Excerpts from "Cross Timbers Historic Images Project: The 1939 Bonfire Incident" by Chris Guthrie:
"Despite these precautions, NTAC students still occasionally managed to invade the Tarleton campus. In 1937, for example, they ‘stormed’ Tarleton the Tuesday before the big game, destroyed the wood that had been collected for the bonfire, stole several signs from the campus, and smeared the school's water tower with black paint. The dean of NTAC at the time, E.E. Davis (contrary to some accounts, he was not related to J. Thomas Davis - although he did attend Tarleton as a student between 1900-1905 and taught biology between 1909 and 1911), apologized for the incident, vowed to ‘penalize’ those students involved in the invasion, promised that the stolen signs would be returned, and offered to pay the expenses involved in repairing the water tower. Newspaper accounts of the 1937 raid hinted that it may have been in retaliation for a similar, though unsuccessful, attempt by Tarleton students to ignite the NTAC bonfire a few days earlier."
"Tarleton students on the ground, quickly realizing what was about to transpire, did everything they could to protect their bonfire. Student Mickey Maguire climbed on top of the pile of wood with a garden hose and soaked it down, hoping to make the site more resistant to any premature blaze. Other students picked up whatever they could find - sticks, stones, cans - and threw them at the Phillips' aircraft. Philips braved this ground barrage and dropped one of his bombs on the target. However, Tarleton students quickly removed the device before it could do any harm. Philips began to circle back one more time, intent on dropping his final bomb. As he maneuvered his plane around for the final run, he had to fly past the Tarleton water tower. Several students had climbed the tower and hurled their missiles at the plane. One student on the tower, L.V. Risinger, threw a 2'x4' piece of wood (about two feet long) at the plane and damaged its propeller. Philips' plane veered sharply to the left, narrowly missing Dean Davis' house, and crash-landed in Hunewell Park."