallery, at the intersection of Water and Washington streets.
Along Schreiner street, west of Sidney Baker, there were many warehouses and lumber yards. These were located in that area because the rail line ran along that street. In 1916, Kerrville was still served by rail service, both freight and passenger. Most of the homes constructed in those years, as well as the goods bought and sold in local stores, arrived by rail, and was distributed from that street.
Along McFarland and Hays street, where the City of Kerrville has several buildings today, once stood the Kerrville Electric Light, Heat, and Power Company building. In 1916 many (but not all) homes in the downtown area had electricity. Power was available during the day until just past sunset -- unless one of the Schreiner families had a party, in which case the power was available to the entire community until the party ended.
Near the power plant was the "Charles Schreiner Water Works Pump House," which supplied water to many residents and businesses in the first water system in the community.
In 1916, all but one of the churches were frame structures; the exception was the Baptist church, which then was located on the corner of Jefferson and Washington streets. None of the old churches remain, save for a remnant found in a present-day home on Jefferson street.
The past century has seen many changes. I'll post a copy of the map on the front window of our printing company if you'd like to see a copy.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who is old enough to remember freight trains rumbling into town. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times September 14, 2015.

It is easy to overlook the generosity and kindness of our community, especially for those of us who've been here a long time and have seen both good and bad times.

Recently, though, I was reminded of our community's generosity. It was something I should have known from personal experience, of course, since the community has been unfailingly generous to my family and me. I remember the many acts of kindness towards us when my father passed away, and, earlier, when our print shop suffered a fire. But even in small things the community has supported us with kindness and cheer since we arrived here in 1961.

The most recent reminder, though, came after the accident suffered by a member of our print shop crew, Clayton Gartman.

Mr. Gartman, for those who do not know the story, was riding his bicycle here September 17th when he was struck by an automobile. He was actually on the sidewalk of the Water Street bridge near Gibson's and Mosty's Garage, and the driver drove up on the sidewalk and hit Mr. Gartman.

It's a miracle he survived the accident. His injuries ranged from a fractured skull to a broken pelvis, with broken bones most places in between. Worse, his vision was damaged, and may never fully return.

Clayton Gartman, before accident,
at the print shop, with injured bird.

After 42 days in two different hospitals, Mr. Gartman was able to go home.

Modifications were needed for the home: he was now in a wheelchair, and he could not see. Hundreds of people responded with offers to help and with donations. The work on the home continues, mostly with volunteer labor and donated materials.

Transportation, too, was an issue. Mr. Gartman has frequent medical appointments in San Antonio. A kind family here donated a car to the Gartmans, and others have provided funds to pay for gas and insurance for the vehicle, so his family can drive him to the doctors' offices. Mr. Gartman's brother, in particular, has been a great help driving him to his many appointments.

Donations have come from hundreds of people and from around the state. Every donation really helps. His entire family has told me many times how thankful they are for this community.

The Kerrville Daily Times has done an excellent job of telling the story of the accident and also of Mr. Gartman's journey after the accident. People come up to me whenever I'm in public and ask how "that young bicyclist" is doing, largely from reading the stories which have run in this newspaper.

Here's an update: he's doing better. He still has vision impairment, and he still uses his wheelchair, though he's spending more time on a walker when he can. One thing that's been consistent, though, even in the darkest days when he was in the ICU at San Antonio Military Medical Center: his optimistic outlook. During our many visits it was obvious Mr. Gartman was looking on the positive side of things.

Despite his many injuries one thing was not hurt at all: his sense of humor.

Before the accident Mr. Gartman spent much of his free time playing music with friends. With the cast off of his arm, he's beginning to play his guitar, again. Other pursuits, such as art and woodworking, are still on hold until his vision improves.

Fundraising continues for Mr. Gartman and his family; donations can be sent to the Clayton Gartman Fund, in care of our print shop, 615 Water Street, Kerrville. You can also donate online, by clicking HERE.

