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”.