The September 1931 Weird Tales had, perhaps, one of the
most farcical blunders ever committed by a magazine illustrator, and it
happened to one of Robert E. Howard’s most popular and prized characters,
Solomon Kane. The artist was Curtis Charles Senf (C.C. Senf), who at the time,
lived in Chicago and began drawing covers and interior illustrations for Weird Tales. His
debut cover was the March 1927 issue. In fact, Senf did 8 of the 12 covers for Weird Tales in 1927, and 11 of the 12
covers for 1928. His numbers tapered off a little after these two years, but
over-all, Senf was the artist for 45 covers at Weird Tales. In addition to this, he drew hundreds of interior
illustrations for The Unique Magazine. To say he was a seasoned magazine artist
and illustrator is a slight understatement. However, and this is a pretty big
however, he eventually stopped reading the stories he illustrated, and the
results were laughable, and even angered some of the writers for Weird Tales.
Curtis
Charles Senf was born on July 30, 1873, in Rosslau, Prussia. In 1881, when he
was a boy of eight, the Senf family emigrated to America on the S.S. Wieland.
They landed in New York City on June 28 and then ultimately settled in Chicago,
Illinois. His father's occupation was listed only as "workman."[1] C.C. Senf attended public
school and upon graduating high school, he enrolled in the Chicago Institute of
Art. Following his art studies at the Chicago Institute of Art, Senf became a
commercial artist and lithographer. Eventually Senf opened an art agency called
Senf & Company with Fred S. Gould. This venture failed and eventually was
forced to file bankruptcy in 1903. There are no other details about employment
for Senf until he becomes a regular artist for Weird Tales. By the time he landed the job of cover and interior
artist for Weird Tales, Senf was
almost 54 years of age.
"The Bride of Dewer"
Given
the fact that the cover art for Weird
Tales prior to 1927 was average to downright terrible, Senf was a welcomed
edition to the magazine. Even H. P. Lovecraft, who was often picky about weird
art (and weird fiction), expressed hope that this new artist might create better cover art than
previous artists had for the magazine. In a January 1927 letter to August Derleth,
Lovecraft declared, “I shall welcome the new cover artist, & can feel sure
at least that he can’t be any worse than those who have hitherto messed up the
magazine.”[2] His hope would be short
lived, by June of that same year, Lovecraft told Derleth, “. . .the present
‘artist’ Senf has no sense of the fantastic whatever.”[3] While Lovecraft is not
necessarily incorrect in his over-all opinion about Senf’s work, Senf “could do
a truly weird cover, one of his best being for ‘The Bride of Dewer,”[4] and there were a few
others. In fact, a little later in this article, we will look at another truly
weird cover Senf did (and perhaps one of his best works) toward the end of his
career at Weird Tales. Moreover, in
1927 Senf was reading the stories and illustrating them according to their
content, so this last sentiment by Lovecraft was merely a stylistic complaint
on his part. Senf’s artwork, for the most part, was “better” than the work of
previous artists for the magazine, his style was that of late 19th century
artists, with nice detail, color, and vivid scope, and he excelled when the
story was a period piece. Even so, in many ways, Lovecraft was correct, Senf’s
sense of the fantastic and/or weird was not the greatest.
In “The Eyrie” of the
March 1924 issue of Weird Tales, H. P.
Lovecraft wrote, “Popular authors do not and apparently cannot appreciate the
fact that true art is obtainable only by rejecting normally and conventionality
in toto, and approaching a theme purged utterly of any usual or preconceived
point of view.”[1]
A bold statement, to say the least, especially in a magazine whose byline is The Unique Magazine. But Lovecraft demanded
his fiction to be unconventionally ‘other than,’ and as original as possible. For
him, crafting a story was an art form. In this same letter, Lovecraft goes on to
declare:
Wild and ‘different’ as they may consider their
quasi-weird products, it remains a fact that the bizarrerie is on the surface
alone; and that basically they reiterate the same old conventional values and
motives and perspectives. Good and evil, teleological illusion, sugary
sentiment, anthropocentric psychology—the usual superficial stock trade, and
all shot through with the eternal and inescapable commonplace.[2]
Had Lovecraft accepted the job as editor when J. C. Henneberger offered it to him back in
1924, he would have likely been a harsh editor, and the magazine would have
taken a decidedly different path. Much of the fiction Edwin Baird and
Farnsworth Wright accepted would have, no doubt, been rejected by Lovecraft. But
alas, we were rewarded the benefit of Lovecraft the writer. There is no telling
exactly which stories or authors Lovecraft was disparaging in this letter to Weird Tales’ editor at the time, Edwin
Baird. They may have not been Weird
Tales’ authors, though it is likely most were. Even so, Lovecraft is making
a valid point regarding breaking away from conventional story writing, creating
an original tale, thinking outside the box. At least his creative mind demanded
as much. Something he also expected, or at least wanted other writers to do. Some
of the readers of The Unique Magazine demanded
the same, at least they demanded their stories weird, if not ‘original.’
H. P. L
So, in an effort to
promulgate something weird and original, Lovecraft made this suggestion: “Take
a werewolf story, for instance—who ever wrote one from the point of view of the
wolf, and sympathizing strongly with the devil to whom he has sold himself?”[3]
Those
of us who love the pulps and their writers (we all have our favorites, of
course), probably know that H. Warner Munn attempted to answer Lovecraft’s
request with, “The Werewolf of Ponkert,” Munn’s first published short story.
About Munn’s story, Farnsworth Wright claimed, “It was the popularity of Mr.
Quinn’s werewolf story[4] that led us to feature The Werewolf of Ponkert, by H. Warner
Munn, in last months’ issue.”[5] (italics is Wright’s) “The
Werewolf of Ponkert” was the cover story for the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales, the same issue in which Robert E.
Howard made his debut with “Spear and Fang.”
