| |
| "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
Stolen
Bounty 5-15-13
Howard Campbell never lost his vivid memory of the only
time he ever saw his parents cry.When
Borden (County) Was Bone Dry 5-8-13
Those who lived through the 1917-20
drought never forgot it.Aransas
Abattoir 5-1-13
Packeries – also known as hide and tallow plants -- operated
from Brownsville to Galveston, but Rockport soon became the Fort Worth of the
industry.Rafting
Cotton from Bastrop to Matagorda 4-25-13
Hard to imagine Bastrop as an
inland port, but during the 1840s and continuing through the Civil War, Central
Texans saw the Colorado River not so much as a source of drinking water or place
to fish as a transportation artery connecting them with the Gulf of Mexico.Smiths
at San Jacinto 4-18-13
Enoch K. Smith may have been the 17th Smith who
took part in the Battle of San Jacinto.The
Oil Camp Boarding House - Hearty Food - Dainty Waitresses and No Tipping 4-10-13
The
best cook in West Texas’s storied Yates Field – Mrs. R.L. Rice.Getting
the Most Fun from "The Only Hanging for 50 Miles Around." 4-4-13
The tale
of one Sam Walker, told in the Shiner Gazette on Jan. 12, 1898 and rediscovered
by Austin history buff Sloan Rodgers, is likely fiction disguised as news, but
that surely didn’t lessen the pleasure of reading it.A
Stagecoach Named Houston 3-28-13
The General Sam Houston, a sturdy New
England-built Concord stage capable of accommodating nine, began carrying passengers
between the relatively new capital city of Austin and Brenham in 1841.Sucker
Day 3-20-13
For years now, a small town in the middle of Oklahoma has been
throwing an annual event called Sucker Day...Sarah’s
Story 3-13-13
Few Texas women ever lived a harder life than Sarah Creath
McSherry Hibbens Stinnett Howard. A lady with true grit and more, the way she
came by her long name is one of Texas’ more gripping tales. Women
Bandits Hijack Cotton in Civil War Texas 3-7-13
None of the truly decisive
battles of the Civil War took place in Texas, but in other ways the bloody conflict
between the North and South had a major impact on the state.Rubus
Trivialis is Not a Rural Contestant on Jeopardy 2-27-13
Rubus trivialis,
or southern dewberry, grows along rural roads, railroad right of way, fence lines,
in draws and old fields. Full of vitamin C, dewberries also have lesser amounts
of vitamins A and B, along with minerals. And they taste good, sweeter than their
relative, the blackberry.Katemcy
2-20-13
Early-day Texans and Comanches were not always trying to kill each
other, it just seemed like it...Dodging
the (Confederate) Draft Through Postal Service 2-13-13
Early in the Civil
War, most Texans optimistically assumed life would be easier as citizens of the
new Confederate States of America...Love
on the Frontier 2-6-13
The lanky young ranger faced a tough choice, worse
than life or death: Turn in his badge or lose the woman he loved.Slow
Times at Amarillo High 1-31-13
When the seniors who would graduate from
Amarillo High School in 1942 showed up for their first day of classes, they and
all their underclassmates received an orange student handbook. The booklet ...
included some things that would seem totaly bizarre to 12th graders today, like
dating dos and don’ts. Dr.
Blair's Mobile Pharmacy 1-24-13
With the cotton baled and money still in
the pockets of hard-working farmers, every November the “doctor” and his son worked
a familiar circuit in North Texas...Three
Brothers Well Suited for Early Texas 1-16-13
Years later, long after wild
and wooly Texas had been saddle-broke and gentled up, what Frank Jackson remembered
most about his youth along the frontier was his first pair of pants...The
Great Texas / British TV Hoax of 1953 1-10-13
On the afternoon of Sept.
