Born in a small Ohio town into a family of modest resources, Daniel “Dan” Breen, shown here, figuratively “followed the telegraph lines” west to San Antonio, Texas, where he prospered as a saloonkeeper in particularly violent times.
Breen’s 1866 birthplace was Ada, Ohio, a quiet community about 70 miles south of Toledo, a hamlet whose claim to fame is having the shortest name in Ohio. Dan’s parents were Daniel Breen and Johanna Buckley. Their 1864 marriage license was unusual since it was applied for by Johanna’s father, Jeremiah, and initially his name was inked in as the groom. The couple would go on to produce eleven children of whom Daniel Jr. was the second. The 1880 census listed his father as a railroad worker and “crippled.”
One asset Ada boasted was the presence of a post-elementary educational institution called the Northwestern Ohio Normal School, now Ohio Northern University. Likely by working his way Breen was able to attend and graduate in 1884 at the age of 18, licensed as a telegraph operator. That was someone who used a telegraph key to send and receive Morse code in order to communicate via land lines, a 19th Century "high-tech" occupation. Young men like Breen left farms and small towns to take high-paying jobs “reading the wire.” In those early days the demand was such that operators could move from place to place and job to job for ever-higher salaries.
Breen followed the telegraph lines out of Ada and away from his immediate family to travel west. Shown left is a photo of a typical Old West operator, his hat and clothing advertising his professional status. Dan’s intermediate stops are unrecorded but by 1893 when he was 25, he had located in San Antonio, Texas. Not long after his arrival Dan married Mabel Donovan, a woman of Irish heritage who had been born in Illinois. Their only child, a son, would be born the following year.
At some point Breen exited telegraphy. In the 1899 San Antonio city directory, he was listed as working in a company called the San Antonio Brokerage Office, in which C.C. Breen, likely a relative, was a partner. It may have been through that occupation that Dan met William R. “Billy” Simms.
Considered a “desperado” by some, Simms, shown here, was co-owner of the Vaudeville Theater in San Antonio in 1884 when notorious Western gunman Ben Thompson and a companion were shot down at that burlesque house, gambling hall, and saloon. [See my post on Thompson, September 27, 1917.] Simms was charged with aiding and abetting the murder. Considered a friend by Thompson, Billy was accused of having lured him to the scene. When the accused gunmen were tried in 1887, however, charges were dropped against Simms.
Perhaps as a way of restoring a more legitimate persona, the native-born Texan subsequently sold the Vaudeville Theatre and with partners opened a new drinking establishment. Called “The Crystal Saloon,” it boasted impressive crystal glass chandeliers and an elaborate interior, by far the fanciest watering hole in San Antonio and one of finest in Texas. By the time Breen arrived in town, according to one author, Simms had become: “…One of the leading figures in San Antonio and was a member of the most influential social organizations. Politicians and businessmen courted his favor and he was consulted on major city projects.”
Billy Simms must have seen potential in Dan Breen. When the Texan branched out with a combination saloon and gambling hall named the “Crystal Turf Exchange” he brought the Ada, Ohio, product into the operation as a partner and the manager. Located on San Antonio’s main plaza, The Turf Exchange may have been a cut or two below Simms’ saloon. Called a “bookie joint” by some, the business advertised: “If you want to make a bet on the races, they will accommodate you.”
More telling was the inclusion of the Turf Exchange in the notorious San Antonio “Blue Book,” a guide to a good time for visitors including information on the location and quality of its brothels. The author of the Blue Book told readers on the prowl: “If about town during the afternoon, drop into the Turf Exchange…you can here get some very desired information.” Simms and his partners in the Turf Exchange were reported to become “very wealthy men.”
Earlier in his career Breen had lived in an apartment with his wife, Mabel, and his son. His growing wealth now allowed him to buy a spacious home at 518 West Craig Place. Still standing, the photo here shows how the house looks today. Breen also used his newly acquired riches to leave the Crystal Turf Exchange and open his own saloon on Houston Street, below, a major thoroughfare.
