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Texas History

"CHARLEY ECKHARDT'S TEXAS"
by C. F. Eckhardt

New
Before Maw Bell - Rural Telephone Systems in the West 5-8-08
Alexander Graham Bell’s patent expired in the 1890s, and as soon as it did anyone could legally manufacture and sell a telephone. Almost instantly both Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward began offering telephone sets in their catalogs... Across much of the west, to the west of old US 81 (present I-35) in Texas... there was already a network of wire covering most of the country, in the form of barbed-wire fences...

The Forgotten Hero 4-24-08
Who was the first—and possibly the greatest—hero of the Texas Revolution? He’s a man you may have heard of, but not very often. Try Ben Milam...

Hellagain Hill - How Elgin Got Its Name 4-7-08
In Elgin they’ll tell you the town was named for a Mister Elgin... If you ask the members of the Shadetree Historical Society, they’ll give you a version of Elgin’s naming that has nothing to do with a Mr. Elgin. They’ll tell you the original name of the place was Helgin—derived from ‘Hell again.’...

The Long Shot 3-17-08
If you know Texas history, you know the story. At the second battle of Adobe Walls buffalo shooter Billy Dixon used his Sharps rifle to shoot a Comanche chief off his horse at about 1000 yards. With the chief dead, especially at such extreme range, the Comanches called it quits and left.

The L-O-N-G Roads of Texas: Texas-State-Highway-16 3-3-08
Texas’ state highways are some of the most interesting ways to travel. They pass through—not go around—interesting communities of every sort. The towns are both beautiful—sometimes (and sometimes not so beautiful)—and often historically interesting. The two longest state highways in Texas are Highway 16 and Highway 6. Both cut across scenic and historically significant parts of the state...

Texas History & Folklore

Columns - Biweekly

  • Preserving Meat on the Frontier 2-21-08
  • Re-examining the Mexican War 2-3-08
  • The Wail of the Wampus Cat 1-3-08
  • Panoramic Drawings 12-1-07
  • The General Was A Spy—And So Was The Pirate 11-2-07
    James Wilkinson was Commanding General, United States Army... He was also the top spy in the US for the Spanish Empire. He was designated Agent #1... Agents #12 and #13 were the brothers Laffite, Pierre and Jean...
  • Aliens Amongst Us 10-21-07
    About some plants and animals that are entirely foreign to Texas—indeed, to the US...
  • Jesse James. Miss Shirley’s Story 10-8-07
  • First to Fly 9-19-07
  • The Second Battle of the Alamo 9-4-07
  • ‘Mysterious Cattle Deaths’ Not So Mysterious 8-15-07
  • Was South Carolina’s ‘Lost’ First Lady Buried On The Texas Coast? 8-1-07
  • The King's Texan and USS Texas 7-14-07
  • Did John Wilkes Booth Live In Texas? 6-30-07
  • Who Was J. Frank Dalton, Anyway? 6-15-07
  • History's Most Successful Failure - US Army's Camel Corps 6-1-07
    In May of 1856, at Powderhorn, Texas, the US Army's most successful experiment in overland transportation before the development of four-wheel-drive vehicles powered by internal combustion engines began. By the end of May, 1866, the experiment was dead.
  • Henry O. Flipper, An Epic Remaining To Be Told 5-14-07
    Perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the annals of the American West is 2/LT Henry O. Flipper, 10th United States Cavalry...
  • Who Killed the Chief? 5-1-07
    Peta Nocona was the husband of the captive white woman Cynthia Ann Parker-and the father of perhaps the greatest of all Comanche chiefs, Quanah Parker. He was chief of a band of Quohada Comanches. Over his death, over the years, there has arisen considerable controversy.
  • Bloody Christmas 4-16-07
    The Murder of LaSalle County Sheriff Charles B. McKinney
  • The Bartlett Bank Robbery That Wasn't 3-28-07
    Back during the 'hippie era' of the '60s, a group of 'unwashed intellectuals' out of Austin decided to do their bit for the Age of Aquarius by robbing a bank...
  • The Ancient Art of Dowsing 2-16-07
    In the search for water, minerals, and many other things, there is nothing quite as controversial as the practice of dowsing...
  • Sarah's Dream 2-2-07
    Josiah Wilbarger - Scalped Alive on Onion Creek
  • The Other Houston 1-22-07
    Temple Lea Houston
  • The Great Blackeyed Pea Hoax 1-1-07
    Did you eat blackeyed peas for good luck on New Year's Day? Did you do so because it's a 'great ante-bellum Southern tradition?' If so, congratulations. You have been scammed by one of the most likeable con-artists in Texas history...
  • Mr. Acton's Story 1-1-07
    "...We headed for that light. It was slow going, but we made progress-but when we got to it, there was no house..."
  • Fox in the Pickup Bed 12-15-06
  • O. Henry and the Shoal Creek Treasure 12-1-06
  • The Little Engine That Couldn't 11-15-06
    The Fredericksburg & Northern Railroad
  • Conan in Texas: The Robert E. Howard Story 11-1-06
  • Victor T. Hamlin & Alley Oop 10-24-06
  • Santa Anna or Ste. Anne? 10-11-06
    When Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna y Perez de LeBron was captured following the battle at San Jacinto, people in the United States government wanted to talk to him...
  • Stampede Mesa 9-27-06
    "Stampede Mesa was-and may still be-one of the most thoroughly haunted places in Texas."
  • The Devilin' of Old John 9-20-06
    Old John was about the oldest man I knew who was still working as a cowboy, and I don't know how old he was when he died...
  • To Cultivate Vine and Olive 9-13-06
    "Texas under six flags." That's been around pretty much since who flung the chunk, and it's wrong. "Texas under sixty flags" might be closer to the truth, and even some of the six we claim never flew over Texas... One French flag we don't claim actually did fly over Texas...
  • How the Texas Rangers Helped Win WWII 9-6-06
  • Cowboy Life on a Small Spread 8-30-06
  • The Coolerator 8-21-06
  • To Sleep Tight 8-16-06
    The old expression "Good night, sleep tight" once had real meaning. Beds didn't have springs in early Texas. They had ropes...
  • To Build a House II 8-9-06
    Adobe Houses
    "...Adobe was brought to the Americas by the Spanish..."
  • To Build a House 8-2-06
    Texas Log Cabins and Log Houses
  • The Whirlwind Lt. John Lapham Bullis and the Seminole Negro Scouts 7-26-06
    One of the least-known heroes of the Texas frontier was a man known to his followers as The Whirlwind and to his enemies as The Thunderbolt.
  • Bob Wills: The Greatest Fiddle-Player of Them All 7-19-06
    "...He was a shirt-tail kid from Turkey... Sixty years after that beginning he was a legend-Bob Wills ..."
  • The Gunfight that Killed Helena 7-12-06
    "The Colonel's son has been gunned down, in cold blood or so the story implies..."

