In 1859 the San Antonio Mail Company had its headquarters on the lot
where the Sheldon building now stands. They had in the old adobe house
as large a stock of general merchandise as any El Paso merchant now
carries. The clerks who slept in the store were a Mr. Atkins, familiarly
known as “Ole Dad,” and “Fred” ——, a young German. One night Atkins was
absent and Fred was sleeping in the store alone.
The next morning a window in the south side of the building was found to
have been dug out of the wall and poor Fred was lying dead in his bed
with fourteen knife wounds in his body. A large amount of money had been
taken from the store (there were no safes nor banks here then) and
quantities of valuable goods had also been carried away. This was
evidently the work of robbers from the Mexican side of the river. No
trace of the robbers or money or goods was ever discovered.
After this murder Mr. Atkins declined to sleep in the store alone. The
writer was at that time clerking for St. Vrain & Co., merchants, in the
old Central Hotel building, which was burned down a few years ago. As we
had plenty of people to protect the St. Vrains store it was agreed that
I should go over each night and sleep in the store which had been
robbed. But soon the scare was over and Atkins, saying that “lightning
never struck twice in the same place,” left me alone for one night. I
had a shotgun and pistol, and a good watchdog. The merchants of the
village had employed a Mr. Cullimore (now of Austin, Tex.), familiarly
called “Bones,” to patrol the town of nights.
That night about 2 o’clock I heard the report of both barrels of
“Bones’” shotgun resounding in the little plaza, and his voice calling
to me to “look out, Mills!” Robbers, probably the same party, had
commenced to dig out the same window and had half finished the work when
“Bones” fired on them without effect. They fled, of course, and left
only a hat and handkerchief on the ground as remembrances. It was long
before any one would sleep alone in that store.
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