In 1999 Bryan Woolley of the TheDallas Morning News set out to record the stories of ordinary people in North Texas, to tell about their lives, especially their past, and how they became who they became. These stories were published in a column entitled "Where I Come From," which ran in the Sunday newspaper from May 1999 to December 2000, to great reader acclaim. Now, for the first time in book form, the best of those stories is gathered herein with photos of each storyteller. Among the people featured are a refugee who traveled a long road to Texas after the fall of...
In 1999 Bryan Woolley of the TheDallas Morning News set out to record the stories of ordinary people in North Texas, to tell about thei...
William Preston Longley (1851-1878) went on a murderous rampage over the last few years of his life. Once he was arrested in 1877, and subsequently sentenced to hang, his name became known statewide as an outlaw and a murderer. Longley created and reveled in his self-centered image as a fearsome, deadly gunfighter. In truth, Longley was not the daring figure that he attempted to paint.
William Preston Longley (1851-1878) went on a murderous rampage over the last few years of his life. Once he was arrested in 1877, and subsequently...
Almost half a century after the Boyce-Sneed feud in West Texas erupted in bloodshed in 1912, two Texas historians attempted to write about the affair. But no one would talk to them. Lewis Nordyke abandoned the idea, and C. L. Sonnichsen, another chronicler of Texas feuds, wrote that it was "too soon to talk about the Boyce-Sneed affair." Not until the 1990s did the whole story emerge, when descendants of the feuding families finally called a truce, opened the family archives, and shared family legends. And what a tale it proved to be--a classic saga of passion, violence, and revenge, of...
Almost half a century after the Boyce-Sneed feud in West Texas erupted in bloodshed in 1912, two Texas historians attempted to write about the affair....
Pinned down by a posse, the wounded outlaw's companions urged him to escape through the gulch. "Don't wait for me," he replied, "I'm all in and might as well end it right here." Placing his revolver to his right temple, he pulled the trigger for the last time, thus ending the life of the notorious "Kid Curry" of the Wild Bunch.
It is long past time for the publication of a well-researched, definitive biography of the infamous western outlaw Harvey Alexander Logan, better known by his alias Kid Curry. He spent his formative years near Kansas City, Missouri, and came west with his older...
Pinned down by a posse, the wounded outlaw's companions urged him to escape through the gulch. "Don't wait for me," he replied, "I'm all in and mig...
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 affection outside their marriage. A nasty divorce ensued, and Gladys moved with her girls to her father's luxurious ranch house, where she soon fell in love with famed Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. When Ed tried to take his daughters for a prearranged Christmas...
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...
The Sutton-Taylor Feud of DeWitt, Gonzales, Karnes, and surrounding counties began shortly after the Civil War ended. The blood feud continued into the 1890s when the final court case was settled with a governmental pardon. Of all the Texas feuds, the one between the Sutton and Taylor forces lasted longer and covered more ground than any other. William E. Sutton was the only Sutton involved, but he had many friends to wage warfare against the large Taylor family. The causes are still shrouded in mystery and legend, as both sides argued they were just and right. In April 1868 Charles Taylor...
The Sutton-Taylor Feud of DeWitt, Gonzales, Karnes, and surrounding counties began shortly after the Civil War ended. The blood feud continued into th...
For decades the Horrell brothers of Lampasas, Texas, have been portrayed as ruthless killers and outlaws, but author David Johnson paints a different picture of these controversial men. The Horrells were ranchers, and while folklore has encouraged the belief that they built their herds by rustling, contemporary records indicate a far different picture. The family patriarch, Sam Horrell, was slain at forty-eight during a fight with Apaches in New Mexico. One Horrell son died in Confederate service; of the remaining six brothers, five were shot to death. Only Sam, Jr., lived to old age and died...
For decades the Horrell brothers of Lampasas, Texas, have been portrayed as ruthless killers and outlaws, but author David Johnson paints a different ...
"John Wesley Hardin " His name spread terror in much of Texas in the years following the Civil War as the most wanted fugitive with a $4,000 reward on his head. A Texas Ranger wrote that he killed men just to see them kick. Hardin began his killing career in the late 1860s and remained a wanted man until his capture in 1877 by Texas Rangers and Florida law officials. He certainly killed twenty men; some credited him with killing forty or more. After sixteen years in Huntsville prison he was pardoned by Governor Hogg. For a short while he avoided trouble and roamed westward, eventually...
"John Wesley Hardin " His name spread terror in much of Texas in the years following the Civil War as the most wanted fugitive with a $4,000 reward on...
Winner of the Co-Founders Best Book Award from Westerners International, Sept. 2016 Often times the smaller the man, the harder the punch--this adage was true in the case of diminutive Luke Short, whose brief span of years played out in the Wild West. His adventures began as a teenage cowboy who followed the trail from Texas to the Kansas railheads. He then served as a scout for the U.S. Army during the Indian wars and, finally, he 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...
Winner of the Co-Founders Best Book Award from Westerners International, Sept. 2016 Often times the smaller the man, the harder the punch-...
Few names in the lore of western gunmen are as recognizable. Few lives of the most notorious are as little known. Romanticized and made legendary, John Ringo fought and killed for what he believed was right. As a teenager, Ringo was rushed into sudden adulthood when his father was killed tragically in the midst of the family's overland trek to California. As a young man he became embroiled in the blood feud turbulence of post-Reconstruction Texas. The Mason County "Hoo Doo" War in Texas began as a war over range rights, but it swiftly deteriorated into blood vengeance and spiraled out of...
Few names in the lore of western gunmen are as recognizable. Few lives of the most notorious are as little known. Romanticized and made legendary, Joh...
