Lawlessness and Outlaws

For about thirty years following the start of the Civil War, the Texas Hill Country was a relatively lawless place, in which outlaws roamed freely and many acts of violence occurred.

County	Date	Name	Description
Burnet	01/01/1862	Dead Man's Hole	Dead Man’s Hole is a natural sinkhole located a few miles from Marble Falls, Texas. Following the Civil War it was used to dispose of the bodies of murdered and lynched men. The remains of a total of seventeen bodies have been recovered there.
Kimble	02/06/1889	Fight of Sheriff's Posse with Cattle Rustlers	On February 6, 1879, Sheriff John L. Jones and his deputies found some cattle rustlers on the Rust Ranch, 21 miles northwest of Junction. A gunfight ensued in which two of the rustlers were killed and a third was wounded.
Kimble	08/23/1880	Outlaws of Pegleg Station	A historical marker located on US 377 S, along the south fork of the Llano River about 9.5 miles SW of Junction, tells the story of the capture of some outlaws that robbed the mail at the Pegleg Station, and the killing of their leader.
Mason	09/25/1875	Johnny Ringo	Johnny Ringo, the notorious gunfighter was involved in the Mason County Hoodoo War in 1875.
Uvalde	1854-1884	John King Fisher	John King Fisher (1854-1884) was a thoroughly accomplished outlaw who became a very effective and upstanding rancher and lawman. At the height of his “outlaw” career, he absolutely controlled an expanse of more than 5,000 square miles that extended from Castroville to the Rio Grande River.
		Sam Bass	Sam Bass (1851-1878) was a nineteenth-century American train robber and western icon. Handsome and charismatic, he is best known for his brief, yet extremely lucrative career as a train and bank robber.

Compiled from various sources by

Joe Cooper

Kendall County, Texas

August 6, 2009

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