Denton County, Texas - Chapter 5, 1918

Local taxation began with the formation of the government in 1846 in Denton County. There was no public property here then, and all things pertaining to civil govei'nment had to be provided for, and personal property had then to bear the largest part of the bui'den of govei'nment. Lands wei"e given to the settlers by the State and were of very little value, often being rendered at fifty cents and one dollar per acre and sometimes lower. Land certificates were to be had cheaply; a 320-acre certificate could be had for fifty to one hundred dollars, and located on the best black land, for twenty-five dollars land office fees. Land was plentiful and cheap, but few people would buy, and land corners and lines were seldom referred to when cutting timber.

Many similar things were held in common. Grass was considered free for all, and people became so imbued with the idea of the general providence of God that when the barbed-wire age broke upon us in 1880 to 1885, and the country was all fenced up, the men without land revolted and we had a free-grass campaign in State politics. Free grass was the paramount issue, and the free-grass candidates were elected in many counties. The agitation culminated in night raids on the barbed-wire fences and hundreds of miles of fences were cut down and destroyed, several men losing their lives in this unlawful business. Lands increased in value very rapidly after the "barbed-wire era" and now bear the greatest part of the burdens of taxation. We give a list of the burden bearers of 1850 copied from the tax rolls, ninetyseven in all :

"This is to certify that William H. Dickson was duly elected to the office of Chief Justice for said county, on the 7th day of August, A. D. 1848, receiving 53 votes, which was a majority of all the votes polled for said office on the above day.

There were probably seventy-five or eighty voters in the county at that time and they were without public improvements or the means to make improvements and appealed to the Legislature for relief. The Legislature on February 9, 1860 passed an act authorizing Denton County to levy a special tax to build public buildings. The wooden court house built in 1857 by B. M. Street had been paid for from the revenues arising from lot sales.

The free-grass agitation above mentioned vitally affected nearly all of our citizens, for upon grass, at that time, they were almost wholly dependent for a living. This country was then regarded only as a stock country. The grass was fine beyond description and comparison. It was a source of our greatest blessing, and sometimes a source of destruction on account of prairie fires, which would sweep across the country devastating all combustibles in their path.

To illustrate: In 1846, in the month of August, a prairie fire started at Dallas and swept the country north to Red River. Many other destructive fires occurred but smaller in magnitude. The blaze would reach, or leap, in the air thirty and forty yards ahead and ignite the grass, and sometimes when the wind was favorable the fire would travel faster than a horse could run.

These prairie fires were a great deterrent to the settlement of the high prairies. It was a great task to build rail fences six or eight rails high, where the rails had to be hauled on ox wagons \ from eight to ten miles away. To see these fences go up in smoke in an hour's time, was discouraging. Those who ventured out on the high prairies with improvements learned to keep a strip of ground plowed around the field so they could burn round the field at an opportune time for protection. The fire hazard became so great on account of carelessness and irresponsible burn-^ ing that the Legislature on March 28, 1848 passed a law making it a penal offense to willfully burn off any prairie or woodland not one's own between the first day of July and the first day of February of each year. It was considered proper and right to burn the gi-ass off dui'ing February of each year to get rid of the old dead foliage and make way for the new grass which would come about the first of March. So there was a time to burn and a time not to burn, as stock had to winter on the dead grass and it was necessary to protect it for them until the new crop came. The most dangerous fires occurred in July and August when the dry, hot weather made all conditions most favorable for a conflagration. These were fires out of the ordinary and the people would rush to them for miles from all directions to fight them. They became experts at fire fighting.

In the early settling of Texas many bunches of wild horses were found grazing on the prairies. They were called "Mexican mustang" horses, and were very numerous near the Rio Grande. They had been multiplying for probably generations with no beginning accountable. There were but few bunches here. They were as wild as deer, of small stature, generally about twelve to thirteen hands high, very hardy, and tough, and never could be so tamed but that they would occasionally "buck." They could run all day long, and it took strategy to corral a bunch. Generally three or four men would build a pen on some small creek in the brush and make brush wings from the gate obliquely to the right and left. They would find their bunch and chase it one at a time, by shifts, nearly all day before the horses would tire down so one could get anyways near them to guide them to the corral. Then all the men would rush them from different directions into the wings and into the corral. This was great sport and of such importance that the government passed laws to regulate it.

On February 16, 1852 the Legislature passed an act to regulate mustang chases. It provided that one should go before a justice of the peace and get a permit to chase the ponies, paying fifty cents therefor and to pay to the county twenty-five cents per head for all the ponies caught, and three dollars for all t mules caught. If branded animals were caught, the law required lone to proceed accordingly to the "stray laws," which provided that such animals should be advertised in three public places for

There were many theories advanced accounting for the beginning of these herds of ponies. The most plausible one was that the Indians had stolen the horses from the Mexicans and had driven them back into Texas and let them go wild. These ponies ranged over the country in bunches, not confining themselves to any particular locality, and were generally in charge of a vicious male who herded them together and drove them wherever he wished, and sometimes herded in the farmers' horses and carried them many miles from home before they were allowed to drop out.