14, 1953, television viewers over a large area of England supposedly saw on their
screens the test pattern and call letters of KLEE – a TV station located 4,860
miles away in Houston. Wichita
Falls Falls for Flim Flam Brit 1-2-13
Before the wild oil boom that came
with the discovery of a rich field, Wichita Falls was just a cattle town of around
5,000 folks. When a crisp and proper gentleman who spoke with a classic British
accent arrived and took a room at the city’s best hotel, word got around quickly...Geographic
Humor 12-27-12
“I
guess you know the true story behind the founding of Amarillo?” asked my old friend
Larry Todd...Crockett's
Grandson Died a Bully 12-19-12
While anyone with even a passing knowledge
of Texas history knows Davy Crockett died at the Alamo in 1836, what happened
to his grandson and namesake four decades later has largely been forgotten.Judge
Vs Marshal in Old Mobeetie 12-12-12
Townsend’s stay at Fort Elliott in
the fall of 1878 would be brief, but not dull. In fact, for a time it looked like
violence might erupt in nearby Mobeetie.Dying
Doctor Bequeaths a Library 12-6-12
Dr. Eugene Clark must have been a particularly
skillful and compassionate physician. Certainly, as events would show, he also
believed in the importance of public libraries in a democracy. Railroad
in the Red, and Brazilian Bats 11-29-12
The first thing anyone notices
while walking down the trail toward the old tunnel is the smell, the olfactory
result of all the guano deposited by the 3 million or so bats that live there
part of the year... Austin
Mystery Murders 11-21-12
Only a village with a few hundred residents in
1841, Austin experienced at least a couple of homicides that year that by today’s
standards read more like big-city whodunits. "Dear
Papa's 'Rules'" or Give Pease a Chance 11-13 -12
Every parent who has ever
helped their child move into a dorm room on a hot summer day at the beginning
of their freshman year in college will understand the letter former Gov. E.M.
Pease sent to one of his daughters in 1866.Birthday
Cake with 111 Candles washed down with "Good" whiskey 10-7-12
Sullivan
claimed his mother had been one of George Washington’s slaves. Eventually freed
by the first president...Mrs.
Dach's Weight Reduction Regimen: It's Easy, It's Effective, It's Fatal. 10-31-12
If there’s a haunted jail in Texas, it’s the 1882-vintage former lockup in La
Grange, used for a mere 102 years to house miscreants and felons in Fayette County.
Big
Tex: Son of Santa 10-24-12The
Fire in the State Capitol 10-18-12
Shortly before noon on Nov. 9, 1881,
the wind blew out of the north and a light rain fell from a sky as gray as an
old Confederate Army coat. With the norther dropping the temperature, maybe the
porter sweeping the floor in the Attorney General’s office on the Capitol’s first
floor had in mind warming up the room. Or maybe Henry McBride just wanted to get
rid of a basket of wastepaper the easy way, by stuffing the trash into the heating
stove. Highway's
History is Personal 10-11-12
SH 207 cuts through Palo Duro Canyon and crosses
the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. That segment, one Texas’ most scenic
drives, honors Will H. Hamblen who spent much of his life making that roadway
a reality.
Typing in Tyler, The Business School Model in East Texas 10-4-12
On Dec.
1, 1914, a 17-year-old teenager from Travis County took the train from Austin
to Tyler and enrolled at Tyler Commercial College. Wind
and Water (or lack of it) 9-27-12
In 1887, the Panhandle and much of the
rest of Texas suffered from one of the worst droughts in the state’s known history...
Boy
Captive becomes Department Store Draw 9-20-12
To attract shoppers to their
big downtown store, Sanger Brothers would have on hand for meeting and greeting
customers a man who as a youth had been captured by Comanches. Mosquitoes
and Camp Bowie 9-13-12
No one knew anything about West Nile virus back
in 1918, but at what proved to be the mid-way point of the terrible conflict in
Europe that would come to be known as World War I, the military was fighting mosquitoes
in North Texas. The
Naming of Devils River 9-6-12
When it comes to how the Devils River got
its name, the Devil’s in the details... Anecdotes
on Antidotes, Early Stop Smoking Claims 8-30-12
While 80 percent of the
American population smoked cigarettes or consumed tobacco in other ways, some
people as far back as the 1890s concluded that sucking smoke into your lungs could
not be a good thing for your body... Hoxie's
Moxie 8-23-12
Thirty-seven years after the Army abandoned Fort Davis, a
celluloid cowboy announced plans to convert the old cavalry post into a motion
picture colony and resort. Jamming
at the Rice Hotel
8-16-12
But imagine some 3,000 people crowded into a hotel lobby on a sultry
summer afternoon waiting to use the elevators in the days before air conditioning...