Lovecraft,
as far as I’ve been able to determine, never responded to Munn’s story in “The
Eyrie” of any of the subsequent Weird
Tales issues. It’s possible that when “The Werewolf of Ponkert” was first
published, Lovecraft did not put two and two together and notice that his March
1924 letter in “The Eyrie” was Munn’s inspiration. In fact, it may be that
Lovecraft never knew that fact until after he met Munn, and Munn confessed as
much. However, there is some evidence from Munn himself that Lovecraft may have
recognized Munn’s efforts on behalf of Lovecraft’s letter:
I had previously read the January or February 193[7] WT with a Rimel story in it, and had been utterly unimpressed.— F. T. Laney, Ah, Sweet Idiocy! 2
Weird Tales, Jan. 1937
Duane W. Rimel’s story “The Disinterment”
appeared in the January 1937 issue of Weird
Tales; if Francis Towner Laney read the magazine through to ‘The Eyrie’,
the letters pages of the magazine, he would have run across Clifford Ball’s “In
Appreciation of Howard”—an homage to Robert E. Howard, the Texan pulpster who
had died the year before. That would likely have been his first introduction to
Howard.
F. T. Laney occupies an odd place in Howard
scholarship. He missed the period when Howard was actively writing and didn’t
come to pulp and fantasy fandom until about 1939. He rose to prominence in the
early-to-mid 1940s as a member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, the
Fantasy Amateur Press Association (FAPA), and as editor and publisher of The Acolyte fanzine(1942-1946), which was devoted primarily to H. P. Lovecraft. Yet
being where he was when he was, and a vocal part of fandom, Laney ended up
being at the confluence of a good deal of Howardian interest and ended up
playing a silent but important role in Robert E. Howard’s legacy.
In the course of being an editor of a
Lovecraft-oriented fanzine and searching out material, Laney came into contact
with a number of Lovecraft’s correspondents, including Clark Ashton Smith,
Duane W. Rimel, F. Lee Baldwin, Emil Petaja, Fritz Leiber, H. C. Koenig, Nils
H. Frome, R. H. Barlow, August Derleth, Donald and Howard Wandrei, F. J.
Ackerman, E. Hoffmann Price, and Stuart M. Boland; many of whom were also
correspondents with Robert E. Howard, and it was largely through these contacts
that Laney became in contact with things Howardian.
Laney got in touch with F. Lee Baldwin through
their mutual friend Duane W. Rimel, and beginning in December 1942 Baldwin
began working on material for The Acolyte,
both in terms of a regular column (“Within the Circle,” a continuation of
Baldwin’s column from The Fantasy Fan in
the ‘30s), and writing to former pulpsters and their correspondents for
material. (Laney 13) As part of this mailing campaign, in early 1943 Baldwin
contacted Robert E. Howard’s friend F. Thurston Torbett, looking for
information on Howard for a potential article, which can be read in F. Thurston Torbett and F. Lee Baldwin on Robert E.
Howard. The correspondence stretched into 1944, and Baldwin’s
article on Howard never appeared, nor did he mention the Texan in any of his
other articles in The Acolyte.
CAS, Laney, & Bob Hoffman, circa 1940s
In November 1943, Laney moved to Los Angeles,
California, where he met pulpsters like Emil Petaja and Fritz Leiber, and fans
like Forrest J. Ackerman. Robert H. Barlow, the young literary executor of
Lovecraft’s estate, had moved to San Francisco in 1938-1939, where he began
attending university and indulging in fan projects, including one small
press-effort to publish a collection of Robert E. Howard’s poems. Barlow began
contributing to The Acolyte with the
Summer 1943 issue, though his only direct contribution regarding Howard would
be the Barlow-Lovecraft satire “The Battle That Ended the Century” (The Acolyte Fall 1944); more on Barlow
and Howard’s can be read in The Two Bobs: Robert E. Howard and Robert H. Barlow.
E. Hoffmann Price had returned to his native
California in 1934, stopping along the way to visit Robert E. Howard in Cross
Plains, Texas, and settling near San Francisco. He became a friend and
correspondent with Barlow; who even visited Price accompanied by an aged James
F. Morton in 1939. (BOD 53, 355-357)
It is not clear when exactly Laney got in touch with the native Californian but
a letter from Price to Laney, dated 22 July 1944, on the subject of Robert E.
Howard, was published in The Acolyte #9(Winter 1945). This may have been
inspired by Price’s essay “Robert E. Howard” in the fanzine Diablerie #4(May 1944), as Laney was a friend of the publisher Bill Watson
(Laney 31), or maybe it came from the same place as F. Lee Baldwin’s questions
to F. Thurston Torbett.
Whatever the case, Price began contributing
letters to The Acolyte, beginning
with The Acolyte #7, then the letter
concerning Howard in #9, and letter in #10 (Spring 1945) announcing the death
of Dr. Isaac M. Howard:
In the the Summer 1945 issue of a fanzine
called The Acolyte was published a
short memoir called “Interlude with Lovecraft” by Stuart Morton Boland, which
began:
In the
Spring of 1935 I was making a library survey tour of the European continent. At
the quaint little hill town of Orvieto, in Italy, I came upon an amazing mural
high on the walls of the local Duomo or Cathedral. The painting represented
mighty figures of ebon-hued men (not angels or demons) with great wings, flying
through etheric space carrying beauteous pinionless mortals--men and women who
were rapturously accompanying them in their voyage through eternity.
I photographed the scene and sent a print to Robert E. Howard, telling
him it reminded me of one of his Conan stories. With the print I included a
colored reproduction of a rare illuminated manuscript of the 10th Century which
I had seen in the Royal Archives at Budapest. Howard, for some reason, sent
this facsimile to Lovecraft, asking if he thought his Necronomicon would
look anything like the reproduction of the parchment.
