THE PRAIRIE FIRE OF 1901

On August 31st, 1899, my father with my mother, my brother and myself left our old home in the little community of Wilson Prairie, forty miles northwest of Fort Worth, for the long trek to the old Staked Plains, a distance of some three hundred miles. We were two weeks on the road and when we drove up to our friends' half-dugout which was lighted with a brightly polished kerosene lamp, well, it was a glorious sight.

Soon the men folks began to build our mansion which consisted of a 16'x20' half-dugout.

Summer passed and the next winter was dry. The stock thrived on the fine 6 to 8 inch high mesquite, gramma and buffalo grasses which were no longer green but were as good as the best quality hay. This set the stage for the prairie fires. That winter and spring we had seen the smoke of several in the distance but none had

come our way.

On the morning of April 4th 1901, my sister and I decided to wash, and by the time we were ready to hang out, a brisk southwest wind had sprung up. We had no place to hang them except on the barbed wire fence so we, one at each end, held the sheets up in the wind to dry which didn't take long. Soon after, we began to smell smoke but could see none. After an hour the smoke began to drift in and was soon dense. We began to wonder what we should and could do if the fire should jump the wide fire guards to the west and south of us. The cattle had come into the corral so we decided for their safety we would drive them outside the corral into the JA ranch so they might run for their lives. With all our efforts, whipping them