Racing as an Economic Development Tool in Frontier West Texas, 1886-1896
ISBN: 979-8-871249-85-7
by Preston Lewis
Racing to Survive
As a popular pastime on the American frontier, horse racing could always draw a crowd to admire and bet on horseflesh. Realizing its appeal, boosters of the nascent West Texas community of San Angelo used horse racing to attract investors and settlers and to distance themselves from competing communities in the Concho Valley.
Betting on Horses: Racing as an Economic Development Tool in Frontier West Texas, 1886-1896, explores how San Angelo promoters incorporated racing into their boosterism, sending local horses across the nation and broadening the community’s national exposure and reputation. Betting on Horses is the story of one frontier town’s efforts to survive and thrive as it vied with competitors for the telegraph, for the railroad, for exposure that would attract investors and for its long-term survival.
Too, it’s the story of Concho Valley racehorses like Belle P, Get There, Hal Fisher and Viola Belle, who raced on tracks from San Francisco to New York and from Chicago to New Orleans. Most famous of all the San Angelo racers was Charley Wilson, the star-crossed chestnut with the gigantic stride that beat fabled California mare Geraldine in two out of three races but was later tarnished in a cheating scandal.
Betting on Horses offers a fresh look at the role of horses in frontier life and boosterism.
In the summer of 1892, a San
Angelo racehorse named for a local bartender galloped to a Denver,
Colorado, victory over a celebrated California racing mare that
held the world record in the half-mile. That triumph provided
the pinnacle moment for a nascent horse-racing industry that not
only flourished for a decade in the Concho Valley but also played a
key role in San Angelo’s early economic development
efforts.
During the years from 1886 to 1896, San Angelo horses carrying the colors of local breeders competed at racetracks in Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Hot Springs, Memphis, Nashville, Dallas and New Orleans. Later several of those horses raised on Concho Valley grass would be sold to out-of-state stables and go on to race at some of the most popular—though not always the most scrupulously operated—tracks in New York, California, Kentucky, New Jersey, Illinois and Montana.
These Concho
Valley racehorses and their breeders helped give Tom Green County
some of its earliest national visibility at a time when San Angelo
boosters were desperately trying to build up the frontier town’s
economic muscle and establish the municipality as the premier town
in west central Texas. Consequently, Concho Valley horse
racing evolved into a cornerstone of community boosterism by
providing a focal point for civic pride and creating an attraction
that made possible the initial rise of the Concho Valley
Fair.
This convergence in San Angelo of horse racing, a traditional agrarian amusement, with boosterism, a relatively new pursuit aimed at urban growth, grew out of multiple factors, both local and national in origin, and closely followed the evolution of horse racing in North America.
In
Betting on Horses, award-winning author Preston Lewis
presents a different take on Old West history. He also makes a
story about economics engrossing while giving the sport of
horseracing fresh legs.
Lewis has done exhaustive research, and it shows, such as providing racing statistics including location, distance, field, weight, and time for numerous West Texas horses with names like Charley Wilson, Belle P and Get There. —Award-winning Author Thomas D. Clagett