| |
| This
Week
Population
Ranks 11-19-09
For historians, genealogists,
and anyone interested in a little Texas trivia, I’ve compiled the historic urban
population hierarchy and population figures dating back to 1850. The 1850 and
1860 listings contain the top 10 cities, since there are some surprises... |
| | Mayhem
at Mount Carmel by Mike Cox 10-27-09
Excerpt
from "Time of the Rangers from 1900 to the Pesent"
The
morning of February 28, 1993... A Texas National Guard helicopter had been shot
down and numerous federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents killed
and wounded while attempting to serve a search warrant at David Koresh’s Branch
Davidian ranch |
"Texas
Tales" focuses on little-known aspects of Texas history Cox runs across in his
research and travels across the state. Old-time Texas Rangers used to say some
men just need killing. Some stories just need telling, and that's what Cox likes
to do.
Columns
Fishing
Soldier 11-12-09
When a wagon full of soldiers
rolled out of old Fort Belknap early one spring morning in 1867 flanked by horseback
troopers, while doubtless armed, they were not starting out on a scout for Indians.
John
Roan Mystery 11-4-09
On Dec. 13, 1879, the Atlanta Constitution published
a brief story that should have been big news in Texas, but somehow no editor in
the Lone Star state picked up on the Georgia daily’s report. The story dealt with
the purported solution of a 29-year-old mystery in Central Texas, the disappearance
of one John Roan...Preacher
Freeman 10-29-09
Religious beliefs aside, all of us owe a debt to the
early-day Baptist and Methodist preachers. They not only saved souls, being literate
in an era when many were not, they saved a lot of history in their written recollections...
Mobeetie
Preachers 10-22-09Old
Jokes 10-14-09
Ever wonder what jokes made your great-grandparents laugh?...Hughes'
Stock Book 10-8-09
Labeled “Horse Record – Hughes Bros.” the book contains
hand written records of horses sold and tradedThe
Huntsville Humdinger and the Texas Prison Rodeo 10-1-09
When
the Huntsville Humdinger hit the streets that Monday, the feisty four-column competitor
of the long-established Huntsville Item carried on page one a humdinger of a local
scoop: The prison system would be starting a rodeo that fall. On Sept. 4, 1931...Tesnus,
Texas 9-24-09
Tesnus, Texas is one of those ethereal ghost towns—except
for a railroad siding and a sign, no physical evidence of it remains... Judge
Stories 9-17-09
The Texans we elect to the bench often figure in amusing
stories. Especially long-time judges like the late Mace B. Thurman Jr...Baled
in a Bale 9-11-09
Though most of the ginning is done by brainless machinery,
the industry’s human element has developed a colorful folklore with a range of
subsets.Central
Texas Flood 9-3-09
The first day it started raining, people took it as
good news...
Port
Isabel Wireless 8-27-09
In
1915 the U.S. military had plans to install at Point Isabel a state-of-the-art
radio facility that would provide virtually instantaneous communication as the
government prepared for the possibility of a second war with Mexico.
Ice
Man 8-22-09
With grim determination, a normally peaceful, law-abiding man
who’s just learned he’s been done wrong starts to strap on his six-shooter aiming
to make things right... The
Texas Ranger 8-13-09
I wrote about this ship with a famous name last summer,
but only recently ran into some additional information on her... U.S.