Survival
in Kerr County 8-9-12
"Only
a handful of families lived in the area, but all knew of the circumstances that
led to Goss’ disappearance and presumed death 18 days earlier." Ghost
Town without a Trace
8-2-12
"By 1884 Texana nee Santa Anna had become a ghost town. Time and
periodic river flooding soon erased virtually every trace of the once flourishing
port."Lincoln
Slept Here? 7-26-12
The
“Lincoln slept here” assertion appeared in a Texas newspaper referred to a historic
hostelry in New Braunfels.Captain
Hamer's Barber 7-19-12
Knowing I had written some books on Texas Ranger
history, Jim mentioned one visit that I sure ought to talk with Mr. Frost if I
ever found him in the shop. Back in the day, he had been the legendary Capt. Frank
Hamer’s barber. "The
Indians are coming! The Indians are coming!" 7-11-12
Destined to gain a
national reputation as a fearless Texas Ranger captain, when William Jesse McDonald
came to the Panhandle in the winter of 1891 he expected to stay busy as a law
enforcement officer in a still sparsely settled section of the state. But he sure
didn’t anticipate what happened on the night of January 29 that year. "Ten-Gallon
Hats / Pint-Sized Brains"
Otis P. Driftwood recalls Nacogdoches
7-4-12
A runaway mule in Nacogdoches helped change American entertainment history.
In
Quercus Veritas
6-27-12
When cartoonist friend Roger T. Moore, a West Texan with a sense of
humor as big as one of the dozens of wind turbines looking down on his ranch,
told me that the largest oak forest in North America covers some 40,000 acres
near Monahans, it sounded like a setup... The
Forgotten Indian Traveler
6-21-12
The men were Richard Irving Dodge, a young Army officer who would
serve in the military for 41 years and John Conner, a noted Delaware Indian. The
meeting happened at Fort Martin Scott...Killer
Skunks and the Myth of the Texas Desert 6-14-12
On May 2, 1887, someone
living in Crosby County using only the initials R.P.S. wrote a letter to the Austin
Daily Statesman.Veteran
Recounts Battle of Adobe Walls
6-7-12
Fifty years earlier, surrounded by hundreds of hostile Indians, Andrew
Johnson and the other occupants of the Panhandle trading post and buffalo hunter’s
camp called Adobe Walls fought desperately for their lives. Now an old man...Found
Horns and Lost Gold
5-30-12
For a time in the 1920s and ‘30s, a Southerner who got to Texas as
soon as he could reigned as Texas’ “Horn King.”
