Upshur 1877

William Upshur and friends fi nally had life at the

mountain going
their way. Th e bridge through the bat caves large entrance was at
last fi nished, as well as the massive wall of logs surrounding it.

Th e Trading
Post was in operation, their homes built and occupied. Rodney

Taylor, and
Peter Birdsong were busy with their duties as Federal Marshals.




They were settled in and happy. But as we all know, as did they,

nothing
ever stays the same. Th ere are always those who get in the way

of progress,
or happiness, no matter how set in concrete. If not some one, then

some
thing will always interfere, and in this case, it was fi re. Upshur;s

beloved
Paris, Texas was on fi re, started by a drunken stepson, and so it

happened
that they were all visiting their families there at the time.



Th fire, however, was not all they were to contend with, there was

a
retreating gang of renegades, led by a Mormon fugitive, hiding out

in
the old abandoned shipping port of Jonesboro when the fi re broke

out.
Th e group of men had been chased across three states by both

the army,
and local law enforcement agencies for months before losing the

trail in
Texas. A town on fi re would furnish just the cover they needed to

blow
the burned-out banks iron safe and fi nance their escape to

Mexico. But
there was an unexpected obstacle in place....UPSHUR was in town,

as was
Marshal Rodney Taylor.