67 8-6-09
It may not be the Mother Road, but U.S. 67 stretches 1,560 miles
across five states, connecting Iowa to Mexico. The highway extends through Texas,
Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois to the intersection of U.S. 52 in Sabula, Iowa,
population 670. Six hundred thirty-seven miles of U.S. 67 are in Texas, from Presidio
to Texarkana...Bluffton
Reappears 7-30-09
At this writing, the normally sprawling Lake Buchanan
is only 51 per cent full... While a few traces of the old town have become visible,
most of it is still under water...Bonnie
and Clyde Slept Here 7-23-09Heat
7-16-09Runaway
scrapes 7-9-09July
4, 1894 7-2-09The
Old Book Shelf 6-24-09Ranger
Silver 6-18-09Susan's
Indians 6-11-09Ghost
Ships 6-4-09Sideshow
Texans 5-28-09
News
Bits 5-21-09Joe
Pruno 5-14-09Book
Snippets 5-7-09Pecos
High Bridge 4-30-09
The “fair young” Pecos River QueenFlash
II 4-23-09
More news about the Flash, the vessel that carried the Twin
Sisters most of the way to the Texian army just in time for Sam Houston’s decisive
defeat of Santa Anna at San Jacinto...Flash
4-15-09
Some aspects of Texas’ struggle for independence from Mexico have
fallen through the figurative cracks in the floor of history’s log cabin. The
Flash is a good example... Early
Movie Making 4-11-09Quito
4-2-09
The ghostliest of ghost towns are those that existed only on paper...Texas
Sketchbook 3-26-09
Humble, a Texas oil company created in 1911... published
thousands of copies of the “Texas Sketchbook”... Boyce
House 3-19-09
Boyce House deserves to be remembered...Elmo
Johnson 3-12-09
This is not the first time the border has been a dangerous
place.Gail
Borden 3-5-09
A New Yorker who grew up in Indiana, Gail Borden came to
Texas in 1829, five years after his brother Thomas arrived as one of Stephen F.
Austin’s colonists...Pansy
2-26-09
The old woman walked along one of McCamey’s unpaved streets, pulling
a red Radio Flyer wagon...Indian
Stories 2-19-09
Texas fought two wars during the Civil War. One war, of
course, was the bloody struggle against the North... The second war was primarily
one of self-defense against hostile Indian tribes taking advantage of the absence
of the U.S. military and the state’s preoccupation with the larger war...The
Hermit in the Dugout 2-11-09
Why would anyone want to live out their years
in a dirt-floor dugout competing for shade with scorpions and rattlesnakes in
the summer and warmed only by burning chopped railroad ties in the winter? Gold.Clyde’s
Funeral 2-5-09
Stories can turn up in weird places. For instance, who would
expect to find an account of the Depression-era outlaw Clyde Barrow’s funeral
in the self-published memoir of a long-time fiddler-turned-preacher?Treasury
Raid 1-29-09
When the
bell atop the First Baptist Church started clanging about 9 o’clock that Sunday
night, it was not a call to worship. It was June 11, 1865. A full moon hung over
Austin, a city of some 4,000 residents. Hog
Killing Time 1-22-09
"You don’t have to delve too deeply into almost
any written recollection of a Texan who lived in the days before refrigeration
became the norm to find accounts of hog-killing."Owen
Wister 1-15-09
The cultured gentleman from Philadelphia generally credited
with inventing the Western novel, a genre that evolved into film and eventually
television, spent some time in West Texas on his way to becoming a nationally-known
writer...Bluebonnet
Hotel 1-8-09
Now surrounded by so many 200-foot tall wind turbines that
it has become the wind power capital of the nation, Sweetwater used to have a
more traditional skyscraper – the seven-story Bluebonnet Hotel...Pranks
12-31-08
Whatever happened to pranks? Old-time Texans enjoyed practical jokes
more than their descendants seem to. A sampling of long-ago stunts:...Belle
Christmas 12-22-08
No matter how she came to be called Belle Christmas,
she had a reputation as a local character long before someone dreamed up the “Keep
Austin Weird” bumper sticker... Old
But Odd Gift Ideas 12-18-08
The December 1911 issue of a long-forgotten
but fun-to-read iconoclastic monthly called K. Lamity’s Harpoon offered a full-page
ad from a Uvalde taxidermist with some unusual gift items for sale that some modern
readers will probably wish were still available today...Captain
Billy’s Whiz Bang 12-11-08
Oil field shacks, military barracks, college