Hunting
(and Fishing) for the Truth
5-24-12
Folks who like to fish and hunt aren’t always out on the water or
at their deer lease. Sometimes they’re just sitting around camp telling jokes
about hunting or fishing.Making
Change in Ma Ferguson's Texas
5-16-12
To fully appreciate the late C.W. Wimberly’s story, it’s necessary
to understand “Fergusonism” – a once-powerful brand of Texas populism... Fredericksburg
in the Roaring Twenties
5-10-12
Fredericksburg was just a small county seat town barely three generations
removed from its founding by German immigrants when civic leaders first began
to understand the importance of tourism... One
Man Two Graves 5-3-12
Anyone wishing to visit the final resting place of John E. McGuire is going to
have to travel to two different cemeteries... The
State of Jefferson
4-25-12
If a state senator from Hall County had gotten his bill through the
Legislature in 1915, the Panhandle and much of the rest of West Texas would have
become a separate state named for Thomas Jefferson. Dog
Drinks Water - Saves Town
4-19-12
Just about everyone has heard the expression “sick as a dog,” and
most people have occasionally felt that way, but folks in the town of Hubbard
once credited their economic heyday to a sick pooch. John
Wesley Hardin Slept Here
4-12-12
The night the rooster crowed before midnight...Volney
Erskine Howard 4-5-12
Reading
vintage newspapers, it’s not hard to see how Texans early on helped to develop
the long-standing notion that people from the Lone Star State are folks with whom
it is best not to mess.Blackie
the Bear 3-28-12
Nickels
were hard to come by in the tough economic times of the early 1890s, but the cowboys
patronizing Jim Scarborough’s saloon in Claude never minded standing Blackie a
drink when they could afford to. David
E. Lawhon, Texas Ranger/Pioneer Publisher 3-22-12
As a pioneer newspaper
editor, David E. Lawhon may have subscribed to the belief that the pen was mightier
than the sword, but as a Texas Ranger he never saddled up without his rifle and
pistol. The
Poison Spring 3-15-12
For as long as mankind has had the ability to tell
and pass along stories, springs and wells have provided a free-flowing source
of legend and lore.Texas
Navy vs The Press 3-8-12
A war of words that could have escalated into
real violence broke out in the spring of 1840 between the Texas Navy and a Galveston
newspaper editor. Storm
Racing 3-1-12
In 1900 it had not occurred to anyone that pursuing a tornado
would someday be considered an adventure sport. Back then, people let storms do
the chasing and took to their cellars when they heard a roaring wind.
Amarillo
by Airmail 2-23-12
“Dear Brother,” it began, “I am mailing you this letter
by air mail. This is the first trip that the air mail makes direct from Amarillo.
I am sending it special delivery and they tell me you should get it Saturday night
or Sunday morning.” Sam
Houston's Duel 2-19-12
Something that started in Tennessee and spilled
over into Simpsom County, KY on Sept. 23, 1826 could have changed the history
of Texas. Indian
Jim 2-13-12
Barely 50 years after the U.S. Cavalry drove the last hostile
Indians out of the Panhandle an Indian from New York made page-one news in Pampa
and across the nation. Lizzie
Hay and the Demise of the Lone Highwayman 2-9-12
Sometimes, no matter
how good the story, a compelling tale gets forgotten. That’s sure the case with
the Texas outlaw known in his day as “the lone highwayman.” Booker,
Texas 1-26-12
The Lipscomb County town of Booker actually started out
as LaKemp, OK ...The
Belle of Marble Falls and the Bear King 1-19-12
If something’s printed
in a newspaper, it’s got to be true, right? Good. Now consider the amazing story
of Miss Ramie Arland...Savoy
Male and Female College 1-11-12
When graduates of the long-extinct Savoy
Male and Female College gathered for their first reunion in 1938, several of the
men did a little reminescing about the Indians fights they had back in the day...
