Pet Peeve

One of my pet peeves about the area in which I live is how many things are named after the outlaw Sam Bass. We have a major road, a fire department, a live theater, and even a multi-day annual celebration ("Sam Bass Days"). Sam Bass was a mostly unsuccessful train and bank robber back in the 1870s. One of his cohorts ratted out Bass' plans to rob a Round Rock bank, sending a note about his plans to the Texas Rangers in Austin, giving the date of Bass' intended robbery. The day before the scheduled robbery, Bass and his gang were in downtown Round Rock, presumably casing the bank. Bass and another outlaw entered a tobacconist adjacent to the bank, where a Williamson County deputy sheriff noted that Bass was armed in violation of a town ordinance. The deputy sheriff, Alijah ("A.W.") Grimes, and a Travis County deputy confronted Bass. Grimes told Bass to give him his gun. Bass replied, "I'll give you both of them" and shot Grimes dead. The Travis County deputy returned fire as Bass fled. Several Rangers emerged from a neighboring bar and fired at Bass, grievously wounding him, though he continued to ride off. He was found the next day alongside Brushy Creek and was brought back to Round Rock where he later died.

For all the recognition and hoopla for this cop killer, Grimes is remembered only by a small plaque at the former headquarters of the Round Rock Police Department - I don't know whether the plaque moved with them to their new headquarters - and by the name of this street. The street named for Grimes was formerly quite short and the name carried forth to the former FM-1460 when it connected to the former stub street a couple years ago. But few people know the story or who A.W. Grimes was, which is sad. Even County Commissioners, when asked to approve the road name change, had to ask who A.W. Grimes was.

Honoring the cop killer and not the lawman he killed strikes me as very wrong.

By the way, the cross street shown here, Tiger, is another recent renaming. The Stoney Point High School Tigers are the honorees here; that high school is a couple blocks from this sign. Their football team is usually quite competitive; a future blip will try to deal with the near-religion that high school football enjoys here in Texas.