Hidden treasures dot the Big Bend country of far west Texas. From the Guadalupes to the Chinatis and the Chisos, lost mines and abandoned hoards lie like magnets, pulling at the treasure hunter's heart. Or so the stories go. But perhaps the stories are themselves the hidden treasures.
The Big Bend has always attracted an unusual sort of settler, and the settlers have spawned an unusual wealth of lore. Their tales live in the oral tradition of the place, adding to its color, mystery, and appeal. There is horse trader Zack Miller, who has to unload two thousand horses bought from the...

Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine are the names of popular quilt patterns, and in this volume, now in its seventh printing, sixteen pioneer women describe how they pieced together a life for their families on the harsh frontier. Their first-person narratives, selected and edited by Jo Ella Powell Exley, provide a gripping, highly personal history of the state from Stephen F. Austin's original settlement through the taming of its last frontier in the west. The stories in Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine cover nearly a century, from the log cabin days of Anglo colonization and the Old Three Hundred...

After the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in December, 1941, and the subsequent fall of Manila, defending American and Filipino troops withdrew to the Bataan peninsula. For four months these troops, badly outnumbered and crippled by starvation and disease, fought a gallant holding action against the Japanese. When they surrendered in April, 1942, they were subjected to the infamous death march to prison camp. Thousands died, and those who survived faced the ordeal of further harsh treatment by the Japanese.
John S. Coleman, and air force officer assigned to the Philippines to train...

It is pleasant to stray in the Big Bend and Davis Mountains country of Far West Texas. The vast spaces, rugged terrain, and sparse settlement invite straying--and tale spinning. In Stray Tales of the Big Bend master folklorist Elton Miles continues to intrigue and enchant with stories of the region and its culture.
Readers will find in this volume new tales of Terlingua Desert mystery bells, spirit-guarded treasure, and the mock-sacrificial San Vicente rain dance with its pre-Christian vestiges. Travelers will enjoy learning the lore of the rugged land they visit. Historians will discover...

John Coffee Hays helped to forge the legend of what a Texas Ranger was. Arriving in Texas in 1836 but just missing the famous battles of the Texas Revolution, nineteen-year-old Hays soon had Sam Houston urging him to join a new group of Rangers. Once out on the frontier, Hays's careful planning and bold-indeed, sensational-forays against the Comanches soon earned him a colorful reputation and a host of nicknames. At twenty-three Hays was commissioned a captain, and between skirmishes and battles his survey party marked out much of the area around San Antonio. Hays was pivotal in the ultimate...

Texas A&M University has many unique traditions, but the annual muster ceremony held on April 21 is among the most hallowed. No other gathering brings more former students together for a single event, marked by Aggies in more than four hundred locations worldwide. Aggies originally observed San Jacinto Day--the victory on April 21, 1836, by the Texans over Santa Anna--with club activities. During the WWII defense of Corregidor in Manila Bay the muster tradition gained broader significance. Surrounded, pounded by several quarter-ton shells a minute, and with little hope of relief that April of...

Texans faced two foes as the Civil War began in 1861: the Union armed forces and the Plains Indians. In this breakthrough volume, David Paul Smith demonstrates that through the efforts of the Home Guard and the Texas Rangers, the Texas frontier held its own during the eventful war years, in spite of a number of factors that could easily have overwhelmed it. David Paul Smith is a history teacher at Highland Park High School in Dallas; his special interests include the American Civil War, the antebellum South, and the Texas frontier.

Historians have amply recorded the battles and the Anglo-Americans' military, economic, and political domination of the Mexican lands after 1836. But few studies have documented the reverse flow in the interchange while Anglo and Mexican co-existed under the Mexican flag in the previous years. Andres Tijerina's book, focusing on Texas between 1821 and 1836, provides background facts for a better understanding of the exchange of land, power, culture, and social institutions that took place between the Anglo-American frontier and the Hispanic frontier during those critical years. To be sure,...

The twentieth century brought industrialization to Texas cities. For Mexican workers in the state, this meant worsening economic conditions, widespread discrimination, and an indifferent or at times hostile Anglo labor movement. Faced with such challenges, Mexicans often looked to each other or toward Mexico for support and inspiration in building a largely autonomous, occasionally trans-border labor movement. In this first book-length examination of the earliest organized efforts by Mexican-origin workers in Texas, Emilio Zamora challenges the usual, stereotypical depiction of Mexican...

The goal for Lambshead Ranch, located about 120 miles west of Fort Worth, Texas, has always been to convert grass into beef cattle at a profit. In Lambshead Legacy: The Ranch Diary of Watt R. Matthews, Janet Neugebauer's carefully researched annotations place Watt and his ranching efforts in the larger context of the industry - from the branding pens and the winner's circle at a stock show to a board meeting of a national breed association and times with fellow rancher Lyndon B. Johnson. The diary, focusing on Watt's life from 1951 to 1980, contains Watt's records of the number and kind of...