Six Shooter Junction included the once lawless towns of Hempstead, Kenedy and Harlingen. A six shooter is a revolver used mostly in the old west. It was a single action hand gun it is a rotating cylinder with six bullets.
Hempstead TX. Came into being in 1856 as a stop on the Houston and Texas Central Railroad.
For a time after the Civil War, this little city was major Confederate troop and supply center. Known to be at that time as a violent place, with feud like shootouts continuing for several years. One of the last. SH riddled the courthouse with 75 shots, killing four men, wounding others and earning Hempstead, along with Kenedy and Harlingen the title six shooter junction.
Kenedy TX today is a quiet town today but it has a violent past.
Early day excursions on trains from San Antonio to Corpus Christi passengers would be announced the station in Kenedy before arriving, giving the passengers time to drop to the floor in case cowboys made the train their target.
It was originally an old cow camp, and Kenedy. The area was known for it’s bloody feuds even John Wesley Harden put a few notches in his gun in the area.
The town is named for the Kenedy family who introduced large scale ranching to the coastal plains. Patriarch Mifflin Kenedy, a Quaker from Pennsylvania became a captain during the Mexican-American and Civil Wars.
Kenedy & Company dominated steamboat trade on the Rio Grande.
Captain Mifflin Kenedy and Captain Richard King ( of the famous King Ranch) became friends and partners in acquiring huge tracts of land in South Texas. Kenedy and King became chief supporters and financial backers of Colonel Uriah Lott in building a railroad from Corpus Christi to Laredo which became known as the Corpus Christi, San Diego & Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad Company. During the last half of the 19th century Mifflin Kenedy created a huge fortune and left a legacy to his family and South Texas.
During this time, Kenedy married Petra Vela de Vidal, the young widow of a Mexican soldier. Already the mother of eight, all of whom Mifflin adopted, Petra bore him six more children.
When Mifflin Kenedy died in 1895 without leaving a will, his only surviving son, John Gregory, bought out the other heirs’ ( all half siblings) interest in the vast Kenedy ranch. He and his wife, Marie Stella, raised their two children, John Jr. and Sarita. The third generation of Kenedy’s would be the last with the death of Sarita in 1961 as the brother and sister had no children.
Harlingen is at the crossroads of two of the Valley’s most prominent highways.
It was one of the valleys first Anglo settlements, Founded in 1901 by Lon C Hill, who foresaw the area’s rich future. By 1915, there were border difficulties along the Rio Grande, and Harlingen stationed Texas Rangers and the National Guard in the area. This created a boom in the valley. Many were called to action during WWI and when the men returned and were from from various homes across the US they recalled the mild year round climate in the area and new housing developments made it the metropolis it is today.
Waco Texas is also called Six Shooter Junction.
This is where the Old South met the Wild West. It was a part. It was a long the Chisholm Trail. It was a railroad depot. And it was in the middle of cotton country.
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