  • Panoramic Drawings 7-5-06
    "If you do much historical research, one of the things you're going to run across is beautiful, highly-detailed panoramic drawings done in the 17th, 18th, and the first half of the 19th Centuries..."

  • The Ghost on Highway 281 6-28-06
    ... "Oh," somebody said, "you saw Lackey's ghost." Thereby, as the old saying goes, hangs a tale..."
  • The Ranger's Creek of Gold 6-21-06
    In the first chapter of what was the treasure-hunter's bible for many years, J. Frank Dobie's CORONADO'S CHILDREN... there are enough clues to tell you...

  • San Antonio's Blue Book 6-14-06
    'The Blue Book' is the legendary directory of a city's 'red light' district...

  • National Dish of Texas 6-7-06
    Chili con carne.

  • The Rise and Fall of Meansville, Texas 5-24-06
    You have to hunt for Meansville, Texas, and unless you have a guide who knows San Patricio County well, you won't find it.
  • The Lake That Wasn't and Was and Wasn't and Is 5-12-06
    The story of Caddo Lake
  • The Ghost on Milam Street
    Seguin's Headless Ghost

    Column begins May 2006
  • C. F. ECKHARDT
    His full name is Charles Frederick but uses his initials because his name is too long to get on one line, goes by Charley with an 'ey' because he's not a perfume. He was born a long time ago in Austin, Texas, and grew up in an atmosphere where Texas and Southern history were part of his life almost from the day he was born. His paternal grandmother, a lifelong member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas -- she was a 'real daughter' in the former case, since her father was a Confederate soldier -- who lived with his family until he was 12, was born when Sam Bass, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and George A. Custer were still all alive and kicking, and was a young lady before Butch Cassidy stole his first horse. The man across the street was born when Texas was still a republic, the man next door was the grandson of one of Jim Bowie's companions at the Calf Creek fight in 1831, the man up the street was visited frequently by an elderly uncle who knew way too much more about a couple of Clay County, Missouri boys named Dingus and Frank than any peaceloving feller had any business knowing, and just down the creek lived a feller named J. Frank Dobie.

    Eckhardt grew up in Austin and on about 400 acres of hardpan, cedar brake, and honeycomb limestone in western Williamson County, Texas. He attended the University of Texas when there was only one, and managed to stay on good terms with both H. Bailey Carrol and Walter P. Webb, which was considered something of an achievement, as the two Ph. D.s hated each other's guts. He majored in history and holds a BA in the subject. Since jobs in 'the history bidness' were hard to come by unless one was politically 'correct' - which Eckhardt has spent a lifetime refusing to be - he spent many years as a peace officer and soldier. Finally tiring of being a moving target, Eckhardt pursued a trade that would allow him both the time and the intellectual energy to pursue his first love, writing about Texas and the American West. From this trade he retired on 30 March 2002, to pursue writing full time.

    Eckhardt's books include THE LOST SAN SABA MINES (Texas Monthly Press, 1980), UNSOLVED TEXAS MYSTERIES (Republic of Texas Press, 1990-co-author), TEXAS TALES YOUR TEACHER NEVER TOLD YOU (Republic of Texas Press, 1990), TALES OF BADMEN, BAD WOMEN, AND BAD PLACES-FOUR CENTURIES OF TEXAS OUTLAWRY (Texas Tech University Press, 2000), and TEXAS SMOKE-MUZZLE- LOADERS ON THE FRONTIER, illustrated by Wesley G. Williams (Texas Tech Press, 2001). Forthcoming is "Tales Told Across Campfires," from Texas Tech Press, probably in 2005, and of course the perennial 'novel in progress' that all writers have. He has been published in magazines as diverse as The Tombstone Epitaph and the short-lived revival of Harper's Weekly, and in magazines in Great Britain, Switzerland, and Australia.

    Eckhardt lives in an historic home in Seguin, Texas, with Vicki, his wife of more years than she likes to admit, and numerous critters.
    Texas Books by C. F. Eckhardt
    Texas Tales Your Teacher Never Told You
    Tales of Badmen, Bad Women, and Bad Places
    The lost San Saba Mines
    Texas Smoke
     
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