Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas • 34

a ID Corpui Christ! Caller-Times Sun Oct 30 INI Army letter reveals South Texas in 1851 making hair ropes and girths for their saddles "I went out one day and shot 3 horses They were such fine and beautiful horses that I really felt sorry for having killed them Since then I -have not been disposed to kill any more "Today the aun shown out with great heat almost to remind me of summer I MIW i i i ment over into what is now the southern part of Bee County Their mission was to protect settlers from Indians They were camped near the fork of the Aransas River a couple of miles northeast of what is now Skidmore Roy Swann who grew up in that neck of the woods said the fork is known as the where the Aransas and Poesta creeks meet to form the Aransas River Mills said that except for two families no white people lived within 20 miles of the encampment which he called Camp Oaks He must have been referring to some settlers down on the Papalote Creek about 10 miles south Here's the rest of his letter "The Company has been stationed in this section of the country with the view of preventing the Indians from depr edating the country towards the coast It seems that for many years past the In dians have been in the habit of revisiting their old hunting grounds and stealing horses and occasionally murdering or carrying off some of the defenceless (sic) inhabitants "The Company as I informed you be fore consists of about 100 men well mounted for the most part on American horses most of them good hunters and many of them experienced in Indian warfare "About a month ago I had the plea sure of pursuing (sic) in company with 11 other rangers a party of 7 Indians for The Coaital Bend wai an out doorsman'a paradise 130 years ago The plains along the coast abounded In deer The streams were full of trout and if you needed a horse wild mustangs were there for the roping Just one problem You always had to keep one eye peeled for Indians They as numerous as the deer and mustangs but they were around often in small raiding parties William Mills liked to fish and go Indian scouting He say anything about hunting deer although he liked venison He did shoot three mustangs one time but regretted it "They were such fine and beautiful horses he wrote Mills I should say Dr Mills he was a surgeon in a company of Texas Rangers stationed at Goliad imparted all this Information in a letter to his brother dated Jan 27 1851 The letter is one of several Alice Erickson of Ingleside has collected over the years She has gathered odd bits of historical information about South Texas along with some of the letters she collected Most of the Information Is not of great significance but it often is Interesting such as the letter Dr Mills wrote He was the assistant surgeon in Capt Ben McCulloch's company of Rangers The company was stationed at Goliad but Mills had been sent with a detach saddles and bridles blankets shawls whips etc "Nothing seems to agree with me so well as to go on an Indian scout sleep out at night under a blanket and eat venison or wild turkey roasted on the end of a ramrod over the coals A good hard ride prepares one for his meat and his fatigue makes the ground as soft and as agreeable as a hair mattress "For I nights in succession I have slept out in the rain and awoke in the morning refreshed but with my doathes soaked to the skin So far I have not taken a cold and if I can rely on what my frienda say I have improved wonder fully "Camp life I do not find so agreeable True there is an abundance of game and fish but there is wanting the excitement which belongs to Indian hunting day I choose to ride out I can see hundreds of deer and antelope and in going across some of the larger prairies between the camp and the Gulf of Mexico I have seen without exaggeration thousands For hours and hours your eye is never off moving herds of deer "In addition to deer and antelope there is a game which is very much pursued by our Rangers I mean wild horses There are thousands and tens of thousands of mustang horses roaming between the Nueces and the Rio Grand Rivers Our boys shoot them solely for their manes and tails for the purpose of In order to spend it most agreeably I arranged my fishing tackle early and repaired to the bank of the river I had mo idea that I was so fond of fishing but perhaps it may be acounted for from the success with which one meets in angling these waters I succeeded in capturing six of the finest trout perhaps you ever saw Neither one of the trout could have been less than two pounds the heaviest perhaps three pounds" Mills mentioned making a trip to Corpus Christl to operate on a man with an absesa of the spleen "It proved successful I was moderate in my charges He paid me 850 in hand I had a notion to bleed him to the tune of 8100 but my modesty was too much for is me He concluded his letter praising Texas as "a great country and will before many years become thickly populated" He said he was thinking that "the wisest course which I can pursue is to make it my home" Whether or not he did is something Miss Erickson has never learned several days without an opportunity of overtaking them or of coming into conflict with them Then First Lieutenant John King with a party of 6 rangers had a skirmish with an equal number of Indians in which the lieutenant was wounded