Jim Prue

The Oral History Of Moore, Texas

Interview Transcript With Jim Prue

And Interview Notes with Richard Muzquiz

Anthony: What is your current age?
Jim: 76 years old.
A: How long have you lived here?
J: 40 plus years.
A: Do you have any children, or are you married?
J: None that I know of, and I am not married.
A: Did you serve in any wars?
J: Yes, I volunteered to go into the Navy and served in the Korean War.
A: Who was the town named for?
J: It was named for R.B. Mustang Moore who was ambushed and killed by Comanche Indians. Also killed was a man named James Winters. That was one story, the other is that Mustang was shot at his home by the Comanche Indians. I don’t know which is true but they both were killed.
A: Why did you move here?
J: My father had bought an irrigated place here and told me that if I moved down here to help him work it he would give me half of it. They had a place in California where I was living, but then he asked me to come here, which I did. Then they built a house and found out shortly there after that they were putting a new highway through here within about 60 feet of the house. The state bought about 48 acres to use for the highway. So we sold the rest of it and the house and moved to another place on the San Miguel. (Creek close to Moore.)
A: Is that where you are now?
J: Yes.
A: Did you go to school when you moved here?
J: No I was already out of school. I was 27 or 28 when I moved here.
A: Where there any people in Moore that were influential in the towns growth?
J: Pete Muzquiz who owned the store (grocery), and Otis Jones were to of the people that were influential here in Moore.
A: What did they do?
J: Pete owned the store and was a rancher and Jones was a rancher, but before that he was a school teacher but was retired.
A: Where there any prejudices in Moore that you knew of when you lived here?
J: I’m sure there were, but I wasn’t aware of them if they were. It’s typical south Texas. Everyone seemed to have gotten along pretty well. As time went on they had a community club. That they still have. (Gave list of people that served as chairmen) I served as chairman for a long time because nobody else wanted it. It’s a thankless job, nobody wants it ya’ know.
A: When you moved here were the schools still open?
J: No by the time I had moved here the schools had already been closed. The only thing left was the gymnasium, which is still here. We, the community club, used to hold dinners in there, but the kids tore it up so bad. The restrooms, I remember one time we went to the expense to put in lady’s and men’s restrooms and we had a dinner and in no time after that someone came in and broke all the toilets. They dropped rocks in them. They would break out the windows so we just quit fixing it and now the county owns it.
A: Were there any natural disasters that you can remember in Moore?
J: None that I can remember, just the seven year drought. It was like it is now just a sprinkle every now and then, but nothing to amount to any thing. When we moved out to the place where I am now the oak trees had very few leaves on them. They were huge trees, four or five feet across. There was one in the front that probably had one or two bushel baskets of leaves, huge tree.
A: Do you remember anything about the depression?
J: No I was born in 1929 and that’s when it started in October the same month I was born. My mother said October was a bad month, first I was a difficult birth, and then the stock market crashed, and they lost a lot of money.
A: What percentage of families in Moore gained their income from agriculture?
J: Most of them worked in the city at the Kelly base. And some had farms that they worked on the side growing peanuts or watermelons or had a few cows. They used to grow a lot of watermelons in this area.
A: What economic changes have occurred in the time that you lived here?
J: We did have an oil boom, but that didn’t affect a lot of people. The main residents in Moore now are retired because we don’t have any schools.
A: Did the oil boom affect your family?
J: Yes, early nineties I guess, we got production at our place. Well we always had production there but at that time we got more wells. That just benefited us, nobody else benefited. They drilled all around us but never hit anything. It was just right on that place.
A: Do you still draw oil off of these wells.
J: Oh ya, the first well was drilled in the 1950’s, and about five years ago they tried to drill some more and they happened to hit. And they are still producing.
A: Do you know how much oil they produce?
J: Right now? Around, I think the last check I noticed was $178,000 or $180,000 a month. But I don’t get all of that unfortunately, just a percentage.
A: Did Moore have a railroad station?
J: I think it did, but it didn’t since I have been here. There were quite a few people here that worked on the railroad, and retired from the railroad.
A: What year did they bring I35 through here?
J: I think it was started in '66 or '67.
A: When they took that land from your family did they pay you for it?
J: Oh yes, they paid enough for the 49 acres to pay for the whole thing and the house. We were very lucky that we didn’t lose anything, but by then we had already planted costal and had the land irrigated so they were paying for irrigated land.
A: How many people had cars when you moved here?
J: Everybody had a car when I moved here.
A: Where did the kids go to school since there wasn’t one here in Moore?
J: They went to either Pearsall or Devine. They have a bus to go to Pearsall but if you wanted to go to Devine then you had to pay to go over there, but a lot of kids go over there.
A: Where there any criminal events while you lived here?
J: Not too many…..
A: What about the ones that set your house on fire?
J: Oh ya, they burned my house down while I was on vacation. They went to trial but they were released during the trial, and nothing was ever done to them.
A: Where there any black families that you can remember living here?
J: There was one black family that lived in Pearsall and that’s the only one that I know of. A couple of families moved here but none of them ever stayed and I don’t know why.
A: Do you remember the climate being any different now from when you first moved here?
J: No, it’s always been hot. What surprises me is that it never cools down at night; it just stays hot all of the time.
A: What were your main means of entertainment while you lived here?
J: I don’t think there was any entertainment here; you always had to go somewhere. Here television was about it.
A: What do you think the average income of the residents of Moore is today?
J: Probably middle class, everyone seems to be doing ok.
A: What was the attire worn by the people when you moved here?
J: About the same as it is now?
A: What was the most common job?
J: Like I said most people worked on the base or farmed.
A: What was your first job when you moved here?
J: My first job here was working as a farm hand for my father and I made $200 a month and room and board, but it wasn’t bad. I always seemed to have money in my pocket. We had gasoline on the ranch so I didn’t have to buy gas.
A: What was you first job ever?
J: I worked at the post office right after I graduated in Bandera.
A: So you are originally from Texas?
J: Oh ya, born in San Antonio.
A: What was the teen pregnancy rate when you were growing up as compared to now?
J: When I was growing up it was nil. Not like it is now.
A: Is there any thing that I haven’t asked that you think I should know?
J: No, I think you asked everything that I know.
A: Nothing funny happened to you over the years?
J: No, if it did I can’t remember.