I'm thankful for our community -- and to those who've helped in this situation, and in so many others.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who is thankful. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times November 28, 2015.

An early photograph of Florence Butt in her grocery store in Kerrville

Last week, on November 26, the H. E. Butt Grocery Company celebrated its 110th anniversary. The company, for those who do not know, began here in Kerrville in 1905. I've often wondered about the earliest days of the company, and I've found a pretty good source for the story.
I ran across a remarkable newspaper story this week: "True Fairy Story," published in the Kerrville Times of July 30, 1936, on page 4, and written by Mrs. Florence Butt. If anyone knows the story of how H-E-B began, it's her: she was its founder.
The story appeared in a special section of that week's issue, celebrating the opening of a new store by the "C. C. Butt Piggly Wiggly Grocery Company." The store was to be housed in a new building in the 800 block of Water Street, near where One Schreiner Center stands today.
Here is her story, in her own words:
"Once upon a time,"Florence Butt writes, "as all fairy stories begin, a woman with a sick husband, three boys, 10, 12, 14-years-old, came to Kerrville to make their home. This was 31 years ago [in 1936]. Our capital to start with was approximately $60.
"Then, the place on Main Street, where the Star Cleaners are now, was rented."
[The building which housed that first store was moved from the site decades ago, but stood about where the Hill Country Cafe is today, in the 800 block of Main Street.]
"It had rooms above to live in," she continues, "and the store room, all for $9 a month. In preparing the little grocery store, a small Bible was found on a shelf. A good omen, it was kept there. So, on the morning of November 26, 1905, 31 years ago [in 1936], the store opened. Before the front door was opened, the little Bible was read. Then a prayer for the Great Father and Giver of all things to be the Partner to lead and guide: then the front door was opened.
"The first month we sold $56 worth. One day, not a penny's worth was sold. Several days, only 5 and 10 cents worth of merchandise was sold. But the responsibility was there, and it had to make good.
"You can see the stock $60 would place on your shelves, but I had such good friends to advise and help me out. Our first delivery was a baby buggy with top taken off, and a box placed on the wheels. Then it was run over by a wagon, and we had to get a child's play wagon, costing $3.00, which was much for our limited capital. Then the rains came in the winter, the little wagon wheels would fill with mud and it could not be pulled any longer. So we bought a horse that cost $20, a wagon costing $5, a harness $2.50 -- $27.50 total cost for the first delivery wagon. But to the mother and boys that pulled the delivery wagon in the mud, it is to be remembered as one of the bright spots of growth in business. Every month was growth, but hard work.
"Hence, the continued work of the son, H. E. Butt, who never knew anything from 10 years old except work, has come this chain of 31 stores [in July, 1936], and has made it possible have our pretty [new] store in Kerrville.
"With our many friends here, the Greatest Partner has truly been with us. So we thank Him and the many, many lovely friends who have helped in so many ways to bring success. We hope that in our new store, we will all be close together, and all go on to promote success and happiness to all. I want to thank my friends and tell them I love them. Every one has been so nice to me. So we hope all will enjoy the new store with us -- Mrs. Butt."
Congratulations to the H. E. Butt Grocery Company on its anniversary. The company's story is one of amazing growth -- and hard work-- and it all began with one woman, a sick husband, and three young sons, in a community that took them in and supported them.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who is a frequent shopper at Kerrville's H-E-B. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times December 5, 2015.

