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Whistle Blower The train is late and the evening air nippy, but the crowd gathered at 4th and Red River Streets in downtown Austin is practically giddy with good cheer. After all, we're waiting to take a ride on a steam train -- the River City Flyer -- and the excitement of the many youngsters in the crowd can't help but rub off on the adults. The banjo playing troubadour doesn't hurt either. Since the four o'clock excursion had been canceled, some of us have been waiting over two hours (We later learned the reason why: the train had run over a car on the way down from Cedar Park). Then, at last, here she comes 'round the bend, rolling under the I-35 overpass black and big as a dinosaur, hissing and clanking and belching steam and smoke. Wow. What a sight. She's bigger than you'd expect. Everybody cheers. The whole thing takes us back in time, back to a past that, strictly speaking, we were never a part of -- an era when steam trains were the only kind of trains there were, when a ride was a horse, not a car, and flying was only for the birds and drunks and opium fiends. Steam trains may have been commonplace in those days, but I'd like to think the sound of that whistle blowing and the sight of those big lumbering beasts rolling down the track had the same power to conjure up feelings of magic and wonder as they do now. On March 11, 1884, Ben Thompson, one of Austin's most colorful citizens, boarded the train for San Antonio and a night of carousing that would end up being a trip to nowhere. Ben was a gambler by trade and he was also pretty handy with a six-shooter. No less an authority on gunfighting, lawman and writer Bat Masterson estimated that Ben was in all probability the top gun in the West. Ben's reputation and skills came in handy when he served as Austin City Marshal. Crime fell to an all time low during his term, but he had to resign when he was tried for the murder of Jack Harris, owner of a San Antonio joint called the Variety Theater, which offered booze, dancing girls, stage plays, cigars, and the like. Ben was acquitted, and when he returned to Austin, he was greeted with a huge parade and a brass band. But less than two years later, on March 11, 1884, Ben and his pal, John King Fisher, another gunfighting sometime-lawman who shared Ben's fondness for strong drink, got together and started tossing 'em back and the next thing you know, they were on the train for San Antonio, headed back to the Variety Theatre. Between Austin and San Antonio, however, somebody got off the train and telegraphed ahead, tipping off Harris' revenge-hungry pals, and they set a deadly trap at the nightclub for the two carousing gunfighters. What resulted was no gunfight; it was an assassination. Ben Thompson and John King Fisher died in a hail of no less than two dozen bullets. The dastardly deed was ruled to be self-defense, but Austinites didn't buy that. In fact, the two cities began a war of words in the press that lasted for months. For more details on Ben Thompson and his train ride to oblivion, check out the web site at left and follow the links to cool period photos of some of the principals and the scene of the crime. The bio material on Ben, however, contains the oft-repeated and inexcusable misconception that Ben was once arrested by Wyatt Earp. I'd venture to say that if Earp and Thompson had ever confronted each other, Wyatt would have died young and the OK Corral would never have happened. Think of all the cool movies we'd miss out on. Like train whistles too far away to hear. (12/15/97) |
| Hill Country Flyer and other
steam train sites around the state
Stupid Train Tricks: Sept. 15, 1896, two locomotives crashed head-on in a giant and ill-advised stunt near Waco, billed as The Crash at Crush. Many were thrilled, some were killed, the guy who thought it up was fired. |
