stephen richard eng with ted yeatman: tennessee wild west: trail of the iron horse

8/4/2019 Stephen Richard Eng with Ted Yeatman: Tennessee Wild West: Trail of the Iron Horse

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TWW Trail of the Iron Horse, rev. 6-28-94 1

"West of the Pecos there is no law...and west of El Paso there is no God"traditional saying

The laying of the first transcontinental railroad across the American West--and the driving of the

"golden spike" at Promontory, Utah--is a romantic transportation epic known the world over. Film classics

like John Ford's The Iron Horse (1924), and Cecil B. De Mille's Union Pacific (1939) portray the story.

But less celebrated is the saga of the southern transcontinental route...and its completion across

West Texas in the early 1880s...and .the driving of the "silver spike."

One of the major roles in this real-life drama was played by a Tennessean, George Washington

Polk. He was Chief Assistant Engineer for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad--and

supervised construction of that line west, from Del Rio, Texas, to its rendezvous with the Southern

Pacific, whose tracks were being laid east from El Paso.

Polk was born July 7, 1847, at the mansion of Hamilton Place near Columbia, Tennessee. His

father, Lucius J. Polk and his mother, Mary Ann Eastin, had been married, interestingly, in the White

House in 1832. George grew up during the strife-torn years of the Civil War, attending school in

Federal occupied Nashville. After the war, he studied engineering at the University of Virginia--and in

1868, worked briefly at the farm of General Richard S. Ewell (see Ch. ) outside Spring Hill, Tennessee.*

But by 1869 Polk had become a rodman, on a crew surveying the route of the Missouri Pacific

from Leavenworth to Atchison, Kansas. Then in 1870 the Kansas Pacific sent him to the "Hurrah

Town" of Kit Carson, Colorado, a typical "end-of-track" tent city filled with "roughs, cut-throats, thieves

*George's twin sister, Susan Rebecca Polk, had married Major Campbell Brown on September 11, 1866(stepson of Gen. Ewell, and his aide during the Civil War).


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and low women." Polk spent nearly two weeks there, recovering from a fever:

The hotel in which I was quartered, was a large two story building, the insidepartitioned with canvas, so that one could without difficulty hear every noisefrom one end to the other, and there was plenty of noise. Gambling and

dance houses were in full blast allover town, lawlessness prevailed andmurders frequent.

In his fever, no doubt, splendored memories of massive white-columned Hamilton Place swam in hismemory.*

Over the next few years, Polk shifted from one surveying job to another...ending up in Texas,

where he eventually settled. Texas, however, could be very unsettling. One evening, Polk's crew was

camped near the headwaters of the Brazoswhen a large, grey wolf carne prowling into .the camp,

searching for food. Fortunately a Mexican, Jose Gomez, was standing guard--and sneaked under the

shadow of a wagon (the moon was bright and full) and waited for "el lobo" to get clear of the men so

he could shoot him behind the shoulder. "On receiving the shot," recalled Polk, "the wolf made a

tremendous leap, landing in the bed of one of the Mexicans, who immediately shouted Los Indios! Los

Indios!, and for a few minutes there was the wildest commotion and confusion, everyone thinking that

The Indians were upon us."

There were other types of wolves, too--such as the two legged variety, a species Polk encountered

at Fort Griffin in August of 1873, while on another survey party:

an attempt was made by some roughs and cow thieves to take ahorse, which belonged to one of Elgin's men, having ridden it fromWaco, where it was bred and reared. One fellow set up some sort ofclaim to it, which his confederates were ready to prove. We being wellarmed, determined to resist any efforts the gang might make to take thehorse, and by putting up a bold front which we were-full prepared tosupport~ -these thieves soon abandoned the attempt, making no further movein the matter. This was a very common practice among certain gangs ofhorse thieves on the frontier in those days, and was often successful in caseswhere the owner of the horse had no means of resisting...

By the fall of 1881 Polk was working as Chief Assistant Engineer on the southern transcontinental


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project--perhaps the most challenging job of his career; comprising

some of the heaviest grading through the limestone formations of the RioGrande and Devil's river country, that has ever been undertaken in thisstate...A portion of this line was built through the canyon of the Rio

Grande, crossing the Pecos river at its mouth, thence ascending to the tablelands beyond. This section of the line comprised two tunnels and manyheavy excavations and embankments. There were many incidentsand several tragedies connected with the construction of this work.

The workers on this particular road reminded Polk of those at Kit Carson, Colorado, since the job

"attracted numerous adventurers, camp-followers and rough-necks." They patronized the inevitable saloon.

The first saloon west of Del Rio on the railroad line sat on the west bank of Devil's River, where

the military road and railroad crossed:

...a rather large structure, built of canvas and old lumber. Upon the roof inlarge letters were the words 'Hell in Texas.' Every laborer traveling west insearch of employment had to pass this place, and in doing so it was with alighter or empty pocket, and some valuable experience...less than a weekafter this saloon was opened for business, a man was shot and killed, it beingthe first of other killings later on.

The railroad work proceeded west...rail by rail...tie by tie. West of the Pecos River, on a level site

atop a divide, stood one of the most notorious towns of the old West...Vinagroon ("named for an insect of

the scorpion family, very repulsive in appearance, and reputed to be very poisonous...").

Polk saw Vingaroon as "a motley assemblage of tents, and shacks, of board or rock walls, with

canvas roofs. Here congregated gamblers, cappers [ ], saloon-keepers, abandoned women,

thieves and their satellites. The regular routine of business and gambling, dancing, drinking and fighting."

