Gunfight at the Lampasas Saloon

The police the Horrells fought were a short-lived force. The Police Act of July 1870 authorized 257 men, though the force never reached 200. Its members were Black, Hispanic and White, Union and Confederate veterans, mostly Republicans, under Governor Edmund J. Davis. In their first month they made 978 arrests, and by 1872 the total stood at 6,820. Their Black officers and Davis's control made them unpopular, and the law was repealed on April 22, 1873, about five weeks after the Lampasas killings. Leander McNelly and others then joined the Texas Rangers.

What the plaque says

Gunfight at the Lampasas Saloon In the early 1870s Lampasas was a wild frontier town. In January 1873 Sheriff S.T. Denson was shot while arresting brothers Wash and Mark Short. The district judge sent men to apprehend the Short brothers, but the posse was stopped by Ben, Tom, and Mart Horrell and several others. Sheriff Denson and the justices of the peace of Lampasas County appealed to Governor Edmund J. Davis for the assistance of the State Police. On February 10, Governor Davis issued a proclamation prohibiting the carrying of sidearms in Lampasas. On March 14, Captain Thomas Williams and seven state policemen entered Lampasas to enforce the proclamation. The State Police immediately arrested Bill Bowen for carrying a gun in town. Bowen persuaded Captain Williams and two of his men to enter Jerry Scott's Lampasas Saloon, this led to a gunfight between the State Police and the Horrell brothers and their associates. Three officers were killed in the saloon and a fourth was fatally wounded while trying to escape. The police were buried in Lampasas, but Captain Williams was reinterred in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. More State Police came to Lampasas and joined forces with the sheriff and Lampasas and Burnet County Minute Men companies to search for the Horrell Gang. They arrested four men connected with the incident. In early May the Horrell gang attacked the Georgetown Jail and released Mart Horrell and Jerry Scott form custody. The Horrell gang remained in the Lampasas area until September when they left for New Mexico. In 1874 they returned to Lampasas. In 1876 the Horrell brothers stood trial for the murder of the State Police, but were found not guilty. (2000)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 0.8 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 18 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Inks Lake State Park — 25 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 27 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Horrell-Higgins Feud — steps away
• First State Meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas — steps away
• Texas Bankers Association — steps away
• Lampasas County, C.S.A. — steps away