Interview Notes
Richard Muzquiz
Richard, at the time of the interview, is 77 years old. He is still a resident of Moore. He was drafted into the Army. Richard was married for 18 years until his wife passed. He has two sons, Peter and Richard. Richard and both of his sons graduated from Pearsall High School. Richard may have graduated from Pearsall, but he started school in Moore.

When Richard started school the schools in Moore were segregated. There was a white school and a Mexican school. This was the same in many of the small towns in the area. Richard really didn’t have much to say about the school situation, and the schools were combined while he was still attending.

Richard’s family owned the only grocery store in Moore for four generations, starting with his grandfather Francisco Muzquiz, his father Pete Muzquiz, Richard himself, and then his son. The family business which had become a Diamond Shamrock was sold in 1996.

Richard wasn’t old enough to remember the Depression, knows that before the depression Moore had a mercantile store and a bank, but both folded. The Depression wasn’t the only reason for this. The other cause was the boll weevils. They attacked the main crop of the time, which was cotton. When this happened it was kind of a turning point for Moore’s future. This event caused Moore’s growth to come to a halt, and the town has never really recovered.

Richard did tell one comical story about a woman that was a little outspoken in the town when he was a child. "I can’t recall the lady’s name, but she was an older lady. Anyhow one day she was at her house and another lady noticed that she had six hens and six rosters. The visiting lady decided to be a little sarcastic and ask why on earth she had six hens and six rosters in the coop. The lady responded by saying, 'I don’t want my hens ending up like all the old hens around here.' The visitor had nothing more to say. I had to include that story because I thought it gave a reflection of a small town, and how every body has to know everybody else’s business."

Another story that Richard told was how his grandfather would go up and down the highway during the time it was being constructed and sell lunch items and drinks to the workers to supplement his income. According to both Richard and Jim Francisco, Richard’s grandfather, was a great entrepreneur, always buying things then trying to sell them. The way Richard put it he would go to one farm, buy something then go to the next and sell it. Currently Richard is the County Commissioner for the district in which Moore is located.

Anthony Bollman U.S. History

Kimberly Crouch R. Hines, Instructor

Anthony Bollman	U.S. History
Kimberly Crouch	R. Hines, Instructor