1930 – Just a Story About a Texan Named John Blount in Amarillo (a sliver of Texas history)

My soon-to-be published book, “Unlikely Victims” tells the story of the 1965 Austin murders of Chi Omega sorority sisters, Shirley Ann Stark and Susan Jean Rigsby at the hand of University of Texas student, James C. Cross, Jr. Within the story is another girl, Martha Blount, who grabbed my heart.

Martha was adorable, a pretty young woman who looked like those “blonds have more fun” girls from back in the day. She was also a key witness in the story. Martha and her family were the last ones to see the girls alive on the day they disappeared. Even more heart-wrenching is the victims didn’t know each other until Martha Blount introduced them the week before. That’s why they were together when they were murdered.

Martha was to share an apartment with Susan Rigsby, and Shirley gave Susan a ride to Austin. Since none of this would have happened if Shirley and Susan had not been sharing a ride that day, I have wondered if Martha bore a lot of guilt for having a hand in putting them together, ultimately, a factor which led to their demise.

As I tracked Martha’s family history to learn more about who she was, I met her father, John Franklin Blount, among the pages of archives historical websites I visited. “Unlikely Victims” isn’t about Mr. Blount, but I learned so much from his story that I couldn’t help but write about him, so I am publishing what I learned right here.

John Blount was born to a merchant and his wife in the East Texas town of San Augustine in 1905. He left home in 1923 to attend A&M College (now Texas A&M University) in College Station.

Working his way through school, he received a bachelor’s degree in engineering and completed his master’s degree in Agricultural Administration. He finally received his graduate degree in 1929 , just as America descended into the Great Depression.

The 1930 Federal Census states that John Blount, living in Fort Worth, was a student at Southwestern Bell, so he may have been working as an intern or trainee during that time. He and two other young men rented a bungalow on Fairmount Avenue in Fort Worth. One roommate was a clerk in a meat packing plant, and the other, also a student working at the telephone company.

In 1934, Southwestern Bell transferred John to Amarillo, where he would eventually become the district traffic manager. I found an old Southwestern Bell manual that explained what this job entailed.

In his case, “traffic” meant the flow of telephone calls zipping through the phone lines, and being a “traffic manager” meant handling everything relating to calls, right down to the operators who handled long-distance calls from one town to another, and the engineers who figured out where to direct call traffic during disasters and holidays.

The move to Amarillo was high praise for the young man who was described by his draft card as weighing 165 pounds, 5’9”, and having dark brown skin, black hair, and black eyes. It was a booming city and the operations there were the pride of Southwestern Bell in the 1930s.

John was at one of the best places to be when he began working for the Amarillo branch of Southwestern Bell. The Amarillo equipment was brand new, and it was built with innovative technology, being one of the first plants set up to allow customers to place calls without the assistance of an operator.

Unfortunately, John arrived in Amarillo during the years of the Dust Bowl, and the work was challenging. Amarillo experienced several dust storms, but the one that rolled in on April 14, 1935 was catastrophic—the day became known as “Black Sunday.”

I had never heard of this dreadful event during the Dust Bowl years. (Another reason I love writing about old Texas crimes!) There was zero visibility outside during long periods of time. The mammoth storm was 800 miles long and stretched from 300 to 500 miles wide across its length. It took over ten hours for the dense cloud of dust to pass over Amarillo. Naturally, the storm affected or destroyed the area phone lines, and John had his hands full while putting phone service back online.

The young traffic manager experienced a failed marriage during that time and he moved out of his marital home and into town. He settled in at a 600-room, 14-story landmark, the Herring Hotel, where he stayed for a couple of years, even connecting his personal phone number, #6161, the one he and his wife had during their marriage, so that it would ring directly in his hotel suite. (That’s probably something only the Southwestern Bell district traffic manager could have accomplished!)

As a history nerd, naturally, I studied the property records and old directories to see what happened to the house John and his first wife had purchased. His ex-wife stayed in the house, and I was amused by that discovery, thinking, “Ol’ John Blount might have let his ex-spouse have the house, but by golly, she didn’t get away with their old phone number. He kept that!”

Around the same time, a pretty young woman with blond hair named Ernestine White found work in Amarillo’s downtown area at the Maryland Casualty Insurance Company. Her path crossed John’s, and they married when John was 33 and Ernestine was 21. The couple moved into the Talmage Place at 14th and Van Buren, an upscale six-story, 60-unit apartment building. Built by rancher and oilman H. E. Smith for one million dollars, the property featured advanced amenities like electric elevators, walnut doors, and the city’s first parking garage.

Soon, Martha’s older sister, Barbara, was on the way and the Blounts built a new home in Amarillo. They were still living there four years later when little Martha arrived. After that, John Blount was promoted once again and moved to Dallas to work for the company where he continued to advance with Southwestern Bell. The Blounts moved into University Park when John went to work in the Dallas Southwestern Bell operation.

John had been with his daughter that day in the summer of 1965 when she was to move in with her friend Susan Rigsby, who never showed up at the apartment. He stayed by her side, helped her look for Susan the next day at registration, and helped her call the parents whose girls had gone missing.

This was too much information about John Blount’s life to put into a book about the murder of his daughter’s sorority sisters, so that’s why it is here. I hope you enjoyed this peek into a random Texan’s life.

Take care, Brenda

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