Schreiner's first store, as imagined by Harold Bugbee in 1969

Recently, while reading an old Kerrville newspaper, I ran across a story which intrigued me. The story, on the front page of the Kerrville Mountain Sun's July 21, 1927 edition, ran under this headline: "Schreiner's first store to be razed for new warehouse." The story started me on a search for something in my collection -- something which should not exist.
For those who don't remember, Charles Schreiner was a local merchant who enjoyed some success. From his small store he built a financial empire which included the store, a bank, land, cattle, sheep, goats, wool, and many other business enterprises.
On Christmas Eve, 1869, in partnership with August Faltin, he opened a small store in downtown Kerrville, in a 16x18 foot frame building made of cypress lumber. That first store was about where the Charles Schreiner mansion stands today.
J. Evetts Haley, in his book "Charles Schreiner, General Merchandise," published in 1969 by the Charles Schreiner Company for its centennial, describes the little building as having double front doors, two front windows, another door, and a stovepipe "which elled out the side of the building." In back there was a lean-to shed, used as a "storehouse and as sleeping quarters for the clerks. But at first there were no clerks."
At the back of the shed was a cellar, used to store "barrels of coal oil, beer, whiskey and molasses."
There was a long counter running the length of the building which "described an L at the back to cut off a small space that served as an office, and to shelter, at its base, barrels of sugar, coffee, rice, lard, and dried fruit."
Haley continues: "On the back wall was a stock of groceries, while the long counter to the side cut off the dry goods that lay in assorted bolts of calico, jeans and hickory on rough shelves along the wall. On the opposite side, harness and saddles hung on hooks at the front, and wooden ware -- buckets, kegs, and tubs -- hung on the wall behind the stove."
The merchant of this store also stocked "an assortment of patent medicines -- Jane's Tonic, Pain-Killer, Ayer's Pills, Hostetter's Bitters, Vermifuge and other concoctions." Most customers usually got well in spite of these remedies.
Whiskey was a big seller, and was stocked in three or four grades, some selling for as low as fifty and seventy-five cents a quart; others as high as a dollar. I'm not completely sure all "grades" of whiskey were not drawn from the same barrel.
This little store, in that tiny cypress building, was known as Faltin & Schreiner, and it opened on Christmas Eve, 1869.
The 1927 news story interested me for two reasons. First, Charles Schreiner's sons did not tear down the old store while the old Captain was still alive; Charles Schreiner died in February, 1927; his heirs didn't tear down the old building until July, 1927. But secondly, if the building stood until 1927, is there even a small chance I have a photograph of the structure somewhere in my collection of historic Kerrville photographs?
The 1927 article describes the building thus: "The original Schreiner store ... has been moved several times, and for several years has been used as a storage place for feed. Built of native cypress, the old store is still in good condition. It bears bullet marks, giving mute evidence of frontier conflicts during the early days."
Surely, in the many photos I have of old Kerrville, there is at least a glimpse of this old building. I'll keep you posted.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who enjoys a good mystery.

