While little of “Papa Tom’s” early life has been discovered, his time in and around Texas Hill Country and the Big Bend is well documented and provides insight into one of the area’s unique personalities during the west’s wilder days.

Arriving in Presido County in 1898, with wife and son in tow, Thomas began working on his fortunes building surface tanks for a local rancher, W.T. Jones.  Dissatisfied with the family’s tent home, he soon took employment with Mac McGuirk, then owner of the Alamo Cesario ranch, seventy five miles south of Marfa and the second overnight stop on the Terlingua to Marfa Stage route.

1908 found T.H. a landowner and not merely a ranch roust-a-bout, Thomas also known as “Don Tómas” was owner of the Tascatal Ranch, the first in a succession of land acquisitions that would bring him to purchase our own Alazan Ranch and the status as a society leader.

Holding significant properties, and well-known as a breeder of high quality cattle, Don Tómas was destined to meet and occasionally disagree with other prominent figures of the time. Having once befriended a nephew of Pancho Villa, by providing refuge, and assistance for the gentleman for his return to return to Mexico, Villa repaid the courtesy to the tune of $1004 in gold and three splendid sets of silver dice. Additionally, Villa reimbursed Rawls for a number of horse rustled by a Mexican ranch foreman, and delivered to Villa’s Mexican encampment.

On another occasion, a group of Mexican rustlers cross the Rio Grande, and absconded with some of Don Tómas’ cattle. Being the man of action that he was, Don Tómas traveled across the border to an Ojinaga bar and “persuaded” a patron to divulge the name and location of the desperados.

Organizing a posse, Don Tómas located the cattle in question, and returned them to their proper home in Texas. Historians of the day failed to record precise extent and intensity of the “persuasion,” it was however, considered to have been enthusiastic.

Having acquired ninety seven sections by 1930, success and prosperity were not to quell the aspirations of Thomas Rawls and he was involved in numerous activities in Presido County and surrounding area. Whether it was providing phone line to link the ranches and mines of the area, dabbling in the soon-to-be oil excitement or driving throughout the area in the automobile that he drove, allegedly, like a team of mules — by any name — Thomas or “Papa Tom”, or “Don Tómas” Rawls was a force to contend with, the likes of which we rarely see today.