As seen here from a postcard, Breen’s saloon was itself an upscale place, boasting tile floors, overhead fans in the days before air conditioning, and an ornate bar. Among the liquors available at Breen’s was “Four Roses” brand, a whiskey originated in Atlanta by Rufus Rose and developed into a national brand by Paul Jones in Paducah, Kentucky, after the Civil War. As package goods it was available in quart bottles and pint and half-pint flasks.
For whiskey over the bar, Dan provided tokens to frequent customers worth, as he put it, “XII 1/2.” Customers would know that the reference was to a “bit,” a unit of common currency derived from the early Southwest tradition of cutting a Spanish milled dollar into eight pie-shaped pieces or bits, each worth 12 and 1/2 cents. “Two bits” made a quarter as that coin sometimes is called today.
Breen’s very simple business card advertised “wine, liquors, and cigars.” The flip side of the card held a verse with a stanza that would prove prophetic:
“Cutoff in the prime of a useful life,”
The headlines glibly say, —
Or “snatched by the grim reaper”
He has crossed the great highway,
They bury him deep, while a few friends weep,
And the world moves on with a sigh.
San Antonio had not yet seen the end of the reckless violence of its past and it would erupt in Dan Breen’s saloon on the night of August 18, 1910. The shooter was Dennis B. Chapin, a wealthy businessman and public official from Hidalgo County, located about 230 miles south of San Antonio near the Mexican border.
Chapin, shown here, had been the kingpin of developers who laid out a new community at a crossroads that eventually became the county seat. Because of his leadership, residents named the town “Chapin” in his honor. For several years he served as a Hidalgo County judge and recently had been nominated without opposition to the Texas legislature.
Chapin’s target that night at Breen’s was Oscar J. Roundtree, shown here, an Arizona Ranger from 1903 to 1906 and a Texas Ranger from 1906 until 1910. Roundtree's service with the Rangers was unblemished and he bore a good reputation. After resigning as a lawman the previous January, he had been living in San Antonio for about four months.
An altercation began after Chapin and a friend entered Breen’s about 9:30 p.m. and encountered Roundtree. After Chapin invited the former Ranger over for a drink, the two had a heated argument over what the newspapers called “old troubles.” Drawing his eight-shot 45-caliber Colt, Chapin fired at Roundtree five times. One bullet hole was found in the ceiling of Breen’s saloon, two in the walls, one in a rear screen door, and one squarely in the center of Rountree’s forehead that tore through his brain and exited back of his right ear.
Roundtree died at the San Antonio hospital the following morning. Later examination found that he had a pistol in his back pocket but had not had an opportunity to draw it. Unmarried, he was buried in the Sonora Texas Cemetery. Chapin was arrested immediately and spent six days in jail until a judge granted his release on $15,000 bond.
During his trial the following December, Chapin claimed that Roundtree was working as bodyguard and pistoleer for a hostile former business partner. According to press reports Chapin told the jury: “Roundtree was hired to murder me. I know what I am talking about, because I have copies of a cypher translated, which he sent to his employer while spying on my actions.” Perhaps awed by Chapin's position and wealth, the jury believed him and after deliberating only 20 minutes voted to acquit. Breen’s reaction to the violence committed in his saloon has gone unrecorded.
Chapin, however, did not go unpunished. His political career was at an end and his reputation in Hidalgo County plummeted. The populace there regretted naming their town for him and officially changed it to “Edinburg” to honor John Young, a prominent local businessman who had been born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Today Edinburg has a population approaching 90,000.
The Ohio native appears to have operated his saloon until about 1917 when it disappeared from San Antonio directories. It might have been the result of the tightening noose of prohibition in Texas or an effect of declining health. Breen died on April 15, 1918 at the age of 51, apparently the result of stroke. He was interred in the Mission Burial Park of San Antonio. Unusually, neither his wife or any Breen relative is recorded buried with him.
The road from sleepy Ada, Ohio, to gun-toting San Antonio was a long one for Dan Breen. He had escaped a humdrum life working in his tiny home town to running his own saloon in a wide open — and too often violent —booming Texas city. For an adventurous youth of America’s mid-19th Century, the choice had been clear.
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