Breckenridge, Texas

Basil Edwin Clemons, photographer, the firstborn of seventeen children of Lemuel Joseph and Sarah Alice (Clemmons) Clemmons was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama, on July 22, 1887. His parents were cousins. He attended grammar school in Alabama until his father, a farmer, moved the family to Ridgeway, Texas. At age sixteen, in 1903, Basil left Texas and journeyed to California. He was in San Francisco in 1906, when that city experienced its devastating earthquake. Clemons, who was well-read, became a self-taught photographer in Hollywood at the beginning of the movie era. Later, he trooped with the Tom Mix Wild West Show. In 1909 he returned to East Texas to visit his family before departing for Alaska, where he recorded the growth surrounding the gold discoveries in the Yukon River area. He introduced motion pictures to Alaskan residents by making and developing the first movies shown there. Clemons was responsible for bringing the first airplane into the snowy region and then preserved the sights of the frozen land with the first aerial photographs taken in Alaska. He was snow-blinded, however, and his eyesight was affected for the rest of his life. In Alaska Clemons became a Methodist. He later confided to his mother that he was a "sprinkled Methodist" because immersion in ice water would have frozen him to death. He joined the United States Army and trained at Fort Liscom, Alaska. In 1918 he was discharged as a private in the Ninth Company, 166th Depot Brigade. He eventually moved to Seattle, Washington, where he opened a photography studio. In 1919, while traveling with a circus, he returned to Texas. There he received word that his studio had burned, but instead of returning to Seattle he headed west to Breckenridge. He chronicled on film every aspect of life in the small town as it boomed from oil production in 1920. When the oilfields declined, he remained and continued to photograph everyday happenings. His photographs included not only oil-derrick scenes, weddings, downtown display windows, rodeos, parades, and portraits of prominent citizens, but also funeral processions, Ku Klux Klan rallies, lakeside picnics, and the entire public school student body. His developing studio was his unusual home, an iron-wheeled gypsy wagon, ten feet long and six feet wide, which had been a cookshack used on a ranch. To develop photographs, he never measured the chemicals poured from jars. By tasting the finger he used to stir the mixture, he determined the correct proportions. He developed black-and-white and sepia-toned photographs. He also produced pictures on fabric and did hand-colored tinted prints. His skill was so perfected that he formulated a process for color developing before the Eastman Kodak Company. When he received a letter from Kodak in 1936, offering a fabulous amount, plus royalties, for his technique, Clemons had his teen-aged helper, Frank Pellizzari, Jr., type a refusal to the offer with the remark that the Kodak chemists should "figure it out for themselves." The trademark of his work was marking negatives with a fine pen and India ink so that the developed prints bore the subject label, date, and his signature in white lettering. Clemons, a lifelong bachelor, believed in a simplified approach to living. As an eccentric, he did not follow conventional standards in his choice of habitat, dress, or diet. He wore jodhpurs and knee-high laced boots and traveled to photography sites in a stripped-down Model-T Ford. He declined social invitations, yet he always welcomed company and generously offered to serve visitors mulligan stew and bannock, a pancake-thin bread. From ground mesquite beans he made a weak tea-like beverage. At Thanksgiving he invited the entire community to share a harvest feast from his vast garden. His political affiliation is unknown. He belonged to both the American Legion and the Moose Lodge. In the Yukon he had served as secretary of the Alaska Kennel Club, similar to a chamber of commerce.

