James William Kinnear Interview - James William Kinnear Interview [part 2 of 2]

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  • Owens: Mr. Kinnear, you told me you had some other things you would like to put on the tape for us.
  • Kinnear: Yes. Is it ready now?
  • O. Yes, we're on..
  • K. Some of the saloon keepers in the city of Beaumont were a little desirous of having their wares sold and in order to do that they used rather, some rather peculiar and rather unique forms of advertising. One of them particularly had a glass cage made and he had some of the fellows go out and catch him a rattlesnake and put it in this cage. Then he had the boys in town to catch him some birds, and paid them a dollar apiece for each bird they'd catch. When the business would get a little dull, he would send word up to the Crosby House that the snake was going to catch the bird. Everybody would come down and see it. So of course, they would all rush down there and see the excitement and they would take a paper and each fellow would put his name on there and the number-the time - that he figured it would take that snake to catch that bird. Each of them would take his list down there, each of them would sign it, then when they would put the bird in
  • the cage and finally it would fly and flounce around, and after a while it would, the snake would open its mouth and the bird would just walk right in, grab it, and shut down on it. So then they would look to see how they-see, the men that were farthest off had to put up the drinks for the crowd at ten cents a drink.
  • O. Well, how much would they have to--That was all they got out of it, just the--there was no betting, just the money?
  • K. No betting at all. Just a question of how long it would take the snake to catch the bird. And you would be surprised to see how many people would swarm down there.
  • O. Is that right?
  • K. Sometimes a hundred of them--a hundred and fifty of them. All right. Ten cents apiece, that's fifteen dollars worth of business right there. All right, not only fifteen dollars worth of business then, but those fellows possibly would spend three or four or five or ten times that amount before they would get away from there. See the point?
  • O. Yes, I do. That's a very good idea. Were there other schemes like that run by the competitors then?
  • K. He was the only one I know of particularly that put out this kind of bait for the suckers.
  • O. Did the saloons then run free lunches?
  • K. Very little.
  • O. They didn't use that for advertising?
  • K. No. No. Once in a while there would be one of them that would have some little knickknack in there, but regular lunch like they have now; no, they didn't use that at all.
  • O. In those days you didn't buy it by the drink?
  • K. Sir?
  • O. You didn't buy liquor by the drink, or did you?
  • K. Yes, that was the only way they sold it--by the drink. They got so much more for it that way than if they sold it by the quantities, you see?
  • O. Yes. Well, there are some other things I would like to ask you about. What about the political situation in Beaumont dur-ing the Boom?
  • K. Well, it was pretty raw. The saloons, of course; and the rough element actually got into the town. Why, things got to be pretty bad. Gambling was wide open. In fact of the case, the churches and the good people of the town tried in a way to stop that thing but the authorities didn't pay any attention to it, they just let them run wide open. So one man, Mr. George W. Carroll, who was one of the finest characters that ever walked in shoe leather, he was just a gentleman from the first of the word, "go," he insisted on the authorities shutting these saloons down, especially part of the day, and on Sundays. Well anyway, they paid no attention to him. He wore a long beard, way down to here. He went to work and shaved his beard off, put on an old rough suit of clothes, and an old cap with the bill turned back-wards, walked up to the door and knocked on the door, and they looked at him and said, "Well there's another sucker," and so they let him in. He walked in there and sat around a little while till he'd seen the roulette game going on, the dice game going on, and the poker games going on. He said, "Boys, I don't know if you know who I am, I'm George Carroll. You boys are under arrest."
  • Now if ever you saw people leaving, leave there like rats leaving a burning vessel, there was a sample of it. (Laughter)
  • O. Were there other people like that operating besides Mr. Carroll?
  • K. Well, he's the only one that really got those boys in high. He did.
  • O. Did I ask you the other day about Carrie Nation?
  • K. Carrie Nation? No, you didn't.
  • O. Do you remember when she came to town?