Three months later, when I reached my home by the Presidio in San
Francisco, I found awaiting me two letters from Howard and an extensive missive
from Lovecraft. [...] In my reply to HPL, I stated that I thought his opinion
was well-founded, and furthermore that the references of both men to odd
ancient gods were ideas they must have borrowed from Mayan, Toltec, and Aztec
mythology. (Boland 15)
This presents an interesting example of the
consideration of historical evidence, because aside from statements from
Boland, there is no direct evidence that Boland and Robert E. Howard ever
corresponded. Boland wrote to Glenn Lord in the late 1950s:
Frank Belknap Long was also dragged into one of Howard and Lovecraft’s long-ranging arguments on mental vs. physical, civilization vs. barbarism. Lovecraft, though arguing for the superiority of mental exertion over physical, was not unsympathetic to Howard’s view on the general agree ability of physical ability; the Rhode Islander wrote to the Texan:
In recognizing this condition, I am quite on your side—as against utter despisers of physical stamina and combat like Frank B. Long and others of the younger generation. (MF1.421)
In a subsequent letter, Lovecraft clarified:
So I stand half-way betwixt Long and yourself—insisting on the one hand that the glorification of the physical ought to be subordinated to the glorification of the mental, but on the other and insisting that the loss of a certain standard of physical prowess and combative interest means effeminacy and decadence. [...] Some years ago Long and I attempted to explore the Fulton Fish Market section of New York—which is full of quaint scenes and buildings. Ordinarily I have about 50 times the vigour and endurance of young Belknap—but for once he had grandpa at a disadvantage. (MF2.524-525)
Howard responded:
You mention my position as being at the other extreme from—I believe it was Long you mentioned. [...] Putting Long at one end of the rope, and me at the other, of course, you know Long, but in justice to myself, I must assure you that you are wrong about my position at the other extremity. (CL3.19, 27, MF2.535, 541)
This dispute, like others, was broken up at intervals by other, friendlier subjects such as Lovecraft relaying his Christmas 1932 visit with the Longs and his old New York literary circle (MF2.256), which Howard evinced polite interest in (CL3.30, MF2.544). Yet they did return to it once again, Lovecraft clarifying:
In contrasting you and Long I meant only to convey that your respective positions represent extremes within the very narrow circle of my active correspondents. Of course, I realize very keenly that extremes exist in both directions, which far transcend our position on the one hand and Long's on the other. [...] and nobody I know of (except Long, who thought it just a bit juvenile for a man of his high development in superior lines) ever criticised him for that satisfaction. (MF2.553, 555)
One wonders if Lovecraft showed Long these particular letters, or considered the impression that the Rhode Islander was building of his New Yorker friend when he wrote things like:
And our fellow-weirdest Frank Belknap Long Jr. is forced to leave the table in haste when blood or slaughter is too vividly brought into the conversation. [...] As to the varying degrees of sensitiveness at the sight or mention of blood—of course, actual fainting represents a pathological extreme .... as does also, perhaps, Long's acute nausea. (MF2.726, 790)
In a letter dated 24 July 1933, Lovecraft wrote to Howard:
Speaking of literary insincerity and repulsive hack work—Long has just sold a wretched "confession" tale to the equally wretched Macfadden outfit for $100.00. He isn't signing his own name, though the company insist on his giving them his full name and address for filing. It gives him a nauseated feeling to reflect that his name is even secretly connected with such a piece of abysmal tripe—but he wants the cash badly! (MF2.630)
Today, it is easy to know about the friendship of H. P.
Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Their correspondence is collected in the
two-volume set A Means to Freedom (with
some partial drafts in the Collected
Letters of Robert E. Howard - Index and Addenda), and these letters provide
fans and scholars with considerable insight into both men, their travels,
philosophies, and arguments written out in their own words. Taken as a whole,
the thousand pages of AMTF represents
a literary achievement at least the equal to any of their fiction. Yet it is not
quite the whole story.
A postcard from H.P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith,
ca December 1933.
Lovecraft epistles (both letters and postcards) numbered in the
tens of thousands. Several mentioned Robert E. Howard, or his work. Ranging
from brief snippets to full pages of text, these references to and about Howard
informed Lovecraft’s audience and helped shape their vision of the man from
Cross Plains. Since none except E. Hoffmann Price met Two-Gun Bob in person,
and relatively few corresponded with him on their own, these comments from
Lovecraft likely formed the only picture they had of “Brother Conan,” outside
of his fiction.
The earliest references to Howard in Lovecraft’s published
letters date before the two men began writing to one another, noting the “The
Skull in the Stars” (ES1.176), “The Shadow Kingdom” (ES1.200), and “Skull-Face” (ES1.243)
as stand out pieces at Weird Tales,
with Lovecraft praising Howard to editor Farnsworth Wright (LA8.22). Lovecraft later recalled the
beginning of their correspondence:
I first became conscious of him as a
coming leader just a decade ago—when (on a bench in Prospect Park, Brooklyn) I
read Wolfshead. I had read his two
previous short tales with pleasure, but without especially noting the author.
Now—in ‘26—I saw that W.T. had landed
a new big-timer of the CAS and EHP calibre. Nor was I ever disappointed in the
zestful and vigorous newcomer. He made good—and how! Much as I admired him, I
had no correspondence with him till 1930—for I was never a guy to butt in on
people. In that year he read the reprint of my Rats in the Walls and instantly spotted the bit of harmless fakery
whereby I lifted a Celtic phrase (for use as an atavistic exclamation) from a
footnote to an old classic—The Sin-Eater,
by Fiona McLeod (William Sharp). He didn’t realise the source of the phrase,
but his sharp eye for Celtic antiquities told him it didn’t quite fit—being a Gaelic (not Cymric) expression assigned to a South British locale. I myself
don’t know a word of any Celtic tongue, and never fancied anybody could spot
the incongruity. Too charitable to suspect me of ignorant appropriation, he
came to the conclusion that I followed a now-discredited theory whereby the
Gaels were supposed to have preceded the Cymri in England—and wrote Satrap
Pharnabazus a long and scholarly letter on the subject. Farny passed this on to
me—and I couldn’t rest easy until I had set the author right. Hence I dropped
REH a line confessing my ignorance and telling him that I had merely picked a
phrase with the right meaning from a note to a Scottish story while perfectly
well aware that the language of Celtic South-Britain was really somewhat
different. I could not resist adding some incidental praise of his work—echoing
remarks previously made in the Eyrie. Well—he replied at length, and the result
was a bulky correspondence which throve from that day to this. I value that
correspondence as one of the most broadening and sharpening influences in my
later years. (SL5.277, cf. SL5.181)
Robert E. Howard wrote the following in a February
1933 letter to August Derleth:
Whether
the history of Callahan County will ever be written is doubtful. At least, I’m
far too lazy to do the work necessary, though in a way it would be easier than
writing the history of Brown, since it was settled at a later date, and more
sparsely. At the same time, records of early settlement are not so plentiful.
