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Marfa's Swiss Café
O
n the sixth of June 1880, the pioneer cit-
izens of Fort Stockton, Texas finally
exhaled a communal sigh of relief. The
town had been an exciting, yet terrifying place
during the preceding weeks. Sometime earlier, a
group of young men had ridden into town trail-
ing their reputation by a few days…and what a
reputation it was!
The trouble that Jesse Evans had caused in
New Mexico began to quickly catch up to him
in Texas. As a leader of the Seven Rivers
Warriors, Evans had played a large part in the
Lincoln County Wars. There, he had been
hired by the Murphy faction to harass John
Tunstall and his posse, known as “The
Regulators,” led by the famous Billy the Kid. In
fact, Evans had gotten the credit for killing
Tunstall in February of 1878, igniting the
Lincoln County War. Billy the Kid had con-
fessed that his biggest worry was Jesse Evans.
The two men didn’t necessarily hate each other,
they just happened to work for people who did.
What was left of the Seven Rivers Warriors
became the Seven Rivers Gang. Following their
troubles in New Mexico, they made their way
into the Trans-Pecos region. The mountains
became a familiar and favorite hiding place for
the outlaws. Their proximity to the border
afforded an easy escape to Mexico when the
pressure got high.
From December 1879 until April the follow-
ing year, Jesse Evans had been incarcerated in
the guardhouse at Fort Stockton. Evans, along
with a colleague, had been indicted by a Pecos
County grand jury on two counts of assault with
intent to murder. His punishment was a fine of
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2013
five dollars (assault at the time carried a fine of
no less than five dollars and no more than twen-
ty). After his release from the old Fort prison he
returned to his outlaw way of life, terrorizing the
area between Fort Stockton and Presidio.
The Seven Rivers Gang robbed the Sender
and Siebenborn store, making off with $900.
This was a bold move, as the German landmark
store sat within earshot of the garrisoned Fort
Davis. Many homes and ranches were burglar-
ized and raided. Within a span of two months
the area inside the Fort Stockton, Fort Davis
and Presidio region saw at least 20 incidents of
assault and robbery. Whether Evans and his
crew of around 20 misfits were involved didn’t
matter: they received the blame.
The terror-stricken region had seen enough.
Presidio County Judge George M. Frazer wired
Governor Oral Roberts on May 24, 1880 that
Rangers were needed—10 of them—and in a
hurry. In the meantime a local posse lead by
Judge Frazer himself and Pecos County Sheriff
Harry Ryan came together and went after the
outlaw gang. Frazer’s rather unorthodox way of
riding and tracking led some to comment that
he was more dangerous than the banditos he
was after.
The game of cat and mouse came to a head
on the last day of May, 1880. A shootout
between the Seven Rivers Gang and the Frazer-
Ryan posse ensued. When the gun smoke
cleared it seemed that the fighting had actually
been a waste of ammunition. No one was killed.
However, Frazer and his posse had acquired all
of the outlaws’ horses. They also took one pris-
oner, “Ace” Carr. Carr was locked up.