rooming houses, hotels catering to traveling salesmen, smoke-filled railroad cars
or the outhouse – anywhere in Texas young men could be found, so could a copy
of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang...Bad
Man Returns 12-4-08
As the old saying goes, it’s hard to keep a good man
down. But that sure couldn’t account for Bill Johnson’s reappearance in McLennan
County. One of Texas’ lesser-known outlaws...Bill
Wharton 11-27-08
Used to be, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries,
some people were born Thankful and died Thankful. That’s because, way back, parents
sometimes named their daughters Thankful. Born in 1803, Thankful Rankin...Boo-boo
towns 11-27-08
Call ‘em boo-boo towns. The Texas map is sprinkled with
cities and towns that got their names by mistake...White
Buffalo 11-18-08
The rifle roared, a .50 caliber hunk of lead smacked into
the side of the buffalo and the huge animal tumbled to the ground. That happened
all across the plains of Texas during the 1870s, but this was no ordinary bison
– it was all white, one of only seven known to have been killed on the North American
continent... Remembering
Austin 11-6-08
On July 2, 1864, Congress passed an act to turn the original
House chamber into a hall of statuary…Ranger
Cemeteries 10-30-08
Except for the occasional thunder-like sound of a
jet taking off or landing at Austin’s Bergstrom International Airport, the small
cemetery could be out in the middle of nowhere...Art
10-23-08
Until shortly after World War One, Art’s name was Plehweville, a
handle that sounds something like a sneeze, followed by “ville.”... Horse
Troughs 10-16-08
Water troughs, better known in Texas as horse troughs,
were intended for the hydration of livestock. But Texas ranchers and their families
found far more use for these open containers of water than merely affording Old
Dobbin a place to drink...Fall
Roundup 10-9-08
In his 1937 book, “Memories,” J.B. Cranfill told the story
of J. M. Carroll, a man who had the reputation of being the best wing shot in
Texas... Indian
Emily 10-2-08October
Barrel 9-25-08Balinese
Room Cashiered 9-18-08Rankin
Beach 9-11-08Ghost
in No. 7 9-4-08
The old officer’s quarters at Fort Concho... Hardin's
Shotgun 8-27-08
John Wesley Hardin's shotgun used by him to kill the Sheriff
of DeWitt County, the most notorious of the men...Peaches
8-21-08
Most peach trees seldom make it past their first decade of existence.
That’s what made the peach tree outside the old stone structure in Burnet at the
site of Fort Croghan so unusual... Million
Barrel Hole 8-14-08Trivia
8-7-08Possum
Trot 7-30-08Steamship
Texas Ranger 7-24-08Old
Pecos 7-17-08Cuttings
7-10-08Terry's
Texas Rangers 7-3-08
Twin Towns 6-26-08Forgotten
Conservationist 6-19-08Austin
Fires 6-12-08Battle
of Medina 6-5-08Bud
Newman, part II 5-29-08Bud
Newman Gang 5-26-08Badger
Fight 5-26-08Ben's
Pistol 5-8-08Indianola
Remnants 5-1-08San
Jacinto Hero Henry Millard 4-17-08Earth
4-10-08Henigan
Water 4-3-08Sam
Houston 3-27-08Bull
in the Brush 3-20-08Denison
UFO 3-13-08Alamo
Backdoor 3-6-08Coffee
Drinkers 2-28-08International
Pavedway 2-21-08Valentine’s
Day 2-14-08Rock
Fences 2-7-08Granite
1-31-08Buffalo
Bill 1-24-08Shumla
1-18-08Travel
Trailers 1-9-08Suddenly
Silly 1-3-08Buggies
12-26-07Oil
Patch Memories 12-22-07More
News of the Odd 12-13-07Santa
Robber 12-6-07Staple
Shopping 11-29-07Bosque
Treasure 11-20-07Biscuits
11-17-07Doe
and a Bride 11-8-07Tramp
Printers 11-1-07Chupacabra
10-24-07
Does a zoologically unknown, blood-sucking creature prowl the South
Texas mesquite?... FDR
10-18-07Valley
Talk 10-12-07Sullivan
10-4-07Cow
Patties 9-26-07Pope's
Flying Machine 9-19-07Camels
9-12-07Carr
Boys 9-6-07The
Banker 8-30-07Austin
Happenings 8-22-07Pan-Am
and the Valley 8-17-07Gator
8-14-07Transitions
8-3-07Robert
Leroy Ripley 7-31-07In
the News 7-17-07CSA
Veterans 7-12-07Chinese
Coins 7-5-07Big
Map 6-27-07Menard
Grave 6-20-07Prairie
Fires 6-14-07Armless
Judge 6-7-07Dumont
5-30-07Centennial
House 5-23-07Kinch
West 5-16-07Checkers
5-9-07Road
Log 1922 5-3-07Weird
News 4-26-07
From the Lone Star State in 1899Hail
Storm 4-19-07
Just a boy at the time, Howard Campbell never lost his vivid
memory of the only time he ever saw both of his parents cry... Capitol
No. 1 4-12-07
The story of a civil engineer from San Antonio who earned
less than the value of a good mule for designing a new capitol for Texas...
