Month: November 2021

What’s Juicy?

The story of the Ranger oil boom is fact although, the shipments of coal to the North Pole was an obvious addition. The location of the JH McKleskey No 1. has a “park” and it looks like there may be some old equipment still there. I wonder if they ever plugged the well. The facts about the growth of the field are staggering and true. All of the towns around Ranger would be transformed from small towns to boom towns.

The account of Conrad Hilton is supposedly true. No one ever says which bank he was coming to buy. I like to think it was the one that got robbed. I don’t believe the hotel had a Santa Claus in the lobby though, so they probably weren’t charging for that.

The story of the robbery is pretty high-level to not bore people with the details. It is what I thought was relevant from a few accounts of the story. People differ on the facts, like always. I did make up the part about the Ho Ho Holdup.

The building at the end of the alley was a vacant lot during the time of the robbery. Frances and her mom ran across the alley and got to the police station quickly. This is why they were able to respond before they left. The rest of the robbery account is true although ridiculous. Robert Hill got a full pardon from Governor Connolly in 1964. He supposedly changed his name and went to live the rest of his life in West Texas. He died in 1996. The story of the insanity… well insanity is true. It appeared like he might get out of the death penalty, so the mob took things into their own hands.

The story of the play and the noose are true. There is a monument behind the theater that commemorates the lynching. The museum in the old jail has inscriptions on the wall from Helms and Hill as well as Ratliff’s pistols. They even have the rope from the lynching.

Conrad Hilton was born on Christmas Day and he liked to be charitable with his money. That is why he has “Christmas is forever” written on his tombstone. He probably did not have anything to do with the bank robbery. It just goes to show you how you can find conspiracies anywhere.

Keep it Juicy!

What’s Juicy?

The story of the beginning of Aurora is accurate as far as I can tell. The town is named by William Stanfield after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora. The town did grow quickly but suffered from a spotted fever (meningitis) outbreak that caused people to flee the town. The railroad choosing to go to Rhome caused even more folks to flee.

The article from S.E. Haydon is the basis of the story about the crash and was really published. It does ready like a joke to me although it is strange that there were so many other “sightings”. This was at the height of yellow journalism so maybe this was normal. Although the article names T.J. Weems as an authority in astronomy, it does not mention that he is a follower of Roman mythology. I made that up.

After reading up a bit more on the goddess Aurora, I found the little story about Mars and Venus. I figured it could be juiced up to explain how Weems thought that the pilot was a Martian. I’m a bit proud of that one. The flower garden is mentioned in the newspaper article.

Brawley Oats is a real person who sealed up the well after having a bout with arthritis. He is buried in the cemetery but Judge Proctor is buried in Boyd.

The account of the various sightings of mysterious airships around the country and state of Texas is accurate. There are multiple books on the topic. It is pretty interesting, but, again, it was also at the peak of yellow journalism. This occurred about the same time as H.H. Holmes’s activities in Fort Worth.

The articles do mention the government, the Spanish, and proponents of the temperance movement. There are also accounts of meeting the pilot, Wilson. That may be an inside joke. An account in Stephenville lists 20+ people as witnesses to seeing the machine on the ground as the pilot made repairs. One of them was Otto Houston, Sam Houston’s nephew.

MUFON is real and they did an investigation which didn’t turn up much. The exhumation was denied because next of kin could not be notified. The movies by Jim McCullough Sr. are real as is the review of Aurora Encounter. After watching the trailer, I am not sure I could make it through the movie. Although I did notice that there is another film from 2018 about the Aurora UFO crash named simply Aurora. I haven’t found out how to watch it yet. I will, by no means, watch “Nacho Chihuahua”.