Resource Type

Always for the Underdog: Leather Britches Smith and the Grabow War

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Louisiana’s Neutral Strip, an area of pine forests, squats between the Calcasieu and Sabine Rivers on the border of East Texas. Originally a lawless buffer zone between Spain and the United States, its hardy residents formed tight-knit communities for protection and developed a reliance on self, kin, and neighbor. In the early 1900s, the timber boom sliced through the forests and disrupted these dense communities. Mill towns sprang up, and the promise of money lured land speculators, timber workers, unionists, and a host of other characters, such as the outlaw Leather Britches Smith. That moment continues to shape the place’s cultural consciousness, and people today fashion a lore connected to this time. In a fascinating exploration of the region, Keagan LeJeune unveils the legend of Leather Britches, paralleling the stages of the outlaw’s life to the Neutral Strip’s formation. LeJeune retells each stage of Smith’s life: his notorious past, his audacious deeds of robbery and even generosity, his rumored connection to a local union strike—the Grabow War—significant in the annals of labor history, and his eventual death. As the outlaw’s life vividly unfolds, Always for the Underdog also reveals the area’s history and cultural landscape. Often using the particulars of …
Date: December 15, 2010
Creator: LeJeune, Keagan
System: The UNT Digital Library

Against the Grain: Colonel Henry M. Lazelle and the U.S. Army

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Henry Martyn Lazelle (1832-1917) was the only cadet in the history of the U.S. Military Academy to be suspended and sent back a year (for poor grades and bad behavior) and eventually return as Commandant of the Corps of Cadets. After graduating from West Point in 1855, he scouted with Kit Carson, was wounded by Apaches, and spent nearly a year as a "paroled" prisoner-of-war at the outbreak of the Civil War. Exchanged for a Confederate officer, he took command of a Union cavalry regiment, chasing Mosby's Rangers throughout northern Virginia. Due in part to an ingrained disposition to question the status quo, Lazelle's service as a commander and senior staff officer was punctuated at times with contention and controversy. In charge of the official records of the Civil War in Washington, he was accused of falsifying records, exonerated, but dismissed short of tour. As Commandant of Cadets at West Point, he was a key figure during the infamous court martial of Johnson Whittaker, one of West Point's first African American cadets. Again, he was relieved of duty after a bureaucratic battle with the Academy's Superintendent.
Date: December 2015
Creator: Carson, James O.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Inventory of the county archives of Texas : Orange County, no. 181 (open access)

Inventory of the county archives of Texas : Orange County, no. 181

Inventory of records of Orange County housed in the Orange County Courthouse as of 1936-1937. Begins with a historical sketch of the county along with a governmental organization chart and information on the housing, care, and accessibility of the records. Describes the records of the County Commissioners Court, County Clerk as Recorder, District Court, County Court, Justices of the Peace, District Attorney, County Attorney, Sheriff, Constables, Tax Assessor-Collector, Board of Equalization, County Treasurer, County Auditor, County Board of School Trustees, County School Superintendent, County Health Officer, County Surveyor, Board of Land Commissioners (Defunct), and Coroner (Defunct). Includes a bibliography as well as chronological and subject indexes.
Date: December 1941
Creator: Historical Records Survey. Texas.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Guide to The Dallas Quarterly, Volumes 1-39, 1955-1993 (open access)

Guide to The Dallas Quarterly, Volumes 1-39, 1955-1993

Index to the first 39 volumes of Dallas Genealogical Society publications including listings for Bible and family records; book reviews; burials and cemeteries; censuses; church records; court and probate records; Society information; deeds and land records; diaries, journals & ledgers; directories & lists; excerpts & abstracts; families; history of places; volume indexes; letters; marriage records; memorials and obituaries; military & war records; naturalization records; photographs and illustrations; queries; research & methodology; surname indexes; tax and voters; wills; and miscellaneous articles.
Date: December 1993
Creator: Dallas Genealogical Society
System: The Portal to Texas History
The Texas Almanac for 1867 with Statistics, Descriptive and Biographical Sketches, etc., Relating to Texas. (open access)

The Texas Almanac for 1867 with Statistics, Descriptive and Biographical Sketches, etc., Relating to Texas.

