Upshur 1877

William Upshur and friends fi nally had life at the mountain goingtheir way. Th e bridge through the bat caves large entrance was atlast fi nished, as well as the massive wall of logs surrounding it. Th e TradingPost was in operation, their homes built and occupied. Rodney Taylor, andPeter Birdsong were busy with their duties as Federal Marshals. They were settled in and happy. But as we all know, as did they, nothingever 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 something will always interfere, and in this case, it was fi re. Upshur;s belovedParis, Texas was on fi re, started by a drunken stepson, and so it happenedthat they were all visiting their families there at the time.Th fire, however, was not all they were to contend with, there was aretreating gang of renegades, led by a Mormon fugitive, hiding out inthe 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 inTexas. A town on fi re would furnish just the cover they needed to blowthe burned-out banks iron safe and fi nance their escape to Mexico. Butthere was an unexpected obstacle in place....UPSHUR was in town, as wasMarshal Rodney Taylor.