John
Ringo 4-5-07
"It didn't play out quite like a scene from "Gunsmoke,"
but two of the Old West's more notorious characters faced each other in Austin's
red light district in 1881..."Sam's
Mother-in-Law 3-30-07
"Despite the rocky
beginning of their relationship, Sam Houston treated Mrs. Nancy Lea, his mother-in-law,
with all due respect..."Lindbergh
3-27-07Bagdad
4-3-07
"Far from the Middle East, another Bagdad lay on the south side
of the Rio Grande at the river's mouth, just across from a Texas town called Clarksville.
(Not to be confused with the Clarksville in Red River County.)"
Richard
Ellis 4-3-07Stage
Coach 4-3-07Reconstruction
Valentine 2-16-07Tallest
Rebel 2-8-07
Henry Clay ThrustonPhotographer
Louis de Planque 2-1-07Priddy
Good Sandwiches 1-26-07Baskin-McGregor
Act 1-23-07Cotton
Picking 1-11-071907
1-4-07New
Year's Day 12-28-06Early
Hunting 12-21-06Burnt
Boot Creek 12-14-06Blue
Northers 12-7-06Moctezuma
11-28-06Lord's
Acre 11-23-06La
Posada 11-16-06
Laredo's La Posada Hotel
Rockport
Ships 11-9-06Mystery
Wall 11-2-06
Someone went to a lot of trouble to build the old stacked-stone
wall hidden in a thick stand of yaupon and other brush on a Lee County ranch...Dead
Man's Hole 10-30-06Bowie
10-19-06 Extra
Slow 10-12-06
"Early day Austin newspaper editor Edmunds Travis liked
to claim he had a hand in putting out both the slowest and fastest extras in Texas
newspaper history."
Rankin
Hotel 10-5-06Withers
9-28-06Rural
Mail Routes 9-21-06Moody
House 9-14-06
The two-story Victorian house in Taylor has been nicely
restored...Thurber
Booze 9-7-06Mother
8-30-06Disappearing
Cows 8-24-06
"... Not only did the animals move, many believed that
unrested souls flitted about. Strange things were said to happen..."Texas
City 1914 8-17-06
"A small town with a big name, Texas City hosted
an Army camp..."
Kid
Murray 8-10-06
Texas' least-known outlaw, newspapers dubbed him "Kid"
Murray... Humble
Fire 8-2-06
"...Hudson's enthusiasm for the oil business changed
abruptly on July 23, 1905. That evening, a thunderstorm triggered a bolt of lightning
that ignited the oil in one of the large tanks Hudson had helped build.Old
Sam Houston Song 7-27-06
"The song, reprinted in 1928 in a long-defunct
Texas magazine called Bunker's Monthly, lies on the pages of the few surviving
copies of that publication, long forgotten..."
Clairmont
Jail 7-20-06Antlers
7-13-06Down
in Texas 7-6-06
"'Down in Texas' captured what the rest of the nation
wanted to believe about the Lone Star State's petroleum boom towns..."
Rochester
Teacher 6-29-06
School teaching has never been the best paying avocation,
but the terms of employment have definitely improved over the last century...
Lehmann
Show 6-22-06
When Fred Gipson's family went to an old-settlers reunion
and fair at Katemcy to see the aging Herman Lehmann put on a one-man exhibition,
the Mason County youngster got a taste of the old west far more realistic than
anything he ever saw in a Tom Mix movie...Llano
Gold 6-15-06
Washed in golden sunset, from a distance Llano County's Sharp
Mountain looks like a giant Paleolithic flint hide scraper lying on its side...