  • K. No, I don't remember. There were so many people in and out of here that you couldn't--and then I was busy at work. A man at work, he don't hear that stuff like someone standing around on the corner gossiping.
  • O. Yes, that's right.
  • K. However, she was here.
  • O. Can you tell me about the--there was an election of a sheriff just at the time of the Boom, was there not?
  • K. Yes.
  • O. Could you tell me about that election?
  • K. Well, the way they would hold it in those days, they'd get a-hold of you and say, "Come right on in. Right here is where you want to market your ticket, see?" Walk right on in there with you, see you mark your ticket, put it in the box.
  • O. That actually happened?
  • K. Oh, that's happened. Not only in one, but many cases of it
  • O. Where were the voting boxes?
  • K. They only had about two or three. The main ones were down at
  • the Courthouse. They would control things, control them.
  • O. Do you know whether they were buying votes then?
  • K. No, not much. Very little of that going on. They had the political situation under control and could handle it just kind of like they wanted to, Something like they handle some of these other countries now.
  • O. Yes. Well were there no scandals connected with that sort of thing?
  • K. If there were, they kept them under cover. In other words, they had the political situation in hand and they controlled it.
  • O. Did Langham die in office?
  • K. In sheriff's office? No, Langham resigned and was elected mayor of the city. And Ras Landry, his deputy, took his place.
  • O. Well, what Is your opinion of the kind of government that those two men maintained?
  • K. Well, of course in those days, you know, it was different from what it is now; and there was a different picture, different situation, all together, from what we see in this day and age in the world. In those days they run it pretty much like George Parr is running it down in Duval County, now. Pretty much along that line.
  • O. Is that right? K. Yes.
  • O. And the people didn't object?
  • K. Well, It didn't do them any good to object. They couldn't get enough coordination to handle the situation. In those days some of the bullies would tell the other fellow what to do, and
  • he did it or else, that's all.
  • O. Pretty tough situation, then.
  • K. Well, yes. Little bit tough.
  • O. Well, do you think they had to be unusually tough because of the oil boom and the number of people drifting in?
  • K. Yes, floaters coming in here. That was one thing they had to control. Of course, about the only people they would arrest would be a nigger shooting craps. And you know, nobody in the world gets any more fun--pleasure--than a nigger shooting craps. And they'd catch those niggers, jerk them up and fine them, put them in jail and all that kind of stuff--beat them up. But the white people went on just like they wanted to.
  • O. All these gambling joints going on under the whites.
  • K. Oh, yes.
  • O. And nobody protested--
  • K. Well, a few that could protest-they wasn't enough of them, didn't have enough momentum and enough back of them to make an impression on them. Those fellows didn't send them, they didn't do -
  • O. Doesn't sound too good.
  • K. Well, it was pretty tough.
  • O. Then people here were glad when the Boom passed, I suppose.
  • K. Oh yes, they quieted down and then they begun to--the church people began to gain control and then of course, people--citizens--good citizens of course--were in on that, naturally. But just like anything else, no good citizen would want to go out there and stick his neck out, see? Because he knew--he just
  • didn't want to do it, that's all.And he had sense enough to stay out of it. That's the reason that conditions went on like they did.
  • O. Well, I understand that they did have police up in the part that they called the Reservation?
  • K. Oh yes, yes. That's down in Deep Crockett.
  • O. Yes. Well, why didn't the police-were the police told just to let things be wide open like that?
  • K. Well, of course, we don't know that. The general impression was that it would be easier on so-and-so but be tougher on this other fellow, see?
  • O. And do you think that those that got the easy treatment were paying off?
  • K. Oh yes, they no doubt were -- no doubt were.
  • O. Do you know of any particular examples of people who were paying off for the--
  • K. No. I don't have any memory of anyone knowing definitely that they-that things were wrong. But the general impression was with the general public that was what was going on. They had one nigger there that they called "Dollar Bill." And he'd arrest those niggers and if they give him a dollar-go on down the road.
