Tag: Poker

The National Park Born in a Poker Game

The National Park Born in a Poker Game

Below is a bit of West Texas history from Jane Dunn Sibley’s book: Jane’s Window. Jane was a friend of Euguenia Howard Hunt. It covers the origin of Big Bend National Park and then Texas itself.

Senator Winfield’s major achievement was persuading the state to appropriate money to establish Big Bend State Park, which was a Texas state park before it became a national park. Obtaining funding to acquire the park land from a conservative legislature was not easy. It took Mary’s father many hard years of lobbying and arm-twisting to convince his colleagues to fund the Big Bend Park acquisition. Finally, he got a group of legislators to agree to take a look at the proposed park site. Sen. Winfield arranged a special train to transport them from Austin to the small town of Alpine, way out in West Texas.

Upon arrival, the state legislators would be greeted by local dignitaries and then taken by automobile to tour Big Bend. However, on their long train ride west, the legislators started drinking. They also became seriously involved playing a serious poker game. When they arrived in Alpine, the game was still going strong, so they moved it directly into the Holland Hotel. They were not about to leave that game until it was over, so local officials were left waiting outside with empty cars. Heine could not persuade a single one of them to leave that game. Finally, the legislators all agreed. “Hell, Heine, we’ll pass your bill if you’ll just leave us alone!” He did and they did. So that’s how Texas got Big Bend State Park, which was later transferred to the Department of the Interior under the supervision of the National Park Service.

Mignon Rachal Mignon is descended from Texas pioneers on both sides of her family. Her mother’s ancestors arrived in Texas in the eighteen thirties and her father was a descendant of the Peters Colony, which came to Texas under a contract from Stephen F. Austin, the charismatic entrepreneur from Missouri, who helped colonize Texas. In 1821, after Mexico broke away from Spain, they gave Austin permission to invite American settlers to Texas, thus creating a buffer between the North American Indian tribes and the people of northern Mexico. The Texans became the first line of defense against the Indians, who had frustrated two hundred years of Spanish efforts to conquer them and convert them to Catholicism.

Judge Hunt was a serious poker player

JudgeSperryPlayCardsLivingRoomFriarTuck1960ish
Judge Hunt and Sperry playing cards in the living room of the house at 526 W. Friar Tuck, Houston circa 1957

My dad, Judge Wilmer Brady Hunt, was a very serious card player. Notice the expression in this photo. He’s playing a ten-year-old (me) and was as focused as a terrier at a rat hole. Note the hat. He always wore one when he played cards. It was likely to cover his expression as he studied newly drawn cards. (The second hat likely belongs to the photographer – probably Uncle Philo or Uncle Brother. (Yes, Uncle Brother, as Henry Safford was known.  His wife, Aunt Georgia, called him Brother, which must have raised some eyebrows occasionally.)

My father’s favorite people to play cards with were probably his mother (Lucy Brady Hunt) and his sisters (Lucy Hunt Barada and Lennie Estelle Hunt). All three were sharks. His mother, whom we called Nana, was the Miss Marple of cards. She was a master of bridge and hearts. Nana rarely glanced around the table. Instead she would stare at her cards, cluck and shake her head grimly. And she would win – decisively and often. What made her particularly difficult to beat was that she held her hand upside down and completely unorganized – so that if a competitor or kibitzer happened by …

My dad told me some of his best times as a young man were playing cards on ships. He did his undergad at Georgetown University in D.C.  Most people would have taken the train from Houston. It was a two-day trip. Instead Dad took a ship from Galveston, which would take four or five – leaving plenty of time to drink whiskey and play cards. He was also very good at shooting skeet, which he probably did at the fantail in those days.

As a lawyer and a judge, he played cards with and his friends every Monday night, barring holidays and assassinations. When he hosted the party (in the room in the photo), I made a habit of drifting by for the cold-cuts and the wonderful chatter. One of the men he played with was Judge Pete Salito, who brought wonderful Italian food of his own making, which he warm-up in our kitchen before the game.  Another, and I don’t remember his name, drove up in a beautiful Jaguar XKE, he could barely get into. The men always enjoyed themselves.

Among my dad’s favorite sayings at the table were:

  • I’d rather owe it to you than beat you out of it.
  • Boys are no damn good (which he told me sisters often)
  • A woman’s just a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke

I’m looking to my family to assist me with more.