Knickerbocker, Texas, Zip Code 76939

This is one of the more unusually-named towns in Texas, given the lack of enthusiasm for things New England in the Lone Star State. New England is where real Yankees come from, and although Texans and real New England have some things in common – individuality, hard and honest work, and a man making his own life – too many things Massachusetts are associated with the word “Yankee,” and not enough things Vermont or Maine.

You might say, though, that the name of the town also reflects the Texas attitude of “Do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anybody or offend God.”

The town, so says the Handbook of Texas online, “was named for Diedrich Knickerbocker, narrator of Washington Irving's History of New York, by two early settlers who were related to the author.” Unlike many other settlers of Tom Green County, Knickerbocker’s founders were “farmers and sheepmen.”

“ In the late 1890s Knickerbocker had two cotton gins, two saloons, two blacksmith shops, an undertaker, two general stores, two hotels, stage line stables, a sanatorium, and a population of 250.” Population today is around 50.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hnk19

Laura Bullion, outlaw, prostitute, seamstress and householder, is believed to have been born in Knickerbocker in October 1876. As a side note, most women outlaws of the 19th century are labeled “prostitutes.” Some writings have citations, others do not. Union army women soldiers discovered and discharged were often labeled prostitutes, even though almost all were in the army for the same reason men were.

“In the 1890s, Laura Bullion was a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang; her cohorts were fellow outlaws, including the Sundance Kid, ‘Black Jack’ Ketchum, and Kid Curry. For several years in the 1890s, she was romantically involved with outlaw Ben Kilpatrick (‘The Tall Texan’), a bank and train robber and an acquaintance of her father, who had been an outlaw, as well. In 1901, Bullion was convicted of robbery and sentenced to five years in prison for her participation in the Great Northern train robbery. She was released in 1905 after serving three years and six months of her punishment.

"Laura Bullion moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1918, posing as a war widow and using assumed names. She supported herself as a householder and seamstress, and later as a drapery maker, dressmaker and interior designer. Her fortunes declined in the late 1940s, at which time she was without an occupation. In 1961, she died of heart disease at the Shelby County Hospital in Memphis. Her final resting place is at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Bullion

Someone else notes the often applied label “prostitute.”

“Interestingly, as I researched more female outlaws, I came to notice how frequently their sexual activities and partners were mentioned — distinctly different from the characterizations of their male outlaw counterparts — and how the accounts that were made at the time have a distinct impact on the accounts that are written today. It is interesting to note that these women were frequently made out to be sexual deviants, loose women, and/or prostitutes — defined by that all too-familiar double-standard. Not only did they break the laws of the land, but since they shirked sexual mores with abandon, society made it clear they were outsiders. Perhaps even more so than male outlaws.”

http://quitecontinental.net/tag/laura-bullion/