Chasing Our Tales - Dublin, Texas

The first attempts at settlement were made in 1854 by A. H. Dobkins and Will and Tom Holland near the site of present-day Dublin, Texas, in southwestern Erath County, the town with the world’s oldest Dr. Pepper bottling plant. Dublin was also the boyhood home of legendary golfer Ben Hogan, who was born on August 13, 1912, at the hospital in nearby Stephenville. Hogan lived in Dublin until 1921, when he and his family relocated to Fort Worth.

The settlement was first named "Doublin" in 1860, presumably for Dobkins, but there appears to be controversy over its origin, and other suggestions are that it was named for the the warning cry at Indian raids, "Double In"; for the capital of Ireland; or for the double-log cabins used by early settlers. The town was incorporated as Dublin on March 18, 1889.

The story is told that on a hot summer morning in 1855, a group of scouts commissioned by the State of Texas, were seeking a band of Comanches that had been raiding throughout the territory. The Indians were followed along a creek bed in the norther section of the Milam district (later to be known as Erath County). The scouts stopped at a watering hole on Green’s Creek to rest when they spotted black smoke rising from the other side of a hill some three hundred yards to the southeast.

When the scouts investigated they found the murdered bodies of a young couple lying in front of their burning cabin, and close to them lay the body of a young boy. It appeared they had all been tortured, killed, and scalped. Then the naked body of an infant was found about fifty yards from cabin where she seemed to have been drug through cactus, a rope still tied to her feet.

The scouts took up the trail of the Indians and followed them to the banks of the Leon River where all nine Comanches paid for the massacre with their lives.

The scouts returned to the watering hole of Green’s Creek where they buried the pioneer family. This place would later be named McDow Hole.

Many years later, in the summer of 1921, Jewel and Dieletta Hickey were fetching water from Green’s Creek hole. As they walked toward their home, nine-year-old Jewel dropped her water buckets and ran toward her home where she arrived with an expression of horror on her face. The terrified child cried that a dog had chased her. However, her younger sister said that as she ran behind Jewel she had not seen a dog. The horrified Jewel explained that she hadn’t seen it either. She said the “thing” was growling and snapping at her legs and that she could hear it, but when she turned to look she saw nothing. She continued by saying that it had been panting loudly and she felt its teeth striking together right at her heels. Afterward for over thirty years, the family witnessed other strange occurrences around McDow Hole. This was one of many “ghost stories” that were recorded from 1865 onward after a young mother and her baby were murdered near the hole.

In 1874 Dublin grew as a stagecoach service and a post office were established. In 1881 the Texas Central Railroad was built through the area a few miles from Dublin at Mount Airy. J. D. Bishop laid the town out on a line four miles south of Mount Airy, which drew the residents from old Dublin to New Dublin, and within a year the New Dublin had 45 businesses and 65 homes. When that happened, the railroad moved it depot from Mount Airy to the New Dublin.

On the 1890 census, the population was 2,025, and it climbed slowly until it reached in 3,190 in 1990, at the centennial of its first census.

Dublin is an agricultural and industrial center, and businesses there include oil and gas production, clothing factories, peanut shelling and drying plants, feed mills, milk processing, saddle and rope making, and metal stamping. Dublin boasts two city parks, the Lyon Museum, a public library which has a considerable genealogical collection, a hospital, and a nursing home. It also has an airport, two railroads, a golf course, and recreational facilities on Proctor Reservoir. It was one of the first towns in Texas to have streetcars (which are no more). In the 1940’s and 1950’s it was home to Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy’s, world champion rodeo, and it was the former home of the annual Grand Army of the Republic reunion.

William Robinson, also known as Choctaw Bill, served as organizer and pastor of over twenty Baptist churches in Texas, and Dublin was among them, along with those he assisting the organization of the West Fork Baptist Association in Tarrant County in 1855 and the Brazos River Baptist Association in Parker County in 1858. He served as state missionary for the Baptist State Convention, while engaging in ranching and serving as postmaster in Paluxy, Texas. Later he owned and operated both a sawmill and a gristmill at Hazel Dell in Comanche County.

Another interesting person who came to Dublin, Texas, was Annie Harelik Novit who immigrated to the United States from Russia in the early 1900’s. She was born in the village of Slavan in White Russia, on August 13, 1886. She enjoyed her childhood, ice skating on the Berezina River in the wintertime, but in 1906 Russia experienced a revolution and times became very hard for Russian Jews. They were beaten and their homes and businesses were burned, so her family left Russia and eventually settled in Dublin and opened a store. I find this terribly interesting because I grew up with a relative of hers, Bette Ann Novit, whose father, Morris, was a businessman in Stephenville in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Morris and Fannie Mae Novit are both pictured in the TCU annual of 1928.

By far one of the greatest attractions in Dublin today is the Dr. Pepper Bottling Plant. Established in 1891, the plant is the oldest continuous bottling plant in America, bottling for over 100 years and still continuing today. This plant still uses pure cane sugar rather than cheaper corn syrup now used by most bottlers, including other Dr Pepper plants.

Another interesting place in Dublin today is the The Hoka Hey Fine Arts Foundry and Gallery. It is a superb place to view locally made sculpture. It produces quite wonderful bronze statues, and among them is one of John Wayne that was created in 1982.

Here are some other interesting tidbits and queries about the families of Dublin, Texas.

Steve Replin asks, “Does anyone have any information or recollection of the Replin family in Dublin, Texas, from the early 1900's to the 1940's? They operated Replin’s Dry Good Stores in 9 small Texas communities, and any help would be greatly appreciated. My father, Morris Replin ,was born in Dublin Texas in 1920.”

The following obituary states, “Lora Rector Wilson, 86 a Diamond Springs, California, resident, died October 8, 2000. She was born Jan. 24, 1914 in Dublin, Texas. Mrs. Wilson was a homemaker for 68 years. She is survived by her husband, Curtis Wilson of Diamond Springs, her son, Donald Irvine of San Diego, her sisters, Lena Phelps of Texas, Leila of Arkansas, Edith Massingile of Fontana, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.”

Rosemarie Price says, “I am looking for information on John Burton Davis and wife Annie Matilda Chamberlin Davis who lived near Dublin, Texas, off and on 1882-1901. Their children: Bertie, Dellie, Allen Young "AY", Addie, Robert. Annie died there around February 1900. John farmed out the younger children. AY and Addie to the Russell and Tennie Cannon family and Robert to the East family. Bertie went to Abilene with Rafe Hair. Dellie married John Henry Tackett. Speculation is that John took Annie's body back to their previous home, Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Lousiana, where his other children, Lucy, Tommy, and William Kenyon were buried in Old Pine Hill Cemetery, to bury their mother beside them.”

©2008 Sue Seibert