Silguero murder

Silguero murder

Will the individual who once contacted me about this story please contact me again to receive the remainder of his article. – Norman Rozeff

Valley Morning Star, Harlingen

May 15, 1954 Saturday Front Page

Mexican Faces Murder Charge in Gun Slaying

An 18-year old Mexican alien was in county jail at Brownsville Friday charged with the murder in connection with the ambush slaying of Geraldo Silguera 54, well-to-do Stuart Place farmer.

The complaint was filed here in the justice of peace court of Jake Childress. Bond was set at $5,000. "Murder with malice" was the charge read.

In a signed statement to Assistant District Attorney Darrell Hester, the grey-eyed Flores described by officers as "half-pint" in size, said he shot Silguero, his boss.

Patrolman Tells About Capture

County Highway Patrolman Doug Sanders revealed Friday that he and other officers who captured 18-year old Juan Flores, confessed slayer of G. Silguero, La Feria farmer, came within an inch if letting the fugitive escape.

Sadler said credit for the youth's capture should go to Constable Pablo Lopez of La Feria. "Lopez knows his business.", Sadler said.

Along with Sadler and Lopez was County Highway Patrolman H.C. Dierks. They set up a watch early Thursday night at a wetback camp south of Highway 83 between Harlingen and La Feria, about ¾ mile from the scene of the slaying. "We figured he might try to slip back to the shack where he had been staying and so we hid out." Sadler said. "Hours passed and we were just about decided that he was on his way to the river and was not coming back."

"Then we decided we'd have a look inside the house. Nothing struck our eyes and we decided to leave."

"But Pablo thought he have a look behind some stacked beehive boxes. A box was pulled back and there the kid was. He had been asleep."

"We asked him why he came back to the house and didn't strike out for Mexico. He told us that just before he opened fire, he told Silguero 'You won't slap me around again.'. "

Acknowledgement for Civil War Monograph Item

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Bibbed

It came to my attention a month or so ago that my webpage has been cited as a reference in a recent online revision of an older scholarly article in print called The Story of Union Forces In South Texas During the Civil War. The article was revised by Norman Rozeff of the Cameron County Historical Commission in Texas for their website. My URL for my webpage is listed in the references at the end of the article as the online location of a document cited by Rozeff as 'Fredrich Buker. Memoirs of a Union Soldier.'

I'm not ordinarily the nitpicky sort. The fact is that the rules and conventions for citing online work are still pretty much up for grabs. Writings that are only available online can't really claim to have actually been published in anything but a virtual sense. Vast amounts of 'published' materials consist of information assembled or compiled by individuals and donated to local historical or genealogical societies. Many such documents are one of only a handful of copies made for the benefit of the dozen or so people in the world who might one day want access to that particular information. Sometimes the material is invaluable to the people to whom it pertains, but the chances of its finding a wider audience are so infinitesimal that there is no percentage in investing in publishing costs that won't ever be recouped.

The internet makes it much easier to 'publish' such material. All that's required is one hard copy, access to a scanner, a computer and a server address where the document's URL can be accessed online by remote computers. Anyone with a blog could put the entire content of most local historical societies' libraries online at very little expense beyond the time it takes to scan in the pages. What that means is that scholars, particularly historians, now have to contend with an exponential growth in the availability of primary historical sources.

The item Norman Rozeff referenced to my web address is actually only a 'dead link', one that a reader can find if they take the trouble to read through my entire webpage, a page that was written more than five years ago when the link was still current. Rozeff is actually referencing my summary of a translated memoir of a German-immigrant Union soldier who was in South Texas at the end of the Civil War.

A current link to Buker's translated memoir can be found in the sidebar of this blog under the heading Friedrich Buker. At some point during the past five years, probably less than a year ago, the State of Wisconsin took enough interest in Buker's diary to host the document on their own server and spare Buker's descendants the cost of paying a server to host the document.

I'm not convinced, based upon Rozeff's excellent and highly detailed and documented article, that he's ever actually seen Buker's translated memoir, a primary historical source. My summary of Buker's memoir is a secondary source and it should have been cited as a secondary source under the title of my webpage, Pinnacled Dim In The Intense Inane, which can also be found on my left margin sidebar.

