In This Episode
• [02:44] A December 1907 morning in San Antonio and a pile of small pine blocks
• [03:54] The Toepperwein family comes from Prussia and settles at Leon Springs in Bexar County
• [05:04] Toepperwein or Topperwein? How to spell it and how Ken says it
• [06:01] The family connection to Texas Ranger Max Aue and Aue Station
• [06:39] Gunsmith Ferdinand Toepperwein’s rifle patent, plus a callback to the Sisterdale revolver (Ep. 130)
• [08:22] A crossbow at age six, Doc Carver, and Ad’s job as a newspaper artist
• [09:30] Glass target balls and trick shots from a bicycle and upside down
• [11:57] 979 of 1,000 glass balls at San Pedro Park in 1897
• [13:54] Drawing pictures with a .22 rifle
• [14:30] The Coney Island shooting gallery that ran out of cigars
• [15:42] Vaudeville, London, and a winter with a circus in Mexico City
• [17:10] Signing with Winchester and shooting from a Ferris wheel
• [18:15] Meet Elizabeth, the Winchester cartridge-plant worker who had never fired a gun
• [20:40] How Ad taught her to shoot, and the trust it took to hold the targets
• [22:57] How “Plinky” got her nickname, and where the word “plinking” may come from
• [25:17] The race for the flying-block record against Capt. A. H. Hardy
• [26:18] Ten days, sore shoulders, and every .22 cartridge in San Antonio
• [30:23] Plinky the trapshooter: the 1909 Grand American and 1,952 of 2,000 in 1916
• [32:49] A bumblebee, a suspended murder trial, and an Indian head on a cliff near Uvalde
• [34:14] Annie Oakley meets Plinky
• [34:53] Training World War I flight cadets in Austin
• [35:45] Plinky’s death, Tom Frye’s 1959 challenge, and “Keep your powder dry”
• [37:37] Halls of fame, a Texas historical marker, and the Buckhorn collection
• [38:22] Getting There

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Why would an Army fort on the Texas frontier be built without a wall? In episode 156 of Wise About Texas, recorded live at the Young County Museum of History and Culture in Graham, Texas, host Ken Wise talks with Jim Hammond, director of Fort Belknap near Newcastle, about the 1851 post that became a crossroads of North Texas on the Butterfield trail and the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Hammond describes a soldier’s life that was far more monotonous than the movies suggest—until it wasn’t. He then takes listeners through the Elm Creek Raid of October 1864, when Comanche and Kiowa warriors crossed the Red River into a Young County emptied of most of its men by the Civil War, and the story of Britt Johnson, the man he calls his “hero of the frontier.” Listen to the full episode to hear how one small fort shaped the Texas frontier.

Episode 155: Young County Museum of History and Culture, Graham, Texas
Ken Wise records live at the Young County Museum of History and Culture in Graham, Texas, during its first-anniversary celebration. Curator and board president Tony Widner and founder Shannon Potts explain how they turned a 1937 Piggly Wiggly into a museum, why Young County holds so much Texas history, and the stories behind their most prized artifacts, from a Marlow brothers pistol to a James Monroe peace medal from the Elm Creek Raid.
In This Episode
• [00:47] Meet Shannon Potts and Tony Widner
• [01:11] How the Warren Wagon Train Raid site and a retired police chief started a museum
• [03:31] Building a museum with no museum experience
• [05:04] The building's history: Piggly Wiggly, Goodyear and church storage
• [07:02] Choosing which Young County stories to tell
• [09:43] Why Young County is a center of Texas frontier history
• [11:16] The first artifacts: a cavalry spur from Cox Mountain and a Marlow brothers pistol
• [12:23] The Marlow brothers story, from horse-theft arrest to the U.S. Supreme Court
• [16:14] The 1817 James Monroe peace medal from the 1864 Elm Creek Raid
• [18:34] Oil and gas history and Shannon's father's petroleum collection
• [18:58] The oak tree where cattle raisers organized in 1877
• [20:53] Oral histories and Hispanic, Native American and immigrant stories
• [22:45] Becoming a hub for North Texas history museums
• [23:55] The research library of more than 2,000 books
• [25:30] The Satanta portrait and the museum's murals
• [28:14] Charles Goodnight and the chuck wagon in Young County
• [30:11] Artifacts the museum is seeking, and Young County's Apollo 11 connection
• [31:23] Location, hours and group tours
Guests
• Tony Widner, curator and board president, Young County Museum of History and Culture; retired Graham chief of police
• Shannon Potts, founder, Young County Museum of History and Culture
Mentioned in This Episode
• Fort Belknap and historian Jim Hammond
• Warren Wagon Train Raid (1871), Satanta and Satank
• Marlow brothers and Sheriff Marion Wallace
• Elm Creek Raid (1864) and Little Buffalo
• Cox Mountain
• Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association
• Charles Goodnight, Oliver Loving and Cynthia Ann Parker
• Wildcatter Ranch
• Frontier Texas! in Abilene and museums in Wichita Falls and Fort Worth
• Hexcel and the Apollo 11 lunar module
Visit the Museum
Young County Museum of History and Culture, 609 4th Street, Graham, TX 76450. Open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call ahead for group tours.
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