Frank and Jesse James, courtesy W ikimedia C ommons
JESSE JAMES SLEPT HERE?
by Howdy-Nocona Fowler
E
very small town and rural com-
munity has a collection of old
wives’ tales, legends, and half-
truths about the Old West. Most of
these are inspired by boredom, whiskey,
and folks eavesdropping on conversa-
tions in which only half of the conversa-
tion was actually heard. These stories
involve anything from lost gold, pony
express trails (where there was none),
Indian attacks, outlaws, train wrecks, a
whole host of subjects. Most make for a
good evening’s entertainment, but rarely
hold up under real investigation. But
every so often one of these stories pops
up that has a small grain of truth. This
article started out as an effort to disprove
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a local story involving Alpine, Texas and
the famous outlaw Jesse James’ wife, her
sister and their children vacationing in
Alpine, Texas.
Take the house located at 807 West
Sul Ross Avenue in Alpine, Texas. Four
or five years ago Old West historian Joe
Richardson (deceased) mentioned to me
in conversation that some folks claimed
Jesse James’ wife and her sister used to
vacation at a house located here in
Alpine. Having a pretty good idea of
when Alpine, Texas was established my
first thought was, who dreams this stuff
up? Not that I doubted Joe relaying
what he had been told. But I sure had
some doubts about the person who had
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2018
originally told the story in the first place.
Jesse James was reported to have
been assassinated by Bob Ford in
1882...coincidently about the same year
that Alpine (then known as Orville
Ville) was officially recognized as a place
in Texas. The later renamed “town” of
Murphyville only existed as a collection
of tents along the railroad tracks at that
time with no permanent structures, cer-
tainly not the Texas vacation destination
it has became today. It wasn’t until 1888
that the “town” officially changed its
name to Alpine, six years after Jesse
James was reported to have been gunned
down by Bob Ford.
I kind of filed this information Joe
had told me as useless and went on
about my business. It wasn’t until a few
years later that I even felt the need to
locate the “James House,” as I called it.
But with a recent change of events, and
evidence mounting that history as we
have been taught may not have been
entirely correct, I decided to look into
this local myth.
Looking at this story from the out-
side and having done absolutely no
research on the subject, the one question
I could not answer was, “Why would
any of the James clan even come here?
Coming to Far West Texas back then
was equal to making a trip to Mars.”
Even today, in 2018, it takes some effort