Bishop Trivia

Bishop, Nueces County, Texas 1910 - 2010 One Hundred Years of South Texas Heritage!

Bishop Trivia

This area was listed as “Range of the Wild Horse”, on early maps. Lt. U. S. Grant,

with Zachary Taylor’s Army in 1846 wrote: “The country was rolling prairie, as far as

the eye could see the horse herds extended. There was no calculating the number.

They couldn’t be corralled in the states of Rhode Island or Delaware. If they had been,

the pasture would have given out the first day”.

Carreta Creek took its name from an episode in the “Cart War” of 1857, between

the wagoneers and Mexican cart (carreta) men. In the early days, remnants of the

high-wheeled carretas could be seen mired in the creek near the old stage crossing

southeast of town.

Early history was almost made in 1901 when the J. M. McGuffey Oil Co. of Beaumont

signed a 10-year oil and gas lease with the Driscoll Ranch for $200 a year. With no

activity, it was later annulled.

Bishop was one of the first towns in the Coastal Bend to have a zoned business

section, where only brick or fireproof structures could be built.

F. Z. Bishop’s work car was a “Moonbuggy”, a wood-wheeled solid-tire brush

wagon with chain drive and motor underneath, handled by a lever rather than a

steering wheel. He could take off cross-country through Petronila to Corpus Christi.

During 1911-12 settlers moved in fast. Immigrant cars, carrying farm implements,

household goods and livestock were switched on to Bishop sidings at the rate of

75 to 100 cars per month.

Tenant farmers on the west side hauled water barrels from a flowing artesian

well in a two-wheeled cart pulled by a mule until they could get wells drilled.

Charlie Jones and Zelma Butts contrived Bishop’s earliest “mail delivery” by

putting partitions in a packing box and lettering names on them. Before that, mail

had been brought over from Kingsville and dumped out on the counter at the

O’Brien commissary.

In 1910, business lots on Main and Fourth Streets were priced at $200 and up;

residential lots, 50 x 165, sold for $100 and up.

Mr. Bishop had a sizeable herd of deer under fence on the west side of the City

Park. “Landseeker” trains going through to the Rio Grande Valley would stop for

passengers from the north to alight and go across the road to get a close-up look

at the deer.

F. Z. Bishop had a “gift for figures”, and would frequently frustrate his office staff

by coming up with the total for a four-column faster than the secretary could punch

it out on the new-fangled adding machine.

The first airplane seen in town was a small bi-plane flown by Katherine Stinson of

San Antonio as a publicity stunt for F. Z. Bishop. It took off on an improvised runway

smoothed out on Block 24 (across the street southwest of the present post office),

circled around the park and along the south edge of town.

Billy Harlan and Leon Hagan thwarted an attempt to hold up the First State Bank on

April 5, 1934 when they shot first and loudest. The bandits were later caught and sent

to the pen.

CITY ORDINANCE, Feb. 7, 1913 reads: “It shall be unlawful for any person, or

persons, to drive, run, or cause to be run, any automobile, motor cycle, or other vehicle

propelled by electricity, gasoline or steam, on, over, or along the streets at a speed

exceeding 10 miles per hour” -subject to a fine not to exceed $50.00.

During 1915-16 border troubles, troop trains rolled through here bearing the message

in large letters along the cars: ‘In God We Trust, Villa or Bust!”.

J. R. Lunsford, agent for

Mr. Bishop, with deer in

Bishop City Park.