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Texas Tales

published: January 22nd 2010
by: MIke Cox

Hard to imagine today, but back in 1850 residents of New Bruanfels could brag that they lived in the fourth-largest city in Texas.
    That year, barely a half-decade after Texas joined the union, U.S. Census enumerators found 212,592 people in the state, including slaves. The census recorded the population of only 23 cities and towns with all other head counts listed by county. 
    Galveston stood as Texas’ largest city in 1850. In fact, for the next four decades, the island city remained in the top four. Only the catastrophic 1900 hurricane ended Gal-veston’s reign in the biggest-city league.     But New Braunfels once having been Texas’ fourth city seems stranger than Galveston’s early-day rankings, considering its status as a major seaport.
    With work already under way on the 2010 census, Austin is currently Texas’ fourth-largest city, behind Houston, San Antonio and Dallas in that order. For most of its history, however, the capital city never even made the top five population-wise.
    That said, twice census returns have shown Austin as bigger than Dallas. Of course, in various decades, Fredericksburg, Galve-ston, Gonzales, Marshall, New Braunfels, Victoria, and Waco all were larger than the capital city. 
    Since 1850, only four Texas cities have enjoyed the distinction of being the state’s largest. While Galveston was Texas biggest city in three federal head counts (1850, 1870 and 1880), San Antonio held the top spot in 1860, 1900, 1910 and 1920. Dallas has hit the top of the list only once, in 1890. Houston became the biggest city in 1930 and has not relinquished the title since.
    Finding decade-by-decade federal population numbers for Texas cities and towns in not hard, but if anyone has ever put together a population ranking of Texas largest cities per decade, I’ve never seen it.
    So, for historians, genealogists, and anyone interested in a little Texas trivia, I’ve compiled the historic urban population hierarchy and population figures dating back to 1850. The 1850 and 1860 listings contain the top 10 cities, since there are some surprises. From 1870 on, only the top 5 cities are listed:
    1850:
    Galveston (4,177)
    San Antonio (3,488)
    Houston (2,396)
    New Braunfels (1,723)
    Marshall (1,180)
    Gonzales (1,072)
    Victoria (802)
    Fredericksburg (754)
    Austin (629)
    Corpus Christi (533)
    It’s interesting to note that while 3,758 people lived in Nacogdoches County in 1850, they were scattered. That kept the county seat of Nacogdo-ches, one of the state’s oldest towns, off the top 10 list.
    1860:
    San Antonio (8,235)
    Galveston (7,307)
    Houston (4,845)
    Marshall (4,000)
    New Braunfels (3,500)
    Austin (3,494)
    Brownsville (2,784)
    Sulfur Springs (2,500)
    Dallas (2,000)
    Victoria (1,986)
    1870:
    1.   Galveston (13,818)
    2.   San Antonio
               (12,256)
    3.   Houston (9,332)
    4.   Waco (3,008)
    5.   Dallas (3,000)
    By the 1870s, the cities that would be the state’s major metropolitan areas had grown to a point where they remained in the top 5 list from there on out, with the exception of Galveston and Waco. The seat of McLennan County dropped off in 1880 following one decade as the fourth-largest city. Fort Worth joined the municipal big boy’s club in 1890 and El Paso in 1910.
    1880:
    Galveston (22,284)
    San Antonio (20,550)
    Houston (16,513)
    Austin (11,013)
    Dallas (10,358)
    1890:
    Dallas (38,067)
    San Antonio (37,653)
    Galveston (29,084)
    Houston (27,557)
    Fort Worth (23,668)
    1900:
    San Antonio (53,321)
    Houston (44,633)
    Dallas (42,638)
    Galveston (37,789)
    Fort Worth (26,668)
    1910:
    San Antonio (96,614)
    Dallas (92,104)
    Houston (78,800)
    Fort Worth (73,312)
    El Paso (39,279)
    1920:
    San Antonio (161,379)
    Dallas (158,976)
    Houston (138,276)
    Fort Worth (106,482)
    El Paso (77,560)
    1930:
    Houston (292,352)
    Dallas  (260,475)
    San Antonio (231,542)
    Fort Worth (163,447)
    El Paso (102,421)
    1940:
    Houston (384,514)
    Dallas (294,734)
    San Antonio (253,854)
    Fort Worth (177,662)
    El Paso (96,810)
    1950:
    Houston (596,163)
    Dallas (434,462)
    San Antonio (408,442)
    Fort Worth (278,778)
    Austin (132,459)
    The 2000 Census data held some surprises for long-time Texans, including the ascendance of Arlington and Plano into the top 10 list. But while that’s a notable change, it’s hardly history yet.
