ALL THINGS ELGIN
HOGEYE
Well Sirs. I was lookin for a little history cuz I wasn't too happy with what the history book said. I knew there had to be more to the start of the little town of Elgin, Texas and anyhow the history books don't always tell the truth. I finally drug out the Big Book of Cole, volume four first edition unabridged and found an obscure reference to E. Poo Jones and knew I was onto something. It come from one N.R.Cole of the Yeagua Knobs (not to be confused with the other N.R. Cole named Norman Richard and was upstanding folks ) this feller was a mite on the shady side and it's rumored that the N.R. stood for Night Roper.
Now Night Roper heard it straight from a feller whose great aunt Ethel had seen the whole thing... Seems there was two ol bachelor brothers Rufus and Commodore Goldfinklestein that lived just south of Elgin when there weren't no Elgin just some scattered farms. Them two got their heads together and decided to make some money they needed a high dollar, high bred boar hog to improve the razorback type of pigs they had brought from East Texas. Besides that they could rent out this boar hog to the neighbors and they also figured that with this high bred boar hog that the ladies in that neck of the woods would think they was gentlemen of means and could catch theirselves a pair of wives.
They started to make plans for the trip to find this high dollar, high bred boar hog and built a little hog pen on the wagon bed figuring a hog such as this shouldn't have to walk. They filled the wagon up with parched corn, hitched the mules and was off to Missouri. Only trouble was when they got to Missouri they had just about run out of money. They found a Missouri farmer with a boar hog for sale that weren't real high dollar cuz he was a mite on the poor side and only had one eye.
Now they figured that none of the neighbors would rent out a boar hog with only one eye thinkin it might be a passed-on trait. And this Missouri farmer says that shouldn't be no kinda problem whatsoever cuz he would send off to Kansas City for a glass eye and nobody but them would ever know.
So that's what they done and they headed back to Texas and become right fond of this hog and he got fattened up cuz they was slipping in folks corn cribs at night borrowing a little corn. They even named him Romeo.
When they got home all the neighbors and folks they didn't even know come to see this high dollar, high bred Missouri boar hog. They thought it was a little strange that he had one blue eye and one brown eye but havin' never seen such a hog as this they thought they might all be like that... Since they had such a crowd together, they decided the time was right to give a demonstration of the romantic prowess of Romeo and slipped in a suitable sow
Well these two hogs took to it just like... well like hogs... to mud. But just as things was goin good out popped that glass eye... two or three women fainted dead away and the men was howling laughing, except for one feller who was an eyepatch wearing , fiddle playin veteran of the Second American Revolution... With all the commotion he calmly picked up the eye and put it in his pocket.
That night this fiddle playin Confederate was at a house dance and while he was playing folks began to notice that he wasn't wearing his eyepatch, and that one eye was blue and the other was brown... And folks was whisperin Hogeye... Hogeye... Hogeye.
From then on the settlement around there was known as Hogeye and every year the town of Elgin, Texas has a celebration named The Hogeye Festival. I'll be there and most likely some fiddle players.
By Terry Cole, Raconteur in Residence
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The Elgin Chronicles
