We recommend the Facebook Group "West Texas History & Memories" for history, famous people, old photos, stories, unclaimed estates and genealogy of the Western Half of Texas . . . Check it out and join the conversation

This site contains affiliate links to products. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

To read more and look inside an individual book just tap an image below

"Meanwhile at Mason, the bullets were yet flying. On September 9, 1875 feudists did what feudists do---kill each other, or try to. Near the Mason county community of Hedwig's Hill west of Willow Creek and southeast of the county seat..." Read more Look inside

"In early September 1875, the Mob paid Jim Cheyney to ride to Loyal Valley and entice Mose Beard and George Gladden, supporters of Cooley, to ride to Mason. About halfway to Mason, Sheriff Clark and about sixty men ambushed them, killing Beard and wounding Gladden. Gladden also would have been killed, but for a member of the Mob suddenly changed his mind and insisted that they had done enough. Another member cut Beard's finger off to get a ring he wore ..." Read more Look inside

"July 20, 1857: Lt. John B. Hood and a detachment of twenty four soldiers of the Company G, Second Cavalry, while on a scout from Fort Mason to the Devil's River were lured into a Comanche ambush while under a white parley flag..." Read more

"On January 7, 1865 Alice Todd was captured on Todd Mountain south of Mason Texas. In 1864, the border between the Second and Third District, and with Fort Mason abandoned, was vulnerable. Nevertheless, settlers still struggled to exist in their precarious position. George Todd, a Virginian, moved to Texas and organized Mason County in 1858. He was the first county clerk, postmaster, and became a lawyer and businessman. George, his wife, Dizenia, and their 13-year-old daughter Alice, lived four miles south of the town..." Read more Look inside

"This was the first, though unfortunately not the last appearance of the Hoodoos who gave the Mason County war its odd name. They were the members of a vigilance committee which attempted, by ambushes and midnight hangings, to get rid of the thieves and outlaws who had been holding a carnival of lawlessness in Mason County, as in other parts of Texas. As usual some good people, driven to desperation, were undercover supporters of the mob. It is still said behind closed doors in Mason that Deputy Wohrle was no unwilling victim, and that the tying and gagging was just an act..." Read more

Found Inside: "In the summer of 1875, after the Comanches had given up the fight, scattered bands of Apaches were still raiding in western and central Texas. Among their warriors was Herman Lehmann. By then he was sixteen and had lived with the Apaches for five years ... That August, Herman was raiding not far from his old home in Mason County with a party of twelve Apaches and their Mexican captive, Herman and the Apaches had stolen over forty horses in Kimble, Mason, and Menard Counties. Once they were satisfied with their loot they started driving the herd northwest . . . " Read more Look inside

by Steve Hemphill

"Mason, Texas, was a place anyone would be proud to be from. We lived a block from the downtown square, and I walked there often as a little boy. Big, tall pecan trees filled our front yard on a street called Live Oak. What a place to grow up. My brother and I played daily in that yard, often climbing the trees and pretending we were on a far off adventure. The memories flood my heart even now as I remember that special time and place, a world where everything was right with God..." Read more Look inside

Today, John Wesley Hardin is an enigma. Part of the mystery is his disastrous relationship with Helen Beulah Mrose, yet she has not been researched at all. Until now. Helen Beulah's story is the final piece of the vast jigsaw of Hardin's life and legend. "The men had brought a buggy and two saddle horses, and on the ride back to Fredonia next morning, Jim and Mike rode as armed outrider. Before they were in sight of Fredonia, other men folk were saddling up or walking down the road..." Read more Look inside

On February 5, 1847, he made friendly contact with Chief Ketumse near what is now Mason, Texas, and on February 9, he was joined by veteran treaty-maker Major Robert S. Neighbors and Jim Shaw (Bear Head), a Delaware who knew the Comanche language. Neighbors had won the respect of Comanches when he had helped with the United States Treaty with the Indians in Texas in 1846..." Read more Look inside

