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a local real estate developer. The city of Abernathy was later
named in honor of Mollie’s new husband. 13 She began investing
in business property in the fledgling town of Lubbock, eventually
financing the construction of the J. C. Penney building, one of
the largest of downtown commercial structures.
The couple led the promotion of the construction of the
Santa Fe Railroad into Lubbock. The arrival of the railroad in
1909 immediately began to transform the small village into a
thriving city. Mollie’s astute management of ranch and business
holdings led to her reputation as Lubbock’s first pioneer
businesswoman. In 1960, she died in Lubbock at the age of 94.
Mollie never lost her love for Jim Jarrott, and always honored
his memory. Shortly before her death, she said in an interview:
“I tell you the way I’ve always felt . . . [No person has]
done as much for this country as Mr. Jarrott . . . He did more
for the settlement of this country than anybody else who ever
came here, and he lost his life for it.”
Deacon Jim Miller. Photo courtesy of Fred R. Maxey Jr.
four ranch hands indicted for Jim’s murder did not face trial in
Lubbock County or elsewhere. Their cases were moved to Floyd
County, 55 miles northeast of Lubbock, on a change of venue,
and each case was eventually dismissed for lack of evidence. 11
Again, the case went cold—this time for decades.
The Settlers, the Widow Jarrott,
and Monroe Abernathy
Jim’s assassination failed to scare settlers off The Strip. “We became
more intent and closely allied in our fight for survival,”
wrote Mary Blankenship, who with her husband had staked a
claim. “The name Jim Jarrott became a legend among us, and
his martyrdom served to spur us on. We were determined not
to pull up stakes and retreat back to the East.”
In years to come, Jim’s settlers and their descendants prospered.
Some raised small herds of cattle, and others became
farmers. They soon learned to grow valuable crops of cotton on
this inhospitable prairie. The South Plains of Texas would become
the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world.
Burdened with four children less than 15 years of age, Jim’s
36-year-old widow Mollie successfully developed the land that had
cost her husband his life. She expanded the original Jarrott claim
from 4 to 16 sections, naming the spread the Swastika Ranch, 12
where she raised a prime herd of registered Hereford cattle.
In 1905, Mollie was remarried to Monroe G. Abernathy,
Deacon Jim Miller and the
First Suspicious Confession
In 1909, an infamous outlaw and professional killer named James
B. Miller was lynched along with three members of his gang
by a mob of perhaps 40 men in Ada, Oklahoma. “Deacon Jim”
Miller earned his nickname because he usually dressed the part,
wearing a black hat and a long black frock coat. He pretended
to be a pious, church-going man.
For 29 years, there seemed to be no connection between
the 1909 Miller lynching and the 1902 Jarrott murder. Then in
1931, Lubbock lawyer and writer Max Coleman wrote a colorful
yarn that tied Deacon Jim to Lawyer Jim, in the Frontier
Times magazine.
In 1909 . . . Jim Miller was hanged by a mob. Just before
being swung up he told Gib Abernathy, a cousin of [Monroe
Abernathy] that he killed Jarrott, being paid the sum
of $500 for so doing. He refused to say who paid him.
He stated that in all his killings Jarrott was the only man
he ever hated to kill. He said he was hid in the windmill
tower when Jarrott drove up. He shot him twice, but not
fatally. Jarrott plead with him to spare his life, but he told
him that he was paid to do that deed, and that he would
not fall down of his employer.
Among the problems with Miller’s supposed confession
is that Gib Abernathy somehow forgot to tell anyone about it
until 1914, five years after the fact. Coleman wrote that none
of the Lubbock oldtimers ever believed the tale about Miller’s