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NEW
The
Quebe Sisters 11-15-09
If
Bob Wills were around today, the chances are good that he would be delighted with
three teenage sisters from Burleson. Listening to the Quebe Sisters play the western
swing music pioneered by Wills in the 1930s and l940s, you realize they are special
musicians who love what they’re doing...
Antlers
Hotel 11-8-09
"The
afternoon the building burned, hundreds of Dibollians stood watching the fire,
tears streaming down their faces. Older Dibollians still recall “the day the town
cried.”
The
Roads of Upshur County 11-2-09
Most East
Texas counties name their county roads with numbers or the names of people. But
not Upshur County.
East Texas Ghosts
10-25-09
So, you don’t believe in ghosts? Well, read on and we may make
a believer of you, especially since this week brings Halloween...
The
Settlement of Cuthand 10-21-09
If Marvin Nichols
Reservoir is built by Dallas on the Sulphur River in northern East Texas, dozens
of small communities will be inundated, ending a rich part of the region’s history.
One of the communites is Cuthand...
The
Schools We Knew 10-11-09
From the 1800s to shortly
after World War II, East Texas was made up mostly of farming communities--small
in size, but big in community spirit. Some communities had a small general store
and a church, but almost every community had a school which acted as the glue
that held each settlement together...
A
country legend 10-4-09
Someone once asked country
singing legend Ray Price to name his favorite singers. Price paused a minute and
finally said, “I have too many to name, but Gene Watson would be right at the
top.” But Watson--who was born in Palestine and raised in Paris--is such a low-keyed
individual that he considers singing “just something I like to do,” like working
on cars in his shop.
The wooden-tracked
railroad 9-27-09
It wasn’t the longest railroad
in East Texas. And it certainly wasn’t the most profitable. But it taught its
builders, the good people of Rusk, how not to run a railroad...
Unique
Forest Areas 9-20-09
In the late l980s, a Connecticut-based
forest products company launched a program that triggered the protection of some
of East Texas' most unique forest areas...
Music
in an Old Gym 9-13-09
On weekend nights at Lovelady,
a small town south of Crockett in Houston County, it’s not unusual to hear country
music wafting through the rafters of an old school gymnasium.
Where
did John Wilkes Booth die? 9-6-09
When John Wilkes
Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865, he not only found a dark corner in
American history; he may have became a part of Texas history, too.
Davy
In East Texas 8-30-09
Now, a new book has captured
the details of Davy's journey to Texas and the Alamo, where, as every schoolchild
knows, he died on March 6, 1836, with more than 180 other defenders.
Ferries
in East Texas 8-23-09
Long before modern bridges
were built to span rivers in East Texas, ferries were maintained at places where
roads crossed streams that were not fordable.
The
Twirler
8-21-09
When Audrey Dean Leighton passed away in mid-2005, East Texas
lost one of its most entertaining and colorful characters.
Lick
Skillet 8-9-09
Lick Skillet is a name that courses
through the history of rural East Texas. For more than a hundred years or so,
it has been attached to communities, creeks, roads and anything else where people
have a sense of humor.
Making history
8-2-09
In August of 1945, when the United States dropped
the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Charlie Kimble of Lufkin was
part of the American landing party that toured Japan’s shambles and helped free
4,500 Korean prisoners of war.
Ghost
Road in Hardin County 7-26-09
The best time to visit
the Ghost Road in Hardin County is late in the evening when nightfall descends
over the Big Thicket and your imagination begins to push aside conventional thoughts
like, “There’s no such thing as ghosts.” Skeptical, solid-thinking men and women
have driven down the arrow-straight stretch of woodland road between Saratoga
and Bragg--and emerged from the Thicket convinced they “saw something.”
The
Town of Twin Groceries
7-18-09
A recent caller from Bowie County had an intriguing
question recently, “Does East Texas have a town named Twin Groceries?” The answer
is yes and no...
A
new museum in Rusk 7-12-09
An
old grocery store in Rusk now houses memorabilia telling the rich history of Rusk
and Cherokee County--one of the oldest counties in East Texas.
Visitors
from space? 7-5-09
Mysterious objects supposedly
visiting Texas aren’t new. In the late 1800s, several towns in East Texas experienced
aerial phenomena.
Bonnie and Clyde
6-29-09
During their Depression-era crime wave between
1931 and 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were suspected of killing at least twelve people,
including nine peace officers. Their victims fell in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana...
A
gunfight in Hemphill 6-20-09
With deep roots in East
Texas, John Wesley Hardin was our most famous outlaw and gunfighter, but many
of his raids and shootings in the pineywoods have remained unchronicled. A little-known
incident in which he won a gunfight with a Sabine County deputy sheriff at Hemphill...
A
cotton gin gets a new life 6-14-09
Thanks to the
Depot Museum at Henderson, a cotton gin has now taken its place among other relics
of the past...
The Darby-Holcomb Home
6-7-09
An East Texas landmark celebrated its 150th birthday this year,
and it still looks as good as it did when it was built.
Country
Stores 5-31-09
A friend who lives near Trawick was
bemoaning the loss of country stores a few days ago. “When I was a kid, you could
drive all over East Texas, and every little town had one or two stores and did
a good business because the hometown folks always traded with them...