  • O. Arrest them, never broke them in or anything?
  • K. No. O. Just pay him a dollar.
  • K. Pay him a dollar. Everybody knew him as "Dollar Bill."
  • O. Nobody did anything about him?
  • K. No, didn't pay any attention to it.
  • O. Just treated it as a joke?
  • K. Oh, yes. Just one of these consequences, sequences -- didn't pay no attention to it at all--just let him go.
  • O. Well, were there any white policemen like that?
  • K. No, as a general rule those white policemen were pretty decent kind of fellows. They were trying to do the thing that--doing their job as they were supposed to do it; as a general rule.
  • O. Chiefly, as they were told.
  • K. Yes, as a general rule the police department here tried to -- in a way -- to control things but it was so obviously the other sided--one-sided--that you just couldn't take care of it. When you think of gambling dens all over town, you know, everywhere; and of course, a lot of them knew them. Then, not only that but you know, you stood a good chance of getting your head shot off if you just crowded in there too close. You had to use a little discretion about going into those places. If you didn't, you were liable to get yourself into a place where you couldn't well get out of. Those things of course, caused a --some of those fellows were -- you know, would hesitate. And not only that they would assist, but the public, generally, knew those things were going, they couldn't induce those fellows to get into those things in a way that they would break it up. Of course, when the Boom busted, and the people began to scatter out, of course, the floaters, you know, they left here. Well, then things quieted down, down then to a nice, peaceful community -- good town.
  • O. How did the saloon keepers maintain order in the saloons?
  • K. Well, they did it the hard way. They had some bouncers in there.
  • O. Do you remember any of those bouncers?
  • K. No, I never was about those places, I don't know. That was a place that I knew was not a place for me to be at, so I never bothered about it.
  • O. No. I guess they had their troubles.
  • K. Oh, they had their troubles, yes.
  • O. Did you have militia here at any time?
  • K. I think one or two times, one or two or three times the Rangers came in here.
  • O. You don't remember any of the circumstances of the Rangers?
  • K. No, I don't. I don't recall any of them right now.
  • O. Yes. Did you see the Rangers operating over at Batson?
  • K. Yes, yes.
  • O. Can you tell us something about that?
  • K. Well, those Rangers over there -- conditions got so bad that they -- Rangers came in there to quiet things down. And some of the fellows who were in charge -- the constables, for instance -- wanted to let the world know that they were running, that they were law and order in that neck of the woods. After a while they kinda quieted those boys down. One occasion I remember very distinctly.
  • One fellow there was elected constable of Hardin County -- handling a knife, you know, big old dirk knife, telling them he was the Constable of Hardin County and he was law and order. So there was a captain and a couple of Rangers standing there and he said to them, he says, "You don't know who I am, do
  • you?" And he said, "Well, I'm so-and-so, my name's so-and-so and I'm the Constable of Hardin County, I'm the authority around here." And the Ranger said to him, Captain Rodgers, he says, "Well, as much as you are the peace officer, looks like you would kind of quiet things down." He said, "Maybe you don't like it?" "Well," he said, "It doesn't make any difference to me as far as I'm concerned, doesn't make any difference to me." "Well," he said, "I lust wanted to let you know." Says, "I'm running things around here."
  • So he says, "Well," he says, "do you like it?" He says, "It don't make any difference to me, it's all right." And he says, "Maybe you don't like it?" And the Captain took just about all that he wanted to take. Turned his coat back like that. Said, "Do you see that? Well," he says, "now shut that knife up." Said, "Come up here." Slapped the handcuffs on him. He says, "Ranger," he says, "can't you take a joke?" He says, "I can take a joke and," he says, "I can take you, too. And so you're going to Kountze and to the penitentiary you're going. And I understood afterward they did send him to the penitentiary.
  • O. Is that right?
