Al Jennings, if we are to believe him, was for several years a close friend of O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), perhaps America s favorite short-story writer. They met, Jennings claims, as outlaws on the run in Honduras, served time together in the Columbus, Ohio, Penitentiary at the turn of the century, and later met up in New York. Jennings, erstwhile lawyer, bank robber, and Hollywood consultant, was the subject of the 1951 movie Al Jennings of Oklahoma, starring Dan Duryea. Although a suspect narrator at best, Jennings is a masterful storyteller in this 1921 classic. Jennings describes...

Naturally self-effacing and deferential, Captain John Reynolds Hughes is not as famous today as his publicity-hog contemporary Captain Bill McDonald. Yet, Texas Rangers of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries considered him an authentic hero, a straight-ahead lawman that did his job and left the talking to journalists. Hughes became a ranger in 1887, serving in the celebrated Frontier Battalion. In 1900, he won appointment as captain in command of Company D. During his long career he served primarily along the Texas-Mexico border where his word became law. State offi cials...

Historian Mike Cox has been writing about Texas history for four decades, sharing tales that have been overlooked or forgotten through the years. Travel to El Paso during the Big Blow" of 1895, brave the frontier with Elizabeth Russell Baker, and stare down the infamous killer known as Old Three Toe. From frontier stories and ghost towns to famous folks and accounts of everyday life, this collection of West Texas Tales has it all."