FROM THE STORYTELLING PORCH

Two Joes, a coin,
and a train whistle.

Next stop, Cotulla.

“Cotulla! Everybody get your guns ready.” That was reportedly the conductor’s welcome as trains rolled into the frontier town.

Two Joes. One spelling.

Two Joseph Kotulas meet in San Antonio, flip a coin, and settle who keeps the K. The other becomes Cotulla. The Menger Hotel gets the credit, but the family account in Mary O. Parker’s article puts the meeting at the Buckhorn Saloon.

A corral full of mustangs.

The old ranch corral once held horses from a roundup of roughly 5,000 mustangs destined for Argentina’s cavalry, or so the tale goes.

Local lore · not independently verified.

Retold from Mary O. Parker’s Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine feature, December 2010 ↗.