The Devils Backbone Tavern Ghosts. (original) (raw)

I know how things used to work in rural Texas. In the 1930s and 40s I spent a lot of time at Pollok in Angelina County. There were places that were only known by descriptive names. Here are a few: family names were used like roads named Fenley Flat and Edwards Loop instead of numbers like they are now. Other locations used place names like The River Bottom (Angelina River at the one easy access road. If you said you are going Across The River (Neches) that would be to buy alcohol and drink in a wet County. If you had fish to sell you would go to The Sawmill (Keltys was a company town).

That was all changed on July 1, 1963 when the whole country was assigned Zip Code numbers based partly on local reasons. With past ghostly events in Hays County, it accepted the zip code of 78666 as recognition of it's history. I am not trying to settle which came first the chicken or the egg but Devil's Backbone Road existed long before the Zip Code.

In the fall of 1963 - it was deer hunting season in Hays County. Four of us hunting on the D Ranch decided to stop for a beer on Ranch Road 32 otherwise known as the Devils Backbone. The name is partly because the road follows a local mountain chain. What happened during this time frame was very much like a step back into the then popular TV show of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone.

Beginning at Ranch to Market Road 12 (RM12) in Wimberley, Ranch Road 32 travels west to US281 south of Blanco. I think most Texans know of it. The highway known as Devils Backbone is only 24 miles long.

I have written about Roadside Mile Marker 666 on I-10. Purgatory Road and Devil's Backbone intersection are near the west and north boundaries of zip 78666. Purgatory is also a place believed by some religions after death to purify the soul.

For about 15 years or more, Don invited friends to gather a few times a year for a week or a week-end at D Ranch we would renew our comradeship with hunting, shooting pool and playing poker and chainsaw cutting cedar while drinking beer. We also told all our best old stories, one more time, just so we didn't forget how to tell them. We brought our rifles and other shooting irons to accompany us into the deer stands that we had built over many years. Have you ever heard the song that says a pistol is the devils right hand? Naturally some of our time was spent trying to kill a deer. Most of our time was spent doing what we called - BEING TEXAN.

On this particular November 1963 visit, all week end football telecasts were cancelled because of a Dallas event. Football telecasts were a big part of our entertainment at the ranch. That being the case four of us decided this would be a good time to ride the Devils Backbone Road. We had heard of awesome views from this road built on a mountain ridge.