If I ever write any chronicle of the County, it will deal only with the time
beginning at the date on which I came here. What with oil booms and the like,
its history during that time has not been tame, though undoubtedly lacking the
general interest of the early frontier days.
Of course Howard could not foresee the advent of
the Information Age and the invention of the Internet, which made the history
of everything, including Callahan County, easily accessible to everyone. You
can throw a dart at a county map of Texas and no matter which county the dart’s
point hits, odds are that county is going to have a violent and storied past.
Such is the case of Howard’s home county of Callahan.
Callahan County Courthouse ca 1900-1929
Callahan County was established in 1858 from parts
of Bexar, Bosque, and Travis Counties. Those counties covered huge areas of
Texas in the early to mid-1800s and were divided up into smaller counties,
allowing locals more governmental control over the area they lived in. The new
county was named for James Hughes Callahan,a survivor of the Goliad Massacre and leader of the
Callahan Expedition. But hardly anyone was interested in settling this isolated
region for the first eighteen years of its existence. This was due to the fact
that the Comanche Indians roamed the rolling plains region of Central Texas
where Callahan County is situated.
There were numerous clashes between the early
settlers and the local Indian tribes and Howard recounted some of these battles
in his letters. Here is a real life account of the Sipe Springs Indian
incidents, as told by Miss Carrie Childress:
Captain
M.W Hall organized a company of Minute Men in 1873 for protection of the
settlers against the Indians. In 1873 the Indians drove off the horses of a
ranching operation owned by a Mr. Justice and (Cal) Watkins on the Sabano. A man by the name of Gass Evans notified the
company and they followed the Indians into Callahan County and recovered the
horses. The last Indian raid was made in 1874, when the Indians killed Bob
Leslie on Rush Creek. In leaving the country they touch[ed] the point where the
house now stands on the old Tom Hale place east of town and swung into the
north and west. A few earlier raids had been made in the early part of January
1870, the Indians raiding the Schmick and Follis ranch, and driving off the
horses; Bill McGuire, the only man on the ranch who had been left to protect
the women and children shot at the Indians but they made their get-away with
their horses.
The Comanches remained a threat well into the
1870’s when a contingent of troops under the command of Colonel Ranald S.
Mackenzie defeated the Comanches at Palo Duro Canyon in 1874, which was to be the last battle in the Texas Indian
Wars. The few remaining hostile Indians were driven away later that same year
by William J. Maltby commanding Company E of the Frontier Battalion of the
Texas Rangers.
After the end of the Indian wars, more and more
settlers moved into the area – part of the ceaseless westward expansion.
Gradually, the string of forts manned by the US Army that threaded south to north
across the West Texas Plains were abandoned one after the other until the last
one lowered its flag in 1891.
Map of Callahan County
In 1877, the County was formally organized and the
Callahan County Commissioners Court held an election in December to name the
county seat. The town of Belle Plain was in the running and so was the
temporary county seat, Callahan City; no doubt so named with hopes of becoming
the permanent county seat. But the name advantage did little good – when the
votes were counted, Callahan City lost its county seat status to Belle Plain.
This sentenced Callahan City to a slow death. But as it turned out, Belle Plain
only got a brief reprieve from that same fate.
Stations for the new Texas and Pacific Railway linewere being built from Dallas to El Paso, with stops planned for Putnam,
Baird, and Clyde – small settlements which quickly developed into towns. The
railroad had completely bypassed Belle Plain six miles to the north. In January
of 1883, an election resulted in Baird being made the new county seat. The
effect of this outcome led to Belle Plain’s stone jail and most of the
residences being moved to Baird, leaving only a handful of families in the
dying town.
Texas farming ca 1890s
During period from the 1880s until the early 1900s,
farming and ranching were the mainstays of the County. Corn, wheat, oats and
cotton were the primary agriculture crops, while beef cattle accounted for the
majority of the ranching, with some sheep being a commodity during the decade
from 1880 to 1890. The population grew from 8,768 in 1900 to 12,973 in 1910.
The pace of growth slowed after 1910 and started to decline by the mid-teens.
The number of citizens in Callahan County fell to 11,844 by the time the
Howards arrived in Cross Plains in 1919. The Texas Central Railroad had only
come to Cross Plains seven years before the Howards bought a house and settled
down. After the railway was built, the town became a major trading center for
cotton and other crops.
The agriculture boom that Callahan County enjoyed
had its price. Increased demand for land caused the price of real estate to
rise. As a result of this, a lot of newcomers could not afford to buy land and
this led to an increased number of tenant farmers. By 1920 nearly half the
farmers (823 of 1,649) were tenants. The majority of these were sharecroppers
who were permitted by landowners to farm the land and collected only a share of
the harvest as payment for their efforts. While most sharecroppers in the state
were African American, the reverse was true in Callahan County – all but one of
the tenants was white.
Eventually, overgrazing, drought, soil erosion, and
a shortage of potable water took its toll on ranching and farming in the
county. This led to several conservation programs being established.
The decline in agriculture was somewhat offset by
the discovery of oil in Callahan County and adjacent counties in 1923. A number
of promising fields were found in Cross Plains, Pioneer, Cross Cut, and Blake,
and by the late 1920s the oil business was booming bigtime. The oil and gas
revenues generated from the production from the numerous wells in the area made
it easier for some landowners to survive the economic slump of the 1930s and even
made a few large landowners quite wealthy.
Like all Texas oil boom towns of that era, the oil
fields in and around Callahan County were flooded with land speculators, oilmen,
roughnecks, prospectors, panhandlers and fortune seekers. Those in turn drew in
a seedier element of society, including card-sharks, prostitutes, bootleggers
and drug dealers. Here, in a December 1930 letter to H.P. Lovecraft, Howard
expresses his disdain for what his town and county became during the boom
years:
You’re
right about oil booms — they bring a lot of money into the country and take
more out, as well as ruining the country for other purposes. This might offend
men in the oil business, but it’s the truth that I’ve seen more young people
sent to the Devil through the debauching effects of an oil boom than all the
other reasons put together. I know; I was a kid in a boom town myself. The
average child of ten or twelve who’s lived through a boom or so, knows more
vileness and bestial sinfulness than a man of thirty should know — whether he —
or she — practice what they know or not. Glamor and filth! That’s an oil boom.
