By Curt Burnette/Retired Limberlost State Historic Site Naturalist/Tour Guide
Article first published in Berne Witness January 2026
In Geneva’s past, during the Christmas season, there were folks in town who deserved a lump of coal in their stockings. Or even a lump on their head, as one fellow who became too jolly found out.
Even before the rowdy times in Geneva during the oil boom of the 1890s and early 1900s, the town was a rough and tumble place, even during holiday times. In the Geneva news section of the Decatur Daily News dated December 27, 1882, the Geneva correspondent stated “Christmas was here Monday with its usual accompaniment of fights, knockdown, drunken brawls, & c.”
This is not what a person thinks of as the usual activities of Christmas Day! The reporter goes on to say “A repetition of the scenes will be enacted on New Year’s day, when all are invited to be present and see that Geneva, when she is at herself, can give a pretty good representation of the scenes enacted by the cow-boys of Texas. Admission, all free gratis for nothing.”
The wild west on the streets of Geneva! Our reporter’s description of the following incident would fit well in a movie about a town in the old west. “A great big, wide, tall drunk undertook to run the town, Christmas night, but Marshal Heaston, requested him to let the “job out,” which he would not do, when Bill struck him on the “nut” hard enough to paralyze him, then conducted his “Royal Highness” to the calaboose to cool off.” I figure “nut” referred to his “coconut,” slang for head.
Supposedly, when Charles Porter married Gene Stratton in April of 1886, they lived in Decatur at first because Charles didn’t want to bring his young bride to such a rough-around-the-edges town. Charles had been established in Geneva with his drug store for many years, but he owned his boyhood home in Decatur, and this is where the newlyweds settled in.
But, apparently, he felt Geneva had calmed down enough to move his family (daughter Jeannette had been born on August 27, 1887) there in 1888. Maybe it had, but a few years later the oil boom began and hundreds of young oil men from all over came to the Geneva oil fields, and drinking, gambling, and visits with ladies of the evening became commonplace. The Decatur Democrat on September 29, 1898, reported that “Geneva, the capitol of the southern part of this county is becoming a regular bowery in itself. During the past three months there has been all sorts of shooting and cutting affrays in the town.”
Well, the oil boom petered out eventually and Geneva got over its wild and wooly phase. Nowadays, Geneva citizens enjoy a peaceful Christmas, as it was meant to be. There still may be a few folks around who deserve a lump of coal in their stockings, but, thankfully, there are no more drunks who wish to “run the town” on Christmas.
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