Historian's newest volume focuses on Letters from Dockum's Store near Espuela other than the showcase music festival featuring four bands and one acoustical group—have been planned for the Foothills Celebration on Saturday, October 15, in downtown Matador.
Marking an emphasis on heritage tourism, the Motley County Museum will feature a book signing for grassroots historian Marisue Burleson Potts. As a founding board member of the museum, Potts has utilized the resources the all volunteer-run facility to publish four books on local and regional history.
Her fourth book to be published since the advent of the sequestering and social distancing of the Covid-19 episode is “Direct Your Letter to the Matador Ranch.” The account of the D. C. and Ella Cribbs Keith pen-pal romance is based on some 80 letters the pair wrote to each other from 1886 to 1891 and were donated to the museum by members of the Keith family.
Cowboy Keith, who wrote from Dockum’s Store near Espuela, convinced Tol Merriman of Dickens County to give him the name of a farmer’s daughter who could possibly help him pass the lonely winter nights with her letters. The setting of the poignant relationship chronicled the settling up of the country and the organization of Motley County, as well as one of the first marriages in that county.
A family reunion was the first time Potts related the story she had gleaned from the faded and frayed missives, but in 1995 she gave it in a session at the National Cowboy Symposium. From that talk details were picked up by Kent Biffle, a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, as “Lonesome Cowboy found his mate in mail,” gaining what Biffle described as the most hits received by one of his columns to date. In 1997 Potts wrote “Penpal Courtship Results in a Tech Legacy” for the Texas Techsan Magazine. Various programs and articles written about the Keiths and others were shared over the years through meetings of the West Texas Historical Association, but Potts determined that 2021 was the time to finish this and her other three book possibilities.
In response to the question, How do you write a book? The 80-year-old replied, “You write one story at a time, keep a journal, and never quit researching.”
For Potts, the first order of business for this project was a second edition of “Motley County Roundup, Over 100 Years of Gathering,” a comprehensive volume self-published for the county’s centennial in 1991. Next was “Ridgely Greathouse,” an old varmint poisoner on the Matador Ranch who had a secret, adventuresome life as a Confederate exile. The third book Potts sent off to the publisher was “Cowgirls Don’t Cry,” based on her personal experiences living on a ranch in the shadow of the Caprock.
All books will be available at the book signing, as well as books by other authors, and copies of the documentary “A Line in the Sand,” which was produced by Motley County native Carol Campbell to show the effects of drought and a range fire that united county residents.
Besides refreshments, a tour, and a place to cool off or warm up, the Motley County Museum will have items from the Shannon Davidson Day, the Centennial Celebration, and other events for sale when the museum opens at 11 a.m., one block off the main street entrance to the courthouse square.
Besides self-piloted auto tours by the historic Motley County Jail and the legendary Bob’s Oil Well, Foothills Celebration will feature a car show and the Legends of Texas, new and old businesses featuring a coffee shop, several varieties, an upscale T-shirt shop, various vendors, and food trucks including barbecue, loaded potatoes, hot dogs, tacos, and the popular ice cream frozen by nitrogen.
There will be an entrance fee at two gates leading to the activities around the large square. First begun as a local Chamber of Commerce project known as Foothills Saturday Night with a street dance and vendors, Foothills Celebration has grown into what promoters are looking to make an annual affair, to bring in potential new residents and provide something for former residents to return to, the country life “under the hill” of the Caprock escarpment.
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