Cowboys Voted Their Ponies In First Election Held in Concho
Ben Polk of Salt Gap Recalls Early Days in W. T. When Antelope roamed Fenceless Range
By Gus Barr
    Millersview, May 17 Voting in the first election ever held in Concho County is a distinction held by Ben Polk, 80, of Salt Gap, who says there were so few people here when the county was organized that cowboys placed the name of their favorite cow horse on the ticket so that there would be enough names for each qualified office to have a candidate.
Mr. Polk came to this country with a herd of Westbrook cattle. he was looking for a place to settle. his trail is marked with brief stops at the Brown settlement (now Brownwood), the Waldrip settlement and the Coffee settlement on the Colorado River. None of the aforementioned settlements boasted more than two or three families. Concho County was a fenceless range as was al the surrounding country at that time. Only cowboys camped up and down the river.
No Indians Roamed Country
    According to Uncle Ben, Antelope roamed the country by the thousands. But Indians, "Hell no!" he says, "there wasn't but one bunch of Indians ever came into this country all the time that I have been here and that was when a had of them dropped down on Old Joe Wrim's outfit at Salt Gap, killed a Mexican rider and stole about 75 head of good horses."
    Mr. Polk well remembers the organization of Concho County. "It was carved from Coleman in 1879, he avers, "And danged if we didn't have to recruit people from other places to serve in the offices. Old John Clampit was elected sheriff and he wouldn't have it so we had to get a fellow from Brady by the name of Bates to take the job. Joe Starks was the first county clerk. He had his office under a tent stretched over a mesquite tree.
    Mr. Polk married in 1879, Soon afterward he came to this vicinity and erected the first building between the present town of Eden and the Concho River: a one room cabin about three miles south of the present town site. 
Moved to Millesview Area
    A man from Kentucky by name of John Scott bought him out so he moved north toward what is now Millersview, and erected another abode. A while later he sold his second holdings to Ed Miller for whom Millerview was named. Polk was living near the river when the flood of 1882 demolished the embreonic San Angelo. It is said one sheep raiser of the upper Angelo country lost 6080 head in the rise. Uncle Ben is bedammed if he didn't see 5000 of them come down the stream!
    Uncle Ben is loud in his praise of the early settlers of the Concho 58 years ago from Johnson County country. "Best dam people you ever saw," he declares.
    "Killings?" "Naw, everybody was peaceful, However, they did have to shoot a man to start the grave yard at Paint Rock. By Gad, I can prove it: go ask old shoemaker Ford, another old timer who lives at Paint Rock," "Yes sir, I'll stack the people of the early days up against 'em anywhere and you won't find no better people. They came from everywhere here and weren't suspicious of each other the last even tho half of 'em were living under assumed names."
Assisted In Development
    Mr. Polk assisted in many ways in the early development of the county. He assisted in the building of the second school in the section which was located on the Mustang Creek about five miles northeast of present day Millersview. The first school building was erected on the old Mac Gatlin ranch near the Concho River in 17878, on what is now the Lem Christwell place. Mrs. Capelton was the teacher.
    According to Polk the country wasn't long in filling up. Sheep were brought in fast. "The cattle men took that pretty hard," he says, "then came fences and following that the wire cutters." There is some of the patched up portions of the very first fence still in use on a farm two miles east of town.
Early Fencers Had Trouble
    The early fencers had a time keeping their wire up. For a time the famous O & H Triangle outfit employed night-riders to patrol the fences. "Cowboys cut that fence just for spite then," uncle Ben says, "and didn't let up either until they took off the riders and quit trying so darn hard to keep it up."
    Some people condemn the fence cutters, according to Uncle Ben and others uphold their good names and he doesn't know but what they were justified pretty often for their were hundreds of acres fenced y men who held no real claim on the land.
   " What is wrong with the country today, and why isn't it as prosperous as then?"
    Mr. Polk will tell you: "There are too dam many fences and too much cockeyed good cow country plowed under."

San Angelo Times
May 18, 1934