One thing I have noticed since I started mining the old Alto Heralds for stories is how much you can learn about a person’s life just by following newspaper references.
After hearing Jim Cromwell’s masterful presentation of Bill Brunt’s life and death at the Texas State Historical Marker Dedication I decided to search the Alto Heralds and to see what I could find about Sheriff Brunt’s younger years.
No luck with a birth announcement – the Herald hadn’t started mentioning births in 1910. After undergoing an operation at the Jacksonville Sanitarium in 1927, and taking some summer courses at Lon Morris College in 1928, we find Bill in 1929 as captain of the Alto Yellow Jackets football team. He is highly praised as the “greatest tackle Alto has ever produced”.
He also starred in the Senior Play in a role that has a special significance. The play was ARIZONA COWBOY, a comedy/drama of the old West in four acts, and Bill played the part of Farley Gantt, a cowboy sheriff. A peek into the future.
There were not a lot of jobs available in 1930 so Bill made the sensible choice to join the U S Navy. The Herald does not tell us this, but we might have guessed since over the next few years he is reported as coming in from California to visit his parents. The “extended visit with his parents” mentioned in March 1935 implies that Bill is home for good.
It so happens that just at that time Constable “Dock” Black had died and City Marshal Cal Earle had resigned to accept the constable position, leaving the City Marshal job open.
Alto had a reputation at the time of being the “roughest little town in East Texas” and the City Fathers decided that young Bill Brunt was just the one to clean it up. So he took the job and started doing what a City Marshal does.
Alto’s first stop light had just been installed and Brunt used the newspaper as a medium to try to educate local drivers about not “running over the red light” and about coming to a full stop before turning right.
Controlling the drunks on the streets and at the ball games was another ongoing problem. Store burglaries happened often, but the perpetrators were usually caught.
The occasion most often remembered from Bill Brunt’s time as City Marshal occurred less than 3 months after he took office. It was the big shoot-out at the Arrant Store. It seems City Marshal Brunt saw Ernest Arrant speeding down the main street and went to the store to speak to him about it. Ernest and his brother both pulled guns and shot at Brunt, wounding him in the leg. Bill returned fire, killing Ernest.
This took place at the Arrant Store and Bakery which was located about where the Hall of Justice is now. It happened to be a Sunday night and the members of the Methodist youth group, then known as the Epworth League,excitedly viewed the whole thing from the second floor of the church.
Less than a year after accepting the City Marshal job, Bill Brunt was recruited by a group of Cherokee County citizens to run for sheriff. Although he was only 25 years old and there were 3 other candidates, he made it to the run-off and then handily beat the incumbent, J A Smith.
Bill had married Mary Dear of Crockett just before the second primary and they soon moved to Rusk.
So Alto’s lawman became Cherokee County’s lawman with his exploits recorded by other larger newspapers, but the Alto Herald still faithfully reported every time he and Mary came home to visit the family.
Here is the link to the Mud Creek Market Facebook Post that tells all about the events that inspired the historical marker honoring Bill Brunt.
Both the sheriff and the outlaw are buried near Alto, Bill Brunt in Old Palestine Cemetery (link) and Red Creel out 294 in the Hendrick Cemetery (link).