The Wreck of the Three Hundred
Three Spanish galleons, caught in a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, wrecked on the sandbars just off Padre Island on April 29, 1554. Ironically, as the flotilla sailed from Veracruz, a Dominican missionary on his way for an audience with the Pope, shared his sinister forebodings: “Woe be to those who are going to […]
Bose Ikard, Black Cowboy
More than a quarter of the cowboys in the 19th century were black and Bose Ikard became one of the most famous frontiersmen and trail drivers in Texas. Born on a Mississippi slave plantation in 1843, Bose Ikard moved to Texas when he was nine years old with his master Dr. Milton Ikard. The family […]
Texas Panhandle Nobility
In the late 1870s word spread across England of the fabulous money—returns of thirty-three to fifty percent on investments—to be made in American cattle ranching. Two British aristocrats, Sir Edward Marjoribanks the Baron of Tweedmouth and his brother-in-law John Campbell Hamilton Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen, established the “Rocking Chair Ranche” in 1883. Courting dreams of […]
Sally Skull: Legend in her Lifetime
Chroniclers say the tiny, hook-nosed, blue-eyed Sally Skull rode a horse like a man, cursed like a sailor, shot like an Indian, and spoke Spanish like a Mexican. Stories abound of her five husbands–she may have killed one or two, and number five may have killed her. Sally grew up early, and she grew up […]
Scalped and Lived to Tell About It
When an old story comes from many sources, it is difficult to glean the exact details. In this case, we know a man was scalped and lived to tell about it. Farmers like Josiah Wilbarger and his wife who settled the west accepted the ever-present danger of Indians hostile to encroachment of the new arrivals. […]