The
Shooting in Donley County 1-6-12
Finch wrote about his experiences in a
now-scarce, self-published family history, “The Lives and Times of a Family Named
Finch.” In his book, he told of an incident that convinced him Texas remained
the Wild West...The
New Year’s Shooting 12-28-11
“You boys drink beer?” the old man asked,
his German accent heavy on that last word. “I’m buyin’.”... What
Became of Felipe Frais? 12-22-11
Working his way up a desolate arroyo
choked with catclaw and mesquite, Border Patrol agent Bill Crowe came to an exposed
red sandstone formation... Steamship
Concho 12-14-11
More than two years before the Titanic sank in the icy
waters of the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg, the Texas-based steamship
Concho ran into something in the Gulf of Mexico on her way to Galveston...Pinto
Beans 12-7-11
Pinto beans were a staple in 19th century Texas and continue
to be today, but their history goes back even further... Life
in Frontier Texas 11-30-11
Too bad Eleanor Jane Hobbs didn’t put more of
her recollections down on paper, but at least she wrote what she did. The
Old Bugle in Fort Stockton 11-23-11
Someone made a startling find: A battered
but still useable military bugle. The instrument was found stashed beneath the
flooring of the old residence. Adding to the mystery is that it was discovered
in an officer’s residence. Being a bugler was an enlisted man’s job... The
Pitchfork Kid 11-17-11
A cowboy’s cowboy, the Kid sat a horse well and
had the reputation of being the best roper in the Panhandle...Poetic
Justice 11-10-11
A tale of true poetic justice lies in a well-worn but
seldom-opened docket book in the Travis County district clerk’s office. Royalty
for a Day 11-3-11
For a man who had lost an arm to a rifle bullet during
the Mexican Revolution, Alvaro Obregon seems to have been a bit lax with security
matters. That attitude, born either of bravery or naivety, would prove costly,
but it also set the stage for an experience that Ruth Wilkerson Henderson remembered
the rest of her long life. Haunted
House in Mason County 10-26-11
Folks said the old stone house in Mason
County was haunted...Dirigible
Over Texas, U.S.S. Shenandoah 10-20-11
Like a scene from a black-and-white
science fiction movie, Texans stopped in their tracks and poured out of buildings
to look skyward as the huge silver object sailed over head...Widows
by Death 10-13-11
In the summer of 1915, when it cost just two cents to
send a letter anywhere in the United States or its territorities, the following
piece of mail arrived at the offices of the Cattleman Magazine in Fort Worth..."Rangering"
in Hamilton County 10-6-11
The nation was barely a year away from the
beginning of its cataclysmic Civil War, but in the spring of 1860, folks along
Texas’ frontier had a more immediate problem on their minds – incursions by hostile
Indians...Flora’s
Tree 9-29-11
The giant pecan, which still stands outside Helen Bentley’s
house in Fort Davis, grew from a sapling planted in 1873...Drought
and Skeleton 9-22-11
Drought in Fort Clark and Skeleton in Brackettville...America's
Third Largest Fire 9-15-11
John Cross had the day off that afternoon, March
21, 1916. Tall and heavy-set, the 20-year-old straddled his Indian motorcycle
and rode to his girlfriend’s house, about a mile from downtown Paris, a thriving
North Texas city of 12,000-plus. As the couple discussed plans for the evening,
Cross heard the Central Station fire bell...Harvey
Hughes’ Short Literary Career 9-8-11Like
most elected officials, Brewster County Sheriff E.E. Townsend received a fair
amount of correspondence, from postcards bearing descriptions of wanted felons
to legal papers to magazines, but the package that arrived from San Antonio that
day in March 1923 ranked as the most unusual piece of mail he ever received. The
White Wing Hotel 9-1-11
Born with great expectations in the optimistic
post-World War II days, death came 63 years later amid gangs and drug dealers.
Only this was a brick and mortar Baby Boomer, not a person. Nevertheless, when
the end came, it was not pretty.The
Beer Train 8-25-11A
wreck blocking the mainline between Austin and San Antonio was bad enough, but
this derailment was even worse. Not only had there been casualties, ... the refrigerated
cars telescoped on each other held a liquid cargo capable of causing problems.
