Long before the Circuit of Americas was built, Dell Valley was a rural location. Before that, it was just a group of a few farmers living in rural Texas. One of those families was the Engler family. A husband, a wife and daughter. All slain on that fateful night, or actually the early morning hours of August 10th, 1925.
The headline read:
Family of three slain in home near Del Valley.
Man, his wife and daughter shot to death.
SE Engler and his wife Mrs Engler. Evidently killed while asleep.
Girl fights for life.
Third victim of Fiend’s bloodlust, cruelly beaten and abused.
An unidentified assassin crept stealthily up to a quiet farmhouse, setting high upon a hill, all to itself, a mile from the nearest neighbors, at Mooresville. Two miles southeast of Del Valley, after dusk had fallen Saturday night and after the happy family of three. SE Engler, his wife and his pretty 25-year-old adopted daughter had fallen asleep.
Entering first the bedroom of the man and wife, the prowler shot and killed Engler, 60, before he could show resistance. Then he turned to Mrs Engler 55, and fired upon her. Badly wounded, He left both to die in their beds.
Girl seeks to escape the fiend.
Then he went into the room occupied by the pretty adopted daughter. The cherished idol of the contented little family. The girl, aroused by the shots, fled for her life, but the assassin finally ran her down, wounded her and later attacked her. He killed her before leaving the farmhouse.
This happened Saturday night. Out there on this isolated hill within view of the illuminated capitol Dome while 2 hound dogs whining their doleful appeal for help to the lonely countryside.
Sunday morning at Nine 9:20 O’clock, the dogs were still barking but Sternnadt a Blacksmith who lives a mile down the road at Morrisville, near Morrisville Crossing and his son. BOHAMEK 14 thought nothing unusual of the noise. When they drove up to the Engler place to transact business with Engler.
They are not at home. Sternnadt decided after trying for them several times and then riding away
Again, at Four thirty o’clock Sunday afternoon. Sternnadt and his son went back to the Engler home. Sternnadt and Engler were partners in the business of making cotton choppers, and Sternnadt went over for the usual weekly business settlement.
The boy’s story
Papa sent me into the yard and I went around the house and looked into the window of Mr Engler’s room. The screens were pushed out. It had been shut down, almost and when I looked in, I saw Mr Engler killed. I called to Papa and told him that Mr Engler was killed. Blood was all over his face. Then Papa came running into the yard, and he looked into the other window and saw Mrs Engler killed too. Then we went to the front of the house and we saw the daughter dead too. She was laying with her feet to the step landing. She had hay in her hair and held some of it in her hands. The boy said that he and his father left the place immediately and notified others that all three of the anglers had been murdered.
Tells graphic story
The youth’s graphic description of the triple murder is just about as complete an account of the affair as can be given. Austin American reporters finding their way to the scene after dark as the Sheriff’s Department failed to notify the paper immediately of the tragedy. Found bloody clothes strewn all about the house
Miss Emma Angler’s nightgown spotted with blood, was found torn and soiled in the front room of the parlor, where it evidently had been Snatched from the helpless girl a pool of blood on the floor marked the resting place for her wounded head but the girl died only after a fight
Bullet in wall
Part of a leaden bullet is wedged in the front of the house, indicating that the assassin fired at the fleeing girl as she left her bedroom and sought an opportunity to hide in the barn from the crazed killer. Whether the girl was first wounded by the assassin and then escaped, or whether she fled the house upon hearing first reports of the gun, will never be known
Trail of blood
The bloody trail, the stains on the door to the front room. , the stains on the porch, the stains on the side of the house and on the window, and on the gate heading out of the yard and the hay in the girl’s hair indicate this fight she made to overcome her attacker.
It is presumed that the flee from the house and. She went to the barn where she hid in the hay loft. The the desperate killer, however, sought her out and either attacked her in the barn or brought her back into the house. Fighting all the way, as the bloodstains on the gate and the porch and the door leading. Leading to the parlor indicate footprints in the yard bore further evidence of the girl’s struggle. Girl’s body cruelly bruised.
The girl had been sorely manhandled, her head and body being marked with huge bruises. She was shot only once, to bury the identity of the man who had already killed the two others, and leave none to tell the tale of Saturday night’s murder. The girls nightgown bears unmistakable signs of powder burn, showing that her attacker had held the gun at close range in his. Premeditated plot to murder her after assaulting her.
Engler dead in his sleep
Angler died in his sleep. He was shot through the right temple, according to evidence of powder burns on that side of his face. The expression on his face is calm and peaceful. Mrs Engler was shot twice. She apparently raised up in bed upon hearing the first shot. Then the assassin turned on her. The first shot went through the back of her head. The second shot entered the mouth. Physicians say the first shot would have killed her. Her face was wrinkled in fear.
The Sheriff’s Department has charged of the case, but both county and city officers are working on fingerprints. Fingerprint expert RD Thorpe., Detective JE Mclean, EC Mains, motorcycle officers and others were working on the case Sunday night. While there seems to be no tangible clues for the officers to work on.
Fritz MEINE, one of the four men left by Sheriff Miller, to guard the House, told a reporter for the American Statesman that Mrs Engler had reported to his wife that the Englers had trouble with a tenant some four years ago.