Few today know about the long-abandoned mine shafts the mountain hides...Austin
Will 6-8-06
Austin real estate agent Susanne Lee has fond memories of
the house in Houston she grew up in, but until recently she never knew it had
much of a history. Sheriff
Kirk 6-1-06
"...The killing of Sheriff Kirk stands out as an Old
West shootout worthy of any Hollywood Western..." Lolita
5-18-06Eureka
5-12-06
"...Ozona did become the county seat. Today, Eureka-first known
as Couch Well - is not even a ghost town, only a ghost name..."Karma
5-5-06Plains
Pioneer Charlie Saigling 4-27-06Prairiedom
4-21-05
Most people driving along U.S. 71 from Austin to Columbus don't spend
any time thinking about the highway bridges that afford them the ability to cross
streams and rivers without getting wet. Wild
Navidad 4-14-06
The Navidad River is only 74 miles long but it is as tangled
in history and folklore as the vines and trees along its banks...Baker
Talk4-11-06
The talk Captain Mosley Baker supposedly gave to the men of
his company at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836...Bluebonnets
3-30-06Wired
3-24-06Barton
Springs 3-17-06Houston
Ring 3-9-06Adobe
Outposts on the Rio Grande 3-1-06Line
in the Sand 2-23-06Army
Booze 2-16-06Earl
Abel's 2-13-061918
Flu 2-2-06Cleo
Face 1-26-06
"The folks along Bear Creek in Kimble County always
called the mysterious stone carving the “Cleo Face.”
Gulf
U-boats 1-20-06Columbus
Tower 1-13-06
"No matter how European it looks, however, the tower
is the product of Yankee – well, Southern – ingenuity."
Cowboy
Tree 12-22-05Hudson
Bend 12-16-05
"Maybe some day a scuba diver will find the old bent
rifle barrel at the bottom of Lake Travis..."
Medley
12-10-05
Sam Houston and more
Bull
Creek Battle 12-3-05
"Now covered with spacious, expensive houses,
the cedar-studded canyons on the western edge of Austin used to be Central Texas’
version of Appalachia."
Crockett
News 11-17-05
"Volume one, number one of the newspaper appeared to
enlighten the citizenry of Houston County on Dec. 6, 1853. It had not been an
easy process."Last
Cavalry Horse 11-17-05
"That cold winter morning, Dec.14, 1932, was
a sad one for old-time horse soldiers and civilians alike at Fort D.A. Russell
in Marfa -- they both realized they were witnessing the end of an era."
Amarillo
Symphony 11-3-05
"The whistle was music to the railroad man’s ears.
With tongue-in-cheek, he called it the “Amarillo Symphony.”
Storm
of 1895 10-26-05
The dust storm in El Paso
Jackass
in Heaven 10-20-05
"Clay McGonagill
may have been the ropingest cowboy Texas ever produced..."
Dead
Ellis 10-13-05Catarina
10-6-05
If you’re looking for a ghost, it figures you’d go to a ghost town
to find one.Circus
9-29-05
The Gainesville Community Circus in the 1950s
Outlaw
Letter 9-20-05
An outlaw's love letter in 1878
Missing
Coat 9-15-05
"Third-term Sterling County Sheriff S.T. Wood..."Galveston
1900 9-8-05Lady
Doc 9-1-05
Dr. Sofie Herzog, first female surgeon in Texas
Exterminator
8-23-05
German immigrant J.C. Melcher of Fayette County and Port Lavaca
Nameless
Cave 8-18-05
Nameless, Texas, Nameless Cave and hermit's treasure.
Bombsite
8-10-05
The story of the Manhattan Project and its product, the atomic bombs
against Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945, has been well told. But buried in all the
official documents is another story, far less known.
Oddities
8-1-05
"The December 1938 issue offered some items of Texas trivia just
as interesting today as they were then."
Book
Burning 7-22-05
“Where they have burned books,” German poet Johann Heinrich
Heine wrote in the 19th century, “they will end in burning human beings.” Indeed,
Texans have done both.
Terrell
County 7-14-05
Bexar and Terrell County
Sam
Houston's Will 7-6-05Rev.
Dancer 7-1-05
Namesake of Dancer Peak neat LlanoPoker
6-23-05
"Gambling was a Galveston institution early on."
