B OBCAT C ARTER
Depression-Era Big Bend Performance Artist
by Gene Fowler
B
Courtesy of the Archives of the Big Bend, Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library,
Sul Ross State University, Alpine.
ig Bend wayfarers of the
1930s often beheld
white-bearded Henry F.
“Bobcat” Carter hopping
around in the middle of the
road. The llano despoblado
ambassador sometimes even
blocked traffic so that folks
would have to stop, listen to his
yarns and pose with him for
snapshots. Dressed in tatters
and a crumbling sombrero,
Bobcat presented a weathered
visage that resembled a strange,
long-lost uncle of Western
actor Gabby Hayes. His
lifestyle and activities suggested
the oeuvre of a folk artist who
created work in the enigmatic
medium of performance art.
“I won’t tell where I’m from
just because I’m stubborn,”
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Bobcat tittered to the Alpine
Avalanche in 1935. “The law is
always wanting my picture.
They think I’m some escaped
convict, or escaped from an
insane asylum.” To one
Marathon resident, Bobcat was
“that nasty old devil that lived
at Persimmon Gap.” To many
other folks, he was a treasured
Big Bend tourist attraction.
Tracking Bobcat in 1972,
Sul Ross State University folk-
lorist C. Ross Burns uncovered
a passport Carter obtained at
Villa
Acuña,
Coahuila,
Mexico, in 1929. The docu-
ment declared that Carter was
born in Missouri in 1843.
Interviewing Trans-Pecos resi-
dents who’d known the aged
desert character before his
death in 1940, Burns learned
that Bobcat drifted into Texas
around 1900 and became
known as “Prairie Dog” Carter
around San Angelo and
Christoval. He had been con-
tracted to poison the animals,
and word got around that he
consumed them as well. As he
told the Avalanche, “I’ve eaten
most every kind of varmint
there is except skunk. Why
not?”
After hunting for a time in
Mexico, an 87-year-old Henry
F. Carter showed up in Big
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Bend around 1930. His trap-
ping and dining habits soon
earned him a new nickname:
“Bobcat.” The last few years of
his life, the elderly maverick
lived in a tin shed near W.A.
Cooper’s store at Persimmon
Gap. When he got too old to
trap, Bobcat sold eggs and
chickens from his shed and,
at some point, got a $12-
per-month pension from the
county.
To obtain the pension,
Carter had to sign a pauper’s
oath, which took away his right
to vote. But on election days,
he’d be at the polls in
Marathon, pitching such a
stink that, as Hallie Stillwell
noted, election officials usually
gave him a ballot just to end the
harangue. Some town residents
remembered Bobcat, appar-
ently euphoric over doing his
civic duty, performing somer-
saults and handsprings on
Marathon’s main street.
As such calisthenic ability at
an advanced age indicates,
Bobcat – despite his primitive
hygiene – enjoyed excellent
health. “A man’s a fool if he
ain’t his own doctor at 50,”
Bobcat explained to the
Avalanche in 1935. “I came to
this country 40 years ago, skin
and bone, couldn’t lift 16
pounds of water. I stayed here
five years, and still my health
was bad. Then one day while I
was going from Marathon to
Ozona I took stock of myself. I
decided that God (now here’s
where folks think I’m crazy)
didn’t just make all these things,
myself included, and then run
off and leave it. It’s natural to
come back and admire your
work – just as an artist does.
But somehow I wasn’t there
when he came. It’s a trick of
the mind. Every fellow has to
learn for himself. Well, laugh or
not, He did…I haven’t spent
one nickel for a doctor in 35
years.”
Two years later, Bobcat put
that philosophy into action
when he fell ill. Belle
Henderson, whose family had
boarded Carter for a time at
their area ranch, sent him some
Christian Science pamphlets
that helped him get back on his
feet. For the last three years of
his life, whenever beset with a
cold or other minor ailment,
Bobcat would lie on his cot
repeating the mantra “Mind
over matter.”
Though some regarded
continued on page 27