Note: some years ago I wrote a column that reflects my thoughts this week about the holiday we celebrate next Friday. Going through my files it’s often surprising how my thoughts repeat themselves – the things I was thinking about this week are almost identical to the things I thought when I wrote the following, over a decade ago. I hope you enjoy the column.
* * *
“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night,” the Bible story goes, the first part of Luke’s narrative to talk about regular people’s reaction to the birth of Christ. Until this passage, the story mainly talks about Mary, Joseph, angels and emperors. And while angels figure in this part of the story, the shepherds were just ordinary people present for an extraordinary event, minding their own business on a starry night.
I have a vague memory of a children’s Bible with an illustration of the lands around Bethlehem – something I looked at while I was supposed to be listening to my Sunday School teacher – and in my dimming memory, I somehow remembered the hills around Bethlehem looking a lot like the hills around here.
The photo, if I remember correctly, was of present-day Bethlehem (or perhaps the early 1950’s Bethlehem), a black and white photo that had been hand-colored and then printed, a graven image modified with approximations of color to represent a holy place, an image strained through several assumptions yet presented as fact.
As a child, I thought the land around Bethlehem looked like Kerr County. I was wrong.
A friend who’s visited Bethlehem tells me the similarities really end with the elevation – both our area and Bethlehem are about the same height above sea level – but most of the other features of the two places are quite different.
Bethlehem sits on a plateau of sorts only a few miles from Jerusalem. There is no river flowing like a curved arm through the center of town. Hills are in the distance – toward Jerusalem – unlike here, where our towns are nestled in the midst of hills, like a lamb in a manger. The soil around Bethlehem, though rocky, is rich enough to grow various grains, while here, other than hay, we produce few farm products.
It is a rather foreign place, actually.
Still, I can understand why, as a child, I hoped our town was like Bethlehem: there are so many parts of the story with which we want to identify, to make our own, to understand through the well-loved lens of our own experience.
I’m sure for many years I believed the shepherds were kids about my age, wearing robes and fabric remnants on their heads, approximating Eastern dress, as I had seen in Church pageants. I once played a shepherd; baby Jesus was a blue-eyed doll wrapped in swaddling clothes. I knew they’d speak the same King James English we spoke in the play. I knew they were sore afraid, just like we were before the audience.
“Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us,” the story goes.
It’s funny to me (and perhaps only me) how much of this familiar story we’ve translated into “American,” not that there’s anything wrong with that. Like most matters of faith, we work hard to place the story in a framework we understand. It’s hard to pull the ‘Hallmark’ image of the nativity out of our minds – when the actual event may have been simpler, plainer, and much more humble. I doubt the scene was as Raphael might have painted it, especially the brightly-colored clothes. Plain people, plain setting: that’s my opinion.
I wonder how our own town would handle the birth of a king these days, a child born to a young couple from out of town, a child born in a barn behind a guest house, a child asleep in a feeding trough, wrapped in swaddling clothes.
I doubt we’d have noticed the couple or the event. Even the shepherds might have missed it had an army of angels not announced it. The shepherds, like us, were so busy with their routines, working late into the night, on deadline; the mere birth of a Saviour nearby might have gone unnoticed.
“Glory to God in the highest,” the army of angels said, “and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”
Not a bad thing for the busy shepherds to hear, actually. Angels filled the sky with a message of praise and hope, and the shepherds were smart enough to listen and act upon what they heard, even though they were busy and had work to do.
I hope your Christmas is peaceful and holy.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who has almost all of his Christmas shopping done. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times December 19, 2015.

One of the benefits of "being a certain age" is my memory, or the lack thereof. Coupled with the large collection of Kerrville and Kerr County historical items I have, this can provide repeated fresh discoveries.
This week, while cleaning up my desk, I found the facsimile of an old Kerrville newspaper. Because of my poor memory I had forgotten I had the copy -- and so finding it this week offered the opportunity to find it again as if for the very first time.
It's the only copy I've ever seen of "Day's Doings," and the issue I have was published Thursday, August 8, 1895. The newspaper was small in size, and only four pages in length (although other of its pages may have been lost in the roughly 120 years since it was published).
I have a feeling I was allowed to make the copy of the old newspaper by the Leinweber family in Mountain Home, but my notes are a little jumbled.
There were earlier newspapers in Kerrville, of course. The "Frontiersman" was likely the first newspaper here, starting publication in 1876, and continuing through 1880. The "Kerrville Eye" began publication in 1884. Later, the name was changed to the "Kerrville Paper," and later still, to the "Kerrville Mountain Sun," which still exists, sort of.
The year before the publication of the "Day's Doings" in my collection, Kerrville had two newspapers: the "Kerrville News," which was an "Independent" newspaper, and the "Kerrville Paper," which was a "Democrat" newspaper. Center Point had a "Populist" paper, the "People's Day."
There were later newspapers on the Kerrville scene, too. The "Kerrville Times" began publication in 1926, but had its roots in Center Point as the "Center Point News," was moved to Kerrville and renamed the "Latest," and then the "Hill View Times," before finally being named the "Kerrville Times." When the newspaper began publishing weekday issues, in 1949, it was renamed the "Kerrville Daily Times."
In all this history of local newspaper publishing, I have never seen any mention of "Day's Doings," nor have I heard of its publisher, J. M. Bourland, or its editor, Leone Rankin.
Although I have not found information about Leone Rankin, Bourland was here as late as 1900, when his name appears in the U. S. Census taken that year. His occupation is listed as "publisher." I also found he was (at least briefly) the publisher of the "Kerrville News," in 1897. He was born in Arkansas in 1850, and was buried in Llano County in 1917.
The copy I have of the "Day's Doings" was from Volume 1, No. 17, so publication probably began on April 11, 1895.
Many of the names in the "Day's Doings" are familiar: Charles Schreiner has several advertisements, as do the Tivy Hotel, Bert Parsons' livery stable, the Ranch Saloon, the Favorite Saloon.
But there are also a lot of names I don't recognize: Daniel Cruz, the painter; Albert Glock, the photographer; a saloon called Two Brothers Saloon (run by Gus Weston); Nicholas Pfeufter, city baker; S. J. Durnett, the "water man."
The big editorial push in the issue was for the construction of an ice plant. "This most important subject should be constantly before the people," the editor of the "Day's Doings" wrote, "and that is that our city has a very notable reputation as a health resort for pulmonary trouble, and these invalids require ice and cannot get along without it. If they can't get it here they will go to some other place where they can and the result is that our merchants and businessmen are the losers."
I love old newspapers. They're like a time capsule -- a quick portrait of the events of that week in our little town.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native. If you'd like to download a copy of the August 8, 1895 issue of "Day's Doings," please visit http://bit.ly/daysdoings