in the breast with an arrow and had it not been for the strap of his pow der horn which was perforated by the arrow which luckily diminished the force of the blow the wound must have proved mortal I have the pleasure of reporting him recovered Two Indians were killed 1 "The next day Capt McCulloch with a party of 15 men pursued the remaining Indians and obliged them to abandon their horses and all their spoils which consisted principally of and children's dresses and saved themselves by taking to a large thicket which rendered further pursuit hopeless For a number of days our camp was quite ornamented with Indian trophies consisting of horses strangely constructed KVEO-TV is sued for $62 million By MICHAEL ABRAMS Fackenthall and Mrs Gardner in her backyard a small model of what the Botanical Society wants to do members in September 1982 Dean resigned but then filed a Chapter 7 bankrupety petition arguing he was protecting himself as a creditor to whom KVEO owed money The station responded by suing Dean in state district court Then on Dec 21 1982 Dean parked his car on the Comal County ranch of his father-in-law He rigged a garden hose from the muffler to the passenger compartment and drank cola mixed with cyanide said Comal County Sheriffs investigator Rudy Rubio a lawyer and investor who had been graduated from St school of law in San Antonio put together the financing for KVEO Davis a lawyer member and former local news anchor said the was "overburdened with debt" from the start assuming a long-term debt exposure of 865 million at a time when- "interest rates were running up" Then in February 1982 just two months after the first programs were broadcast the Mexican peso began its year-long 600 percent decline in value in relation to the dollar The peso-drop caused a depression-like business collapse on the American side of the Rio Grande dealing KVEO "a heavy blow" said Davis The problems began said Davis when Dean proposed letting his business partner Orrin Shald Jr become a major KVEO stockholder The proposal was rejected In June a federal jury in Tyler found the Palestine banker guilty of bank fraud US District Judge William Wayne Justice sentenced Shaid to a 35-year-penitentiary term he is now serving in Terre Haute Ind Davis said the dispute over Shaid led to Dean's resignation The resignation was followed by a chain reaction of litigation On Oct 22 1982 a month after he resigned as board chairman Dean forced the NBC affiliate into bankruptcy The 38-year-old lawyer alleged KVEO owed more than 8600000 to Central Texas Factors Inc a company in which Dean and his wife Paulette were principals KVEO followed by suing in state district court charging Dean and other Central Texas Factors principals including Shaid fraudulently purchased uncollected KVEO advertising revenue That suit is pending The affairs of Brownsville's KVEO-TV became further tangled this month when 17 of the television board members and stockholders were sued in US District Court in Corpus Christl On Oct 19 a New York City television equipment firm filed a civil complaint seeking more than 882 million Hundred East Credit Corp alleges KVEO has broken the terms of three leases worth 85732008 HECC also seeks another 8500000 saying KVEO has allowed a leased television tower to deteriorate Station spokesmen decline to talk about specific charges in the suit But board member Roy Bald-auf KVEO president Darrell Davis and the station's attorney Roy Dale all said the disagreement may be resolved soon out of court They said arrangements for payment to all the station's creditors would result if KVEO's present owners and a group of investors close a purchase deal now being negotiated In April Guadalupe South Texas Communications agreed to purchase KVEO But the final closing has been delayed because of quarrels over the worth of some of KVEO's assets said Baldauf and Davis If the deal goes through they said the purchase price will be below the original 88 million offer Bankruptcy Judge William Pe-don of Houston has stayed suits seeking collection from KVEO But in federal court HECC seeks collection from the 18 people who signed guaranty agreements on the leases Among the defendants is the estate of KVEO's founder the late Peter Dean who committed auicide last December The 857 million that HECC claims is the full 10-year value of the leases entered Into In May 1981 and July 1982 In a motion filed in bankruptcy court in Houston earlier this month HECC claimed that as of Sept 8 KVEO was 8640723 or about a year in arrears on the lease agreements For KVEO's managers the federal court suit is an extra dose of woe in what has already been a difficult year The tumult began with a dispute between the station's founder Dean who was then chairman of the board and other board is group ject which would be developed in stages over several years primarily through botanical society memberships and donations from individuals clubs and corporations It would be run by a small paid staff and a large pool of trained volunteers This past summer Mrs Gardner and her husband toured eight botanical gardens in six states during a three-week period She estimated she has seen 20 altogether Since June she has sent about 300 letters to botanical gardens nationwide asking for information and advice She has received at least 200 responses ahe said She also has spo By LORI SHEIN staff