When I was a kid I worked in the tailoring business just as one terrific boom was
dwindling out, and harlots used to give me dresses to be cleaned — sometimes
they’d be in a mess from the wearer having been drunk and in the gutter.
Beautiful silk and lace, delicate of texture and workmanship, but disgustingly
soiled — such dresses always symbolized boom days and nights, to me —
shimmering, tantalizing, alluring things, bright as dreams, but stained with
nameless filth.
An oil well in Cisco ca. 1920s
Howard made other references to the ills brought
about by an oil boom, but this one in particular stands out. While the county
prospered when the oil was flowing, once it stopped everyone who came seeking
their fortune moved on leaving the permanent residents of Callahan County to
clean up the “nameless filth” they left behind.
With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s,
many of the county's farmers, both tenants and owners experienced hard times
and were heavily indebted. A combination of falling agricultural prices coupled
with a boll weevil outbreak caused most banks to cease extending additional
credit to the struggling farmers, forcing many of them off the land they owned
or sharecropped.
By the end of 1936, the year Howard died, things
were turning around for Callahan County and the rest of the nation as it slowly
started climbing out of the depths of the Great Depression. While Howard had no
interest in writing the history of his county, he did have a strong desire to
write a great novel of his beloved Texas, a desire that went unfulfilled.
About Damon Sasser:
Damon Sasser has been a staple in Robert E. Howard fandom and REH Studies for four decades. He is the founder of REH: Two-Gun Raconteur website and journal. Sasser is a member of The Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHupa) and has written countless articles for various fanzines and journals.
Sasser also has a nice Facebook Page for both the TGR website and journal. Be sure and check it out and "like" the page. You will not only get updates about articles posted on TGR but other tid-bits of great information on REH, H.P. Lovecraft, pulp zines, and what is circulating around the REH scholarly network.
On June 19th of 1935 Robert E.
Howard and his good friend Truett Vinson set off on a road trip to Santa Fe, New
Mexico. During that same trip they visited the
historic town of Lincoln, New Mexico. Howard had always been
fascinated with Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County Wars, so when Truett
needed to take a trip to Santa Fe,
Howard certainly took the opportunity to go with him. Fortunately, for us
today, Howard detailed this trip in a letter to his long-time correspondent
and fellow writer friend, H.P. Lovecraft.
I can’t help but wonder if Howard
plotted this trip in such a way that passing through Lincoln
on their journey to Santa Fe
would be inevitable. According to Howard, the day he and Vinson left, they
drove over 500 miles and made it all the way to Roswell, NM.
About that town Howard declares, “Roswell is a neat,
spotless modern town, with the usual streams of tourists pouring through
continually.” (Howard 3: 344) The next
morning they loaded up the car and made their way into Lincoln.
The Old Courthouse (Murphy's Shop) ca 1930s
In June of 1935, Lincoln, NM was
virtually the same as it was 55 years earlier during the Lincoln County Wars.
The roads were still unpaved and none of the buildings were yet owned by the State.
In fact, the County of Lincoln obtained the Murphy house (a.k.a “The
House”)—what later became the old courthouse where Billy
the Kid made his notorious escape— on December 15th, 1880 for
$15,000. It wasn’t until 1937 that the State of New Mexico bought this building, and in 1949
other buildings and sites were purchased and transferred to the Old Lincoln
County Memorial Commission. Additionally, in 1977 the town officially became an
historical site fully owned by the State of New Mexico. So when Howard and Vinson
visited Lincoln,
the Murphy House (courthouse) was empty and used as a storage building.
When Howard and Vinson entered from
the East into Lincoln
they had their minds set on finding that one particular building . . .
“[T]he old courthouse whence Billy made the most dramatic
escape ever made in the Southwest. We rounded a crook in the meandering street
and it burst upon us like the impact of a physical blow. There was no mistaking
it.” (Howard 3: 346)
They parked the car and explored
the exterior of the courthouse for some time. Since the building was not being
used for anything other than storage, it was locked. Looking around, Howard
described that they noticed, across the street, the La Paloma Saloon[1]
“which bears a sign that claims existence in the Kid’s day.” (Howard 3: 346)
Evening at the La Paloma Bar, Lincoln, NM ca 1945.
Roman Maes inside of bar leaning on screen door
(Picture by Walt Wiggins)
It was in this establishment where
Howard and Vinson met a man named Roman Maes. In his letter to H.P. Lovecraft,
Howard describes not only meeting Mr. Maes but also gives Lovecraft a brief
history about one of Maes’ relatives who fought in the Lincoln County Wars. Here is how
Howard details it,
“The owner [of the La Paloma] is one Ramon [sic] Maes[2],
grandson of Lucio Montoya, ‘Murphy’s Sharpshooter’ as he told us with pride—a
supple well built man, tall for a Mexican and broadshouldered, with a
thin-nostrilled Mountain Indian look about his face. The name of Montoya is
woven into the Kid’s saga. He took part in the three-day fight in which McSween
was killed; he lay on the mountain that commanded the Montana House, with
Crawford, firing from behind a boulder.[3]” (Howard 3: 346)
Howard and Maes talked for some
time, probably about Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County Wars. In his letter
to Lovecraft Howard declares,
“He [Roman Maes] was very courteous and eager to point out
interesting spots, and answer our questions,
[. . .]
