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 […]
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, […]
Early-Day Home for Unwed Mothers
In a plan to redeem prostitutes and “combat the social evil of fallen women” in 1894, the Rev. J. T. Upchurch and his wife Maggie Mae organized the Berachah Rescue Society in Waco. One newspaper account claims he was “driven away [from Waco] by angry fellow Methodist church members who opposed his missionary work with […]
Butterfield Stage Across Texas
The famous Southern Overland Mail Route, better known as the Butterfield Stage in romantic Wild West movies, actually operated its twice-weekly mail and passenger service for less than three years from September 15, 1858 until March 1, 1861. Two trails from the east started from St. Louis and from Memphis, Tennessee. When the trails met […]
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 […]
Texas Capitol Paid For in Land
The Texas Constitution of 1876 set aside three million acres in the Panhandle to fund construction of the state’s fourth capitol. Big land giveaways in Texas started in 1749 when the Spanish Colonial government began establishing villas along the Rio Grande. Mexico continued the practice of granting empresarial contracts to establish colonies in Texas. The Republic […]
Houston’s Civil War Hero
A handsome, redheaded Irish saloonkeeper lead a group of forty-six Irish dockworkers in a Civil War battle that Jefferson Davis called the most amazing feat in military history. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Richard “Dick” Dowling, owner of three popular Houston saloons, joined the Davis Guards, and soon became the company’s first lieutenant. […]
AUSTIN’S MOONLIGHT TOWERS
From dusk to dawn, travelers entering Austin, especially those heading to the downtown fun spots, often notice sprinkled all over the older part of town clusters of six moon-like lights glowing atop strange metal contraptions. The 165-foot structures are Austin’s Moonlight Towers. They started illuminating the central part of the city in 1894 when the […]