While not explosive or toxic, a trainload of beer could be problematic. Alpine’s
Holland Hotel 8-18-11
Brewster County rancher John Holland built the hotel
in 1912 just across from the town’s railroad depot. Though Alpine had neither
dikes nor tulips, in pondering what to name his new inn, Holland saw Holland Hotel
as imminently suitable. Davy
Crockett's Fiddle 8-11-11
"Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned,
but Davy Crockett surely had no time for one last tune when Mexican soldiers made
their final assault on the Alamo. While Crockett did not survive the battle, his
fiddle apparently did."The
Man under the Black Fedora 8-4-11
"While Willeford had not been the
first person to notice the Dillinger signature on the guest register, he was the
first to try to prove or disprove its authenticity. One motivating factor was
his awareness that there had been talk for years that Dillinger had spent some
time in the Big Bend while on the lam."Memories
of What Might Have Been 7-28-11
After taking one final look at the still
form of his mother, Clifton Maxey Cobb discretely pulled the old letter from his
coat pocket and placed it inside her casket. Later that December day following
the services, funeral home workers covered her grave, the last chapter of a love
story dating back to Reconstruction.The
State Capitol Dome 7-21-11
Land Commissioner W.C. Walsh had been watching
the construction of the new Capitol since the first shovel of dirt was tossed
on Feb. 1, 1882... As the new Capitol slowly took shape, so did Walsh’s layman’s
knowledge of architecture. Now, with construction about to begin on the dome,
Walsh grew increasingly uneasy... Texas
Gold Rush 7-14-11
Only four years after thousands of Forty-niners flocked
to California in search of riches, a wave of Fifty-threers headed for the Hill
Country in a little known and short-lived Texas gold rush. Remembering
J. Evetts Haley 7-7-11
During his long life, J. Evetts Haley held down
some of the best “jobs” a person can have: Collector of historical documents for
a university library, rancher, and writer. Lizzie
Crosson had true grit 6-30-11
Born and raised in New Orleans, she married
George Crosson at Brenham in 1866. The couple moved to San Antonio, but Crosson
spent much of his time as a freighter hauling goods to Santa Fe, and across the
Big Bend to Mexico along the Chihuahua Trail. Crosson made a good living, but
he had to keep his wife and children in San Antonio.Horned
Toads 6-23-11
Wearing a lawman’s badge, Everett Townsend had killed men...Ernst
Tinaja 6-16-11
A geologic feature in Big Bend National Park called Ernst
Tinaja, a deep natural water hole dug out of the bedrock over the millenia by
erosion—a place of beauty tainted by a history of death.The
Wonderful Boy 6-9-11
His father a respected Uvalde County rancher, the
quiet, good-looking Guy O. Fenley seemed like a typical teenager except for one
thing – he could see underground water.J.
Frank Dobie 6-1-11
It’s not mentioned in any of his biographies, but one
of Texas’ best known authors wrote portions of one of his best-known books while
sequestered in a tarpaper-covered shack in the Chisos Basin.Lampasas
County’s Longmeadow Cemetery 5-26-11
Historical marker dedication May 21
"Many
of their forebears are buried in this small rural cemetery, a fenced graveyard
accessible only by an unpaved private road..."Telecommunication
of the not-so-distant past 5-19-11
For those knowing no form of electronic
voice communication other than cell phones or Skype, a brief look at the not-so-distant
past.Star
is Born 5-12-11
Star of Mills CountyCommon
Sense Justice in Marlin 5-5-11
A Tammany Hall politician of the old school,
“Battery Dan” Finn presided over one of Manhattan’s police courts in the first
decade of the 20th century -- revered by most, respected even by those he fined
or jailed. Carnie
Philosophy 4-28-11
Edgar Stephens and Robert “Sunshine” Stubblefield spent
most of their lives on the road traveling from town to town in Texas with the
Bill Hames carnival. Sleeper's
Song 4-21-11
As a long-time Texas lawyer, Ben Sleeper wrote many a legalese-laden
petition alledging this or that in behalf of his clients, but few if any of them
ever knew of – much less heard – the patriotic song he composed as a young Army
officer in training back during World War I. Rawhides:
Business in Wild and Woolly Tee Pee City 4-14-11
A buffalo wasn’t the only
critter that could get skinned on the High Plains if he wasn’t careful.
Lubbock
Ghost Stories 4-7-11
Two Lubbock ghost stories and one strange tale of
a man who made his amends for a ghastly crime one brick at a time.The
Boy With Two Tombstones
Or Iraan's “Little Boy Lost.” 3-30-11
"Ellis…Son
of [missing] Born March 3, 1870 – Died Nov. 28, 1872." Not only was it odd
to discover a tombstone in a flower bed, the dates it bore presented a mystery
on top of a mystery... The
Chilled Catfish of Concho County 3-24-11
Running for his life, Cline made
it over the bridge in time to beat the roiling flood surge heading in his direction.