Dare
Devil Rogers 6-16-05
:During the Depression, as the people of the nation
collectively dug deep into their pockets and often came up with nothing, Dare
Devil dug his own grave time after time, town after town."
Lost
Sword 6-8-05
"Somewhere in Texas is a sword with a history."O.
Henry 6-2-05
"The mustachioed young man from North Carolina hardly
seemed the martial type, but as a citizen soldier in the Austin Grays he demonstrated
the qualities of a leader – even if it was to keep from spending the night in
the guardhouse...."
Stagecoach
Holdup 5-26-05
"Stagecoach robberies happened so often along the
Texas frontier it came to be considered something of a right of passage to hand
over one’s money and valuables to a masked man with a gun on some lonely roadside."Whiskey
Funeral 5-19-05
"He won his nickname when he got so desperate for
a drink that he traded his horse and saddle for a gallon of whiskey."
Bold
CSA Vet Thomas Evans Riddle, & Man o’ War 5-14-05
Thomas Evans Riddle
bet on a dead racehorse. He lost.
Wells
Branch 5-7-05
"Today, as the rustic center piece of Katherine Fleischer
Park, the cabin sits in the middle of some 8,000 residences occupied by 20,000
people."Freer
5-1-05
"In rhyme, Wilson tried to distill life in and around the Duval
County town of Freer, the state’s last truly wild and wooly oil boom town."
Patriots
4-26-05
"The American Revolution lasted seven years, affording plenty
of men the opportunity to go down in history as patriots."
Freeny
Hanging 4-17-05
"James Washington White lost an arm fighting for
the South during the Civil War. He could have spent the rest of his life seething
with bitterness, but that’s not how it turned out."
Twin
Sisters 4-5-05
The most famous pieces of artillery in Texas historySan
Jacinto Monument 3-23-05
"Most people think the towering star-topped
limestone monument, built during the Texas Centennial in 1936, is the only San
Jacinto monument. Actually, it’s only the biggest."Spanish
Cattle 3-21-05
"All those longhorns that revitalized Texas’ post-Civil
War economy had to come from somewhere. And where the breed came from was the
interior of Mexico. Via trail drive."
Jesus
3-21-05
When old “Hay-sus” died that winter afternoon, just about everyone
in Eagle Pass mourned.
Davy's
Widow 3-9-0
Elizabeth Patton CrockettKKK
3-1-05Mission
Rules 2-22-05
Around 1760, a now-unknown Franciscan priest at the Apostolic
College for Missionaries in Queretaro, Mexico set down rules for Texas missionaries.
The rules, laden with advice, were “meant for a missionary who has never been
in charge of a mission and is all alone and does not know whom to consult for
advice.”
Battle
of Brushy Creek 2-05
A little-known fight between Comanche warriors and
Texas Rangers
August
Carl Weiss 2-16-05
During the Civil War not every Southern soldier served
in the Confederate army because he believed in slavery or hated Yankees. Some
shouldered arms only because they had to. That was the case with August Carl Weiss,
one of 2,000 men who soldiered for the South in Waul’s Legion, a unit raised at
Brenham by Thomas Neville Waul.
Chili
by Mike Cox 1-31-05
William Gerald
Tobin’s career as a Texas Ranger left a lot to be desired. But he had an idea
that left Texas, and the Southwest, an enduring gastronomical legacy.
Kaiser
Cows - Bovine Saboteurs of WWI 1-25-05
Jake,
the Bridge Ghost of Williamson County 1-17-05Tejano
Hero Norberto Sierra 1-5-04Austin
Grade School 1-1-05Newspaper
Death 12-27-04
The Athenian of East Texas Nice
Politics 12-20-04Big
Foot Wallace and the Indian 12-12-04
Smith had plenty of interesting experiences
during his long life, but one of the best stories he told involved another character
-- Big Foot Wallace. It is a tale of good and evil with a twist.Pardner
Jones 12-12-04
"Jones was the go-to guy for shooting hats off actor’s
heads or cigars out of their mouths. A la William Tell, he also could make instant
apple sauce, albeit with a bullet instead of an arrow."
