Celtic cowboy world alive and well in Forth Worth
By Martin Hintz
 

"Cattle jobbers have to live too."
— John B. Keane, Durango: A Novel

"I'm an habitual sumbitch," says one old guy hunkered down in Fort Worth's White Elephant Saloon, as he scratches a beefy thigh with a gnarly left hand. Red suspenders are stretched taut over a full belly, while he mutters mournfully into his can of Coor's Light. A buddy, perched cranelike on the adjoining stool, nods in agreement. Heads then bent in conspiratorial fashion, they go on to discuss how their girl friends and armadillos have the same dispositions. 

Down the long battered bar, scattered among the hometown folk, are tourists from Tennessee, Illinois, Wisconsin, Germany, Japan and who knows where else. Their booted feet are well situated on the brass foot rail, hats pushed back from sunburned foreheads, ready to order another Lone Star long neck. They might have seen the bar as C.D.'s Bar & Grill, featured in Chuck Norris long-running television series where he played a Texas Ranger named Walker. Now, they have a chance to act a role, too.

Although it's only a weekday midafternoon, the place is as hopping as a Mexican jumping bean doing a hat dance over a glowing mesquite bar-b-cue pit. The room is kneedeep with verbiage, like the area corrals used to be with gifts deposited by cattle who came here in the thousands...by the tens of thousands...by the hundreds of thousands...over the years.

The White Elephant, on the city's Exchange Avenue, is on the fringes of the once robust Fort Worth stockyards. The neighborhood is now kind-of-cleaned-up as a major area tourist attraction with such attendant museums featuring fancy boots, wagons and cattle drives, as well as honoring cowgirls and cowboys. 

In the good old days, this dusty neighborhood was aptly tagged a "hell's half acre" for its rootin', tootin' ways. For instance, on the night of Feb. 8, 1887, gambler Slow Draw Luke Short , then owner of the White Elephant, engaged in a heated argument with Long Hair Jim Courtright, a private detective and sometime constable. Short pulled a pistol from his vest when the altercation went to the street outside and nailed Long Hair before the latter — soon to be late-lamented — could draw. Short returned inside to tend to the needs of his thirsty clientele. All in the day's work, you know. After a decent interval after his opponent's burial, Short sold the White Elephant and moved to Kansas. Six years later, he became ill and died. Brought back to Fort Worth, Short lies only a short distance away from his nemesis Courtright, buried in the same cemetery.

For a time, a long time, the White Elephant was a place — as they say in Texas — where a cowboy came to get drunk and get drunk fast. After all, seeing the rump end of steers for months on end meant that a cut-loose drink now and then was helpful.

Although that was a long time ago, the harsh Texas sunlight still struggles to stream through the bar's dusty front window and illuminate the Elephant's innards. But the glass' opaque personality prevents much more than a feeble attempt at illumination.

But who cares. This is not a shopping mall hideaway. The White Elephant is considered one of the 100 best bars in America, at least to some tony travel magazines...and the raft of stockmen, drovers and cowhands who patronized the place for more than a century would agree.

So do the Irish. Bartender Mary Crabb's green felt derby is nailed high on the wall, amid a roundup of sweat-stained, crumpled cowboy hats donated by patrons over the years. Crabb passes a bottle of Shiner Bock beer over her counter and gives a wink. Behind her, a longhorn steer grins bemusedly down at the scene...probably wishing it also had an azure Stetson of the Gaelic persuasion.

"Darn right, there's Irish in me," she says proudly. "That's why the hat is there."

In the back of the White Elephant — where several Missourians rest their tootsies after a day meandering the Stockyard's historic district — hang a couple of photos where the crisp, clean hillsides of Co. Clare roll toward the distance. In one, Don and Kathy Edwards stand with Fort Worth businessman buddy Bob Coffey outside Gus O'Connor's Pub in Doolin. All three are wearing tee-shirts loudly proclaiming "White Elephant Saloon & Eatery." In another shot, they are huddled alongside the wind-whipped Cliffs of Moher.

Edwards is one of nine owners of the White Elephant, part of a purchase deal made in 1978 when the place was falling apart and demo experts were licking their chops at the potential action. The new partners saved the saloon, retaining all of its honky-tonk character and raw charm.

Of Welsh-Scottish extraction, Edwards been to Ireland "dozens of times," he says in a call to his home in Weatherton, Tex., about 35 miles west of Fort Worth. Now at 61, he's been touring the world for more than 40 years as a balladeer, folk singer and storyteller and has just finished a phone interview with Galway radio announcer John Buckley. "He's a big promoter of folk music. You know, it's hard to get played on stations here in our own country, but over there they play it all the time."

He's about to squeeze in another tour around Kansas, Wyoming, Utah and — heck — even to Boston and Martha's Vineyard. About five years ago, he was featured on a Texan/Irish Nanci Griffith's album, Other Voices/Other Rooms. He also played the cowhand character Smoky alongside Robert Redford in the recently released film, Horse Whisperer. "Yah, Redford is a fan of my music. I guess that's why I got the part," Edwards says modestly.

As an aside, Edwards is represented by a good Irishman, Scott O'Malley of Colorado Springs, Colo., who also handles David Wilkie and the Celtic Cowboys, a Canadian-based cowboy band with strong Irish-Scottish roots, as well as noted Western-style guitarist Rich O'Brien, a transplanted Missourian now a Texan.

On his numerous forays to Ireland, with a special love for the west coast and the Dingle Peninsula, Edwards always carries his guitar with him. Just as with his good friend, singer/song writer Tom Russell, of Canutillo, Tex., he has a large following in the Auld Sod. "They're always glad to see you walk in," he says.

"There is such a close kinship between Irish music and indigenous Texas music," Edwards points out. "The 'Streets of Laredo' originated as the ‘Bard of Armagh,’ he adds, indicating that the folk tradition is kept alive by such borrowing from other cultures. "I hear the fellows over there playing the banjo, penny whistle and pipes and I know the tune, even though I might know it by another name," Edwards goes on. The Irish affinity for the open sea is close to the cowboy's love of the wide range, he adds, which extends into various musical genres.

Edwards' father, John, was a professional magician on the vaudeville circuit who settled down when his children were born. Young Edwards left his Boonton (N.J.) home when he was 16 and headed West. "I came to Texas because I wanted to be a cowboy since I was 8 years old. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I punched cows, worked day jobs. And music eventually took over. I did whatever I had to do."

He and his wife, Kathy, are building home on their ranch near Hico, Tex., where they run about 100 head of cattle, two Morgan horses and a quarter-horse. "Sure, I still ride. Have to keep in shape. Besides, when I go to Ireland and mention I'm from Texas, everybody immediately says 'cowboy.'"
 
 

If You Go The White Elephant Saloon & Eatery is located at 101 E. Exchange Ave., Fort Worth, Tex., 76106. 817-624-1887. Opening at noon, live country and western music is played nightly. For more information on Fort Worth, contact the Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau, 415 Throckmorton, Fort Worth, Tex. 76102, www.fortworth.com.