picked up a few, and over the next
decade returned to Porvenir numerous
times, on each trip finding more and
more cartridge cases, bullets, bullet
fragments and other artifacts.
In 2015, former Texas Land
Commissioner Jerry Patterson and
Austin lobbyist Lee Woods offered to
help with the Porvenir project.
Everyone felt it important that the lit-
tle-known Porvenir massacre story be
told, and that it would make a great
topic for a documentary film. But, at
the same time, the group realized that
in order to accomplish this, archaeolog-
ical work had to be done at the mas-
sacre site. Also, it would be necessary to
shoot at least enough video to put
together a documentary film trailer to
help raise money to fund such a proj-
ect. Archaeologist and historian David
W. Keller had long been familiar with
Justice’s work at Porvenir, and agreed
to assemble a group of archaeologists to
investigate the site. David headed up
the archaeological team, including
Sam Cason, Tim Gibbs and Amber
Harrison. In addition to being an
archaeologist, Sam has expertise doing
photographs with aerial drones that
would prove to be most helpful in map-
ping the 15 acres surrounding the mas-
sacre site. With the drone and its high-
resolution photos, the mapping of the
precise location of each of the artifacts
could be clearly shown.
The archaeologists also planned an
intensive five-acre metal detector sur-
vey on foot around the site. The
Porvenir project employed the services
of filmmaker Ford Gunter and his assis-
tant Patton Baker to film archaeologi-
cal work at the site, do interviews, and
also shoot aerial footage of the site, the
village of Porvenir and surrounding
countryside. Stanley Jobe of El Paso
was kind enough to provide a helicop-
ter to do aerial filming. In addition,
Jessica Lutz and Ashley Avera did still
photos. Charlie Angell and two of his
helpers worked hard as camp cooks
preparing great meals for everyone.
the first two nights, plunging tempera-
tures into the high 20s. And, of course,
the wind and dust blew like the devil.
At first no one thought the helicopter
Above: artifacts recovered during excavation. Below: bullets and fragments found at massacre site.
On Friday, November 20, 2015, the
expedition set out for Porvenir.
Because of the extremely remote loca-
tion everyone had to camp out for the
next three nights. A cold front blew in
could fly in such
wind, but fortu-
nately by Sunday
the weather cleared
and could not have
been nicer.
The work went
well through all of
this. The archaeol-
ogists unearthed 27
new artifacts, most-
ly bullets, bullet
fragments and car-
tridge casings. Up
to that date, Justice
had found 21 artifacts, giving a total of
48 artifacts thought to be related to the
massacre.
The cartridge cases and bullets came
in several calibers, including 30.06, .45
Colt, and .45 acp. The head stamps on
the cartridge cases are dated and most
were manufactured by two United
States Army ammunition manufactur-
ers. Some were made by the Frankfort
Arsenal of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
which produced ammunition for the
U.S. Army from 1816 until it closed at
the end of the Vietnam War. Other
cartridge cases found at the massacre
site had been manufactured by the
Union Metallic Cartridge Company, a
division of Remington Arms that made
rifle and pistol ammunition for the U.
S. Army from the time of the Civil
War. The head stamp dates on all of
the cartridge cases ranged from 1909 to
1917. It should be noted that guns car-
ried by most Texas Rangers during the
time of the massacre were revolvers
chambered in the .45 Colt caliber and
30-30 Winchester saddle guns. No .30-
30 cartridge cases or bullets were found
at the massacre site. Some U.S. Army
troopers carried .45 caliber revolvers,
but generally 1911 Colt Automatic
Pistols were carried by officers, since
the weapon was in short supply during
the World War I years.
Overall, everyone who took part in
the archaeological work at Porvenir
considered the finds to be exceptional.
Principle archaeological investigator
David Keller summed up the project,
“Considering that I was skeptical that
we would find additional materials, I
was pleasantly surprised by the volume
and consistency of our finds. The inten-
sive survey also revealed a highly pat-
terned artifact distribution. I can say
with a fair degree of confidence that the
artifact distribution, the types of arti-
facts, all strongly conform to the
hypothesis that this was the site of the
Porvenir Massacre of 1918. The find-
ings also strongly implicate the U.S.
Cavalry.”
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Second Quarter 2016
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