  • K. Ordinarily, though, when the Rangers came in the boys knew then it was time for let up. Because those boys they didn't take no foolishness off of nobody. These other two fellows standing there never moved. They had both hands like this. Of course, had a six-shooter under each arm, you know. Why, they could have cut him so full of holes that his hide wouldn't have held shucks.
  • O. Well, were you around the Big Thicket very much in those days?
  • K. Well see, Saratoga and Batson is in the Big Thicket.
  • O. Yes. Do you have anything to tell about the Big Thicket people ?
  • K. Well, no, not much. Because I didn't, I was busy all the time and didn't have time to talk with them, anyhow they were akind of class to themselves-- clannish in their nature, you know -- wouldn't have much to do with the percentage of strangers. I had very little contact with them.
  • O. Have you ever heard the word, "Red Bone," applied to people up there?
  • K. Yes.
  • O. Well, what is a Red Bone as far as you are concerned?
  • K. Red Bone is a cross between a Negro and an Indian.
  • O. Are there many of them up that way?
  • K. No, not many.
  • O. Where did they derive the word, Red Bone?
  • K. I don't know where it came from.
  • O. But there were some around?
  • K. There were, there were. And you'd find them also in Louisiana.
  • O. Did any of them work in the oil fields?
  • K. Not much. Other people wouldn't let them work there. White people wouldn't let them work there.
  • O. Chiefly a matter of keeping the oil fields for the white workers.
  • K. Oh yes. Strictly. They wouldn't let them. Of course, niggers would do labor, hard labor work, things like that, building tanks and things like that, muleskinning, but outside of that, why--
  • all the work's done by white people.
  • O. I'd like to know about expressions they used in oil fields. Did you hear "dickey bird"?
  • K. Which? O. The word, "dickey bird," in reference to the oil fields?
  • K. I don't know that I ever heard that expression.
  • O. Some people say there was, I think I asked you about stories about Gib Morgan?
  • K. About which? O. Gib Morgan.
  • K. No.
  • O. Didn't hear any of those? Paul Bunyan--I'm sure you've heard some of the stories.
  • K. Oh, I've heard of him, in a casual way.
  • O. Yes, just the character that they talk about. Do you know if there was ever a song made up about the oil fields or not?
  • K. I don't call to memory any, now -- may have been -- I don't call to memory any. So much of that foolishness -- when a man is busy working, he don't pay no attention to it -- went on about his business. And I always had my hands full and running over, doing about two or three men's work each day. I didn't have time to mess in that kind of crap.
  • O. Now then, I would like for you, if you would, to talk about your work as a collector out at Spindletop -- any of the particularproblems that you encountered there.
  • K. What kind of collecting?
  • O. Were you a tax collector there?
  • K. I was tax collector with the school District.
  • O. The School District.
  • K. That had no connection with the oil business any more than just general -- general, you know, nothing separate from the regular run of, you know, taxing. I commenced collecting taxes in 1915. Collected taxes there for thirty-seven years.
  • O. Well, what about the matter of title and so on in Spindletop. Did you have dealings --
  • K. Titles were so messed up that you -- I'm surprised beyond question, beyond measure, to know how ever on earth they got any-thing like corrected as they should have been. Titles of properties were sold plenty of times without any examination of titles or any abstracts, or anything else. Just bought and sold bought and sold. And many times they-- I doubt very seriously if a lot of those deeds ever were put on record.
  • O. Is that right?
  • K. Yes, It was something!
  • O. Now, In the Courthouse I examined some of those records -- the ones that were recorded and you'd find, "For the consideration of one dollar in cash"--
  • K. "And other valuable considerations."
  • O. Yes, now can you talk about those other valuable considerations?
  • K. Well -- that was a scheme they used to prevent the other fellow knowing what they were paying for the properties -- or what you were selling it for -- that's still in existence.
