Putting on a Reenactment - Part One

Part One: The Decision to do a Reenactment

In 2020, I had written a western script for a feature length film and had hopes of raising funds to produce it myself. Everywhere I turned, I kept getting conflicting advice, and the location I intended on using began to show signs of not working out. In the meantime, a group of friends from my small Central Texas hometown wanted to celebrate its 150^th anniversary, and they approached me about helping. Even though I had not lived there for many years, the town was in my blood, and I agreed to be in charge of a reenactment of an 1883 shootout on Main Street and the events leading up to it.

There were issues to surmount from the beginning. As in every small town, there was a lot of personality conflict. The local historical society and museum had been taken over by out-of-towners with the curator’s support. And she flatly refused to endorse a reenactment, saying an earlier one had almost torn the historical society apart. The out-of-town officers saw no good reason to put on a 150^th celebration that was going to present so many issues and not make them much money. They overrode the objections of the other two officers and chose instead to be involved in an event at a winery a few miles out of town in hopes of raising more funds. The old timers of the town were incensed—our biggest claim to fame—the shootout, a result of vigilant hangings—had happened downtown and needed to be downtown.

Without the support of a nonprofit, we were stranded. Should our small committee of devotees continue on our own? We decided yes. We couldn’t let our beloved hometown’s 150^th anniversary pass unnoticed, in spite of the threat of Covid and a non-participation that was soon to become an active war with those running the historical society.

Then there were the events of 1883. Vigilantism is deservedly abhorred in our day and place in time.  But in 1883, things were drastically different. Crime had run rampant with the coming of the railroad and later the Civil War and its aftereffects. A gang of criminals formed, calling themselves the “Notch-cutters.”

One man wrote: “I never saw a light in our house for ten years, and when Hello was answered it would be from upstairs off the porch, and from behind the barrels of the old ten gauge.” Men wore dresses when they plowed in the fields to keep from being killed. The town was situated close the county line. When the sheriff finally did arrive, the criminals were hiding in the hills of the next county. Juries were threatened, intimated, or packed with friends and relatives. Convictions were rare. People who complained to the law were killed or had their houses and barns burned to the ground.  

Retaliation in the form of vigilante groups was bound to happen. This was something people who had deep roots in the town understood and accepted. But our committee took great pains to explain this to others who had no clue of the wild and violent history of the little community.

So instead of making a film as I had hoped, I became immersed in producing a reenactment about the Notch-cutters and Vigilantes. A reenactment I was told the curator of the local museum would do anything to stop if she could.

The owner allowed us to use the old depot building as often as we needed. Unfortunately, at that time, it did not have indoor plumbing.

Below:

Organizers of the McDade Watermelon Festival let us have a booth rent free to give away booklets highlighting some of McDade’s history. Pictured at right is my cousin, committee member Reta Ward, who wore our great-great grandmother’s pioneer’s dress. Kathleen Grissom and Margaret Hobbs celebrate our float’s win in the annual parade.

All the outlaws at left had ties to the Notch-cutter gang and were almost certainly in McDade, especially at the Rock Front Saloon, at one time or another. As a curator in the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco once told me, “Outlaws moved around a lot.”

Coming up in Part Two: Researching to make a historically accurate reenactment.