A Brief Visit to Mason County...

"West of Mason county, but few hogs are raised, because  there are few oak trees and but little 'mast,' besides there are no fences to keep hogs away from the crops."-- S B Buckley, State Geologist for the State of Texas, 1876

Mason County sits at the edge of the Texas Hill Country, almost equidistant to the state capital of Austin at 95 miles and the semi-arid desert country town of San Angelo at 106 miles.  With annual average rains of 25 inches and a 217 day growing season, the county has just enough precipitation to make farming a reasonably successful venture in non-drought years...

After Texas became part of the Union in 1846, settlers of European descent began pouring into the frontier areas first occupied by Apaches and then by the even more war-like Comanches.  To protect these settlers, the United States Army built a string of forts separated by a day's horseback ride.  These forts stretched from the Red River to the Rio Grande.  Brevet Major H W Merrill selected the site for the future Fort Mason because of its location between the San Saba and Llano Rivers...

Formally established in 1851, Fort Mason produced more Civil War general officers than any other military installation of the time.  Its last commander prior to the outbreak of hostilities between the North and South was Colonel Robert Edward Lee who, after a profound struggle within his soul, reluctantly resigned his commission in the Union Army to join the Confederacy...



Chamber of Commerce Brochure



Roughly a year after S B Buckley commented about the lack of hogs in the area, a young cowboy became the first victim in the Mason County Hoodoo War.  This exercise in frontier violence had its roots in resentment felt by settlers of Anglo-Scots descent who had come into the area from the Southern states towards German settlers who populated the region thanks to land grants approved by the Texas legislature.  The Civil War only chafed blisters more since the Germans remained overwhelmingly loyal to the Union.  Suspected cattle rustling triggered several years of murder and masked riders and mayhem (and lawmen gone bad) that ended as suddenly as it began when a leader of one faction died suddenly of "brain fever" while dining in a hotel restaurant on a visit to the nearby town of Fredericksburg...

One of the minor participants in the Hoodoo War was one John Ringo, accused but acquitted on charges of murder.  Brooding and quick-tempered, Ringo left the area and crossed the desert country of West Texas and New Mexico until he settled in the arid hamlet of Tombstone where he allied himself with the Clantons against the Earps and their allies.  Ringo's death in a remote Arizona canyon remains one of the great mysteries of the Southwest.  Was it suicide or murder...

Note: Brochure published by Mason County Chamber of Commerce, Mason, Texas..