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Culpepper Collection & Other Info
Below is a letter that John Haberer wrote to me and Scott about the Culpepper Collection
Jack and Scott
Scott, thanks for providing the pictures of the infamous Culpepper collection and thank you Jack for taking the time to post.
Brings back very old memories:
I grew up in Temple and just started digging in 1964. I never met Culpepper nor saw his collection, but he was well known in the area. I did know Don Screws and that he had already sold his collection to Wallace. As someone else already said-Don sold it to WC for $100,000-$10,000 per year for 10 years. It took him years to get the final payment. Before he sold his collection, he was a digger/collector/buyer. Afterward, everything he dug or bought was for sale-mainly to WC. He once told me that he never had any intention of selling his collection, but when Wallace offered that much money, he couldn’t refuse. If you ever met Don, you know that was a small fortune to him. Dwain cherry picked a lot of WC's collection.
Wallace had a large supply line, anywhere you went you would run into a group of diggers that were digging solely to sell to Don or Wallace. When Don and his boys showed up, you knew that site was going to have a short life. Back then, it was still legal to dig on Ft Hood and Belton Lake and there were several well known pay digs--Stampede Ck and Coryell Ck for $5 a day. Who knows, some 60,000+ acres of prime country with monster size camps. One camp on Cedar Creek was over several hundred yards long and +6’ deep, and after 20 years was still being dug. I personally saw a half dozen corner tangs found one summer. Hey, Horse Creek (Christner’s) was first dug during the proposed construction of Lake Belton in the ??30’s and is still being dug today.
Like him or not, I doubt anyone has hand dug more points in Texas than Don. He coined (no pun) the name “penny” point for the then un-named Axtell. He is also the inventor of lots of other arrowhead slang-Comanche Perd, Squaw Knife, Darl Knife, or at least the very first person I heard using the term.
Screws did get on a kick for a short time where he dug, bought or traded for every Andice he could. Mainly parts/fragments. He accumulated a very sizeable collection of Andice fragments, some several hundred. If I remember correctly, Carey Weber borrowed the collection to study for a paper he later wrote and published on Andice manufacturing technology.
Errors and omission of memory are mine alone.
John Haberer.
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Jack and Scott
Scott, thanks for providing the pictures of the infamous Culpepper collection and thank you Jack for taking the time to post.
Brings back very old memories:
I grew up in Temple and just started digging in 1964. I never met Culpepper nor saw his collection, but he was well known in the area. I did know Don Screws and that he had already sold his collection to Wallace. As someone else already said-Don sold it to WC for $100,000-$10,000 per year for 10 years. It took him years to get the final payment. Before he sold his collection, he was a digger/collector/buyer. Afterward, everything he dug or bought was for sale-mainly to WC. He once told me that he never had any intention of selling his collection, but when Wallace offered that much money, he couldn’t refuse. If you ever met Don, you know that was a small fortune to him. Dwain cherry picked a lot of WC's collection.
Wallace had a large supply line, anywhere you went you would run into a group of diggers that were digging solely to sell to Don or Wallace. When Don and his boys showed up, you knew that site was going to have a short life. Back then, it was still legal to dig on Ft Hood and Belton Lake and there were several well known pay digs--Stampede Ck and Coryell Ck for $5 a day. Who knows, some 60,000+ acres of prime country with monster size camps. One camp on Cedar Creek was over several hundred yards long and +6’ deep, and after 20 years was still being dug. I personally saw a half dozen corner tangs found one summer. Hey, Horse Creek (Christner’s) was first dug during the proposed construction of Lake Belton in the ??30’s and is still being dug today.
Like him or not, I doubt anyone has hand dug more points in Texas than Don. He coined (no pun) the name “penny” point for the then un-named Axtell. He is also the inventor of lots of other arrowhead slang-Comanche Perd, Squaw Knife, Darl Knife, or at least the very first person I heard using the term.
Screws did get on a kick for a short time where he dug, bought or traded for every Andice he could. Mainly parts/fragments. He accumulated a very sizeable collection of Andice fragments, some several hundred. If I remember correctly, Carey Weber borrowed the collection to study for a paper he later wrote and published on Andice manufacturing technology.
Errors and omission of memory are mine alone.
John Haberer.
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