The strongest man in Kerrville: ‘Chief’ William Thomas Tarver

Published in the Kerrville Daily Times on January 17, 2026

William Thomas Tarver is shown with his mail hack and team of horses in 1918 in front of the old Kerrville train depot, which is now home to Rails, A Cafe at the Depot. 

On the evening of Feb. 21, 1930, the tinkling bell of a telephone woke Kerrville resident Tom Tarver from a deep slumber.  When the call was answered, the telephone operator announced that Seattle, Washington, was calling.

Tarver could not figure out who on Earth would be calling him at such an ungodly hour. His “mental gymnastics” while the call was being connected failed to “recall any rich relatives, or what have you, in Seattle.”

The call came from a young man named Field Williford. Young Williford had spent his childhood in Kerrville and “an attack of homesickness for the scenes of his boyhood in Kerrville” prompted him to call and ask Tarver about folks in the old hometown.

The call cost Williford $10 (a lot of money in 1930), but he said it was worth it. “Chief” Tarver was the only “old timer” he could think of. Williford also remembered Tarver’s genial nature, “hence the early morning call was sent for him.”  

Tarver did not disappoint. He was kind enough to talk to the young man at length and bring him up to date about the goings-on in Kerrville.

A middle-of-the-night phone call may seem a strange subject for a front-page news article, but in 1930, it was big news. The article made me curious about “Chief” Tarver. I did some digging, and that’s how he became the subject of the week’s column.

William Thomas Tarver was born Sept. 10, 1867, in Marlin, Falls County, Texas. He married Mary Jane “Jennie” Edens in 1891. The couple came to Kerrville in 1896, where they raised their three children, Bruce, Mack and Carlette. Jennie died during childbirth in 1911. In 1926, Tom married Christine “Tina” Loessburg; they had two children, James and Buddy.

When Tarver first came to Kerrville, he ran a freight and transfer service. He met the trains at the depot and would shuttle goods from the depot to the townsfolk and business who ordered them. He specialized in freighting household goods and advertised prompt service. 

On June 3, 1900, Tarver contracted with the United States government to serve as mail carrier, bringing the mail from the train depot to the Kerrville Post Office several times a day, using his lightweight wagon and team of horses. The job would have “Chief,” as he was affectionately known around town, up and running before daylight and working past midnight — which makes him all the nicer for taking that young man’s phone call in the middle of the night. 

He proudly boasted that he never missed a train and that he often roused late-sleeping Post Office clerks to keep the mail on schedule when “roosters and alarm clocks failed to do their duty.”

He was referred to as one of the more “colorful characters of the community,” who often claimed to be the strongest man who lived in Kerrville. He said he could lift as much as any other two men in town and often demonstrated his strength against anyone who would challenge his claims. Loading sacks of mail into his wagon several times a day kept him strong.

By 1926, he had carried the mail from the depot to the Post Office 31,390 times and had traveled 23,542 miles without leaving Kerrville. The mileage was just a few miles short of the distance it would take to travel around the globe. 

“It has been a long, long trail,” he said, noting that he never saw any icebergs, Turkish mosques or Grecian ruins, but his journey around the world was a lot of fun, just the same.

Over the years, Tarver refused to be swayed by the development of motor vehicles and stuck to horse-drawn equipment. After surpassing the distance around the globe in mileage and several years of tireless mail delivery, he lost his contract with the Post Office in 1933. The Railway Express Agency, a big company with freight trucks, won the bid as Kerrville’s mail freighter. 

William Thomas Tarver poses with his team of horses.

On Jan. 1 of that year, Chief retired — his two faithful horses and mail hack retired with him. 

Tarver died in 1941 at the age of 73 after a series of heart attacks. He is buried in Glen Rest Cemetery, along with his first wife and a number of his children. Many of his descendants still live in the area.