  • O. It is? K. Oh, yes -- all over the State. And when they sold property
  • they just -- the property in this part of the State was laid out by old Spanish grants. And a Spanish grant -- a full grant -- was four thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight acres. Then they give you what they call a lambura, that was one hundred and seventy-seven acres. Well, those grants -- after the grants were made, then the property was surveyed. And surveying cost you more than the land was worth. They did about ninety percent of the surveying in the office and about ten percent of the surveying on the land, on the surface. And of course, in making deeds up till now they say they will sell you twenty acres, "more or less," because there is a variation.
  • Fact is, I doubt whether there is a half a dozen grants in Jefferson County that's absolutely correct. I've never found any of them. I've worked it down in the south part of the School District, where they had a balance of about twenty-eight acres over--in balance in the school district. But land grants, they start at a certain point and go to a certain point and a certain point and a certain point and back to place of beginning-so many acres. Well, it might have been right and it might have been wrong. And not only that, there's a lot of the surveyed lands that were controlled by streams.
  • For instance, the Neches River would be the boundary line, or the boundary line between Jefferson County and Orange County. In other words, Orange County was taken out of Jefferson County. Jefferson County at one time, included about six or seven of these counties here. Well, when the stream bed changed its course, naturally that changed the boundary lines of their property and a lot of the properties now that were formerly in Jefferson County are
  • over in Orange County and nobody is getting any taxes off of them and never have been getting any taxes off of them. There are today over five million acres of land in Texas that are taxable that are not on anybody's tax rolls any time, any place, anywhere.
  • O. Well, tell me, is there a new land grab going on? Are people going back to search those titles and pick up flaws?
  • K. If they can, yes.
  • O. Do you know of any of that?
  • K. Well, of course, that's going on all the time, you know. They are litigating as to the validity of the titles but generally speaking, they work that out in pretty good shape now. Most of them are pretty well established. However, now when you get a piece of property, the best thing you can do is to go get a licensed surveyor to survey that out and run the line and set the borders for you; because if you don't, you may -- I know of one particular case down there near me where a fellow thought he had a piece of land and come to find out, he waked up and found out he had nearly twice as much land as he thought he had. Well, it was just one of those things where they didn't take any precaution to go and have their land surveyed by a licensed surveyor so they would know definitely where their lands were and where their borders were.
  • O. Well, when they cut up those tracts at Spindletop for leases did they survey or not?
  • K. No, they didn't have time to survey-too many.
  • O. Well, wasn't there later litigation as a result of that?
  • K. Well, not much. Very little, because it was sold to those oil
  • companies that went defunct and when they did, why, they just picked up and walked off and left it and then the other fellows come on in and as they picked up those little tracts they tried to piece them together the best way they could -- which was a hard job.
  • O. I can imagine.
  • K. Yes, because the tracts were so small-lots of them only eighteen and three-quarters by twenty feet, plenty of them.
  • [Break]
  • K. You got to be kinda a little careful. You don't want to get too rough in there.
  • O. No. All right. No, this Is a matter of simply discussing the sanitary facilities in the Beaumont area at the time.
  • K. They had no toilets except Chic Sales-that's all they had. The population had increased from six thousand to fifty thousand people in thirty days, so you can imagine the strain to get to the toilets. And for that reason the boys struck on a plan of getting in line -- getting up pretty close to a toilet and selling his place for a dollar, sometimes got as high, as two dollars, then go back to the end of the line and come up again. And by the day's run, why he would make anywhere from thirty-five to forty or fifty dollars a day. They did the same thing at the Post Office for a couple of days, but Uncle Sam put a stop to that.
  • O. Is that right? K. Yes, I say they put a stop to that right now.
  • O. Crosby House kept right on?
  • K. Well, Crosby House was the main point. That was the central point for everything -- everything -- from Crosby House.
  • O. Did you see the boys selling bottles of oil?