Maes gave us the key to the old courthouse, which was once
Murphy’s store. It is used as a storeplace for junk now, and there is talk, we
were told, of tearing it down to build a community hall. It should be
preserved.” (Howard 3: 347)
(L to R) Roman Maes & Robert E. Howard
ca June 1935
Howard and Vinson spent some time
in the courthouse, wandering around, walking through the rooms, and imagining
everything that happened that infamous day when Billy made his notorious
escape.[4] Sometime
between getting the key from Roman Maes and spending time in the old
courthouse, Robert E. Howard and Roman Maes posed for a picture, now popular in
Howard fandom (The actual picture is above, taken in front of the old courthouse). In the past it had only been speculated that the man to the left
of Howard in the photo was Roman Maes. Thanks to several Lincoln, NM
park rangers I was able, through social media, to track down the granddaughter
of Roman Maes. She confirmed for me that the man in the photograph with Robert
E. Howard was, in fact, her grandfather.
According to the Maes family, Roman
Maes lived in Lincoln, NM his whole life. He acquired the La Paloma in 1935 and operated it until the mid-1980s when his wife became ill (cancer) and was forced to shut
down operations. During World War II, Maes could not get liquor for the bar so he turned
the La Paloma into a small grocery store and later sold Indian curios.[5] Roman Maes’ daughter, Priscilla Maes, would have been 6 years old when Robert E. Howard
visited Lincoln, NM. She stated that she remembered people
would stop in town at the bar, talk with her father, and he would show them around, but she
never remembered anyone’s name. So, it's quite possible that she could
have met Robert E. Howard when she was a child. Both Roman Maes and his wife, Theodora, are buried in the old cemetery of Lincoln on the East side of town.
I took a picture with a zoom lens of the
peak where Maes climbed.
During my visit to Lincoln, NM[6] I
spoke with several park rangers. While discussing the La Paloma and Roman Maes,
one of the park rangers told me that back in the 1940s, Maes, with a donkey, climbed the mountain on the southern side of town in order to place a cross on its peak. When he and the donkey neared the peak of the mountain, the
donkey lost its footing, tumbled and slid all the way back down the
mountainside. Concerned for the animal, Maes worked his way back down to find the donkey was uninjured. He took this as a sign from God,
loaded the wood back on the donkey, and proceeded to climb the mountain again.
This time he reached the peak, built a wooden cross on the mountain top, and slowly worked his way back down the mountainside.
Today, Maes’ cross has been replaced with PVC pipe, but it still stands on the
peak of the southern mountain.
After spending a few hours in Lincoln, Howard and Vinson traveled toward Carrizozo, then
up to Albuquerque, and northward reaching Santa Fe by nightfall.
The following day, June 20th 1935, in Santa Fe, NM,
Howard mailed a postcard to fellow writer and friend, August Derleth, with this
handwritten message on the back of the postcard:
“This card was purchased in Lincoln, NM
from a descendant of a participant in the Bloody Lincoln County Wars. REH.”
(Howard 3: 329)
The postcard had the famous tin
photograph of Billy the Kid on the front. Howard purchased a few of them from
Roman Maes at the La Paloma Bar.[7] Below
is the actual postcard (Front & Back) sent to August Derleth.[8]
The Front of the Postcard sent to
August Derleth, ca June 20th 1935
The Back of the Postcard sent to August Derleth
(The Postcard is from the Wisconsin State Historical Society)
[1] Howard
called the La Paloma a “Saloon” in his letter to H.P. Lovecraft. This is, in
fact, what it would have been (a saloon) in Billy’s day back in the late 1870s
early 1880s. However, at the time of Howard’s visit it would have been named The La Paloma Bar.
[2] In his
letter Howard actually typed the name Ramon Maes. The man Howard and Vinson met
was actually named Roman Maes. After corresponding with Rusty Burke (one of the
editors of A Means to Freedom: The
Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard: 1933-1936) about this, he concluded that Howard
probably misheard Roman’s name. I will continue to quote Howard’s letters
exactly as Robert E. Howard wrote them, but note that "Ramon Maes" is actually
named Roman Maes.
[3] For a
more detailed account of this event refer to Frederick Nolan’s book, The West of Billy the Kid, pages 151,
155, and especially 158.
[4] I will
be writing a second article about this aspect of Robert E. Howard’s visit to Lincoln, NM.
[5] This
information was provided to me by Roman Maes’ granddaughter, Roberta Maes
Baker. She and her mother (Priscilla Maes)—Roman Maes’ daughter—were very
helpful in providing me with facts and information for this article.
[6] I just
recently took a trip to Lincoln,
NM (July 25th to 26th,
2015) to research facts and information for this article and an article to soon
be written.
[7] Roman
Maes did in fact sell postcards from the La Paloma back in 1935, a fact
confirmed by the Maes family. Maes was also the grandson of Lucio Montoya,
involved in the Lincoln County Wars.
[8] Thanks
to Rob Roehm for providing me scanned copies of the postcard. I would also like
to thank Rusty Burke for answering several questions about the REH letters. And
lastly, thank you to the Maes family and especially to Roberta Maes Baker and
Priscilla Maes for providing answers to all my questions about Roman Maes and
the La Paloma Bar.
Bibliography
Howard, Robert E. The
Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard. Ed. Rob Roehm. Vol. 1-3. Plano, TX:
Robert E. Howard Foundation, 2007. Print.
Nolan, Frederick W. The
West of Billy the Kid. Norman: U of Oklahoma, 1998. Print.
Shortly after this year’s REH Days
my friend David Piske & I took a brief single day road trip. Since we were
both staying in Brownwood, TX
for this year’s events, I checked the proximity of Fort
McKavett to Brownwood:
only 102 miles, about an hour and a half drive. So, we planned accordingly.
At REH Days, in a conversation with
Rob Roehm, I brought up the intended FortMcKavett trip. Rob perked
up and began to tell me that he thought they may have done some
re-work/refurbishing of the Fort. He wondered if the famous “Howard Spot”
would still be there as it was when he visited. He thought he had heard that the State may have rebuilt some of those buildings. I explained that we brought
along his book, and he said it had the exact coordinates of “the spot." So I surmised with those
coordinates we should be able to find the location regardless of any changes
made to the structures. Rob also mentioned that the Presidio de San Saba was on
the way to FortMcKavett, and we should stop there and
look around. He told me he had included it in his book: Howard’s Haunts. So I
added that to our road trip itinerary.
Early Sunday morning David and
I loaded the car and took off. We made a quick stop at the GreenleafCemetery in Brownwood, TX,
saw the Howard family grave site, and searched a bit for Tevis Clyde Smith’s
grave site but had no luck finding it. The offices at Greenleaf were close
(since it was Sunday) so we were unable to ask for help. We then piled back
into the car and took off for FortMcKavett, TX.
