Hi, I forgot a small item of possible interest concerning Jesse James. Another man who claimed to be his grandson and bore his name came to Waco since I retired in 1989 with a cousin investor from Australia. . They got permits to dig in the boggy land of East Waco, explaining that Jesse left a message that he had a safe sent to Waco by rail. It contained little money but had many valuable papers and records inside. When the safe was moved from the train to the designated warehouse, they had to remove a few bricks from the entrance and later replaced them . The exact address was found and and it was evident where the bricks had been removed, then they went to some open area and began digging with a Diesel dragline and/or dozer. Others with the same story had dug there a few years ago, but gave up because of the soil. If you have been to Waco you can see the West side of the river is a raised rock bluff past Emmons Cliff and Lover's Leap on the Bosque overlooking the Brazos, near McClennan Community College. The east side of the river used to flood several feet deep before Whitney and other dams were built. There are no rocks on that side of the Brazos, just jelly mud and quicksand,, because of the Balconies Fault Line which roughly followed I-35 and the Old Butterfierld Stage route to San Antonio. I 35 is not a good sample of Texas. Try 281 or Hwy 6 & 77. . When the Roeblings built the Waco suspension Bridge, still standing, the east posts were poured on solid rock a few feet deep. They dug 90 feet on the other side and finally made a thick criss crossed float of 12" cedar logs and poured the concrete , then pushed the mud back in. Their next bridge was the Brooklyn Bridge- there were and are other suspension bridges on the Brazos and Paluxy Rivers. , usually hung on large tall steel oil well casing. Wonder if the Roeblings saw these other bridges and improved on them" Back to Jesse's grandsons, the local paper noted that the Texas Rangers took an active interest in the digging for the vault. They had electronic images of it , but each time a large Diesel digging engine was cranked it seemed to move down or sideways and down. They were several feet deep but ran out of money and did not seem to get closer. They, like a previous group, ran out of funds. The Rangers or Deputies watched it day and night until it was abandoned. Oh, Yes, the wood houses of the Huaco (Waco) indians by Huaco Springs was older than St. Augustine or Taos. The very first Basque- Spanish explorers reported the Huaco Village. There has been a town ever since, They named the Bosque River. The Huacos and Tawokani friends usually took an East Texas vacation when scouts reported Comanche or Apache raiders, but always returned in a few days to their Huaco home. They are now part of the Wichita Reservation based on linguistics and lifestyle. No, J. Frank Dobie says the Chisholm Trail did not come through Waco- that was the Texas Trail. Today's local Chamber of Commerce call it the Chisolm Trail each year when they drive longhorns across the suspension Bridge. I'm sure you know the difference from Jesse Chissum's ()or Chisum) trail from Broken Bow, Okla, to Illinois and Fort Sumpter, N.Mex. and John Chisholm,or was it Jesse Chissum and John Chisolm? Have to check some details lately. Mr. Chisolm was a store operator in Kansas on the Chisolm Trail, and never made a trail drive. Mr. Chissum sometimes sold to Tunstill and McSween and other of Billy The Kids employers or enemies Both John and Jesse had Indian mothers and Scottish or Irish dads. One Choctaw and one Cherokee. Take care, Charles Wyly On Wed, 8 Sep 1999 18:53:21 EDT [email protected] writes: >In a message dated 9/8/99 3:12:07 AM !!!First Boot!!!, [email protected] >writes: > ><< eye witnesses said the body exhumed > in Missouri was lying face down in the coffin and the only DNA >missouri > evidence came from a tooth of jesse's buried outside his childhood >home, > not his grave and the corpse was the wrong size for Jesse >> >I watched the A & E (I think that was the station) documentary. Was >under the >impression that the exhumation took much longer because the coffin was >wooden >instead of metal as they had been told. From what I remember they did >find >damage to skull that would indicate gun shot. They also measured the >skelton >and that it was the size of Jesse. I thought the tooth was taken from >the >skull and they used mitochrondial DNA to prove that skelton was Jesse. >How >would the researchers know if a tooth found outside the old homeplace >would >even belong to Jesse or a member of the James family? Guess the next >time >they show it, I will watch more closely. Betty.