Page 4 - HH_4_25

Did You Know?belief that the deceased [Frank Harris] came to his death at the hands of T. J. and Frank Scott, on or about September 15, 1884.”A San Antonio Daily Express article, published June 16, 1886, summarized the fate of the Helotes gang: “There is no doubt that Harris was a bad man, with blood on his hands, as bad as any of the others, but his murder was nonetheless a foul crime that may end in wiping out the last members of this gang who have been a holy terror to the neighborhood for so many years. Pitts, Harris, Joe Brannon, and [James] McDaniel are dead; Yeager, [Lewis] Potter and Dick Brannon are in the penitentiary for life. The Scotts are now in jail to stand trial for the murder of Harris, and Ditson, the leader of the gang, is out of the state in Missouri.”On February 16, 1887, Frank Scott was found guilty of murder in the first degree. A week later, he was sentenced to life in prison. The case against his father, T. J. Scott, was dismissed a few years later.A version of this article appeared in the November 2016 issue of Helotes Highlights.Cynthia Leal Masseyis the author of several books on the historyof Helotes. For more information, visit her website, cynthialealmassey. com, and her Facebook page, CLM Books.submit to TxDOT for a master permit to close down State Hwy 16 for our parade.This year we also worked on a 5-year plan for the parade route as we now have the new challenging traffic dynamic of the recently built turnaround system on Bandera Road which does not allow for lane changes to either diversion or return of south bound traffic into the north bound lanes, to accommodate the parade operations in the closed south bound lanes of Bandera Rd.Please be prepared for South Bound traffic to be re-routed onto Hausman to get to 1604 as there are no longer anyway to simply reroute traffic back to south bound lanes. This will cause North Bound trafficTBy Cynthia Leal Masseyhe Helotes Gang—James Pitts, Charley Yeager, Joe and Carroll Brannon, Frank Harris, Jim Ditson,Tom “T.J.” and Frank Scott—lived “in a settlement near Leon Springs, close to each other, and in the vicinity of some caves... one of them known as the Robbers’ Cavern.”Although the gang preferred to hold up stages along the Fredericksburg through Leon Springs route, they were also under suspicion for jumping a stage going to Helotes, killing all of the passengers and stealing $60,000 in cash.In early summer of 1886, the remains of a dead man, gang member Frank Harris, an ex-convict who had not shown up two years before to testify in an Austin trial against T. J. and Frank Scott in a Post Office robbery case, was discovered in a cave.According to a newspaper account, “All would have been smooth sailing had not the band fallen out among themselves, which caused Frank Scott to give Joe Brannon away, and when Joe was killed [his brother] Carroll concluded to give the Scotts away [for Harris’s murder].”The murder attracted a great deal of attention because of the many articles San Antonio newspapers published about the case in the summer of 1886, and again in the spring of 1887, including lurid descriptions of the corpse, “a grim, ghastly spectacle”; a depiction of a romantic triangle between Harris, James Pitts, and Jennie Scott, and an account of the various crimes perpetrated by the gang, including one in which“the Helotes school house... was sacked and pillaged.”On June 15, 1886, the coroner’s verdict indicated that there was “strong circumstantial evidence warranting theMayor’s CornerEveryone Loves a Parade – New Challenging Traffic DynamicExcerpt of an article that appeared in the June 13, 1886, San Antonio Daily Express.to stop periodically at Hausman for PD to direct and manage the traffic flow. Rest assured the delays and inconveniences will be minimized by the timely start of the parade, as well as limiting the number of floats. As always, please plan to arrive early to safely stake out your favorite viewing location and enjoy what will be an amazing parade!Sincerely,Rich WhiteheadRich Whitehead MayorDLear Residents,ike baseball and hotdogs, nobody knows why, but everyone loves a parade! Each year Helotiansenjoy 2 major parades, Cornyval and our Christmas Parade. Next month the Corynval parade will welcome nearly 10,000 visitors to the city. Coordinating with the Helotes Festival Association’s Cornyval Rodeo, which draws between 75,000 and 100,000 visitors over the 4 day event, creates a logistical and strategic challenge that takes months of planning and preparation to provide the public with a safe, fun, and engaging event.This month, I thought I would give you some insight as to what it takes to put on the Cornyval Parade, and describe some changes this year due to the new Bandera Road construction. Each year our public works directors, Cory Vullo and Justin Vincint, along with myself, city administrator,city engineers, events coordinator, police and fire chiefs, EMS, dispatch, permitting, and various safety equipment sub- contractors meet and toil over plan routes, emergency egress, traffic flow patterns, staffing, and communications plans toI Spy With My Little Eye... Contestyour local geico agent makes bundling simple.Home + Auto = easyLOCAL OFFICERod Musslewhite210-673-2391¡Hablamos Español!Limitations apply. See geico.com for more details. GEICO & affiliates. Washington, DC 20076. GEICO Gecko image © 1999-2022. © 2022 GEICO. 21_633312129By Sally KalosPlease look carefully on each and every page, scanning up and down, left and right, from front to back, and then back to front. Don’t give up!If you can find the Easter egg hunter character, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win $50! Just email the page number and location where you spotted the Easter egg hunter character, to contest@ highlightspub.com.The deadline is April 9, 2025.We hope you’ll have fun with our version of a mini-scavenger hunt within our pages. Good luck!Congratulations to our AprilI Spy winners Siena Burrier (L) & Geneviev Burrier (R)4www.heloteshighlights.comApril 2025