As Cline watched in horror, a watery cliff crashed into a wagon, sending it and
its occupants tumbling downstream. That was shocking, but what Cline saw next
was simply bizarre. No matter the tragedy that has just unfolded, men soon began
gathering along the river and pulling big fish from the water...Palo
Duro Gold Rush 3-18-11
Once upon a time, a shower of shiny gold coins fell
from the sky over Palo Duro Canyon State Park south of Amarillo... Fishing
in Port Aransas 3-10-11
Hard to believe, but Texans haven’t always fished
just for fun. Along the coast, from the time of the fierce Karankawas until the
latter days of the 19th century, fishing was about eating, not a recreational
pursuit. Pronghorn
Antelope 3-3-11
No thanks to Lester B. Colby and anyone else who may have
done what he did, thousands of pronghorn antelope are still home on the range
in the Panhandle. Old
Trail Drivers 2-24-11
No matter the old cowpoke’s backstory, in his dotage
he could round up words on paper just about as well as he once rode down and roped
strays.A
Story of Two Veterans: They Didn't Take the War Personally 2-17-11
Nacogdoches’
Oak Grove Cemetery is one of the oldest and most historical graveyards in Texas,
but one of its better stories has hardly been told. Davy
Crockett Won 2-10-11
“Davy Crockett Won,” reads the small-type headline
on a back page of the Jan. 4, 1893 Austin Daily Statesman.Wild
Bill the Driller 2-3-11
Not everyone immediately struck it rich during
the West Texas oil booms of the first couple of decades of the 20th century. Aptly
named cable too driller Wiliam Wells left his wife and kids in Oklahoma and headed
for the Lone Star State...The
Sword in the Tree 1-27-11
The story Todd heard as a kid is classic folklore:
A Spanish mule train laden with gold coins from Mexico is shadowed by Indians.
Desperate to lighten their load and escape attack, the teamsters bury all the
gold on the bank of a stream that would come to be called Walnut Creek.Comanche
Raids in Coryell County 1-27-11
The Comanches felt free to raid all along
the state’s western frontier. Texas’ Confederate state government fielded companies
of Rangers to patrol the outlying counties, but they couldn’t be everywhere at
once. That’s how things stood on April 26, 1863 when a Comanche raiding party...Old
Rangers and Sam Houston's Grave 1-13-11
The old Texas Rangers who gathered
in Austin for a reunion in the early fall of 1897 surely figured they had fought
their last fight. After all, they had battled and survived Mexican soldiers, Comanches
and outlaws. But that’s before they heard what some folks in Tennessee were up
to...A
Piece of Texas’ Past 1-6-11
If you’re interested in history, and like getting
out and about, you’ve probably stooped to pick up a piece of Texas’ past at some
point in your life.
More
columns: 2003 to 2010
>
A weekly column
Since July, 2003 |
Mike
CoxMike
Cox, an elected member of the Texas Institute of Letters, is the author of 21
Texas-related, non-fiction books as well as numerous magazine articles. Author
of a best-selling two-volume narrative history of the Texas Rangers, "The Texas
Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900" and “Time of the Rangers: The Texas
Rangers 1900 to Present,” Cox in September 2010 received the A.C. Greene Award
for lifetime achievement as a writer.
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 retired as communications manager for the Texas Department of Transportation
in 2007, but retired from retirement in 2010 to join the communications division
of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He still devotes much of his free
time to writing, editing/consulting and public speaking.
January, 2013
A
popular professional speaker, Cox is available to talk to associations, chambers
of commerce and other groups about Texas history and other topics. For more information,
or to suggest story ideas or to comment on stories, feel free to contact him at
texasmikecox@gmail.com
or
P.O. Box 2958, Fredericksburg, TX, 78624 |
Mayhem at Mount Carmel
by Mike Cox
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... | |
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