Larry Don Womack
2551 State Hwy. 6, De Leon, TX, 76444
Phone
855-933-6497
Fax
254-893-3400
R iding
S chool
B U IL D CON FI DE NC E !
MAKE FRIENDS!
LEARN TO RIDE!
90
83 Years of Service
Join us for lessons, pony camps, and
loads of fun on horseback at our top
level facility in eastern Parker County.
4302 East Bankhead Hwy
Hudson Oaks, Texas 76087 Wendy Gerrish & Erin Heineking, Owners
Christian Heineking, Head of Operations
817-341-2012 OCTOBERHILL . COM
whacked his team into motion and
sped off, leaving the child in a cloud
of dust. Kate, witnessing the conver-
sation, pitied the child and demand-
ed the driver pull up and let the girl
on. The teamster balked because
he believed the girl had no money.
When Kate paid for her ticket, the
stage stopped and the wandering girl
climbed aboard. During the trip Kate
learned the girl was an orphan and
homeless.
As this story goes, once in Fort
Griffin, Kate arranged for the child to
stay with a hotel owner and his wife
who eventually adopted her. The
girl grew up to be a schoolteacher
and remained close to Kate, and,
“According to Josiah Wright Mooar, a
buffalo hunter and one of Kate’s clos-
est friends, the close relationship she
had with the girl helped change her
immoral ways. Kate was a surrogate
aunt and took her responsibility for
the child seriously. The reformation
included giving up operating saloons
and bordellos and playing cards. She
attended church regularly and raised
funds for various charitable endeav-
ors.”
Just as an aside, most accounts
of Rowdy Kate’s last days have her
vanishing into thin air, her trail going
cold.
As for Rowdy Joe, he ended his
days in Denver on Feb. 11, 1899,
drunk and shot dead in the Walrus
Saloon by an ex-policeman he’d
been berating. Knowing Joe’s affinity
for gunplay, E.A. Kimmel just pulled
his pistol and shot him. Rowdy Joe
was unarmed. The following words
appeared above his obituary in the
Feb. 17 edition of the Wichita Eagle:
ROWDY JOE KILLED
Famous Dance-hall manager of
Wichita is dead
DIES WITH BOOTS ON
History of a Man Who Had No
Equal of his Kind
Dying with one’s boots on basically
meant that one had not retired to a
sick bed or died in his sleep. He’d
been about his business when death
came, whether fighting Indians, roof-
ing a cabin or, as was Joe’s case,
propping up a bar and fuming acri-
mony.
Writer’s note: Gleaning history