Gerald-Harris Shooting

The Handbook of Texas says Judge G. B. Gerald lost an arm in the November 1897 gunfight that killed James W. Harris and his brother W. A. Harris; the plaque says only that he was wounded. After Brann died in April 1898, the Handbook's Iconoclast entry says business manager W. H. Ward handled the May issue and G. B. Gerald succeeded as editor. Brann's widow sold the magazine in July 1898, and it moved to Chicago that September. The plaque notes that Gerald won reelection as judge in 1900.

What the plaque says

Gerald-Harris Shooting (November 19, 1897) James W. Harris (1863-1897), editor of Waco's "Time -Herald" and Judge George Bruce Gerald (1836-1914) argued over an article the Judge wrote. It supported William Cowper Brann's controversial magazine, "The Iconoclast", which denounced, among other things, Baptists and Baylor University. After a fist fight which Harris won, the Judge distributed a handbill branding Harris "a liar, coward and cur" and challenged him to a duel. Harris and his brother met Judge Gerald near this intersection in a pistol battle. The Harrises were killed and the Judge wounded. Judge Gerald won reelection in 1900. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dr Pepper Museum — 0.2 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 0.3 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 0.7 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 1.2 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.

More markers nearby

• Brann-Davis Shootings — steps away
• McLennan County Medical Society — steps away
• "The Waco Horror": The Lynching of Jesse Washington — steps away
• Waco — steps away