Presidio de San Saba
The Presidio de San Saba
Sure enough, just as Rob had
explained, the Presidio de San Saba was a short hop down 190 (the same highway to Fort McKavett) slightly southwest of Menard,
TX. The Presidio sits right next
to the San Saba river, which, by the way, was filled with water due to recent
hard rains in Texas.
Being a Sunday, the offices to the
Presidio were closed. But, that did not deter us from wandering around the
ruins.
"The Presidio de San Sabá was
established in 1757, to protect nearby Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá
constructed at the same time. An
additional incentive was to pursue rumors of silver riches nearby. At the time of its construction, the fort
represented the northernmost point of Spanish authority in Texas.
It is still the largest Spanish fort in the state." (http://www.presidiodesansaba.com)
Robert E. Howard has this to say about the Presidio,
“You will read much of San Saba
river and the surrounding territory in Coronado’s
Children. It is on the San Saba that the famous Lost Bowie Mine is suppose to
be located. (Though some maintain it was on the Rio de Las Chanas, now called LlanoRiver).
Near Menard, through which I passed on my way to FortMcKavett,
are the ruins of San Luis de Amarillas, the presidio built by the Spaniards to
protect workers in Los Almagres mine.” Robert E. Howard to August Derleth, in a
letter dated July 1933. (The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard; 3.94)
The San Saba river as seen from
the Presidio de San Saba
We spent about a half an hour at
the Presidio, taking pictures, reading the various markers, and wandering
around the area. There were only two other people visiting this site at the
same time, a couple from Abilene. They asked us why we were there
visiting. I explained to them we were on our way to visit FortMcKavett,
stopped off here, and told them about Robert E. Howard. As is pretty much
always my experience, they did not know who Robert E. Howard was, but when I
mentioned Conan, they knew about him.
Me on the walls of the
Presidio
The Presidio had been fully
restored with cement and the left over bricks/rocks from the original fort. So,
it looked quite different than the pictures from Rob Roehm’s book. Because of these renovations I began to really wonder if the “spot” where Howard took his famous snap shot would be
restored. Would it now be surrounded by what was once the original building?
Would that make it more difficult to find? Without hesitation, we got back in
the car and drove.
Farther down the road we
encountered the sign for FortMcKavett. And, while I
thoroughly enjoyed visiting the Presidio, my eagerness grew as we approached FortMcKavett.
Fort McKavett, Texas
“I’m enclosing a snap shot of
myself, taken among the ruins of Old Fort McKavett. I drove there last Sunday
and took a few pictures. Didn’t have time to work up an article, though. FortMcKavett
is in MenardCounty, about 155 miles southwest of
Cross Plains. It was established in 1871, and abandoned the same year. Again in
1872 it was occupied by two companies of cavalry and five of infantry—largely
negroes. It was abandoned permanently in 1883; and thereby hangs a tale, which is
not likely ever to be written—not by me, at least. I will merely remark that
the Federal soldiers found their most dangerous enemies not to be Comanches. FortMcKavett
is situated near the head waters of the San Saba river, and folks live there in
the less ruined buildings which once formed the barracks and officer’s
quarters.” Robert E. Howard to August Derleth, in a letter dated July 1933.
(The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard 3.93-94)
Robert E. Howard at Fort McKavett
Excitement raced through me as we
approached the front drive to enter FortMcKavett. The first thing
that struck me was how large the grounds actually were. To be honest, I was
expecting a quaint area with maybe two or three buildings. Instead, the entire
Fort and it’s surroundings cover a whopping 147 acres. There were buildings,
both dilapidated and complete, standing all over the area. However, the
buildings followed a concise structure in the shape of a large square with a
U.S. Flag in its center. According to the Fort McKavett State Historic website,
“In March 1852, the 8th U.S.
Infantry established FortMcKavett to protect West Texas
settlers and serve as a rest stop for California-bound immigrants. In 1859, FortMcKavett
was abandoned due to a decline in warfare with Native Americans as a result of
the establishment of reservations in Texas and
immigrants using a more southerly route to California. In 1868, the Army reopened FortMcKavett
as a military post when hostilities between local Comanche Indians and the
settlers increased after the Civil War. From 1868 to 1883, FortMcKavett
served as a major supply depot providing food and provisions for most of the
military campaigns, scientific and mapping explorations and other forts in West Texas. By 1875, hostilities in the area had been
resolved, resulting in the mandatory relocation of Native Americans to
reservations in Oklahoma, and FortMcKavett
was finally abandoned by Company D of the 16th Infantry Regiment in 1883. Soon
after the Army left, settlers began to move into the vacant buildings and the
town of Fort
McKavett was born, with the last residents moving out of the original buildings
in 1973. FortMcKavett was designated a state historic
site on May 17, 1968 to help preserve its important role in history for the
enjoyment of present and future generations.” (http://www.visitfortmckavett.com/index.aspx?page=530)
When Howard visited FortMcKavett,
back in 1933, as indicated in his letter to August Derleth (see above) there
were people still living in the barracks and officer’s quarters.
Fort McKavett view from the car lot
After we parked the car, our first
order of business was to go to the visitor's center and pay the daily fee of
$5.00 to visit and walk the grounds. I was afraid that the site would be closed
since it was Sunday. However, Texas State Historic Sites/grounds are open from sunrise to
sunset 7 days a week, so we were in luck. We spoke with the office attendant,
explained why we were there, and she walked over to a large filing cabinet,
opened the top drawer and pulled a file labeled Robert E. Howard. A smile grew
on my face as she opened the file and explained to us exactly where “the spot”
would be located on the Fort grounds. She pulled a copied picture of Howard’s
famous snap shot and a copy of the pages from Rob Roehm’s book Howard’s Haunts.
From the window of the office she
pointed out the area where the ruins were located and told us we should walk
the small museum adjacent to the guest office before walking the grounds. I must
admit, I had a hard time walking through the small museum and reading the
material. My mind was distracted by the idea of finding "the spot" where Robert
E. Howard stood and took that snap shot. But, after a few minutes, I forced myself
to quiet my mind and take in the history presented in the museum. If you ever
visit FortMcKavett, be sure and walk through this
mini-museum, it has some nice historical information, original items and
pictures.
A model scene of the Fort in the
museum at the guest center
Finally, we left the visitor center
and museum and made the trek toward where Howard would have snapped his photo.