wmr The Corpus Christ! Botanical Society has Big plans for Corpus Christl The new non-profit organization is putting together plans for a 30-to-70-acre multi-rfilllion-dollar botanical garden complete with educational and research facilities a visitor center lakes streams fountains sculptures and thousands of species Of plants The organization began with 10 possible Hites and with the help of an environmental planning and design consultant from a Pittsburgh firm it has narrowed the choices to four By year's end the group hopes to select its site said Sue Gardner one of the masterminds behind the project She would not reveal the locations under consideration but said all are within the city Organization members hope to make the botanical garden a citywide project involving individuals clubs societies educators politicians and corporations "What we do will be first said Mrs Gardner who recently earned a doctorate in botany from Texas University and will teach part time next year at Corpus Chrlsti Slate university Her own backyard garden provides a small- ken to local garden clubs and other groups In effort to drum up support for the project The group enlisted the assistance of a Pitts scale view qf what the group would like to do Surrounding a towering domed greenhouse are skinny-leafed cycads some with corrugated leaves spotted purple and green bro-1 meliads and others with cobra-like blossoms growing from their centers Egyptian papyrus hibiscus with red and yellow flowers ladyfinger banana trees with short fat nanas jelly and Mexican blue palms asparagus ferns golden barrel cacti and several varieties of aloe plants With this lush growth as a backdrop Mrs Gardner and Mlkel Fackenthall another or- -ganizatlon member described what they envision for Corpus botanical garden "Our garden will be different from any others No two gardens are alike" Mrs Gardner said Fackenthall and Mrs Gardner said the garden could have greenhouses tropical and outdoor gardens rose gardens and areas for native plants It could have cacti and succulents palms and a variety of tree collections There might be lakes streams and ponds sculp-' tures fountains and pools The garden could Include a research and educational center a visitor center a small museum library gift shop and restaurant they said The group Intends to finance the entire pro- I burgh environmental planning and design firm that has worked on botanical gardens nationwide Including a 320-acre garden in Glencoe 111 and an 1300-acre garden in Duchess County NY It will hire a consultant to help develop a muter plan for the garden The first meeting in May drew 100 people and Mrs Gardner said it hopes to attract at least 1000 local members The Botanical Society will meet for a 7 pm reception and an pm program and meeting on Tueaday Nov 8 at the Bayfront Plaza Convention Center rooms 222 and 223 i 1 I i I i umpse of raw nature By BEN GOODWIN (tiff wrffar Although the new Matagorda State Park an Amalgamation of state and federal wildlife lands became official on Sept 1 there atill aren't any special facilities for visitors and be for a longtime The state's Parks and Wildlife Department assumed control of 43893 acres of land from the US Department of Interior after years of talks that eventually ended up in a bill passed by Congress In August President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill which ratified an agreement by which management rights of the island were transferred to the State of Texas Under the agreement the entire acreage re-mains part of the national wildlife refuge system and will be operated by the state Parks and Wildlife Department under federal refuge guidelines A spokesman for the Parks and Wildlife Department said the management plan will stay in effect until Sept 30 1984 I Environmentalists fought transfer of the land from the federal governent to the state fearing the Parks and Wildlife Department would evenually mean extensive development on the island But state officials have said that funds received from the federal government would be used only for fish and wildlife enhancement and limited facilities and not for any extensive development of the island for visitors or recreation The island was used for more than 30 years as a bombing range by the Air Force before the range was closed Officials of the department's wildlife division said no hunting will be allowed before December Adjoining wetlands however will open for duck hunting The park itself will be closed to hunting The spokesman said biologists have started evaluating protected species Aerial surveys are planned to check the whooping crane colony and other surveys are planned during the winter months Parks and Wildlife Department employees already are working on the island They include game wardens who patrol the island for possible violators Visitors' access to the island will remain about the same as it has been during federal control "Nothing has changed on the island There are no facilities no electricity' no drinking water everything is the same" the spokesman said People going to the Island will need their own boat to get to the newest state park The 7325-acre park part of the overall acreage is open for uses camping fishing hiking beachcombing swim-' ming and do-it-yourself camping A two-mile section of the Gulf of Mexico beach is open to the public the spokesman said 1.