Name: Buffalo Gap, Texas
Address: Buffalo Gap, TX

The Town That Lost to a Railroad RoadyGoat

Imagine being the most important town for a hundred miles, the official county seat, with a brand new courthouse to prove it. That was Buffalo Gap in 1880, when the limestone courthouse and jail built the year before opened for business. But thirteen miles to the northeast, the Texas and Pacific Railway was laying down track across the flat prairie. It created a town from scratch, Abilene, and with the railroad's power behind it, Abilene challenged Buffalo Gap for the title of county seat. The election, held in 1883, was fierce. Buffalo Gap cried foul, accusing Abilene of importing voters and using railroad money to sway the outcome — a few even talked of taking the records back by force. When the dust settled, Abilene had won. The story goes that in the dead of night, Abilene officials came to Buffalo Gap and 'borrowed' the county records, sealing the deal. Within a year Buffalo Gap's population had fallen from about twelve hundred to six hundred, and its 1879 courthouse, which you can still see today at the Historic Village, became a monument to what was lost.

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Buffalo Gap, TX RoadyGoat

Buffalo Gap. It's more than just a blink-and-you'll-miss-it town south of Abilene, nestled right where the Callahan Divide starts to roll. Sure, it's quiet now, but this little spot's seen some things. You might not expect it, but it's been a crossroads for folks who left their mark.

The Steakhouse That Put a Town Back on the Map RoadyGoat

For most of the 20th century, Buffalo Gap was a town people drove through, not to. Tom Perini changed that. He started a chuckwagon catering outfit out of his family's ranch here in 1973, cooking cowboy-style meals and mesquite-grilled steaks under the big Texas sky. It wasn't fancy, but it was real. Word got out, so in 1983 he opened the Perini Ranch Steakhouse. First locals came, then Texans from across the state, then critics from New York — the Times named his mesquite-smoked peppered beef tenderloin a mail-order gift of the year in 1995, and he catered the Congressional Picnic at the White House at the turn of the century. In 2014 the James Beard Foundation handed the place its America's Classics award. It did more than create a great restaurant. It gave Buffalo Gap a new identity, turning a forgotten little town into a pilgrimage site for food lovers. It proved you don't need a railroad to be a destination; sometimes all you need is a perfect steak and a story to tell.

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German Prisoners of War

1943

When the United States went to war in 1941, what to do with enemy prisoners of war was among the last considerations of a country reeling from a Japanese attack and preparing for war in Europe. The nation had never held large numbers of foreign prisoners and was unprepared for the many tasks involved, which included registration, food, clothing, housing, entertainment, and even reeducation. But prepared or not, the country suddenly found itself on the receiving end of massive waves of German and Italian prisoners of war. More than 150,000 men arrived after the surrender of Gen. Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in April 1943, followed by an average of 20,000 new POWs a month. From the Normandy invasion in June 1944 through December 30,000 prisoners a month arrived; for the last few months of the war 60,000 were arriving each month. When the war was over, there were 425,000 enemy prisoners in 511 main and branch camps throughout the United States. Texas had approximately twice as many POW camps as any other state, first because of the available space, and second, curiously, because of the climate. The Geneva Convention of 1929 requires that prisoners of war be moved to a climate similar to that where they are captured; apparently it was thought that the climate of Texas is similar to that of North Africa. In August 1943 there were already twelve main camps in Texas, and by June 1, 1944, there were thirty-three. At the end of the war Texas held 78,982 enemy prisoners, mainly Germans, at fourteen military installations: Camp Barkeley (Taylor County), Camp Bowie (Brown County), Camp Fannin (Smith County), Camp Cavazos (Bell County), Camp Howze (Cooke County), Camp Hulen (Matagorda County), Camp Maxey (Lamar County), Camp Swift (Bastrop County), Camp Wolters (Palo Pinto County), Fort Bliss (El Paso County), Fort Brown (Cameron County), Fort Crockett (Galveston County), Fort D. A. Russell (Presidio County), and Fort Sam Houston (Bexar County). In addition, seven base camps were set up especially for POWs: Brady (McCulloch County), Hearne (Robertson County), Hereford (Deaf Smith County), Huntsville (Walker County), McLean (Gray County), Mexia (Limestone County), and Wallace (Galveston County). The Hereford camp alone contained Italian POWs (2,580 men), and a few Japanese POWs were kept in Hearne (323), Huntsville (182), and Kenedy (560). The main camps were generally built to standard specifications: they were military barracks covered by tar paper or corrugated sheet iron; inside were rows of cots and footlockers. A potbellied stove sat in the center aisle. Each camp held an average of 3,000 to 4,000 prisoners. In fact, the only real differences between these POW camps and any normal army training installation were the watchtowers located along a double barbed-wire fence, floodlights, and, at some camps, dog patrols. Guards were kept to a minimum number and were usually GIs who, for reasons of health, lack of training, or psychological makeup, were not needed overseas. The actual discipline among the prisoners was rigidly enforced by German officers and sergeants themselves. However uncomfortable, the POW camps were sometimes considered too good for the captive Germans, and many a Texas community called its local camp the "Fritz Ritz." Since the war had drawn most of the nation's young men overseas, the War Department authorized a major program to allow labor-starved farmers to utilize the POWs. Consequently, in addition to the base camps, Texas had twenty-two branch camps, some containing as few as thirty-five or forty prisoners, to provide labor to farms and factories located too far from the main POW camps. The branch camps, like the labor program, were temporary and often housed in school buildings, old Civilian Conservation Corps facilities, fairgrounds, even circus tents like those erected for the Navasota branch camp. Grateful farmers paid the government the prevailing wage of $1.50 per day, and the prisoner was paid eighty cents i

