The Four Gospels Railroad
The twenty-two mile rail line did not begin in 1909 as anything other than a central Texas business scheme to move Williamson County’s huge cotton crops to the Missouri-Kansas and Texas “Katy” Railroad at Bartlett. Granted, farmers and residents along the line were so happy to have a railroad that when the last of the […]
Saga of Sophia Suttonfield Aughinbaugh Coffee Butt Porter
Two official Texas historical markers sit on the shore of Lake Texoma, the enormous reservoir separating North Texas and Oklahoma. One marker commemorates Holland Coffee’s Trading Post, now under the waters of Lake Texoma. The neighboring marker calls Sophia Coffee Porter a Confederate Lady Paul Revere. The colorful lives of Sophia and Holland Coffee came […]
Minnie Fisher Cunningham Paved the Way for Today
After Minnie Fisher graduated at the age of nineteen with a degree in pharmacy from the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston, she discovered on her first job that she did not earn half the wages of the less-educated male employees. She claimed the memory of that experience in 1901 led to her life’s […]
Niles City: “Richest Little City in Texas”
Three miles north of Fort Worth’s business center, Niles City, a tiny strip of land spreading over a little more than one-half square mile and boasting a population of 508, incorporated in 1911. Within its bounds sat the Fort Worth Stock Yards, Swift & Company, Armour & Company, two grain elevators, and a cotton-oil company, […]
San Antonio Landmark: The Menger Hotel
In 1855, German immigrants William and Mary Menger built a one-story boarding house and brewery on the dusty plaza next to the Alamo. A sheep pen (where Rivercenter Mall now stands) served as the Menger’s other neighbor. Mary’s cooking and William’s beer proved so popular that local hacks picked up guests at Main and Military […]
Houston: The Second Choice
Houston reigns as the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest in the United States, but it hasn’t always enjoyed top billing. In 1832 brothers Augustus C. and John K. Allen came to Texas from New York and joined a group of land speculators. During the 1836 Texas War for Independence from Mexico, the […]
Lindbergh’s Texas Visits
In 1923, before Charles Lindbergh became famous, like all barnstormers of his day, he wanted to boast that he had flown in Texas. When he bought his first World War I surplus Jenny in Georgia, he flew it to Texarkana. The following year, on a trip to California, Lindbergh mistook the Nueces River for the […]
Waco’s Suspension Bridge
After the Civil War, Waco was a struggling little town of 1,500 nestled on the west bank of the Brazos River. No bridges crossed the Brazos, the longest body of water in Texas. During floods, days and even weeks passed before travelers as well as cattle on the Shawnee and Chisholm trails could safely cross […]
Texas Interurban Railways
In 1901 the first electric interurban, or trolley, began operating on a 10.5-mile track between Denison and Sherman in North Texas. The thirty-minute trip on the seventy- pound steel rails cost twenty-five cents. The line proved so successful that a second route between Dallas and Fort Worth opened the next year. A fourteen-mile track began […]
Transcontinental Railroad Through Texas
The outbreak of the Civil War forced the U.S. Congress to change its plans for the first Transcontinental Railroad to be built along the 32nd parallel, which extends across Texas roughly from Shreveport, Louisiana, to El Paso. Instead, Congress selected a northern route along the 42nd parallel. In 1869 the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento, […]