E. K. Fawcett

Each year, beginning in 1931, usually during the first week in August, E. K. Fawcett invited Scouts to join him at Dolan Creek to celebrate his arriving in this area in 1883.  For in that year, at the age of 18, and weighing only 90 pounds, he and a small band of four other young men, driving a herd of 3,000 sheep, sought shelter on Dolan Creek in a cave, in Val Verde County, to await the arrival of his employer and his employer's partner.

The men had brought the sheep from Yorktown and made their home in the cave for over a year until they were able to build a log cabin out of sycamore logs.  They called the cave "centipede cave" because of the large number of centipedes found in the cave.

The five men who were in the cave included E. K. Fawcett, George W. Ames, John M. Gray, J. C. Burk and Pat Burns.  On the wall of the cave in 1939, their names and the date of their arrival were still visible, July 24, 1883.

At that time, E. K. Fawcett worked for the Richardson and Ames Company for wages of $15 a month.  Shortly after their arrival, Fawcett made a three and a half day trip into Del Rio to buy a rifle.  Del Rio had only five white families.  Rocksprings, Sonora and Eldorado had not been established and there were no fences anywhere to be found much less a road.  There were only Buffalo and Indian trails in those days.

After his employer took his sheep and left the country, Fawcett took his savings and borrowed $9,000.00, a very large sum in those days, and bought cattle.  It took him many years of hard labor to pay off this debt, but he did and acquired over 68,000 acres of land along the Dolan River.

-- County Commissioner of Val Verde - two years
-- Justice of the Peace of Precinct #2 - twenty years
-- President of the Del Rio Chamber of Commerce -- six years
-- President of the Del Rio Park Board - three years
-- Director of First National Bank, Del Rio - five years
-- Director of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce and   President in 1939 - four years
-- Director of the South Texas Chamber of Commerce and Second Vice-President - nine years
-- President of the Sheep and Goat Raisers Associations - one year
-- President of Del Rio Wool and Mohair Company
-- President of the Southwest Texas Council, BSA - six years
-- Vice-President of the Concho Valley Council, BSA
-- Chairman of the Council Camping Committee
-- Chairman of the Camp Fawcett Development Committee