November 12, 1935
Two adolescent boys, 15-year-old Ernest Collins and 16-year-old Benny Mitchell were taken by a white mob of approximately 700 to a giant crossroads oak in Colorado County, Texas, and lynched.
In October 1935, a young white woman’s body was found in a creek near her family’s farm in Columbus, Texas. When local officials concluded she had been murdered, suspicion soon focused on Ernest Collins and Benny Mitchell: two Black teens who had been seen picking pecans near the same creek. Law enforcement took the boys into custody but word soon got around that the two had confessed. Although the boys had been held in jail in Houston on the day of their trial they were being brought back when the sheriff's car was stopped by several cars of white men, the sheriff for his safety and his deputies turned the boys over to the mob.
The next day, the white community proudly boasted and praised the lynchings. The county attorney said the lynchings were justice, an extension of the community's will.
The tree is still there and known as the Hanging Tree. No one was ever charged
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