"Judge" Roy Bean was the "leading citizen" of Vingaroon --the self-proclaimed "Law West of the

Pecos." So volatile were conditions in the area, by the summer of 1882 Major James Converse--of the

Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad--was pleading with the Adjutant General of Texas for

eight or ten Texas Rangers. But the closest court for trying prisoners was at Fort Stockton--three hundred


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miles away. So the Rangers asked for a local magistrate...and on August 2, 1882 fifty-six-year-old Roy

Bean was appointed of the Peace (not a full-fledged Judge, though he wore that title).

Roy Bean and his rangers moved to Vingaroon in Septemberand not a moment too soon. When

the G.H. & S.A. treasurer John J. Stevens tried to bring a $300,000 payroll into the area, he was greeted by

spray of bullets as he stepped off the train. He hid behind some rocks--then made it to George Polk's tent,

where there was a safe for depositing the payroll. It was later than 1:00 A.M.--but the local dance hall was

in full swing. Stevens was so shaken he couldn't sleep, so stayed up talking to Polk...when someone came

in to report that two women had just been shot at the dance hall. One was killed outright, the other mortally

wounded. The dance halted briefly, so the bodies (one still alive) could be removed, then resumed. (During

his short stay, Stevens reported that two men also "bit the dust.")

Bean soon had his own saloon running, from which he dispensed his own peculiar brand of frontier

justice. Polk said Bean would often "fine the convicted party, where the offense was not grave, a couple of

dozen bottles of beer...paid for on the spot"--at fifty cents a bottle, right out of his saloon.

And Polk described another case. A workman had fallen off the Pecos River bridge under

construction. Looking over the corpse for a clue to the deceased's identity, Bean discovered a small

revolver...and a cheque "good to the bearer" for forty dollars. So he impaneled a coroner's jury, which

quickly ruled "accidental death." Bean called them back to order: "This is not all, gentlemen. The deceased

came to his death by accident, but there is another matter to be attended to. I find upon the body a revolver

and forty dollars. How it is contrary to the laws of Texas, and to the peace and dignity of this state, to carry

concealed weapons. I therefore confiscate the pistol and fine the deceased forty dollars for this breach of

the law." Polk said he "coolly pocketed the proceeds."

EI Paso judge, T. A. Falvey, travelled all the way to Vinagaroon to witness Bean's unusual court

practices first-hand. He arrived at the combined canvas-covered saloon-and-courtroom, in time for the final


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stages of a misdemeanor trial. The jury had just returned--but without a verdict. Bean pulled his pearl

handled pistol, and placed it before him on the table. He told the jury that hung juries might be acceptable

in some places, but he didn't permit them in his jurisdiction. He sent them back to deliberate further

...threatening to chain them all to a post outside, if need be, to elicit some kind of verdict. Well,

it was too much trouble to send the prisoners to Fort Stockton for a trial--so the "Judge's" high-handed

legal methods did get results.

"Roy Bean's court was a product of the country," judged Polk, "and his decisions were adapted to

the necessities of life about him, absurd as they were." He certainly relished his "Law West of the Pecos"

persona: "Nobody enjoyed the recital of these legal comedies better than Roy himself, and the twinkle of

his eye as he quaintly narrated them showed his keen appreciation of humor."*

Yet Polk found that work on the railroad line was as dangerous as life in Vingaroon. The careless

handling of dynamite and blasting powder resulted in numerous accidents, and some workers were even

killed by flying stones during construction-related blasting.

Polk felt the fear and tension increasing as the railroad lines neared their final junction. Toward the

end of 1882 the tent-town of Vingaroon began to vanish...along with its colorful, if sordid, wickedness

(Bean moved his legal operation and saloon west to Langtry, Texas). Then on January 12, 1883, James

Campbell, local superintendent of the Southern Pacific R.R., L:1d Colonel Thomas W. Pierce, of the

Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio R.R., met to drive the silver spike...along "the Rio Grande

Canyon a mile or two east of the Pecos River." Various railroad dignitaries delivered speeches--then

*"Judge" Roy Bean deserves better than the dime novelesque treatment he usually receives fromHollywood: William Wyler's alleged "classic," The Westerner (1940), wasted the talent of Walter Brennanas villainous Bean, in a formula plot of homesteaders vs. cattlemen, ignoring the real story; and JohnHuston's The Life and Times Of Judge Roy Bean (1972) could best be termed a "Beverly HillsWestern"one of "that director's least memorable films, with Paul Newman miscast in the title role.


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Colonel Pierce drove the silver spike home on one end of a special cedar tie, while James Campbell of

Southern Pacific took turns with Major James Converse, driving the other spike. Polk wrote his sister that

while "there were very few people present" it was "altogether...a very gay affair." Roy Bean was there. He

would later tell how he intended to remove the silver spike after the ceremony--but somebody else pulled it

out, and gave it to Colonel Pierce as a souvenir.

So the line connecting New Orleans directly to San Francisco was now complete!

George Polk later became Assistant Land Commissioner for the Southern Pacific Railroad-~which

had bought out the G.H. and S.A.R.R. through stock purchases, in order to finance the final railroad

construction west. He spent his final years in San Antonio, and died in 1924. He was buried at the Polk

family plot at historic St. John's Episcopal Church--on Mt. Pleasant Pike, south of Columbia, Tennessee.

And his typed autobiography lies unpublished...its many pages of Western railroad experiences all but

unknown to historians.

Roy Bean died in 1903. But as late as January, 1986, his specter returned to haunt Tennessee

legislators...as they considered a bill to permit judges to carry pistols. "It seems to me this bill is going to

encourage a return to Judge Roy Bean justice," declared State Senator Bill Owen of Knoxville...fearful the

state might return to "the days of the Old West." The bill, according to the press, was "shot down" incommittee.

stephen richard eng with ted yeatman: tennessee wild west: trail of the iron horse

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