... just inside the Mason County line. There was a U.S. Post Office at Fredonia and inside that facility, as would be expected, a heavy iron safe. At the time daily bank deposits were unheard of---for most folks. Sometime after the moon came up and before the roosters started... Read more Look inside

by J. Frank Dobie

"In the fall of 1876, Mr. J. T. Estill, a pioneer lawyer of the hill country, and a fellow barrister, D. Y. Portis, were driving in a two-horse buggy from Mason to attend court in Menard. Portis was at that time perhaps seventy years old, a typical plantation gentleman as well as a lawyer of the old school Rich in anecdote and repartee, he made a fine traveling companion for the equally genial Mr. Estill. Some fifteen miles west of Mason the soil suddenly changes from a light color to a deep red, and as the travelers approached this divide, Mr. Estill remarked: "Well we are getting the Almagres---the Red Hills of the San Saba. We must be in the neighborhood of the great Bowie Mine..." Read more Look inside

by Kendal Hemphill

"Near Mason, Texas, where we live, feral hogs range freely, and recently a sow and six small pigs decide to freely range into our backyard to sleep every night. This sow was rather picky about having fresh linens, and she rooted herself and her pigs a new wallow daily. Our yard soon looked like the French countryside in an old WW2 movie... I decided the pigs were old enough to either get jobs or go on welfare, so it was time to get rid of the sow and save the yard..." Read more

by Gerald Goble

In 1873 William returned from the war to join his brother John who was the Sheriff in Mason Texas. The place was going through changes where free range ranches were being replaced by homesteads with fences. There have been cattle rustled and the old time German residents don’t trust the new English residents and they don’t trust the Germans. Mobs form and lynch suspected wrong doers. In the midst of this anarchy William homesteads a piece of land, makes it into a working ranch and finds love and eventually peace . . . Read more Look inside

Welcome to Mason, Texas … where the population is minute and the easy-going is the only way of life. That is until Randall Parsons thunders into town and awakens something that’s been lying dormant and in wait for quite some time, just waiting to be unearthed once more. Nestled safely in Mason, Colton Reese, a man with a tumultuous past of his own, works at the local ranch, training horses for show, where all is tranquil until the two men meet face to face … leading to a battle of wills. And before the end … Read more Look inside

by Fred Gipson

Rachel said from the kitchen: "I heard old Doc Cole say once that by rights he owned half the younguns in Mason County. He said they'd never been paid for yet. Nobody's going to say that about my baby"! "Doctors!" Grandma said scornfully. "a sin and a shame if you ask me. I brung seven younguns into this world and nary a man-doctor was on the place when I done it. In my day, a decent woman had her shame!" Read more

"Pennington had recovered sufficiently by early March 1861 to return home to Fort Mason, Texas. The struggle between the Overland Mail Company and Comanches for control fGrape Creek and its resources is typical for this section...Ben F. Gooch served for a number of years as the Mason County clerk in Mason Texas, dabbling in real estate and raising cattle..." Read more Look inside

"Feed was generally given to work animals and dairy cows, and some of the Germans in Mason County fattened beef cattle and hogs on corn and cooked pumpkin before slaughtering. German ranchers were apparently some of the first to... Read more Look inside

...returned to Texas in 1875, bought a herd of cattle from John Gamel and Christy Crosby of Mason, Texas. I had a letter of credit from the City National Bank of Dallas, but they would not take checks, which forced me to go to San Antonio and get $15,000 in currency from Mr. Brackenridge, which I carried back to Mason to pay for this heard of cattle, traveling only at night until I got the money in Mr. Ranck's bank at Mason..." Read more Look inside

"...A good historical museum in town recounts the history of the installation and displays artifacts collected at the site. Some of the artifacts were unearthed by fourth, fifth, an sixth grade students from Mason schools in 1987 and 1988. Although scientific archeological studies have been contemplated from time to time, only the reproduction of the one building and the legends about the many Civil War commanders who served there in the 1850s remain. The ridge itself is without doubt the most enduring part of the Fort Mason story. The view to the south is, as Mrs. Albert Sidney Johnston recorded nearly 160 years ago "one of the grandest and most extensive ever to be seen anywhere.." Read more Look inside