When we think of the past, we often remake it in the image of today, as we often remake the early settlers of our area in our own image.
Without realizing it, we make assumptions that fit the patterns we see around us, both patterns of the physical kind, and patterns more internal.
For example: distance. For us, Austin is about two hours away by automobile; San Antonio, a little over an hour. And with a airline ticket, it's possible to have breakfast at home and dinner almost anywhere on the planet.
This was not the case when the first settlers arrived here. A journey to Fredericksburg might take more than a day. Travel from Kerrville to nearby communities was inconvenient and difficult; we'd consider the effort made by settlers to travel to Leakey or Mountain Home quite an expedition. (Most of us would not make the journey.)
And then there are other differences we overlook: communication, for instance. In an age of cell phones and Facebook, it's hard to imagine how difficult it was for early hill country settlers to communicate with anyone over a distance. There were no telephones, and in the early days, no telegraph. Mail, when it came, came on horseback or in a wagon.
Today, when a distant cousin has a new grandbaby, we can see photos of the baby that same day. When a friend on the other side of the planet wants to chat, we can talk with each other -- and see live stream video of each other at the same time.
There are other things we now take for granted: ideas we carry around without considering them. We watched men walk on the moon; we have seen photographs of Pluto. We all know what a Super Bowl is. Many of us have flown a drone. Most of us have purchased an app. There are a thousand concepts we have packed within us that would be totally foreign to a person only a decade ago. In the late 1840s, when Kerrville got its start, concepts such as these would have been impossible to communicate to the inhabitants of our little town.
Thinking about the ideas we carry around, I suppose, comes from a book I've been reading, a work of historical fiction by Stephen Harrigan: "The Gates of the Alamo." Copies are available at Wolfmueller's Books, along with other of his books.
Harrigan does better than most in keeping his characters rooted in the era of their story, without accidently slipping them into ideas which would not have made sense in their time. The book is compelling and well written -- but please remember it's a work of fiction, and should be enjoyed as such.
At 54, I've seen many changes in Kerrville. I'm old enough to remember when IH 10 was completed; before then, a trip to San Antonio went through the middle of every town between here and there. A trip to Junction was a wild ride in the mountains.
I'm old enough to remember the Charles Schreiner Bank, there on the corner of Water and Earl Garrett streets -- and I remember Charles Schreiner's son, Louis, at his desk in the bank. He was very old when I saw him there, but still.
I remember when freight trains came to Kerrville. My father, in our early days here, helped unload groceries from freight cars when he worked as the advertising director for the Evans Foodway chain of grocery stores.
I remember folks water skiing in the little "lake" in Louise Hays Park. My parents were among them, and I remember riding in the boat as they skied there.
I remember a television that picked up 3, sometimes 4, stations. The reception was never all that good. I remember when we had one radio station, which was housed in a little building next to a tall tower in the middle of a plowed field on Junction Highway, just past Harper Road. I loved listening to "Ask your neighbor" each Saturday morning; I recognized the voices of most of the callers to the show.
The world was larger then, and slower. There were many social ideas then that would not be acceptable today. The past is a foreign country, and it did not speak the same language as we speak today, and it certainly wouldn't understand many of our ideas.
It's a mistake to think of the settlers in our area as we think of ourselves.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native "of a certain age." This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times January 16, 2016.

