COKE COUNTY BUSINESS PIONEERS - Buchanan, Hall, Leonard, and Vestal Contributed by Jo Collier 29 November 2004 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/txfiles.htm *********************************************************************** Centennial Edition - 1889 Coke County Rustler 1904 1904 Robert Lee Observer 1984 1907 Bronte Enterprise 1984 - 1904, Observer/Enterprise July 21, 1989 JESS BUCHANAN Robert Lee Observer 1939 J. N. Buchanan recalls he ran this ad, "Jess Buchanan is still in the Barber Business," and it ran 15 years without changing. HALL WAS EARLY PUBLISHER Robert Lee Observer 1939 THIRTY SEVEN YEARS AGO by Ulmer Bird R. L. Hall began his first work with the Observer in 1902. Mr. Hall moved from here to establish the Ft. Chadbourne News, in 1907, and published it there for a year and a half. That was a big town then, growing rapidly and gave promise of becoming a health resort due to mineral water found there. Two townsites were developed as expected. Mr. Hall put out the Rustler and Observer many times with an old style George Washington hand press, before a power press was installed. ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1939- DR. LEONARD STILL HAS SADDLEBAGS HE STARTED WITH AT BRONTE 36 YEARS AGO On May 1, Dr. J. D. Leonard will have been in Bronte 36 years. In that time he has attended 1720 births, an average of 48 per year. In 1932 there were 62. One year there were over 70. In 1933, one per week. The past twelve months have brought the fewest babies in the 36 years of his practice here. Coming to Bronte by mail hack May 1, 1903, he faced a blizzard without an overcoat. There was a big frost which bit corn nearly to the ground, he recalls. Despite this cold "reception", he stayed with the new town and has for some years been the only practicing physician at Bronte. HAS KEPT SADDLE BAGS Dr. Leonard still has the "pill bags" that he carried on his saddle during his first practice. A hundred miles from a hospital, he carried with him lance, forcepts, splints, and the most necessary drugs. When the Orient came in 1906, he helped lay off the new townsite at Bronte. With his practice in the town and country, he has reared and educated six children, Though his work has taken him often as far as twenty-five miles into the country, Dr. Leonard says he still would not exchange it for any other kind of work. ---------------------- IN STEP WITH THE TIMES Keeping in touch with each forward step in medicine, he has seen during his years at Bronte the greatest changes come over the field. He has not yet had occasion to use the sulfaprydine treatment, though it is kept available for his patients. "This is a medicine injected into the blood stream which kills foreign bodies in the blood, but does not show any injurious effect on the patient," he said. -------------------------------- J. J. VESTAL WAS TOWN BLACKSMITH Robert Lee Observer 1939 Village Blacksmith No "under a spreading chestnut tree," for he left the chestnuts behind a long time ago, but "under a spreading mesquite tree," or near it, is the blacksmith shop built by Uncle Johnnie Vestal, who moved here from Hayrick when the town was built and began shoeing horses and sharpening plows for the settlers. In the Coke County Rustler of 1892 this ad appears, "J. J. Vestal is prepared to do your blacksmithing for cash." In Robert Lee Observer, Friday, Sept. 27, 1935, this ad appears, "J. J. and Son have wagon timbers in stock and ready to do your wagon work. Trailer hitches and horseshoeing a specialty." He has always been ready to do your work and now he is eighty-four years old and still ready. Uncle Johnny came here before there was a Coke County and settled on a piece of land on Indian Creek. He intended then to quit the trade and go to farming, but had his tools there on the place. Farming wasn't so much on the up, and soon settlers were bringing in blacksmithing and he was doing it. When Hayrick was built, he moved there and set up a shop, and was in business there when the courthouse burned. Vestal and Son have never gone in much for automobile work, but stuck to straight blacksmithing. The work is done to the tune of electric motors, but the old friendly atmosphere of other years still linger around. Permission granted by The Observer/Enterprise for publication in the Coke County TXGenWeb Archives.