In the early 1900s, two families in Scurry and Kent counties in West Texas united in a marriage of fourteen-year-old Gladys Johnson to twenty-one-year-old Ed Sims. Billy Johnson, the father, set up Gladys and Ed on a ranch, and the young couple had two daughters. But Gladys was headstrong and willful, and Ed drank too much, and both sought ......
The E.H. Marks' Legacy From Longhorns to the Salt Grass Trail
The story of Emil Henry Marks and the LH7 Ranch he founded records not only the history of a unique family but also tells something of the cattle business on the coastal prairies of Texas when ranching was the principal industry of the region, before Houston became a major metropolitan center and industry became king. It also chronicles the ......
In 1874 the Hoo Doo War erupted in the Texas Hill Country of Mason County. The feud began with the rise of the mob under Sheriff John Clark, but it was not until the premeditated murder of rancher Timothy Williamson in 1875, orchestrated by Clark, that the violence escalated out of control. His death drew former Texas Ranger Scott Cooley to the ......
On a chilly October afternoon in 1881, two brothers named Tom and Frank McLaury were gunned down on the streets of Tombstone, Arizona, by the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. The deadly event became known as the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and in a quirk of fate, the brothers' names became well-known, but only as bad men and outlaws. Did they ......
Shulman's book places the Meyerson in its socio-political context, tracing its history back to the early 1970s when financial collapse forced the Dallas symphony to spend operations. Her narrative shows how the orchestra's recovery process led to a splendid new hall.
The American cowboy is a mythical character who refuses to die, says author John R. Erickson. On the one hand he is a common man: a laborer, a hired hand who works for wages. Yet in his lonely struggle against nature and animal cunning, he becomes larger than life. Who is this cowboy? Where did he come from and where is he today? Erickson ......
Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2006. "Grief repairs grief," Michael Robins writes in The Next Settlement, and in these meditative poems, voices map the world with precision as a way to mend the holes they find in it. Pristine natural landscapes provide a jarring counterpoint to troubled internal terrain. These enigmatic scenes are ......
Luke Short perfected his skills as a gambler in locations that included Leadville, Tombstone, Dodge City, and Fort Worth. In 1883, in what became known as the "Dodge City War," he banded together with Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and others to protect his ownership interests in the Long Branch Saloon - an event commemorated by the famous "Dodge City ......
The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights
Lonnie Johnson (1894-1970) was a virtuoso guitarist who influenced generations of musicians from Django Reinhardt to Eric Clapton to Bill Wyman and especially B. B. King. Born in New Orleans, he began playing violin and guitar in his father's band at an early age. When most of his family was wiped out by the 1918 flu epidemic, he and his surviving ......
