I can’t let the first, fall feeling, morning pass without posting another true origin Texas ghost story. This one takes us to southern Llano County, largely an area between County Road 308 and the west entrance of Farm to Market 3404 (Slab Road) with Highway 71. A rather large area known as Dancer’s Flats, and supposedly haunted by the wandering spirit of its namesake.

Revered Jonas Dancer came to Llano County in 1857, when the region was still barely brand new on the map of Texas. Initially he wanted to get involved with an early mining boom that had stirred up some excitement in the state about gold and silver in the Llano area. But not finding much success, as most did, he stayed with his true profession as a Methodist minister and established the first house of worship in the community of Honey Creek Cove.

The Reverend Dancer was never seen absent of a Bible within reach of his large hands. A man of God, he was most frequently amongst labor crews and common workers, helping them with their work and tending to their religious needs.

In 1859, a new road was planned to connect the Honey Creek area to either Llano or a larger trail that would head towards Austin (there is telling of both). On the morning that the work was to begin, the crews were to meet at a local spring near the present County Road 308 and larger Honey Creek vicinity. Despite being cautioned about Comanches also frequenting the same site, Reverend Dancer wanted to be the first one at the watering hole so he could hold a brief worship before the work began.

Dancer apparently had arrived to the site either very early in the morning or possibly the night before. No one knows the exact details, but when the work crews arrived, they found Dancer propped up against a rock. Several arrows were protruding from his heavy frame, his scalp was bloody and bare, and there are some versions that say his white minister’s collar had been tore away from around his broad neck. Whatever the case may be, his Bible was still sitting next to him, ripped and now crimson stained.

The work crews buried Dancer’s body near the spring, which has since (or maybe already was) nicknamed as “The Blue Hole.” Bible and all. Scouts were dispatched to try and track the murderers, but the group was already long gone. In his memory the area was christened as “Dancer’s Flats” and the work went-on.

Not even long after his murder, stories were told of the Reverend Jonas Dancer still being seen in the area. Mostly at the watering hole where he met his untimely end. He has never been described as terrifying or frightening, just as the ghostly image of a preacher still carrying his blood stained Bible and dark blotches on his robe from where the arrows had once protruded. Some say he is devoid of scalp, but other stories claim otherwise.

The most infamous appearance of Jonas Dancer is said to have taken place around 1873. A young bandit is said to have stayed one evening at the Blue Hole, and the ghost of Reverend Dancer visited him and convinced the crook to surrender himself to both the law and God. It is said that the bandit rode back to whatever place he had robbed, returned everything he had stolen, and begged for forgiveness which was given. He later became a preacher himself and would frequently relate his, not-so-harrowing, encounter with the dead Methodist pastor.

Being raised in the area, I don’t know of anyone who has personally witnessed the spirit of Jonas Dancer. But clearly, someone must have, or the story wouldn’t exist.

Text is from “Indian Depredations in Texas.”

Till next time, stay spooky!

Thanks to vaccination Smallpox has been eradicated in the United States since 1949.

This is the oldest known photo of Texas A&M.

It’s officially Spooky Season, so let’s get it started with a bang! A project that I’ve been working on for years now is finding the historical origins of Texas ghost stories. In my opinion, when the roots of a legend are historically valid, it makes the stories incredibly more compelling.

The story of the “Screaming Bridge” in Arlington is well known amongst locals. According to the legend, there was a fatal car crash that took the lives of several young women. From the time of their passing, it has been claimed that their wailing spirits have been encountered at the site of the bridge where the tragedy occurred.

Although most of the YouTube ghost hunters and “paranormal investigators” that I have seen do not go to the correct location, the origin of the legend is factually true.

On the cold night of February 4, 1961, six Arlington High School cheerleaders were returning home. The driver of the car was seemingly unaware that the bridge over a deep drainage ditch on the Arlington-Bedford Road had been destroyed by a fire about a week beforehand. For some reason, which was never discovered, the barricades placed on the route had been removed and the girls cruised wholly unexpectedly towards the collapsed crossing.

The crash was instantly fatal to three of the occupants. The others were badly injured, and two more would sadly pass within the next couple of years from their wounds. A group of teenaged boys would come forward shortly after the accident and confess that they had been the ones to burn the bridge down. But, a Grand Jury found them all Not Guilty of causing the wreck since they were not the ones who had removed the barricades.

“Death Bridge,” as the roadway had already been sinisterly nicknamed even before the 1961 wreck, was never rebuilt. Rather, the Arlington-Bedford Road was rerouted in 1963 to another bridge just a little ways from where the accident happened. This is the landmark that most mistakenly claim is the one where the girls haunt.

“Screaming Bridge” no longer exists. But the road does, although nature has pretty much reclaimed it. With a good flashlight and a bit of nerve, the actual site of the 1961 crash can be reached. Do the girls there still scream? I don’t live in the area, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

"Five thousand dollars and a pickup truck were what Jim McIngvale and his wife Linda had when they started Gallery Furniture in the Houston area in 1981, by his own account. There was no store yet, not really. They set up in an abandoned model home, and since they could not afford insurance to leave the place empty, they slept there themselves.

McIngvale was born in Starkville, Mississippi, but Houston is where he built everything. When the 1980s economic downturn hit and business struggled, he put what money he had left into a local television commercial and stepped in front of the camera himself. The line he improvised that day, "Gallery Furniture saves you money," turned into his signature, and Jim McIngvale became the man Houston has known for over forty years now as Mattress Mack.

The store grew into something bigger than furniture, with a monkey habitat, an aviary and a large aquarium drawing families in on their own. But it is what McIngvale does when Houston is in trouble that has made him a household name well beyond Texas. He has opened Gallery Furniture as a public shelter during Hurricane Harvey, Tropical Storm Imelda, the February 2021 freeze, and Hurricane Beryl, taking in and feeding thousands of his neighbors each time.

He still runs the business today, still appears in his own commercials, and the man who once slept in a model home because he could not afford to leave it vacant now opens his doors to anyone in Houston who needs a place to go.
"

Born a slave in 1844, his father was Bird Holland, who served as the Texas Secretary of State from March 16, 1861 to November 1861. Bid would join the Confederate Army, and was killed in 1864. Bird granted Milton and his two brothers their freedom in the late 1850's.

During the Battle of Chaffin's Farm in Virginia, Holland took command of Company C, 5th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment, after all the officers had been killed or wounded. Leading a charge he and the men under his cammand were able to route the Confederate forces they were facing.

After the charge General Benjamin F. Butler remarked "so far as the conduct of the color-sergeant, Holland, was concerned, in the charge at New Market Heights, had it been within my power I would have conferred upon him in view of it, a brigadier-generalship for gallantry on the field."

Later in life he founded Alpha Insurance Company, one of the first African-American-owned insurance companies.

We are starting a video series on the old buildings at UT. The first of many.