As we approached we noticed several of the buildings were not in ruins. I wondered if
those had been restored, and would the spot now be inside one of those
buildings. But, according to the attendant in the front office, the building
she pointed out, next to the old Captain’s quarters (which was still in ruins),
was also itself in ruins. We checked our map, wandered around the Captain’s
quarters for a little while trying to decide which of the two other ruined
buildings close-by was the actual location.
We trekked to what we thought was
the building. It was definitely in ruins and several of the fireplace areas
looked like the ones in Rob’s book (and thus Howard’s snap shot).
After a few minutes of searching, we found the spot. Everything lined up from
Rob’s photograph in Howard’s Haunts. An unusual feeling of excitement overcame
me; the same feeling I felt when I stepped inside the Howard House for the very
first time. Here I was standing in the same spot as Robert E. Howard, one of my
favorite authors. My imagination took hold and all the history of the Fort and what I knew of Robert E. Howard flooded my mind.
Me at "the spot"
“Ruins of FortMcKavett,
July 9, 1933; I like this snap; it makes me feel kind of like a Vandal or Goth
standing amidst the ruins of a Roman fortress or palace.” To H.P. Lovecraft
from Robert E. Howard, July 9, 1933. (The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard 3.92)
I was having a moment like what Howard described in his letter to H.P. Lovecraft, and the fact that Howard had been here too made it even more special. We actually
spent about 20 or more minutes at the spot, taking pictures, wandering around,
and talking about the history of the place. After we had soaked in the
excitement of finding the place where Howard snapped his shot, we then turned our
attention to the rest of the Fort.
My friend, David, at "the spot."
I can't even begin to depict how
stirring the Fort was. Seeing the buildings, canons, soldier’s quarters, and
reading the various plaques with historical information, all of these things certainly spark the
imagination. At one point, we rounded a building and David said, “Can you
imagine being here in the late 1800s when all the soldiers were here?” He
pointed off in the distance and said, “It would be so cool to just ride up on horseback
toward one of the soldiers after scouting the area and shout, “Hey, soldier,
where’s the Captain? I have my report!” This is the kind of thing the Fort
elicits from the imaginative mind. I can see why Howard was so taken in by the
area.
Several of the quarters were open,
so we entered them and explored the buildings. What surprised me most about the
inside of the buildings was the fact that even though it was in the upper 90s
outside (quite hot), it was much cooler inside. I placed my hand on one of the
walls and the brick was actually cool. The buildings were designed to let the
outside air enter in the front, swirls around several of the rooms and then exit out a back window or door; all the while cooling the rooms as it passed
through.
We spent several hours wandering
the grounds. When we finally decided to leave, I mentioned going back to the
visitor center to look around before we took off. However, I wanted to see the
“Howard spot” one last time. So, we split up. David headed back to visitor center,
and I made my way back to Field Grade Officer’s Quarters where Howard took his
snap shot. I spend a few minutes, took a few more pictures, walked a little
around the ruins of the old building, and imagined what it would have been like
when Howard was here. I then made my way back to the guest center.
Upon arriving at the guest center I
discovered David talking to a different person than when we first arrived.
Fortunately, this gentleman was the site manager. He gave us a brief history of
the Fort and told us of the spring head and lime kiln about a quarter
mile down a certain trail over by the picnic area. We talked a little about
Robert E. Howard, he knew much more than the first person we encountered in the
guest office. He also told us that periodically people came from all over the
country just to visit the spot where Howard took his famous photograph. He explained that nothing had been altered since the Fort was first built. This
was good information. He said they had not intended to do any
renovations on the Fort because they wanted to keep it faithful to its
historical roots. I was glad to hear this.
An original engraving on the outside wall of one of the
Soldier's Quarters
After talking with the site
manager. We made our way to the picnic area in order to walk the quarter mile
down the trail to the limestone kiln and spring head. The kiln was still there, but
mostly filled in with large limestone rocks. I could imagine the men creating
these exceedingly hot fires to melt the limestone in the kiln. Just on the
other side of the kiln was a direct drop of about 20 or more feet. I leaned a
little over the edge and could see a large hole in the side of the cliff where
the fire was created.
Farther down the path, we entered
another world entirely. From open ground, high grass and rocks to trees thick
as a forest. This change occurred almost abruptly, so I knew we had to be close
to the spring head because only a constant flow of water could provide the area with this many trees. At the end of the trail we ran right into the spring
head. The water came out through the rocks pouring its way into a small creek
and flowing away toward the San Saba river. We were told that the spring head
never dried up. I can now see the importance of FortMcKavett’s
location and how people could survive in this area with this constant flow of
water.
I’m so glad we decided to take this
small excursion after REH Days this year. To tromp around in the very places Howard did is quite exciting, especially having read his accounts of these
places. If you ever decide to make the trek to Texas
and visit the Presidio De San Saba and FortMcKavett,
I can tell you now it is well worth the trip. To visit the historical sites
that made Texas
what it is today and to see first-hand how the state was maintained, protected, and served, is an experience like no other. It definitely helps those readers of
Robert E. Howard’s work understand why he wrote some of what he wrote. It's quite obvious that Texas certainly had a
huge influence on the barbarian from Cross Plains.
Above is a brief video of a pictorial tour with a bit of historical information included.
For Further Research on the Presidio de San Saba & Fort McKavett:
Additional Facts about Fort McKavett . . . (From the Fort McKavett State Historic Website)
Fort McKavett was home to soldiers from all four of the famous Buffalo Soldier regiments. Many of these African American soldiers used the educational and financial opportunities given to them by the Army to become successful businessmen after their service.
Sgt. Emanuel Stance of the 9th Cavalry received the first Medal of Honor awarded to an African American soldier after the Civil War for his service at Fort McKavett.
Women were employed by the Army at Fort McKavett as laundresses. It was common for a woman to do the laundry of 19 men for $1 per soldier a month, including housing and food. Although it was difficult work, these women made $19 or more a month while an Army private made $13.
Under direction of the Fort McKavett surgeon, Army personnel at the fort became the first weathermen in the area by keeping records of temperatures and rainfall at the post.
Fort McKavett’s structures are considered among the most well-preserved of the Texas frontier forts.
