Somerset, Texas Area Wolf Hunters of the Thirties Bernard Pyron Robert Gaddy Baucom, pastor of the South San Antonio Baptist Church, was a regular at the campfires of the Somerset "Wolf Hunters" back in the thirties. Baucom even had his own dogs which he brought out on Saturday nights to join with the hounds of others. Baucom, or, as the coyote hunters called him "The Preacher," had a Model A truck which was equipped to hold several of his hounds - and he had built along the sides of the back shelves and cupbords like in the old chuck wagons the cowboys of the open range used. Baucom would arrive in the Somerset area on a Saturday night before dark with his rig and park it at our house near town. Then Baucom would walk up Somerset Road to the Will Kenney grocery store where my Father and brother Grorge worked. When my Father Blake Pyron and my older brother George got off from work after dark on a winter night, they would head out to the Quesenberry, the Ballard, or wherever the group was going that night. Baucom dressed in cowboy outfits and wore cowboy boots sometimes when he preached. He was one of the older Southern Baptist Preachers, who was more like George W. Truett than W.A. Crisswell. See: http://www.time.com/…/magazine/article/0,9171,757026,00.html "A wet, grey dawn was breaking over Texas last week when a strapping, six-foot figure in cowhand clothes strode out on the 80,000-acre Storey Ranch near Cotulla. The hard-preaching, hard-riding pastor of South San Antonio's First Baptist Church, Reverend Robert Gaddy Baucom, faced an impressive, tensely quiet assemblage. Lined up in front, 257 eager hounds strained at their leashes. At one side a Master of Hounds and twelve field judges sat their horses. Behind the dogs ranged 150 other mounted Texans, more than 1,000 in automobiles and trucks of every size and shape. Hats went off, heads were bowed as Brother Baucom boomed a prayer. Master of Hounds John Aiken Rowan raised a Texas steer horn to his lips, blew long & loud. At this signal the hounds were loosed and, amid a great uproar of babbling dogs, roaring engines and shouting men, women & children, the whole assembly moved off into the brush. Thus began the 1936 field trials of the South Texas Wolf Hunters Association, biggest "wolf hunt" in U. S. history." Most likely. the Texas steer horn that was blown was from a longhorn like the ones that my father,uncle and older bother used in the thirties to call in their hounds Bringing out a little of the history and flavor of running hounds after coyotes in the South Texas Brush County almost 80 years ago is interesting to me because of the contrast between that culture of "Wolf Hunting" and present day American culture. The old "Wolf Hunters" of the thirties in South Texas would be seen as rednecks, like the guys with the long beards of Duck Dynasty who interestingly promote duck hunting and their leader Phil Robertson is a preacher - as a long bearded duck hunter. But there was something subtle about the "Wolf Hunters" love of being able to tell what was going on in the chase out in the brush from the barking of the hounds. And its interesting that the 17 year old who kept the journal and was on the hunts himself became a local store owner. He was my brother, but was 13 years older than me. Excerpts From George Pyron's Journal of Wolf Races, 1934-35: "November 30, 1934 - Caught one wolf in south-east part of Ballard pasture. Ran one hour and fifteen minutes. Caught two more in McDonald's pasture, first one in two hours, second one two and a half hours.About 45 dogs. S. Guynes, Ed Pakowitz, Woods, Jasper Newman, McKon brothers. Pep and three others caught in traps. "January 26, 1935 - Went to pasture below Woods and heard wolves howl in Byrom's pasture. Drove up road and Jerry and Dixie jumped hot and Jack and Pep trailed to Ballard and came back to the others. Ran about forty five minutes and house dogs broke up the race. Beulah and Mack jumped another and ran an hour, and Jerry got caught in a trap and broke race up. Beulah and Smut and Mack trailed and jumped another one. About 2: 30 A.M. caught in Ballard." "February 2, 1935 - Went to Ballard and Jack, Beulah, Queen, Pep and Smut jumped and ran for three hours and out of hearing. Finally located them in lower Ballard and turned young dogs loose. Ran back toward Wilson's goat proof fence." I have tried to find where what George calls the Ballard was located. It was probably in northern Atascosa county and probably a large tract of land. But its been a long time since 1934 and 1935. I remember my father, Blake Pyron, Uncle Casey Pyron and George talking about hunting in the Ballard. I might have even been there when I was four or five years old. Several times in the thirties, probably about 1935 and 1936, my Father, and George would be gone almost all night on a Saturday night coyote hunt in the Black Jacks, and then on Sunday Daddy would drive back down there to try to find hounds which had not come to the camp when they were called in by their blowing of the wolf horn. I often went along in the Model A and have a vague memory of one or two lands down there at that time. But I do not remember where these tracts of land were in relation to what was then called the Rossville Road, the Old Box School House or Atascosa Creek. Photos of Somerset Area Wolf Hunting: