D.B. Chapin

County Judge, Texas State Representative, Millionaire & Killer

By: David Rountree

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Dennis Bangs Chapin was a successful, well-known lawyer, a Texas state representative, a former Hidalgo County judge, and a wealthy man in the year 1910. On Thursday evening, August 17, in a San Antonio bar, he shot my cousin, Oscar J. Rountree, in the head with his 44-caliber revolver. Oscar, a former Texas Ranger, died at 5:00 the following morning in a San Antonio hospital. Chapin was tried for murder and acquitted, claiming self-defense. He later brought a case to have the Texas Rangers disbanded.
The South Texas city of Edinburg was originally named Chapin in his honor as one of the founders. After 1912, Chapin constantly moved around the country, fighting many civil and criminal battles and pursuing multiple business opportunities. He filed many Land Title Lawsuits arguing that property between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers, granted by the King of Spain and later guaranteed by the Treaty of Hildago, should be returned to the relatives of the original owners.