Published in 2011, the late John Eddie Vogt’s book, Witches, Bitches, and Other Small Town Folks, brings to life the quirky, unforgettable, and entertaining tales of growing up and living in Kendall County from the 1930s through the 1960s. Thanks to the gracious permission of his family—and proudly sponsored by Hometown Roofing—The Kendall Gentleman is honored to share excerpts from his book for your enjoyment.
To dip an animal means to run it through a trough of water that has an insecticide added to kill insects, especially ticks and lice. At one time when the fever tick was such a problem in Texas and Mexico the government built long troughs that were deep enough that the animal could not touch the bottom but had to swim through. This would ensure that the creature was completely covered by the dip. Cattle, horses and goats were the main animals that were “dipped”. I am not saying that a few people might not dip sheep, especially when they were freshly sheared, but this would be the exception. A sheep does not like water, plus the water would soak into their wool and cause them to become heavy and drown.
Those ranches that raised goats and had a cattleguard on their road would take the dip and pour it into the cattleguard hole. The goats remembering their experience at the dipping vats would smell the dip and stay completely away from trying to cross at the cattleguard.
The crossing of the Cibolo on what is called Herff Road was a wide, shallow, bridgeless, gravel bottomed natural crossing. It was about twice as wide as it is today and in normal weather about eight to twelve inches deep. It was Boerne’s first car wash. On a pretty sunshining day there would usually several cars out in the water. The owner would be out of the car with his shoes off, his pants legs rolled up, and a rag in his hand washing the car. I guess today that would be water pollution.
You know? Come to think of it I didn’t know the name of that road was Herff until just a few years ago. Most of my life it was referred to as “Lovers Lane”. If that road could talk it would change the course of the world and the inhabitants thereon.
Through the years I have heard numerous tales about how that crossing got its name. The only one that made any sense was told to me by Vernon Norris. Vernon was born and raised here and left me with the impression that he and numerous other people had witnessed the event.
It seems that a Mr. Bergmann was working for the Herff Ranch and took care of the livestock. He was tending the sheep this particular day and for some reason or other he had to move them to another pasture. This pasture was on the other side of the creek and there was no other way around. He figured it would not be too difficult to drive the bunch across. He was probably using a judas goat. For some reason or other the animals spooked and he could not get them to cross. Being a faithful shepard he hand carried each and every animal to the other side. There was evidently a rather large crowd that had seen what was going on and as expected offered only verbal assistance. The crossing then became known as the Sheep Dip.
