The Grandest House on the Texas Coast
Today Fulton Mansion would be called the empty-nest home of George W. Fulton and Harriet Gillette Smith since at the time of its construction the Fulton’s six children were already grown. In 1877 when the 3 ½-story, nineteen-room Second Empire style mansion rose along the shore of Aransas Bay, it was grandest house on the […]
Myra Invites You!
Internet Radio Interview Thursday, June 19, from 9 to 9:30am (CST) Myra talks about Stein House, her award-winning historical novel Tough Talk with Tony Gambone www.toughtalkwithtonygambone.com click: Listen Live (Be patient—it takes a few seconds to load) Saturday, June 21, from 1 to 6pm Malvern Book Store 613 W. 29th Austin […]
John R. Brinkley, Medical Charlatan
By the time John Romulus (changed to John Richard) Brinkley came to Texas in 1933, he had amassed a fortune and become famous for transplanting goat glands into his male patients. A natural salesman with a smooth voice and plenty of confidence, Brinkley had been performing his $750 “restorative” operation at his clinic in Milford, […]
From “Booger Town” to “All-American City”
A friend told me that in the 1920s her father’s job of hauling construction materials in the Texas Panhandle required that he drive through Borger. The place had such a bad reputation that her father carried a loaded .45 on the seat beside him. On one occasion a man jumped on the truck’s passenger-side running […]
Bonnie Parker, Dead at Twenty-three
She was an honor student and loved poetry, but she dropped out of school, married Roy Thornton before her sixteenth birthday, and had “Roy and Bonnie” tattooed on her right knee to celebrate the union. After a stormy two years, Thornton went to prison; Bonnie never divorced him and died five years later, still wearing […]
The Cattle Baron’s Daughter
An elegant 1930s Greek revival temple in Victoria, the Royston Nave Museum, has a story to tell of vast wealth, cultural challenge, creative genius, and high living as broad as the Texas landscape. In 2012 the Nave Museum held a month-long exhibit titled “The Cattle Baron’s Daughter and the Artists Who Loved Her—James Ferdinand McCan […]
From Slave to Powerful Politician
Despite being born into slavery in 1846, Norris Wright Cuney did not live an ordinary slave’s life. His education and other opportunities, led the way to his becoming one of Texas’ most powerful black political leaders of the nineteenth century. Cuney’s father, Colonel Philip Cuney, one of the largest landholders in Texas, owned 105 slaves, […]
Sam Houston’s Problems With the Ladies
Before he became the hero of the Battle of San Jacinto and the first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston was the darling of all the ladies, except for one, Anna Raguet. The well-educated Miss Raguet was fourteen in 1833 when she moved with her father from Cincinnati to Nacogdoches, which was still […]
From Indian Captive to Texas Leader
Rebecca Jane Gilleland was seven when Comanches swooped down on her family, killed both parents, and took as captives Rebecca and her six-year-old brother William. Born in Philadelphia in 1831, Rebecca settled with her family near present Refugio about 1837. When Rebecca recounted her experiences to the Galveston Daily News in 1913, she said it […]
Margaret Hallett, Legendary Pioneer Texan
The story that places Margaret Leatherbury Hallett in early Texas merits being called a “legend” because not every part of her saga meets the truth test. Born on Christmas Day 1787, she was the youngest daughter of a prominent Virginia family and probably the feistiest. At eighteen she fell in love with John Hallett, a […]