San Saba, Texas

Episode 564 / 18 January 2025 / 72 min / express

First Family Of Murder & Pecans

"we are going to Texas this week, San Saba, Texas, two separate words; it's in central Texas, about three hours and twenty minutes to Dallas" about 0:02:50

The case: Murder of Bonnie Harkey and Karen Johnson (March 25, 2012). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2025

Median household income

$39,583 a year

Median home value

$156,400

History, in brief

• In 1931 rancher W.H. "Uncle Billy" Gibbons gave the Boy Scouts of America a 99-year lease on campgrounds along Brady Creek on his ranch; the scouts relocated several miles upstream in 1946 but still use Camp Billy Gibbons. about 0:05:14
• In 1938 the San Saba River flooded, causing county-wide ruin; one third of the town was under water. about 0:05:57
• In the 1950s a huge prolonged drought meant the town could not grow anything. about 0:06:09
• Riley and Israel Harkey, two brothers from Arkansas, drove the first wagon train into the county while serving as Indian scouts for the Republic of Texas; they returned in 1855 with their parents and six other siblings and founded Harkeyville. about 0:18:03
• Harkeyville once had a general store, a cotton mill, a blacksmith's shop, a millinery, a race track and a baseball diamond; by 2012 it had twelve people. about 0:18:44
• The Great Depression shuttered most of Harkeyville as people went where the work was. about 0:19:07
• Riley Harkey bought the initial 113.9 acre tract for a farm in 1885. about 0:19:37
• Olga Bryan Harkey, born in 1898, planted the first orchard in 1926 with 1,200 trees, as a hobby; turkeys were his business. about 0:20:06
• In 1957 O.B. Riley Harkey, then thirty-two, planted another 1,500 trees with his sons John, ten, and name withheld here, five, in the grove that became Harkeyville Orchard. about 0:20:48
• San Saba calls itself the pecan capital of the world and produces up to five million pounds of pecans a year. about 0:17:39

The reviews read out

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