Breckenridge Stephens Walker, rancher, banker, and oilman, was born on November 19, 1877. He was the son of Edward Lee and Molena [Malinda or Malena] Jane (Yanc[e]y) Walker and was born in newly-organized Stephens County, Texas. His first and middle names were derived from the town and county in which he was born. Walker's father was a native of Kentucky and came to Texas as a young boy with his mother. E. L. Walker worked as a cowboy, became an independent cattleman and merchant, and in 1876 was elected county judge in Stephens County's first election. Breckenridge S. Walker's early life on the West Texas frontier was filled with hard work that left little time for education. As a young boy, he did general teaming with a pair of scraggly "Western pony mules" and then opened a livery with his older brother, B. B. Walker. The brothers then operated a stage line between Breckenridge and Ranger. During these runs, Walker developed a romantic relationship with his future wife, Cora Alice Davis (1877-1959), and drove the stage a block or two out of his way to ride past her house. For their next business venture, the brothers purchased a hardware store from N. S. Greenwood and built it into the largest such store in Breckenridge. However, Walker's goal was to be a banker. In 1904 he became cashier of the First National Bank of Breckenridge. Three years later, he purchased a controlling interest in the bank and became its president. He bought vast amounts of land on which he raised cattle. His land and his entrepreneurial skills proved to be valuable assets when Stephens County began to emerge as an important oil producing region. In late 1916 Walker, along with T. B. Yarbrough of Fort Worth and Joe J. Perkins of Wichita Falls, incorporated the Stephens County Oil Company of Fort Worth. By 1917 Walker had sold his cattle in order to devote his energy to the oilfields. "Although the cattle are flourishing," he said, "conditions are splendid for their growth, oil looks mighty good to me." That same year, he formed the Walker-Caldwell Oil Company with Judge Clifton Mott Caldwell , also of Breckenridge. With the success of this company and other oil interests, Walker and Caldwell became very wealthy men. They built Breckenridge's first water system, established a daily newspaper, and were instrumental in the construction of several modern commercial buildings and churches in the community. Breckenridge remained a small town of approximately 1,500 residents when the Chaney No. 1 came in as a large producer on February 4, 1920. Within a year there were 300 derricks within the city limits, and the population had risen to 15,000. Walker was among the oilmen who benefited from this boom. In October 1920 the Western Oil Derrick reported that Walker was part of a very large oil deal in which he paid the Bass Petroleum Company $1.5 million for a forty-acre lease in the Stephens County district. The lease included a well that was producing approximately 5,000 barrels a day. As a result of such spectacular oil production, Breckenridge soon had two daily newspapers, eighty-nine oil companies, and was served by three railroads. Walker received much of the credit for bringing the railroad lines to the city. In 1920 he also constructed a new building for his bank. During the oil frenzy in Stephens County, the new town of Breckwalker, located nine miles south of Breckenridge, opened to lot seekers on May 10, 1920. One newspaper stated, "The new town was laid out by Jake L. Hamon and Frank Kell " with the advice of "Breckenridge Stephens Walker, a self-made Stephens County millionaire, for whom it is named, as the most available place in that section for a good oil fields town." An advertisement that appeared on May 7 in the Dublin Progress and Telephone stated that Walker owned most of the surrounding territory. The promoters envisioned that the town would become a supply center for the surrounding oilfields. The Eastland, Wichita Falls and Gulf Railro

Breckenridge “Breck” Stephens Walker (1877-1929) was born to E. L. and Molena Jane Yancy Walker in Stephens County and named for the town and county of his birth. With his brother B.B., Walker operated a livery and a stage that ran between Breckenridge and Ranger. He met his future wife, Cora Alice Davis, while riding past her home on stagecoach trips. The two were married in 1897. The Walker brothers purchased a hardware store, but Breck aspired to be a banker, joining the First National Bank of Breckenridge as a cashier in 1904. He eventually purchased controlling interest in the bank and became its president. During this period, he purchased large areas of local land for cattle ranching. Oil was discovered in the Breckenridge area in the 1910s. Walker teamed with Judge Clifton Mott Caldwell and formed the Walker-Caldwell Oil Co. In 1917. In 1920, Breckenridge experienced an oil boom. The population of the town rose from around 1,500 to 15,000 in one year. This boom brought a time of prosperity and growth to the area. In 1920, walker opened the town of Breckwalker nine miles to the south of Breckenridge. Meant to be a supply center for the area’s oil industry, the town never prospered, disappearing completely as the boom subsided. Walker’s company built Breckenridge’s first water system, established a daily newspaper, and constructed several buildings and churches. In 1925, Breckenridge’s leaders appointed Walker mayor. He accepted and held office until failing health forced him to leave in 1928. He died of pneumonia on January 16, 1929, and is buried in Fort Worth.

Established near this site 1862. Part Confederate frontier defense line from Red River to Rio Grande. Occupied by company of Texas Frontier Regiment. Posts were day's horseback ride apart and area patrolled regularly. Duties included curbing Indian raids, rounding up draft evaders and renegades. Confederates were poorly fed, clothed and lacked horses, ammunition. They shared few of the glories of the war, but at the cost of the lives of not a few of them, these men gave a measure of protection to a vast frontier area. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy; Erected by the State of Texas 1963

Noted historian Walter Prescott Webb (1888-1963) came with his family to Stephens County at the age of four. Over the next seventeen years, Webb received an education in frontier life that formed the basis of his intellectual development and his theories on the role of the Great Plains in American history. Webb's father, Casner, was a rural schoolteacher and farmer. As he moved to different teaching assignments, the family moved with him. W.P. Webb thus was exposed to the physical geographical variety within the county that was so important to his western thesis. His neighbors were prime sources of frontier lore. Although Webb's public school experiences were infrequent, it was during these formative years in Stephens County that he developed his love of books and his desire to attend college. Also during this time, Webb was contacted by William Hinds of New York, who was to become his benefactor and a great source of encouragement for the young scholar. In 1906 Walter P. Webb received his teaching certificate and spent the next three years as a rural educator. In 1909, at the age of 21, Webb left his home in Stephens County to pursue his college education at the University of Texas in Austin.