Saloon Hopping With Elsie Hotpepper To Billy Miner's Saloon In Fort Worth

Last night I was really looking forward to Elsie Hotpepper picking me up in the Elsie Hotpepper Peptomobile and going to downtown Fort Worth to Billy Miner's Saloon.

I have previously gone to a burger joint with Elsie Hotpepper, in non-saloon hopping mode, to the Love Shack in the Fort Worth Stockyards. We were a bit disappointed in the Love Shack's Dirty Love Burger. It did not seem to live up to the hype.

The last time I was really impressed with a burger, was in Phoenix, on February 22, 2004. An In & Out double cheeseburger. Even though I was already plenty full from having spent 2 hours at a Happy Hour, and, even with me due to get on a plane, I had myself 2 In & Out double cheeseburgers. This made for the most explosively bloated plane ride ever.

So, it was with eager anticipation I anticipated a Billy Miner's Saloon Cheeseburger. This anticipation was made even more acute due to the fact that well-known local burger gourmet, Gar the Texan, had given the Billy Miner's Saloon Cheeseburger a rare 5 stars.

Cut to the cheese, I'd give the Billy Miner's Saloon Cheeseburger 4 stars. Not quite to In & Out 5 star worthiness. But close.

Now, you may be wondering who Billy Miner is or was.

Well.

Unlike most large towns, Fort Worth embraces its criminal past. Maybe this type embracing is part of the reason why Fort Worth, collectively, seems to have little problem embracing its criminal present, in the form of those, like the town's mayor, Mike Moncrief, a modern era Sundance Kid who does his robbing in much more sophisticated ways than using a gun to hold up a train.

Both the Sundance Kid and Billy Miner liked to rob trains. Fort Worth named its downtown collection of parking lots after the Sundance Kid, calling the parking lots "Sundance Square."

I believe this is the only downtown square in America named after a criminal.

Like the Sundance Kid, the legend of Billy Miner is that he was usually fairly non-violent in his criminal pursuits. During Billy's life of crime he spent 36 years in prison. He escaped from 5 of his prison homes.

Pinkerton agents were always after the Sundance Kid. Same with Billy Miner. Billy was chased all over America, while robbing trains and stage coaches. Billy was a suspect up in Canada, in British Columbia, in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois and Michigan.

Obviously Billy Miner was very eclectic in the states and provinces he chose to work in.

Billy died at 71 years old, on September 2, 1913 in a Milledgeville, Georgia jail.

I can not help but notice that neither Texas, or Fort Worth, is listed among the locations where Billy Miner practiced his craft.

Regardless, even though Billy Miner may never have consumed a Cheeseburger in Fort Worth, or robbed a Texas train, he still is the sort of criminal we like to honor as a genuine folk hero, here in Fort Worth.