Buffalo
Man 11-29-04
Hollywood has seldom – if ever – portrayed buffalo hunters
as civilized, erudite men. Screenwriters and producers of Westerns usually have
their buffalo hunters play the role as coarse, scruffy men ready to drink or kill
anything. But as the story of one time buffalo hunter John Cloud Jacobs demonstrates,
reality is not always that simple.
Kate
Ward 11-22-04
Whatever happened to the Kate
Ward is far from the most daunting mystery in Texas history...
Strange
News 11-15-04
Strange news and early 20th century urban folklore
New
Geography 11-4-04
Remapping the Lone Star State
& Place Name
Tweaking of Several Counties and County SeatsPunkin
Center 10-26-04
The Punkin Center Phenomenon, and the old Irish folktale
about Jack-O’-Lantern, the enduring symbol of Halloween.
Which
Road 10-21-04Asherton
10-15-04Covert
Park - Mount Bonnell 10-4-04
Next time you’re in Austin, be sure to visit
Covert Park
Tres
Presidents 9-23-04
Presidents' military records Poison
Doc 9-23-04
Herman Webster Mudgett, America’s first serial killerLost
in the Flood 9-16-04New
York 9-7-04
Its final voyage, and sunken treasure
Donna
8-26-04
Donna Hooks Fletcher, namesake of Donna, TexasAlamo
Monument 8-17-04
In 1912, a San Antonio group began raising money to build
a monument to the defenders of the Alamo. But the memorial they wanted for Alamo
Plaza would not be any run of the mill monument. It would be Texas-sized and then
some, an architectural wonder.
Rooster
8-12-04
Word spread of Houston’s April 21 defeat of Santa Anna at San Jacinto.
Slowly, those who still wanted to give life in Texas a chance turned to the west
and went back to what was left of their homes. And that’s when a nameless hero
gave his all for Texas....
William
Christy 7-29-04
A forgotten Texas hero
Wind
Wagon 7-22-04 Palacios
7-14-04Rust’s
Ride 7-7-04Lost
Painting of Sam Houston 7-1-04Jumper
6-26-04
Jumpers, diving horses and Sonora WebsterSummer
News from 1894Surly
Stranger 6-15-04
Texas Ranger J.W. Fulgham
and a Reeves County sheriff’s deputy ... left Pecos, Texas for a ride down the
Pecos River, looking for cattle thieves or fugitives in early September 1893.
Back then, the Pecos was a good place to find either variety of criminal.... more
Last
Buffalo 6-15-04Slots
5-19-04Kate
5-19-04
Catherine "Kate" Magill Dorman -- a little known Texas heroine of
the Civil War
Leaping
Lovers 5-12-04
Four landmarks known as Lover's
Leaps
Racing
Parson 5-1-04
How a preacher held a horse race and build a church
Athens
4-27-04
Somewhere in northern Travis County or southern Williamson County
is the site of a long dead dream, a "delightful" community that never was.
Joe
4-20-04
Travis' slave, who witnessed his death at the AlamoExcept
Texas 4-11-04
That spring of 1866, more than a year after the last great
battles between North and South, the United States still officially considered
Texas in a state of insurrection.Camp
Bowie 4-2-04
On the night of May 5, 1837, two officers of the Republic
of Texas' army lay asleep in their tent at Camp Bowie. Only one of them would
wake up.
Range
Wisdom 3-25-04
Solomon's wisdom in the free range days
Meteorite
3-21-04
The Williams Ranch meteorite, truth or hoax
Sam
Houston Oak 3-12-04
In the vicinity of the tree on March 14, 1836, Sam
Houston and several hundred Texas citizen-soldiers spent one of the worst nights
of their lives
Alamo
Letters 3-12-04
The surviving words of someone who died in the old Spanish
mission on March 6, 1836.
Tyrant's
Gold 3-2-04
When General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna came to Texas in
1836 he left behind death and destruction -- and possibly gold.
Old
News 2-26-04
Tired of all the new news of war, politics and other forms
of violence? For a change of pace, here's some old news of war, politics and other
forms of violence.
Bevo,
the University of Texas' longhorn mascot 2-20-04
One of the more bizarre
events in Texas collegiate history took place in Austin on a January night in
1920.
Old
Armory 2-12-04
Is there really an historical treasure trove beneath downtown
Austin?