As a memoirist Buker rambles a bit and he tends to assume that readers of his rendering are already well acquainted with the newspaper accounts of his regiment's activities. That may have been true in his time. The State of Wisconsin, for the benefit of 21st century readers, recently began hosting the online edition of an unpublished book by Mark Knipping, A History of the 27th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment During the War of the Rebellion. Summarizing Buker's memoir would have been far easier for me and required much less close reading if Mr. Knipping's book had been published online five years ago.

Nonetheless, I am deeply grateful and feel highly complimented that Mr. Rozeff took the trouble to acknowledge my work, however obliquely, for the online revision of his print article.

Posted by Craig Lubach at 6:33 PM

Harlingen Chronolgy Correction

Jones Moving Correction and Addition

Jack McNally

To Norman Rozeff

Nov 28 at 3:33 PM

Norman –
You may remember me. I wrote you a few years ago about Ida Gilbert (my ex-grandmother in law), mother of Mike Gilbert, Harlingen postmaster. Ida was also the owner of the property that once was Harlingen’s first hospital at 305 S F St. It is now preserved in the Harlingen museum thanks to Lewis Levine.
I browsed your website  Chronological History of Harlingen and noted the errors below

Pg 238- 1920

In this year Fulton Jones comes to town. His first enterprise is ice delivery. Two years later he starts the Fulton Jones Moving and Storage Co. when he purchases a truck with solid rubber wheels. By 1924 he is occupying a warehouse on N. Commerce near J.W. Rhone's seed store (later to be Jackson Feed). By 1930 he is at a larger facility in the 1000 block of West Harrison. His drayage business becomes Valley-wide, and he uses the names Jones Motor Freight lines and Jones Transfer and Storage Co. for his businesses. As the downtown Harlingen area becomes more congested and additional space is required, the now Jones Moving and Storage Co. builds a warehouse facility at 2404 Wilson Road. Living at 320 Pecan, McAllen in his later years, he dies at age 65 on 12/16/62 leaving his wife Ottie and brother George of McAllen. This Church of Christ member left no children.

Norman –

I’ve been with Jones Moving since 1979 and know a little about its history. Fulton Jones changed the name Jones Transfer and Storage to Jones Moving and Storage when he incorporated the company around 1929. Back then the terms of duration of incorporation were only one year and had to be renewed annually until 1938 when the term became ‘in perpetuity’. He affiliated with Mayflower Transit in 1934 while his brother George Jones split off and founded Fidelity Bonded Warehouse in McAllen – an affiliate of Allied Van Lines – around that same time. Glenn Key became president of Jones Moving upon Fulton’s death. Fulton’s wife Ottie (McAllen), and branch managers Brack Lipscomb (McAllen) and James Reed (Brownsville) all owned an interest in the corporation. Key retired in 1981 and arranged the sale of the company to a single owner - Bailey D Reynolds of Rio Hondo. Shortly after the sale (1983?), the company moved from the 1002 West Jackson into a newly built (co-owned by Reynolds) warehouse at Hanmore Industrial Parkway. By 1988, the company had consolidated its McAllen and Brownsville offices into the Harlingen  location and in the early 1990’s the firm moved its operation to the present location at 2404 Wilson Road – a former fruit and vegetable warehouse built in the 1950’s. Mark H. Groves purchased the company around 1994.

Hope you find the above useful…

Jack McNally
956-778-7662 cell
wizard@scribeslair.com
jack@jonesmoving.com
956-423-6030 office

PS: Per the TX Almanac (1972-73 p. 349) clip attached, Jones received the FIRST Railroad Commission permit ever issued - in the 1920’s.

“ The motor truck industry, now a major enterprise, began in the 1920s as a series of small, local operators, much as bus lines did. But in 1929 the State of Texas started issuing permits to to truck lines

through the Motor Transportation Division of the Railroad Commission. The first permit was issued to Jones Transfer and Storage, Harlingen. Its route was Mission to Harlingen via Pharr and Mercedes; Mission to Harlingen via Pharr, Edinburg, La Villa, and Mercedes; Raymondville to Brownsville via Harlingen.”

Civil War in the LRGV for CCHC