***
    Say “hog” in Texas today and most people think you’re talking about wild pigs. But feral hogs are descended from domestic swine. And thereby hang several tales.
    During the bloody days of the Mexican Revolution, with the violence occasionally spilling over into Texas, a Texas Ranger riding the river looking for trouble soon found it.
    “The ranger was riding along the vega (the river’s floodplain) when something shot out at him from the tall cane,” said Stephen A. Watson of Round Rock, who owns the old Apache Ranch between Laredo and Del Rio. “The ranger didn’t have time to think. All he knew was that someone was charging him.”
    So, in the Old West tradition of “shoot first, ask questions later,” the ranger levered his .30-30 and cut down on what he presumed to be a bandit who had been waiting to ambush him. Unfortunately, the attacker proved to be one of the landowner’s prized swine.
    “He later lamented that his quick shooting had cost him three or four month’s pay,” Watson said. Unreported is whether the deceased hog got converted to state service by rangers hungry for a little variety in their diet.
    That hog tale reminded Watson of an unusual example of farm architecture he encountered on a hunting lease south of Dallas about a decade ago.
    “We were hunting on this place that once had been a farm owned by a man descended from Swedish Texas immigrants,” Watson said. “Behind an old barn, I saw an unusual looking enclosed wooden chute built of oak and hog wire.”
    When Watson asked someone more familiar with the place what the structure was, he learned it was a Depression-era hog feeder that was a model of efficiency.
    “The thing was designed to hold six hogs, snout to tail,” Watson said. “They had enough room to stand up, but couldn’t move enough to get ahead of the other hog.”
    The frugal farmer fed the first hog in the chute, but the other five hogs didn’t live as high on the hog, so to speak. Based on the common knowledge that a hog will eat anything, the pen was designed so that all the other hogs got to eat were the biologically recycled remnants of what the hog in front of them had chowed down on.
    The poor-boy system was sufficient to keep the hogs alive on minimal feed, but only the Number 1 hog got the good groceries. However, being Number 1 isn’t always best. As the fattest hog, he got the dubious honor of gracing the farmer’s table after hog killing time rolled around in the winter.
    The other hogs, obviously of lesser quality, got sold. Whether the people who bought this farmer’s swine knew that the pork they were eating had been raised on hog manure is not known.
    Watson said that was the only time he’d ever seen such a feeder, so maybe it was an idea that didn’t catch on.
    The final hog tale has to do with a three-legged hog.
    Seems that when a traveling salesman (called a drummer back when) came up on a Bosque County farm, one of the first things he noticed was a fine-looking three-legged hog hobbling around the place.
    Invited to stay for supper, the drummer asked about the hog in an effort to make polite conversation.
    “Oh, that hog’s special,” the farmer began. “One time, little Jenny was playing outside and an Indian slipped up on her. That ole hog saw what was happening and charged the warrior, running him off and saving my daughter from captivity.”
    Indeed, the drummer said, only a particularly bright hog would know to do something like that.
    “That’s not all,” the farmer said. “Jenny’s little brother was crawling around the yard one day and came up on a coiled rattler. Before the snake could strike my son that hog trotted up, grabbed that rattler and ate him whole.”
    Incredible, the drummer marveled.
    “That’s still not all,” the farmer said. “One day when I was in town and my wife was home alone with the children, a man tried to break in our house. Soon as that hog realized what was happening, he came bounding over and chased that burglar off the place.”
    Quite impressed with the hog’s intelligence, not to mention his bravery and obvious sense of loyalty to his owner, the drummer asked why the porker had only three legs.
    “Well,” the farmer drawled, “when you’ve got a hog like that, you don’t want to eat him all at once!”
SLS