Jim
Reeves and Cheyenne 5-24-09
As a one-time reporter,
I covered the funerals of numerous East Texans, but the one I remember the most
was that of Jim Reeves, the iconic country singer who grew up at Galloway in Panola
County.
Jesse James in Texas
5-17-09
The recent hit movie, “The Assassination of Jesse James,” stirred
more than a passing interest in East Texas, especially in Collin, Grayson, Hood
and Leon counties. In 1863, during the Civil War, William Clark Quantrill led
his guerillas from Missouri to winter quarters in north East Texas. Among the
men who rode with him were Jesse and Frank James.
An
Unlikely Partnership 5-10-09
They were an unlikely
business partnership--a German immigrant, an Irish storekeeper, and two Jewish
brothers. But in 1900, Joseph Kurth, Simon W. Henderson, and Sam and Eli Wiener
pooled their resources and created the Angelina and Neches River Railroad...
Finding
Dextra 5-4-09
Doris, my wife of more than 51 years,
loves researching old East Texas communities as much as I, but driving down muddy
county roads frightens her as much as a growling bear.
A
life of hardships 5-3-09
When you start worrying
about the hardships life has thrown at you, consider the plight of the Clyde Thurman
Owens family of Henderson County.
Frontier
Jails 4-26-09
There are a lot of jails like the old
Tyler calaboose all over East Texas and, thankfully, jailhouse restorations are
happening with increasing frequency these days in East Texas.
A
forgotten town 4-20-09
Deep in the woods of southeastern
Angelina County, a few miles from the brown-watered Neches River, the settlement
of Philistine lies in eternal slumber. Little has been written about the old community;
the morsels of information available have come from word of mouth passed along
from generation to generation.
More
Blues Brothers 4-12-09
Some
of the earliest blues pioneers lived and played in East Texas...
Remembering
Fastrill 4-11-09
Some time in the distant future,
if Dallas has its way, a new reservoir could be built on the Neches River in Cherokee
and Anderson County. If the proposal ever becomes reality, the lake would inundate
a landmark in the history of the forest products history--an old logging camp
known as Fastrill.
The President
for a Day 3-29-09
Barack Obama isn’t really our 44th
President; he is actually the 45th. As it turns out, a little-known politician
born in Kentucky in 1807 served as President for a single day back in 1849, but
he is rarely mentioned in presidential histories...
A
grand old library 3-22-09
Most historians spend a
considerable time in libraries and, invariably, many of them gravitate to the
Jefferson Library, which has a unique history of its own.
A
letter from Mark Twain 3-15-09
When William H. Hamman,
a two-time candidate for Texas governor, was murdered on the streets of New Birmingham
in 1890, he left a legacy as an enterprising businessman and investor. But often
overlooked was his friendship with Samuel Clemens...
Pistol
Packing Mamma 3-8-09
One
of the most popular songs in the U.S. during the mid-1940s was “Pistol Packing
Mama,” which became Billboard Magazine’s most played jukebox favorite in 1944.
But few know that the song came from East Texas and was written and performed
by an Cherokee County musician Al Dexter.
The
Bravest Man
3-2-09
Those who lived in Lufkin during the Depression
years knew Homer Garrison, Sr., as a kindly, genteel man who gave away pennies
to children and felt he had cheated them “because I always got a two-bit smile.”
100-year-old Aggie
2-22-09
When William B Holsonbake of Hughes Springs celebrated his 100th
birthday last May 15, someone asked him how he had managed to become a centurion
"Well," he said with a twinkle in his eyes, "it could have been because I was
an Aggie." And, indeed, he was quite an Aggie.
Bright
and Early Coffee and Tea 2-16-09
Once upon a time,
Bright & Early Coffee and Tea signs, usually painted on the sides of barns and
country stores, could be found in most Southern states, including Texas.
A
county seat’s troubles
2-8-09
As Hopkins County’s first seat of government, Tarrant had more
troubles than most frontier communities in East Texas. In the end, the misfortunes
converged to cause the town’s demise after 24 years of tenuous existence.
Nazis
in East Texas 2-2-09
During World War II, German
soldiers who had been captured in Europe were brought to the U.S. and conscripted
as loggers...
The
Wisdom Table 1-25-09
In towns across East Texas,
big and small, there’s usually a place where elderly men gather each morning to
have a cup or two of coffee--and solve the world’s problems. Well, maybe some
of the problems...
The
oldest town in Texas? 1-18-09
For longer than most
of us can remember, Texans have been squabbling over which community is the state’s
oldest. The principal players in this ongoing feud are a couple of East Texas
cities, Nacogdoches and San Augustine, and a West Texas village, Ysleta. Now,
it appears there may be another contender...
Who?
Hoo Hoo. That’s Who 1-12-09
Separated
by more than 200 miles, Gurdon, Arkansas, and Lufkin, Texas, share a unique legacy:
the Concatenated Order of the Hoo Hoo, an international fraternity of lumbermen...
Fawil
1-5-09
Fawil, it has been said, is a town that got its
name by accident...
Bobo
and Blair 12-30-08
Two
Shelby County, Texas, communities might have passed into history without as much
as a footnote if a singing cowboy had not popularized a marching and dice playing
chant by East Texas soldiers.
"All
Things Historical"
> Bob Bowman's archived columns
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