I got to thinking about what I said in the first three parts of this series, and it was all true, so far as it went. Maybe I didn’t go far enough. Perhaps there is more I should explore. Then I thought maybe I should follow my instincts and just let it go, but I’m not going to do that, anymore than a politician will quit talking just because he’s not saying anything.
If you go into downtown Houston on any day in late February or early March, about two thirds of the people you meet will be dressed as cowboys or cowgirls. This was true in the seventies and eighties and I’m sure it is still true. Are all these people somehow tied to the cattle business? Are they ranchers or farmers? Of course not. Most of them have never been near a cow patty, a horse, or a pair of chaps. People in downtown Houston are in the oil bidness, or building management, or real estate. Some are lawyers, bankers, insurance executives, or accountants. All are dressed “Cowboy” to the hilt, because it is time for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
These young execs wouldn’t know the difference between Secretariat and the Old Gray Mare, but any one of them could recognize Luchesse Boots, a Max Lang Belt, a “Charlie One Horse” hat, or a Cutter Bill Leather Jacket from across the lobby of Pennzoil Place. This clothing is as familiar to these people as a gray flannel suit and a button-down oxford-cloth dress shirt are to the Madison Avenue crowd. And just as necessary. If these young people are to succeed in Texas, they must dress the part. As soon as they are financially able, they will buy a farm, or a ranch, or just a place, in the country.
Their older counterparts, the ones who have succeeded, own large ranches and dress in custom western suits by Cutter Bill. They sport custom western boots by M.L. Leddy of San Angelo, Charlie Dunn of Austin, or any one of several other bootmakers with three-year waiting lists around the state. They choose to wear “Open Road” Stetson hats, and smoke Cuban cigars.
I mentioned Cutter Bill. Back in the day, Cutter Bill’s Western Wear, named after a golden palomino cutting horse, consisted of two trend-setting stores, one in Dallas and one in Houston. Rex Cauble bought “Cutter Bill” in 1956 for $2500.00, and by 1976, the horse had earned almost a million dollars in prizes and stud fees. Cauble, a former oil field roughneck who struck it rich at age thirty-one, had to keep striking it rich because he was always going broke. Rex was a notoriously bad poker player who once lost Cutter Bill, his pride and joy, in a poker game. He managed to buy the horse back after a week.
As Rex grew older, his income stabilized, and he built a showplace ranch outside Denton. A life sized statue of Cutter Bill stood on a pedestal beside I-35 there. Rex liked the statue so much he had two more made, one for each of his Western Stores. The flagship store in Houston was on Westheimer Avenue, just west of the Galleria, adjacent to the Western National Bank, which Cauble controlled.
Cutter Bill’s soon became the most prestigious "designer" western store in the country, frequented by movie stars, sports figures and celebrities. Unfortunately, it came to an inglorious end when government agents closed the stores and auctioned the contents. The Feds also took Cauble’s farms and ranches, his cattle and horses, and his fleet of semi trucks. Seems Rex had stabilized his income by importing marijuana from Columbia. In true Texas fashion, he thought big. He was charged with smuggling 106 tons of pot into the country. He delivered it in semi trucks from his ranch in South Texas. It looked very much like alfalfa hay, but I guess it just didn’t smell quite the same. Rex was head of a group called the Cowboy Mafia, and went to jail for five years in January of 1982.
Texas has more than it’s share of notorious, larger-than-life lawbreakers. John Wesley Hardin once got up in the middle of the night, walked down the hall, and shot a man in an adjacent room for snoring. Bonnie and Clyde met in Fort Worth and acted upon the desperation felt by poor people in the thirties. Billie Sol Estes did not smoke or drink--he thought that was immoral, but his moral compass didn’t interfere with stealing millions of dollars. I’m convinced that the Cheerleader Mom fiasco in Baytown could have only happened in Texas---but it could have happened in several other places in Texas. Rex Cauble, and his Cowboy Mafia, was a kinder, gentler breed of drug dealer, nothing like the brutal cartels we deal with today.
Texans have larger-than-life heroes. The Kleberg family built the King Ranch. Howard Hughes built Hughes Tool Co. and TWA, but his greatest achievement may have been the push-up bra. Hugh Roy Cullen, Sid Richardson, and Clint Murchison built immense fortunes in oil, banking and real estate. H.L. Hunt became the richest man in America and branched out into health foods and ultra conservative politics. His son, Lamar, built the American Football League. When told that Lamar was foolishly losing a million dollars a year on a silly football team, H.L. is supposed to have said, “My goodness. If he keeps that up, in about twenty years, he’ll be broke.”
There I go digressing again. I guess this three part series will have five parts now. I need to tell you how we keep Texas fresh and new and exciting, generation after generation. I’ll do that next time, in the final part. Or maybe it will just be the next part.
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