Frank Walenta, Manuel. S Smith and. Fritz. Heinz, the four farmers left by Sheriff Miller to guard the Angler house, were kept busy until midnight. Taking care of the curious who thronged to the scene of the murder all through the night. Several of the men were armed with shotguns and it was. First reported that a posse was being formed to hunt down a stranger seen in that section late Saturday afternoon
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Girl engaged to be married
Emma Engler, 25, and a pretty blonde adopted daughter of the ill fated Engler’s, was soon to be married, according to information secured by the Austin American reporters at the Angler home Sunday night.
Willie Geist, her fiancé visited the scene of the gruesome crime Sunday afternoon and bent his head as he walked about the blood stained rooms.
Miss Engler was educated at St Mary’s Academy. Her room decorated. Her room, although. Disarranged was neatly decorated and the wardrobe door, swung ajar, displayed a dozen flimsy frocks. Made up in the latest. Style. These bright pink and delicately purple party dresses told of the happy girl’s social life at the church, festivals.
Mr Engler was last seen Saturday by Arthur Moore going to Austin. This was early in the afternoon. Shortly before this hour, he was seen. Hauling water to his place. Several head of stock were wandering around in the lot late Sunday night and neighbors stationed at the home on guard duty, fed, fed and watered the mules and horses. Angler has been at Morrisville for many years going out there and establishing himself after leaving Austin 15 or 20 years ago, he came to Austin from Germany.
Girl chased into yard, attacked and murdered
Engler was lying on his back, his feet crossed and his hands crossed on his breast in a natural sleeping position. His wife was lying on her side in another bed and had started to turn over when the marauder fired a shot into her brain. Her right arm was raised slightly as though she had tried to shield herself from the shot after turning to see what had happened to her husband. The girl found was. The girl was found with straw caught in her hair and had been killed in the yard after evidently being attacked, according to Norwood.
Engler was one of the most prosperous farmers of the county, according to Carl. When stamped. An Austin insurance man who was a close friend of the family, when he visited the Undertaking parlors Sunday night. Emma Engler had been adopted by the couple when she was a small child and she had never known of the adoption. Neighbors said Mrs Engler is survived by one brother. Albert Noonan of Austin.
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Del Valle Ghosts and San Antonio Ghosts – Austin Ghost Tours
You can’t talk about Del Valley Ghosts without talking about Mooresville.
MOORESVILLE
You can’t talk about Del Valley Ghosts without talking about Mooresville.
Mooresville was a crossing on the Colorado River. Far east from the bridge at Congress Avenue which crossed the Colorado River. Mooresville was the center of Del Valley at one time. Now it’s just full of ghosts.
Written by Mrs. Sanders
Mrs Sanders recalls Mooresville community during the early 20th century and during her early years of marriage.
“Mr John B Moore built a store in about 1910 or 1909 and it was called Moore’s Crossing.
AL. Sanders rented it and we got married on December 5, 1911 and lived there until 1923. Then we bought a store in Colton and moved there. Sometime about 1913 or so the blacksmith shop caught fire in the evening and they thought they had it put out and in the middle of the night it caught fire again and it burned down our store and we lost everything we had.
Then Mr Moore built the present store and we left in 1923 and my brother rented it for a while. We had a real bad flood in 1915 or 1914 and it washed the bridge away and some of us donated some money to help get a bridge there and it is now. When I was the little girl, there was the schoolhouse close to where the bridge is and there was 5 of us children to go to school and we had to walk about two miles to school and we had dirt roads. It was so muddy and cold to walk, sometimes they take us horseback.
I may be wrong on some dates, but this is the best I can remember”.
This is what the historical marker at Mooreville or Moore’s Crossing reads:
Moore’s crossing bridge. This structure was originally part of a six-span bridge across the Colorado River at Congress Avenue in Austin, constructed there in 1884. It was designed by the King Iron Bridge and Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1910, it was dismantled and placed in storage. Five years later, three spans were rebuilt here, but destroyed the same year in a flood. The current bridge, comprised of the remaining spans, was completed in 1922.
The postal history of Del Valley community has been a tale of floodwaters in earlier days and relocation in later days.
In 1875, William Boss Gibbons opened a general store in what would be the center of Bergstrom Air Force Base. In a two story structure with the living quarters on the upper level. As the population increased in the community, the need for a post office became apparent and Gibbons was appointed postmaster in 1878. The name Del Valley was suggested by Gibbons because of its location in the Santiago del Valley Spanish Land grant.
In 1900, a new building was built directly across the road from the old structure, which contained a much larger store and the post office. In 1914, the post office was moved about 150 feet northwest to another building on the same side of the road. In 1922, this building was destroyed by fire. In 1935, a brick structure was built at the same location, and it still stands on Bergstrom, where it is used by the Security Police K 9 corpse.
When Bergstrom was activated in 1942,, the post office was moved a mile directly northeast and relocated on the highway in the rear of the building, with a service station and grocery store in the front. When the office became 3rd class, it was a separate wing. In 1968, a new building was built one fourth of a mile northwest of the area. The mail from Austin was delivered to the Dell Valley by a rural carrier in a horse drawn buggy.
JD Copeland was appointed as a rural carrier in 1916. Hardtop roads were unknown. “I used a gig which is a two wheel vehicle drawn by one horse and I alternated horses every other day. I had about six miles of gravel road in the 24 mile route I serviced and during rainy weather I had just one mud hole 18 miles long between barbed wire fences”. ” As time passed on, conditions became worse. In places, bridges were washed out and it became necessary to deviate from the regular route in order to get around washed out bridges.
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