1967: Once Upon a Trail
In February of 1967, Welcome Wilson, Sr. was watching the TV news and saw Pat Flarity, the local anchor on Channel 2, broadcasting from the Salt Grass Trail Ride (SGTR). The ride originated about 15 years earlier, and had become huge with over 2,000 riders. Welcome decided that the Wilson family needed to participate. So, he called his brother, Jack, and announced the plan to leave that night.
Jack was always ready for a wild idea, so he gathered up his daughter, Kathy, and Welcome got his daughter, Cindi. Together, they loaded two saddles into an old drugstore delivery Jeep. The bunch went out to the Tri-Oak Stables (now Westheimer near the Beltway) where Welcome kept a paint horse named Lucy for the kids. He loaded Lucy and a borrowed horse named Pepper into a borrowed trailer, and hooked them all up to the Jeep.
That night, the trail ride was camping in Hempstead County Park. It was after 10 p.m. when the rookies arrived, and they could not tell where either the front or the backend were. So, they pulled-up under a tree and set-up camp. The next morning, they were surprised to see that we were in the very center of a large circle (about 200 yards diameter), where various wagons were camped around them. Jack fixed breakfast for everyone.
That morning, Welcome decided to get on Pepper to see if he was suitable for Cindi and Kathy (age 13) to ride. Horse and rider headed toward the wagons. Pepper was very nervous because a stable horse being around a thousand other horses is an exciting event. “Pepper and I did fine,” Welcome said, “Riding away from the camp. When we got about 200 yards away, I turned to ride back toward the camp fire. Pepper jumped and took off running back to the camp because that is what horses do–they run back to camp.
“Not to worry! I was an experienced horseman, so I pulled back on the reins to slow him down and the bridal came off in my hands. Now, I am on top of a horse riding at full speed–no bridle, no control whatsoever. In–what seemed like 15 minutes but I am sure was no more than 30 seconds–Pepper and I sailed directly toward the very large oak tree under which we had camped. As the tree approached, I decided that the only way to keep from being impaled on a low-hanging branch, was to ease-off to the side and roll on the ground like in cowboy movies. About 50 feet from the tree, I pushed myself off to the right and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. I skidded 50 feet, right into the middle of the camp fire. In the process, I got a bruise on my hip that lasted two years and I was slightly burned.
“So now I am limping, when Stewart Morris (chairman of Stewart Title Company in Houston) and his daughter, Lisa, drove by in a pickup truck. He asked what I was doing and if I was lost. I told him that we had just arrived and did not know what to do. He said we should join the wagon he was on, run by Jim Burroughs from Spring, Texas.
“So we went over to Wagon 13 and Jim explained that he would furnish the food for everyone for the five remaining days, the feed for the horses, and his man ‘Husky’ would feed the horses. The cost would be $35. We decided that was a bargain and paid.”
The group on Wagon 13 was a mixed bag: Wagon Boss Jim Burroughs, a truck driver named Ronald, 19-year-old Gary (raised in poor circumstances, obviously intelligent but also profane). There were about three drunks, a very quiet farming couple from El Campo, and one or two others.
All week long, with a borrowed bridle for Pepper, Cindi and Welcome rode for an hour, alternating with Jack and Kathy. They rode in the rodeo parade in downtown Houston and ended the ride thinking the entire adventure had been a big success. Little did they know they had created the first chapter of Desperado history.