"An outstanding contribution to the historiography of the American West and likely will remain for a long time the definitive work on the Texas Panhandle." Ernest Wallace"As one born in the region, Rathjen is sympathetic to it, but he is also understanding of it; there is little Chamber of Commerce stuff in his story." Robert G. AthearnThe Texas Panhandle its eastern edge descending sharply from the plains into the canyons of Palo Duro, Tule, Quitaque, Casa Blanca, and Yellow House is as rich in history as it is in natural beauty. Long considered a crossroads of ancient civilizations, the...

In 1909, former frontier judge and editor Edgar Rye introduced The Quirt and the Spur: Vanishing Shadows of the Texas Frontier to a reading public hungry for stories of this vanishing world. Drawing upon his experiences during the frontier s heyday, Rye focused on the area around old Fort Griffin during the 1870s, a time and place that was fast fading from memory. At the heart of the narrative stood The Flat, a wild yet vibrant frontier village attached to the fort. Peopled by the desperate and the hopeful, the adventurous and the opportunistic, The Flat was a place in the tradition of Dodge...

Quincie, the motherless thirteen-year-old daughter of an itinerant muleskinner, is the captivating protagonist of this Depression-era novel set in the Texas oil patch. Her story s value resides not only in the viewpoint of a young girl who comes of age in the shadow of the derricks but also in the currency of her creator s sensitivity to the natural world and environmental issues.Originally a 1941 Houghton-Mifflin Literary Fellowship Book, Quincie Bolliver is an extraordinary study in character, place, and the community of women weak and strong. From the moment the wise, lonesome Quincie and...

Reared in isolation by her father on the Western prairie, Mary Dove has been taught to fear only one thing. One sparkling October day it happens. The inevitable stranger rides in off the plains, and Mary Dove does what she had always promised her father she would she shoots.Yet compassion overcomes Mary's fear. In remorse, she tends to the wounded stranger, and what follows is their tentative discovery of each other and a love story that weaves universal and timeless themes.The mother who died before Mary Dove could know her was African-American. And so completely has Mary Dove's father...