TX BIOS:  Mrs. H. E. Chestnut
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   0001
   
   Mrs. C. M. Cohea
   
   Amarillo, Texas
   
   District #16 PANHANDLE PIONEERS
   
   Interview with: Mrs. H. E. Chestnut
   
   1406 Monroe Street, Amarillo, Texas
   
   As a small child Mrs. Chestnut came to Amarillo with her parents, Mr.
   and Mrs. Trigg, in 1889. Mr. Trigg brought his wife, who had a chronic
   throat ailment, to the high plains for her health, which she regained
   in the salubrious air of the Panhandle.
   
   Mrs. Trigg, wearied with the long overland journey and dismayed at the
   dreary stretch of unadorned prairie, asked her husband if he were
   going to the "jumping [DEL: of :DEL] off place".
   
   When the Trigg family arrived in Amarillo, the famous Amarillo Hotel
   was still in the process of construction. The best residential
   district was at that time in the vicinity of First and Fifth streets
   on Lincoln, Pierce, and Buchanan. Street cars later ran south on
   Lincoln to Fifteenth and thence to Washington.
   
   The home of W. D. Twichell, pioneer teacher and educator of Amarillo,
   was at 710 Pierce, as Mrs. Chestnut recalls, where he taught a private
   school. Mr. Twichell, who was one of the first surveyors in Amarillo
   and the Panhandle, stayed in Tascosa during the most hectic period of
   that notorious old cowboy capital.
   
   Mrs.Chestnut remembers the time when the first churchhouse in
   Amarillo, the old Methodist Church building at 701 Jackson, was used
   by all local denominations in friendly cooperation. The presiding
   ministers of the first Amarillo churches frequently eked out a slender
   income by going into the outlying districts of the Panhandle to hold
   services.
   
   Famous Heights Park, created about the lake still to be seen south of
   the Tenth Street highway, was established by a Mr. [Isaacs?] who owned
   the Famous Dry Goods store in Amarillo, as Mrs. Chestnut remembers.
   Mrs. [Isaacs?] [built?] an island in the middle of the lake, connected
   to the mainland by means of an earthen causeway. A pavilion on the
   island provided shade and a place for dancing or band playing. Boats
   were operated on the lake, which was reached by an open bus. The
   Isaacs home, a neat brick structure, 00022still stands east of the
   lake.
   
   Mrs. Chestnut remembers the time when the rangers were stationed in
   Amarillo between Fourth and Fifth streets on Tyler. John L. Sullivan
   was one of the rangers whose name she recalls. Rangers were needed to
   keep order; for cowboys, after long drives from distant ranches of the
   Southwest and even old Mexico, gave themselves over to relaxation and
   the pleasures of the town's numerous saloons. Trail herds were often
   held on the prairie near Amarillo in the vicinity of the stockyards,
   which were located on the present site of the shelter.

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