This week, thanks to the kindness of several people, I received some old cassette tapes containing interviews about local history. More on the tapes in a moment.
First, though, I want to let you know the problems future historians will face when collecting information from today.
Cassette tapes used to be ubiquitous. There were cassette players in most automobiles, folks had cassette players in their stereo equipment, and there were tons of portable players. My family owned a lot of these players back in the day.
When the kind folks gave me the tapes this week, I began looking through closets for a cassette player. I did find a few dusty machines, but none of them worked. I enlisted family members in the search, and the machines they found no longer worked, either.
So I went to the store to buy a cassette player. The young clerk looked at me with an expression of patience after I asked whether they still sold cassette players. It was the look one might give a person who was asking if Victrolas were in stock.
"No," she said, "we don't sell cassette players, and I'm not sure anyone still does."
I did find a plain cassette player at the third store I tried. It was available in any color, just as long as the color you wanted was black.
I relay this story only because I'm concerned about the historic preservation of our own era. Media formats we use every day will someday be obsolete. That's right cell phone, I'm talking about you.
Those digital photographs you own are recorded in a specific format, mostly as jpeg files. There's no guarantee that format will be common in the future.
Worse, the files are stored on a variety of devices, from your phone, to computer hard drives, to something ephemeral called the 'cloud.' Pulling those images from storage requires special equipment (a computer or a phone) which will be obsolete quicker than anyone can guess.
So, for someone like me who collects old Kerrville and Kerr county photographs, the old methods are the easiest: a negative, or a print made from a negative. No digital equipment is needed: you can see the photograph with your eyes.
Most newspapers today create their photographs using digital cameras; copies, if kept, are kept as digital files. This week I had a hard time reading files from a format (cassette tapes) that was, until recently, quite common. The tools we use today on "common" formats will soon be obsolete.
I'm concerned decades of information will be lost as formats and the devices which read those formats change. Of course, there is nothing I can do except sound the alarm.
However, if you have a lot of family photographs stored on your phone or computer, it might make sense to print out some of the best ones. I believe most photo processing places can help you with this. A print might be the only thing "readable" in the future -- because it doesn't require one of our current technologies to see.
Ok, back to the cassette tapes.
There are 10 tapes; most are clearly labeled. One is of an interview conducted by Merrill Doyle of Louis A. Schreiner, the son of Captain Charles Schreiner, and dated May 22, 1968. Others include the dedication of the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library, the marker dedication of the Schreiner / Volentine Home, and several are labeled Merrill Doyle. Mr. Doyle was an artist; he painted the mural in the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library.
What I hope to do is pull a copy of the recordings from the tapes and convert them to something I can share online with whoever might be interested. I'm still trying to figure out how to work the software to do this. If I ever complete the project, I'll post the results on my blog.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who can still work a cassette player. Well, mostly. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times January 23, 2016.

Then and Now: Kerrville's Louise Hays Park

Are camels roaming our hills?

Then and Now: 417 Hays Street, Kerrville

The Official Camel Report

Then and Now: the 900 block of Water Street, Kerrville

But first, let's complain.

Then and Now: Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic School

When did our community begin?

Then and Now: Downtown Kerrville

Ghost Stories of Kerr County

Kerrville bicyclist hit by van

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Fewer Cowboys, More Deer

Kerrville 99 years ago today

Thankful

Florence Butt Tells Her Story

Mystery: In Search of a Photograph

A Christmas Story

A rare newspaper shows up

In our own image

Into the digital mist