Jane Long, Pioneer Texan
School children often read that Jane Long was the “Mother of Texas.” She was a courageous woman who followed her husband as he led a group of filibusters intent on freeing Texas from Spanish rule. However, many Native American, Mexican, and several English-speaking women came to Texas before Jane Long arrived in 1819. Born in […]
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 […]
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 […]
A CENTURY OF CHAUTAUQUA
An octagonal-shaped wooden building in Waxahachie began hosting hundreds and then thousands of enthusiastic farmer families and small-town residents from all over North Texas when it opened in 1902. They came in wagons and on horseback to camp out for a week to ten days; they slept in tents and under their wagons; and for the […]
AIRSHIP FLYS BEFORE WRIGHT BROTHERS?
Residents in the East Texas town of Pittsburg house in the local museum a full-size replica of the Ezekiel Airship, which many old timers declare flew almost a year before the Wright brother’s claim to fame at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Burrell Cannon, a mechanical genius and part-time Baptist preacher, inspired by the first and […]
A CHEROKEE TEXAN
Sarah Ridge survived a lifetime of tragedy before she arrived in Texas. Born in 1814 in the Cherokee Nation near present Rome, Georgia, she enjoyed a privileged life as the daughter of Major Ridge, a Cherokee leader, friend of Sam Houston, and plantation owner with black and Native American slaves. Sarah attended mission schools and […]
WILD MAN OF THE NAVIDAD
A story, circulated since the 1830s in South Central Texas, contains enough truth to merit a Texas Historical Marker. Residents along the Navidad River bottom in Lavaca and Jackson counties began seeing strange footprints along the riverbank, and at the same time they began missing small amounts of sweet potatoes and corn. On moonlit nights […]
TEXAS’ BLOODLESS WAR
If you visit downtown Austin, on the corner of Congress Avenue and 7th Street, you will see a larger than life bronze of barefoot Angelina Eberley lighting an equally gigantic cannon. The story requires a little explanation. After Texas gained independence from Mexico in 1836, Sam Houston won the election as the new Republic’s first president. […]
THE POMPEIIAN VILLA
The Pompeiian Villa, built in 1900 in Port Arthur is a replica of a first century Roman villa complete with the deep pink exterior, Doric columns, and ten rooms circling a grand peristyle. Although it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and bears a Texas Historical Marker, its heyday symbolizes an era […]
LOVE AFFAIR BECOMES A LEGEND
If you are in deep East Texas on TX 63 southwest of Burkeville, be sure to read the historical marker designating the site of Shankleville, a black community named for an ex-slave. Jim Shankle was born in 1811 on a Mississippi plantation. When he married Winnie, she already had three children. Soon after the marriage, […]