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Robertson, George

1874

George Robertson was an early photographer who photographed the preparation of buffalo meat and hides for eastern markets, processes that contributed to the near extermination of the American bison. In 1868 he met Austin photographer William J. Oliphant while both men were working in Washington, D.C., in the gallery of noted Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner. They continued to correspond after Oliphant returned to Texas, and in 1872 Robertson moved to Austin, where he worked in Oliphant's Pecan Street gallery. In 1874 he accompanied a buffalo hunting expedition that traveled to Buffalo Gap in Taylor County. Although the cumbersome wet-plate process prevented Robertson from photographing live herds, he did capture shots of hunters skinning buffalos, preparing the meat and hides, and returning to civilization with loaded wagons. Robertson's photographs of the buffalo hunt were included in Oliphant's popular series of stereoscopic views, "Life on the Frontier." His pictures from a geological survey of Texas were also included in that series. Nothing else is known about Robertson or his activities, although it is possible that he may have operated a photography gallery in Brenham in the late 1870s. The glass negatives for his photographs of the buffalo hunt were discovered some fifty years later by Mabel Brooks, who was searching the home of Max Wolff for photographs of nineteenth-century Austin. Robertson's photographs are in the collections of the Texas State Library and Archives in Austin, Texas, and the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

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Buffalo Gap

1874

Probably named for the pass in Callahan Divide (mountains) crossed by thousands of buffalo that once inhabited this area. Besides providing the native Apache and Comanche Indians with food, buffaloes drew the first white hunters here, about 1874. First homes in present town were dugouts of buffalo hunters. The community began to grow in 1878 when it was named county seat and was located on the western cattle trail. In 1883, however, the new railroad town of Abilene became county seat and Buffalo Gap, like so many small Texas towns, lost prestige.

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Indian Fight, Vicinity of

1863

On August 29, 1863, Indian riders (probably Comanches) coming north from Mason County, with stolen horses, were caught a mile east of Buffalo Gap by Lt. T. C. Wright and eleven state troopers. The outnumbered soldiers were forced to attack up a steep hill and the Indians, determined to keep the herd, fought stubbornly. Wright and his men - two with severe arrow wounds - finally gave up the unequal fight and the Indians escaped with the horses. A lone rider was sent under cover of night to Camp Colorado (45 miles southeast) to bring an ambulance for the wounded. (1968)

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The Ernie Wilson Museum

1878

Located in Taylor County's historic first courthouse and jail. Although Taylor County was organized in July 1878, the building was not completed until May 20, 1880, because of Indian scares and lack of funds. Scene of frequent jail breaks, lynchings. Note cannon balls (marked by arrows) keying limestone blocks. (1964)

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Buffalo Gap, Texas

Music in Buffalo Gap

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History of Buffalo Gap

The Town That Lost to a Railroad RoadyGoat

Buffalo Gap, TX RoadyGoat

The Steakhouse That Put a Town Back on the Map RoadyGoat

German Prisoners of War

Robertson, George

Buffalo Gap

Indian Fight, Vicinity of

The Ernie Wilson Museum

Things to Do in Buffalo Gap

Everything Near Buffalo Gap