Seeing as histories of the Glenn Springs Raid talk about the mining men that were kidnapped in Boquillas, Coahuila after the raiders retreated back into Mexico, I figured I'd find the names of these men in the Alpine Avalanch. Once I had the names, I could try to track down their children and grandchildren in order to get their stories. Because the raid took place a year after Moser died, I figured this would lead to a new chapter in the story.
So, I spent lunch at the Center for American History at UT. The May 11, 1916 edition of the Avalanch was a great find. I'll post more later, but there were two articles: one was about the raid itself and the other was about the kidnapping and escape of the mining men, with their names! All found within 20 minutes.
The kidnapped men all worked for the Porto (sic) Rico de Boquillas Mines, Texas. They were:
Carl Halter, mine superintendent
R.R. Has brouck, assayer
Dr. Homer Powers of San Angelo
W.T. Butler
Nick Postrius
N.R. McKnight
George Scott
Austan Swayze
Great leads!
So, I asked the librarian if the Center for American History had any kind of biographical index. He said, "Sure, those card catalogs over there index names in Texas newspapers. They're organized by city." He pointed to these two, big card catalogs that I always ignored as I walked past them on my way to the microfilm. I figured they were the card catalog before everything was put online, probably in the mid-80's. Boy, was I wrong. If the people I'm researching are in these indices, it will save me a lot of time as they point me directly where I need to go, instead of trolling through newspapers hoping to find something.
So, I started looking for Moser in the San Antonio Express, San Antonio Free Press, San Antonio Light, and El Paso Herald. I struck out. But, I noticed that the index wasn't just names, it was places and things as well.
I found entries for Boquillas in the El Paso Herald section of the catalog and they were all about the Glenn Springs raid and subsequent events. Paydirt! Apparently, the librarians concentrated on the big news items of the day. I found nine cards devoted to the Glenn Springs raid, from May 9th to May 24th, 1916. And, the librarians copied the first paragraph of the stories onto the index cards. While I didn't have time to retrieve the articles, I did learn three important things from those paragraphs:
1) The ore terminal was attacked AFTER the Glenn Springs raid.
2) The name of mining company after Moser died was indeed the International Mining Company. (I wasn't able to substantiate that, having come across a few mentions of it in history books, but the footnotes that referenced the name all pointed to other sources that don't say where they got the information. I bet it's a good chance they got it from these newspaper accounts.)
3) F. C. Morehouse was the president and general manager of the International Mining Company.
So, wow! NONE of the histories talk about how the ore terminal was attacked. The Glenn Springs raid looms pretty large in all the histories, but they all seem to follow the story into Mexico with Major Langhorne. Apparently, the Ore Terminal was attacked when Langhorne was most likely in La Noria, immediately before he decided to cross over into Mexico.
More wow! I now know the name of the man who replaces Moser in the story. Right now, I see three chapters in the story of the ore terminal:
Chapter 1: Moser's Dream. Building the Terminal.
Chapter 2: Running the Terminal. Moser's Death.
Chapter 3: Morehouse's Story
Broad strokes, but the outline of the story is getting clearer. I'll post specifics to the website in the future (including articles), but I wanted to share the great news for now.
Posted by Joelg at January 20, 2005 10:47 PM | TrackBack