Editor`s Note: Jack Becker is editor-in-chief of Caprock Chronicles and librarian at Texas Tech University Libraries. It can be carried out in jack.becker@ttu.edu. Today`s article is the latest in a two-part series by Lubbock lawyer and historian Chuck Lanehart. In the first part, G.R. Miller was sentenced to be hanged in Clarendon for murder. This was to be the first – and only – hanging in the Panhandle-South Plains region of Texas. Death by Rope also examines lynchings and legal executions in Henderson, Hemphill, Gilmer, Science Hill, Charleston, Nogalus Prairie, Homer, Dalby Springs, Canton, Timpson, Granbury, Anderson, Cooper, Myrtle Springs, Kirven, Woodville, Emory, Nacogdoches, Groveton, Sherman, Clarksville, Hardin, Orange, Center, Coldspring, Batson Prairie, Chester, Buena Vista, Paris, Crockett, West, Atlanta, Giddings, Rusk, Marshall, Livingston, Kaufman, Palestine, and Texarkana. Bob Bowman is a former member of the Texas Historical Commission, the Texas Sesquicentennial Commission and the Texas Capital Centennial Commission. He and his wife are the only husbands to serve as presidents of the Texas Council for the Humanities. [Death By Rope is available by contacting Best of East Texas Publishers at 936-634-7444 or by email at bobb@consolidated.net. Cost is $25.00 plus state sales tax.] See Bob Bowman`s East Texas A Weekly Column in 109 East Texas newspapers Nevertheless, the hanging became an important part of Clarendon`s history as the last and only judicial execution by hanging anywhere in the 46 counties of the Texas Panhandle-South Plains region.
Unlike its Wild West pioneers, Tascosa and Mobeetee – now ghost towns – Clarendon remains a vibrant small town with 2,000 souls. In 2004, the Clarendon Chamber of Commerce produced controversial T-shirts with a photo of the execution and the message «I hung out in Clarendon». Fiction and cinema are full of fables of convicted murderers and horses that are publicly hung in the squares of cities on the vast plains of Texas. But only one man was legally hanged on the plains of Texas. The captivating legend of George «G.R.» Miller is called «the last one suspended in the panhandle,» which is true, but it was also the first. There is no record of other legal hangings in the recorded history of the Panhandle-South Plains, although there are poorly documented reports of some lynchings in the area. It seems ironic that the execution took place in the quiet town of Clarendon in County Donley. The first settlements in the Panhandle included only three towns: Tascosa, Mobeetie – now ghost towns – and Clarendon. Tascosa and Mobeetie easily fit violent Hollywood notions of the Wild West, but there were no hangings in Tascosa or Mobeetie. Clarendon was different. The founder of the town was a Methodist minister who envisioned a «sober settlement» as opposed to the typical mushroom towns of the time. In the small town of «Saint`s Roost» there were no saloons or brothels.
But in 1910, the gallows near Clarendon places of worship appeared for the first – and only – time in the history of Panhandle-South Plains. Lynching was more frequent than legal executions in Texas between 1885 and 1942, when at least 470 people met this horrific fate. Of those, 72 percent were black, 16 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic, and one was Native American. Only one lynching incident was confirmed in the 43,000-square-mile Panhandle-South Plains area. 4. In June, the editor of the local newspaper went to great lengths to report on the hanging «without arousing the curiosity of those whose minds might be excessively influenced by the presentation of sensational and spectacular events.» Historian Patricia Bernstein has argued that Mitchell`s protection from lynching and judicial execution, while legally flawed, demonstrates the effectiveness of the NAACP`s anti-lynching campaign. In 1901, Clarendon was incorporated.[9] The last legal hanging in the Panhandle took place there on June 3, 1910. The city`s independent school district purchased Clarendon College in 1927 and turned it into a junior college. Because the city is in attraction, its streets were frequently flooded until the 1930s, when the Administration of Work Projects built dams and terraces to drain water. The construction of several gins and hatcheries testifies to the growing importance of the city as an agri-food centre.
In 1950, Clarendon had eighteen businesses, ten churches and 2,577 residents. By this time, the production of cotton bags and blankets had been added to the local light industry. In addition, Clarendon was a centre for the production of agricultural and road equipment and leather goods. The population increased from 2,172 in 1960 to 1,974 in 1970. In 1980, Clarendon had 2,220 inhabitants and seventy businesses. Clarendon Lake is located to the northeast and a small municipal airport is located southeast of the city. Clarendon was once home to Clarendon Press, the longtime publisher of Western Americana. The two-story ranch and studio of Clarendon`s most famous citizen, Western artist and illustrator Harold Dow Bugbee, built by his father in 1912, is located northeast of the city. Pete Borden`s Boot and Saddle Shop contains a collection of antique weapons. The Donley County Museum displays prehistoric specimens of local fossil beds from the Clarendonian Age, as well as geological and historical artifacts.
The original town of Saint`s Roost was flooded by the Greenbelt Reservoir in 1968. At that time, the old cemetery was moved south on State Highway 70. The population was 2,067 at the 1990 census and 1,974 at the 2000 census. In 2010 the population was 2,026 and in 2017 it was estimated at 1,878. Each of Mitchell`s trials, which took place in March 1923, resulted in jury convictions after «minutes» deliberations. [9] Mitchell`s wife, Minnie, and his 10-year-old daughter, Marguerite, accompanied him to each trial and testified that he had returned home. After being convicted of all charges and sentenced to death, Mitchell was charged and convicted of another murder, that of Loula Barker, although two other black men had already confessed to killing her during interrogations. [9] Waco Mayor Ben C. Richards and Sheriff Stegall publicly announced their intention to protect Mitchell from mob violence until his execution.