  • K. Yes. Yes, they would sell them, dollar a bottle, in a little vial that would hold a quarter of a pint, half a pint, something like that. Dollar a shot. Nothing sold for less than a dollar. Nobody fooled with anything less than a dollar. Well, they had so much money here they didn't know what to do with it. Money was piled up in the banks here like you would pile cord wood--all silver, no paper money.
  • O. And you couldn't buy a nickel's worth of anything?
  • K. Oh, no. And if you went to a restaurant, why, they would put a two-by-four across the restaurant door and as one went out, let one go in. I've seen them standing a block away trying to get in there and get something to eat. You'd go in there and if you were really choicey about what you wanted, they'd tell you to get up and get out of the way there, "another man wants your seat." And they didn't fool around about it either. Either you moved or you took what you could get and go on about your business. Those things were just of course, abnormally out of line, you know, because of so many -- such an influx of population here with so little accommodation to take care of them with. See the point?
  • O. Absolutely. And many of the people, of course, had plenty of money to pay for --
  • K. Oh, yes. There was never any question about pay. The fact is, they didn't "yonzie" people with prices for a long time.Their prices were very, very reasonable. Now you take-Hettie
  • Green was here.
  • O. Is that right? K. Yes, and she wouldn't stay at any place more than two weeks. And twenty-five cents was all she would pay for a meal. And she would move over to some place else before they would find out who she was. I saw her a number of times.
  • O. Is that right? Did she stay at the Crosby at any time?
  • K. Well, I don't think she stayed at the Crosby House too much. Too much publicity. Too much -- too many people could see what was going on. She would stay around boarding houses, and rooming houses, and thing like that where she could find them. Yes, Hetty was right there, I saw her and talked to her.
  • O. Do you know any other big financiers who were here during that time?
  • K. Well, no, I don't call to memory right now. Let's see, there's -- oh, what was her name? Virginia Snauffer.
  • O. I don't know her name.
  • K. Virginia Snauffer. She was here and bought quite a little property and the Texas Pipeline Company were laying a pipeline over to their plant over on Port Arthur Road going through her property. It was on Sunday she found it out. She went out there and sat down on the end of the pipe, sat right there until two o'clock Monday morning, got an injunction against those fellows to stop them. She stopped them, too.
  • O. Days of strong action.
  • K. That's right.
  • O. Well, how about the poor guy who came in without any money and
  • wanted a job. What happened to him?
  • K. Well, people were very generous to him -- helped him. If you were in distress they would -- they didn't mind giving you a dollar or a couple of dollars. They would give them to you. Of course, when the thing got so strong, you know, and that element come in here, you know, just a regular bunch of bums, then of course, they would grab some up and put them in the calaboose and then they would turn them loose and tell them to high tail out of town.
  • O. Did you have a lot of beggars in town?
  • K. Not so many. No. Because most everybody came here came here with money. And money was so plentiful that you didn't have to -- those things didn't -- wasn't along that line, at all. Anybody could -- you could get anything you wanted and people--everybody was trying to sell. It didn't make any difference if you would come in here with a carload of grindstones -- well, you can put down the whole carload -- well, someone else will buy it, see. So it was -- everybody was too busy to do anything only trade. They wouldn't stop to fight, even.
  • O. Well, what of panhandlers? Did you have any of those?
  • K. Very few.
  • O. Pickpockets?
  • K. Vary few. There were one or two of them that came in here and they handled them pretty rough. And those boys, they circled this place from then on -- didn't come in here. They give them, they put it on them pretty tough. So they got out of here. This is one town that, as a general rule, the thugs kind of circle this place. It's hard to get in and hard to get out of, see? And you know a
  • thug--when he comes In he wants to know that he's going to have aplace where he can duck out, you know, if the worst comes to the worst. This town's been very fortunate along that line, indeed very fortunate.
  • O. Well, Mr. Kinnear, thank you very much for this interview, I have enjoyed it very much.
  • K. If I have helped you, I'm glad I have.
  • O. Thank you, thank you, Sir. End of Interview