A LONG WAY HOME
As promised, I have stepped away momentarily from my usual historical fiction and offer a story that has been nagging at me since 9/11. A LONG WAY HOME is ready for reading. Here is the blurb: Meredith Haggerty survives years of her husband’s abuse by harboring a plan to escape when she can make […]
Texas Claims the Last Land Battle of the American Civil War
More than a month after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox (April 9, 1865), the Last Land Battle of the American Civil War occurred at Pamito Ranch a few miles below Brownsville. Tensions ran high all along the lower Rio Grande because Confederates depended on hauling cotton from throughout Texas across the river to […]
Pecos River Art
About 10,000 years ago, ancient peoples occupied rock shelters and deeply recessed caves tucked into canyons along the Pecos and Devils rivers. They left behind some of the most complex and diverse rock art sites in the world. Over 300 paintings, created between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, sprawl across the limestone walls of these […]
A Way Station on the Rio Grande
The Chihuahuan Desert hugging the Rio Grande in far West Texas was a killing field for Spanish explorers, Apaches, Comanches, white scalp hunters, and freighters daring to travel between San Antonio and Ciudad Chihuahua. Apache and Comanche raids into Mexico—killing hundreds, stealing thousands of livestock and capturing women and children—resulted by 1835 in the Mexican […]
Last Hand-Operated Ferry on U.S. Border
Named for the ebony trees in the area and for the tiny town hugging Texas’ southern border, this ancient crossing on the Rio Grande serves as the only government-licensed, hand-operated ferry between the U.S. and either its Mexican or its Canadian neighbor. For years before Spain began issuing land grants on the Texas side of […]
The Oblate Fathers of the Rio Grande
The Oblate Fathers arrived in Texas in 1849 to serve as missionaries, and soon became known to Mexican ranchers in the Rio Grande Valley as the “Cavalry of Christ.” The padres, young men from the big cities in France, wore an Oblate cross over their plain black, ankle-length, long-sleeved soutanes (cassocks). In addition to mastering […]
Millions in Silver Hauled Across Texas
Hundreds of freight wagons, each drawn by six to eight mules, and brightly colored Mexican carretas, each pulled by four to six oxen, formed dusty weaving trains on the Chihuahua Road from the silver mines of northern Mexico to the port town of Indianola on the central Texas coast. The trail across Texas opened in […]
Politics and Salt Did Not Mix
Travelers driving east from El Paso may find it difficult to imagine the longtime controversies that took place in the shadow of the majestic Guadalupe Peak rising from the desert floor. The tallest mountain in Texas soars 8,751 feet above its western flank where an ancient salt flat sprawled across 2,000 acres. The salt and […]
El Paso Mission Trail
My long-range plans call for finding a book publisher interested in my Texas history blogs. With that goal in mind, I’m expanding my Texas coverage with a series of West Texas and Panhandle stories. This blog post was to be about the founding of the oldest Spanish mission in Texas and the first thanksgiving in […]
The Black Bean Episode
Despite the glorious story of Texas winning its independence from Mexico in that eighteen-minute battle at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, the new republic remained embroiled in a series of political, economic, and military struggles. The Black Bean Episode was the culmination of all those forces coming together for a grand failure. Although Santa […]