Sarah
"Son," a wise old man once said, "always marry a Texas girl. No matter what
happens, she's seen worse."
Lindsey
City 1-29-04
A ghost town in Big Bend National Park
Hondo
1-20-04
Who made the word Hondo famous?
Cowboy
Gene 1-10-04
Gene Autry the Singing Cowboy McDade
Hanging 12-17-03
The story of the McDade Christmas clean up has become
one of Texas' more frequently told Yuletide tales.
Barbecue
Bust 12-14-03
Where O. Henry, student protests, the Texas governor and
barbecue come together.
Elephant
A wild cowboy tale.
Hunting
Mishaps 11-28-03
Prominent Texans killed while hunting
Tascosa
and Boothill Alien
Camp 11-28-03
World War II alien camp in Crystal City
Lechuza
10-27-03
"Lechuzas have been scaring people in Mexico and South Texas
for a long time.... Lechuzas are witches - brujas - who transform themselves into
birds...."
Range
King 10-27-03
"It can't atone for his murder, or even the apparent
contempt of those who buried him, but at least James W. King lies in a beautiful
cemetery."
Mustang
Gray 10-4-03
Someone wrote a ballad about him that many Texas mothers
used for years as a lullaby...Tennessee
10-25-03
"Texas is probably more indebted to Tennessee for her independence
and subsequent development than to any State in the Union."
Llano
Boom 10-25-03
The Great Llano Uranium Boom
Sipe
Springs 9-14-03
But all that remains today is a mystery written in concrete:
"Who is the little girl, age 3?"
Bikes
9-9-03
In 1897, when a Texas peace officer needed to go somewhere to do his
job, he walked, rode a horse, went in a wagon or took a train. Deputy sheriff
Josh Messenger began using a two-wheeled bicycle.Sergeant
Kelly 8-31-03
The unknown soldier of the Mexican WarBear
Den 8-24-03
"One of the stories Vantine told was about the time he
went hunting for a bear and found an Indian...."
Bluffton
8-17-03
When all the engineering work for the long-contemplated dam was completed
in the mid-1930s, residents of Bluffton received some hard news - the town would
be inundated by the new lake.
Popeye
8-10-03
... So there it is, in black-and-white: Popeye, the Sailor Man is
a native Texan.
Hoo
Doo 8-3-03
A writer of Western fiction could get a dozen movies out of
the Hoo Doo War story...
First
Whites 7-27-03
Being known as an FWC was considered a mark of distinction,
and because of the honor attached to it, sometimes became a point of controversy.
Pearl
7-20-03
He has the singular distinction of being the first and last man legally
hanged in the county.
Cranfill
7-13-03
For about the last quarter of the 19th century ... being a "wet"
or a "dry" defined a Texan politically much more accurately than being Democrat
or Republican....
Two
Braids 7-6-03
More Texans owned horses than automobiles in 1910, but when
the middle-aged man rode into Eagle Pass that summer, people noticed.... Elephant
2003
"Someday, perhaps, a work crew laying cable or pipe will unearth
a large set of bones near a busy Wichita Falls intersection...."A.J.
Sowell 6-25-03 Lion
Hunt 6-11-03News
from Texas 5-28-03
A weekly
column
Since July, 2003 |
Mike CoxMike
Cox, an elected member of the Texas Institute of Letters, is the author of 13
Texas-related, non-fiction books as well as numerous magazine articles. The first
volume of his two-volume narrative history of the Texas Rangers, "The Texas Rangers:
Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900" was released in March 2008.
A former
award-winning journalist for the Austin American-Statesman and other Texas newspapers,
Cox spent more than 15 years as spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety,
handling media interviews at the scene of some of the biggest news events in recent
Texas history.
He is retired communications manager for the Texas Department
of Transportation and now devotes most of his time to writing, editing/consulting
and public speaking
November, 2007
A popular professional speaker, Cox is available to talk to associations, chambers
of commerce and other groups about Texas history. For more information, or to
suggest story ideas or to comment on stories, feel free to contact him at mikecoxtex@austin.rr.com
or
P.O. Box 302559, Austin, TX, 78703-0043. | |
Books
by Mike Cox
Order Here |
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