Texas has a storied and violent past.  But no year was as interesting as the year 1885. This was the year that America’s first serial killer terrorized Austin, news articles were battling race and gender, and the oldest Soda Pop was invented in Waco, Texas.  This is a short history of a few important events in Texas during 1885.

     The year 1885 began with a murder in Austin, Texas.  On New Years Eve, 1884, a black servant girl by the name of Mollie Smith was dragged from her bed to the outhouse 50 yards away and hit in the head multiple times with an axe.  The Austin American Statesman stated that it was “”one of the most horrible murders that ever a reporter was called on to chronicle—a deed almost unparalleled in the atrocity of its execution.”  Over the course of 1885, the killer, nicknamed the “Servant Girl Annihilator” by O. Henry, went on to murder 5 African American women and 1 African American man.  His final murder was on Christmas Eve 1885, when he murdered two white women from two separate homes.  All of the victims were found outside, their heads bashed in with an axe, and many of the women were raped.

     Now this is all very gruesome and disturbing to be sure, but serial killers are common in the present day.  The interesting thing about this case is that it happened three years before Jack the Ripper’s killing spree in London, arguably the first known serial killer in the world.  Why were these murders overlooked by the entire world?  Is it because many of the  victims were African American?  Or because Austin was a small town of 20,000 inhabitants and did not warrant enough attention?  Why did the killer end his spree with the killing of white women who were from upper class families?  Did he move on to other parts of Texas to keep killing?  The case remains unsolved to this day.

     On May 3rd, 1885 a terrible tragedy occurred in Galveston, TX when an explosion rocked the Tremont Hotel .  Four people were instantly killed and several others were injured.  Apparently, the boiler exploded so magnificently that it shot out of the brick building, went through the building next door that housed the servants, when it flew across the street and, according to a telegraph to Daily Gazette Fort Wayne Indiana, “entered a one-story house of ill repute, kept by a colored woman, Julia Winters.”  When it entered this “house of ill repute” a woman name Clara Miller was killed and her “companion” Maurice Sullivan was injured.  There was not a lot of information about this tragedy but it is interesting to note that, in the news article, not all of the victims names were reported.          However, we did find out that Julia Winters was an African American woman who owned the brothel on 24th street, across from the hotel.  Was Maurice Sullivan a citizen of the city?  Or was he a visitor of the Tremont Hotel, simply visiting Ms. Clara Miller due to the close proximity of the brothel to his hotel?  To this day, visitors report hauntings and bizarre behavior at the Tremont.

     Meanwhile, at the end of 1885, a man named Charles Alderton brought a drink to his friend’s pharmacy in Waco, Texas.  The friend was Wade Morrison, and the drink was Dr Pepper.  It was originally called the “Waco” after the city in which it was created.  But after Wade Morrison bought the rights to the famed beverage, he named it Dr. Pepper after the father of a young woman whom Charles Alderton was courting.  Was the young woman as interested in Mr. Alderton as he clearly was in her?  Was Charles trying to win over her father by naming a delicious beverage after him?  The exact reasons are unknown but the young woman who had inspired Charles Alderton lives on today in each can of Dr Pepper.

References:

ServantGirlMurders.com

The Daily Gazette Fort Wayne Indiana 1885-05-04

drpepper.com

Articles from the Austin American Statesman