"My friend Sammy and I visited Fort Mason recently, and we were were told of a mysterious figure that roamed the headquarter building. We decided to see for ourselves. Sure enough, as darkness covered the earth, a light from inside beamed forth, showing a shadowy figure in the window. Upon second glance we both agreed it appeared to be Robert E. Lee. Mesmerized by what we saw, we watched as Lee sat at the table, reading over a stack of papers in font of him. He constantly rubbed his brow, concentrating on the pages. Picking up a quill, he dipped it into the inkwell..." Read more Look inside

For more like this see Mysterious Texas

On June 25, 1874 Wilson Hey, presiding justice of Mason County, wrote to Governor Coke complaining that parties from Llano & Other Counties were continually depredating upon cattle of citizens in Mason County. He identified one Roberts as being in charge of men who in open violation of law had been gathering and driving cattle from Mason County without having them inspected as the laws direct. The man was Allen G. Roberts, who allegedly had hired the cattle thieves and was working with a dishones cattle inspector indentified as Willaim Z. Redding ... Read more Look inside

by Mason County Historical Commission

 When an army scouting party headed north from Fredericksburg in 1851 to select a site for a new military post, they found an area of remarkable natural beauty on the northwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country. This land of clear streams, rocky hills, live oak thickets, and abundant wildlife had long served as a hunting ground for Comanches, Kiowas, and Lipan Apaches. A few German farmers had already settled along the Llano River, and a town soon sprang up in the shadow of Fort Mason... Read more Look inside

"We found a big crowd of men gathered there. The sheriff came to Major Jones and told him that Roberts, an outlaw, was camped two miles from Fort Mason and was stealing all the the cattle that he and his gang could find and they had sent the sheriff a challenge to come to a certain place. The sheriff and his large party fell in front of our little bunch and went about six miles out ..." Read more Look inside

"As a young man he became embroiled in the blood feud turbulence of post-Reconstruction Texas. The Mason County “Hoo Doo” War in Texas began as a war over range rights, but it swiftly deteriorated into blood vengeance and spiraled out of control as the body count rose. In this charnel house Ringo gained a reputation as a dangerous gunfighter and man killer. He was proclaimed throughout the state as a daring leader, a desperate man, and a champion of the feud. Following incarceration for his role in the feud, Ringo was elected as a lawman in Mason County, the epicenter of the feud’s origin..." Read more Look inside

"In 1874 the Hoo Doo War erupted in the Texas Hill Country of Mason County. The feud began with the rise of the mob under Sheriff John Clark, but it was not until the premeditated murder of rancher Timothy Williamson in 1875, a murder orchestrated by Sheriff Clark, that the violence escalated out of control. His death drew former Texas Ranger Scott Cooley..." Read more Look inside

Working cowboys live on as genuine legends who rode through a golden moment in American history. In the 1980s historian/ author Patrick Dearen went looking for the last of these fading icons.

Found Inside: " Tom Duncan began cowboying in 1927 on the 45,000-acre Blockhouse Ranch in Mason County. He remained a Blockhouse cowhand for the next eighteen years. Still riding in his late sixties, he suffered a sever injury in a fall " . . . Read more

Found Inside: "I am conscious of having done all that I could and in the manner best calculated, from a moral as well as legal standpoint, to restore peace and quiet and enforce the law in this community. I must see what companies above are doing ...' And with all his plans disarranged by the German-American War in Mason County, the dapper peacemaker of the border set out for Lieutenant Foster's camp" . . . Read more Look inside

Found Inside: "The tranquility and friendliness of this place was shattered in 1877 with the outbreak of what was to become known as the Mason County War. Conflicts arose between the American settlers and their German neighbors. Groups of armed Americans began to raid the German settlements " . . . Read more Look inside

"...Peter Bader with the collaboration of former Mason County deputy sheriff John Worley. Scott Cooley found, killed and scalped Worley at Mason, Texas in 1875 . . ." Read more Look inside

"Jones asked Long to meet him and some men at the head of the Pedernales due south of Mason. Jones would be going on another tour and inspection of his Ranger companies. "Your men need not bring any guns. I have Springfield Carbines, ..." In April of 1876, Major Jones reported to A. G. Steel: Sir---I have to report the loss of sixteen Springfield Carbines by fire in the burning of Mr. Doole's store in Mason in the night of the 5th. The fire was the result of..." Read more Look inside