Pedro Vial, a Frenchmen hired by the Spanish to find a route between San Antonio and Santa Fe, was possibly the first European to enter the territory that became known as Hill County, Texas. That was in 1789.
In 1870, a 16 year old John Wesley Hardin was busy in the county, drinking, gambling and killing. By January of that year, Hardin had shot and killed 8 men, the first in a long list of 42 slayings that Hardin claimed before he was shot and killed in an El Paso saloon, in 1895 by Constable John Selman. Hardin wasn't alone.
In the years following the Civil War, Hill County was reportedly "infested with outlaws and desperadoes" who actively resisted Governor Edmund Davis' State Police. Davis had fought with the Union and was oddly unpopular in Hill County, along with the Reconstruction Government and its law.
When the latter moved against the Kinch West -- who may or may not have ridden with Quantrill's Raiders -- and Cox Brothers gang, locals didn't give their support and martial law was declared in 1871.
The outlaws have gone now and Hill County is comparatively law abiding. But reflect on this. 1871 isn't that long ago.
LSP
