By J.B. Smith

Tribune-Herald staff writer

McLennan County Judge G.B. Gerald had a way of refusing to die.

As a Confederate colonel in the Civil War, Gerald fought at Gettysburg and was badly wounded four times. After his move to Waco, he provoked a shootout downtown with the local newspaper editor and the editor’s brother.

He survived that, too, though his left arm and his two opponents did not. The one-armed judge lived out the rest of his 78 years at his two-story home at Alexander Avenue and North 15th-A Street.

Now that Greek Revival-style home is down to its last chance to dodge the bullet.

The city of Waco tagged the North Waco home as unsafe after a fire three years ago. On May 7, the city’s Building Standards Commission ordered the owner, 55-year-old David Battles, an unemployed registered nurse, to demolish it within 30 days or face demolition by the city.

But just a day before the deadline last Friday, the home got an unusual stay of execution because of its historic status.

City planning director Bill Falco, hearing from a reporter about the history of the house, met with chief building official Randy Childers and decided to give a 90-day extension on the demolition order.

The city’s historic preservation ordinance gives the city staff the power to delay demolition of structures that are deemed historic, but that power had never been used.

“We’re delaying it for a period of time to see if anyone has an interest in preserving it,” Falco said. “Had we not known (the history), with the condition it’s in, I’m not sure we could have given another extension. Architecturally, it’s a very interesting house, but it’s going to take a lot to restore it.”

Battles said he bought the house in 1992, partly because of his family’s desire for a two-story home. He, his wife and their four children moved in with the intention of restoring it. They were forced to move out after a July 2005 electrical fire, reportedly involving faulty wiring, damaged the home.

Now Battles hopes someone will come forward to buy the historic home, even though he acknowledges the cost to restore it would probably be significant. He says he’d like to see a historical society take the project on.

“That would be a blessing if we could get the interest for someone to save it,” he said. “This has been a very emotional trip for me. I felt like I was entrusted with that house.”

The house has extensive fire damage, especially in the rear of the second story, which is exposed to the elements.

Battles said he has spent about $20,000 on the house since the fire, thinking he could bring it up to code and move back in. The Building Standards Commission has given him several extensions to repair the house.

But he said problems with contractors and demanding city regulations have left him unable to complete the work.

The city in March changed the status of the house from green-tagged to red-tagged, meaning inspectors don’t believe it is feasible to repair. Battles disagrees, believing it can be saved.

“It’s as firm as any house you’ll see,” he said.

The house has 2,626 square feet, plus 1,000 square feet for a huge two-story wraparound porch supported by large, square pillars. It has leaded glass windows, Victorian-style wood trim, curved awnings and a basement. It’s surrounded by live oaks that probably predate the house.

Battles says he believes the house was built by Judge Gerald around 1886, 11 years before the infamous downtown shootout. City directories from 1889 and 1890 show Gerald living on South Fifth Street, but several directories between 1894 and 1911 show him living at the house at Alexander and 15th-A.

Falco said he believes the architectural distinctiveness of the house combined with Gerald’s historic importance in Waco could make the house eligible for state and national historic designations, if the house can be restored.

Gerald already has a small town named for him (Gerald, near West) and a state historical marker on Fourth Street, chronicling his showdown with J.W. and William Harris.

History of G.B. Gerald

He cut a wide swath long before the shootout. A Mississippi native, he commanded the 18th Mississippi Regiment at Gettyburg and rose to the position of colonel. He also lost the use of his left arm during battle.

He moved to the frontier cotton town of Waco in 1869, where he edited and owned newspapers for a few years. He was elected county judge in 1876, after promising to rid Waco of illegal gambling.

He summoned the sheriff soon after the election and asked what was being done to crack down on gambling. He was not satisfied with the answer, according to A Pictorial History of Waco by the late Roger N. Conger.

Gerald strapped on a pistol and marched down to the town’s most prominent gambling den, where he kicked in the door and began throwing furnishings out the second-floor window. Then he stopped by the newspaper office and submitted a notice “promising like treatment to any other gambling house choosing to open that night,” Conger writes.

“None of them did open that night or thereafter, during Judge Gerald’s administration,” Conger writes.

Gerald served as county judge until 1884, then became postmaster. In the early 1890s, he served as a state senator.

In the meantime, he and his wife raised several children, including Florence Gerald, a famous Broadway actress in the early 20th century.

He also kept company with a man who was widely hated in Waco: A young firebrand editor named William Cowper Brann.

Brann’s Iconoclast newspaper won a national readership of some 100,000 on the strength of his white-hot invective, much of it aimed at Baylor University, Baptists and Waco.

Brann was pistol-whipped and nearly lynched by Baylor students after publishing a scathing series of articles involving a sex scandal at the university.

Gerald wrote a defense of Brann for the Waco Times-Herald — a predecessor of this newspaper — but editor James W. Harris refused to publish it. When Gerald came back to demand return of the article, the handicapped, 62-year-old judge got into a fistfight with Harris, and lost.

Gerald responded by challenging Harris to a duel and, when refused, distributed a notice lambasting Harris.

“These are the facts,” Gerald wrote, “and I hereby brand J.W. Harris, editor of the Times-Herald, as a liar, a coward and a cur; as a man who takes every advantage, who lies about difficulties that he has brought about himself, and then, like the craven cur that he is, refuses to meet the man he has wronged on equal terms.”

Gerald got what he was looking for on Nov. 19, 1897, when he met Harris with a .41 Long Colt. Harris fired and missed. Gerald shot back, striking him in the neck. Harris’ brother, Bill, was positioned across the street and shot at Gerald, striking him in his bad arm. While Bill Harris struggled with a policeman, Gerald crossed the street and put a bullet in his head.

The Harris brothers died the next day, and Gerald had to have his arm amputated. In memory of the Harris brothers, Brann opined that “the world is well rid of such bad rubbish.”

Brann, by now a marked man in Waco, took to walking with Gerald’s .41 strapped to his hip, and ended up putting it to use, all too late.

On April 1, 1898, while Brann was walking down South Fourth Street, Baylor supporter Tom Davis shot him in the back. Brann turned on his heel and shot Davis four times. Both men died of their wounds.

Gerald continued to edit the Iconoclast for a few months before it folded.

In the meantime, Gerald was indicted on double-homicide charges but apparently beat them.

In 1900, he was elected as county judge for another four-year term, after which he retired. In the 1911 Morrison and Fourmy’s City Directory he is listed modestly as a retired attorney, residing in the house at 2703 N. 15th-A.

He died in 1914 of natural causes, and his ashes were scattered in Galveston Bay at his request. The epitaph on his gravestone in Oakwood Cemetery expresses his resignation toward his long-averted death.

“It may be oblivion’s dreamless sleep; It may be another and better life. QUIEN SABE. We are content.”

jbsmith@wacotrib.com

757-5752