The almanac covers general topics about the state of Texas including statistics for individual counties, agriculture, expenditures, notable days, and weather, as well as discussions of legal, political and social issues of the time.
Date: December 1866
Creator: The Glaveston News
System: The Portal to Texas History
Folklore in Motion: Texas Travel Lore (open access)

Folklore in Motion: Texas Travel Lore

Collection of folklore stories and personal anecdotes that relate to travel in Texas, grouped into broad topics that include historic and modern modes of transportation. Index starts on page 281.
Date: December 15, 2007
Creator: Untiedt, Kenneth L.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870 to 1930

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Perhaps no other industrial technology changed the course of Mexican history in the United States—and Mexico—than did the coming of the railroads. Tens of thousands of Mexicans worked for the railroads in the United States, especially in the Southwest and Midwest. Extensive Mexican American settlements appeared throughout the lower and upper Midwest as the result of the railroad. Only agricultural work surpassed railroad work in terms of employment of Mexicans. In Traqueros, Jeffrey Marcos Garcílazo mined numerous archives and other sources to provide the first and only comprehensive history of Mexican railroad workers across the United States, with particular attention to the Midwest. He first explores the origins and process of Mexican labor recruitment and immigration and then describes the areas of work performed. He reconstructs the workers’ daily lives and explores not only what the workers did on the job but also what they did at home and how they accommodated and/or resisted Americanization. Boxcar communities, strike organizations, and “traquero culture” finally receive historical acknowledgment. Integral to his study is the importance of family settlement in shaping working class communities and consciousness throughout the Midwest.
Date: December 15, 2012
Creator: Garcilazo, Jeffrey Marcos
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hazardous Liquids Pipeline Safety Rules (open access)

Hazardous Liquids Pipeline Safety Rules

"This publication is a compilation of the state and federal rules, regulations and laws which were enacted to govern the transportation of hazardous liquids by pipeline in Texas" (p. v) as of December 1987.
Date: December 1987
Creator: Railroad Commission of Texas. Transportation/Gas Utilities Division.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Weldon Hart, 1966-1967 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Weldon Hart, 1966-1967

Interviews with Weldon Hart, a public relations executive and executive director of the Texas Good Roads Association. The interviews includes Hart's experiences as press secretary and appointments secretary to former Governors Beauford Jester, 1947-50, and Allan Shivers, 1950-57; head of the Texas Employment Commission; organization of a Texas political machine; lobbying for the highway construction industries of Texas. The interviews took place on three separate dates: August 8, 1966, February 6, 1967, and July 3, 1967.
Date: December 18, 1967
Creator: Brewer, Thomas B.; Odom, E. Dale & Hart, Weldon
System: The UNT Digital Library

Death Lore: Texas Rituals, Superstitions, and Legends of the Hereafter

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Death provides us with some of our very best folklore. Some fear it, some embrace it, and most have pretty firm ideas about what happens when we die. Although some people may not want to talk about dying, it’s the only thing that happens to all of us–and there’s no way to get around it. This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society examines the lore of death and whatever happens afterward. The first chapter examines places where people are buried, either permanently or temporarily. Chapter Two features articles about how people die and the rituals associated with funerals and burials. The third chapter explores some of the stranger stories about what happens after we’re gone, and the last chapter offers some philosophical musings about death in general, as well as our connection to those who have gone before.
Date: December 15, 2008
Creator: Texas Folklore Society
System: The UNT Digital Library
[Theatre Under the Stars Scrapbook: December 1975-April 1981] (open access)

[Theatre Under the Stars Scrapbook: December 1975-April 1981]

Scrapbook documenting the Theatre Under the Stars program from December 1975 through April 1981, including photographs, programs, newspaper clippings, and other items.
Date: 1975-12/1981-04
Creator: Theatre Under the Stars
System: The Portal to Texas History
Travis County Deed Records: Deed Record 464 (open access)

Travis County Deed Records: Deed Record 464

Recorded copies of Travis County deeds, conveyances, and other muniments of title affecting ownership to real estate from December 1930 to March 1831, including warranty deeds, gift deeds, partition deeds, guardian deeds, quitclaim deeds, royalty deeds, various types of affidavits, appointments and resignations of trustees, trust indentures, transfers of liens, conveyances of liens, assignments of liens, subordination of liens, various types of partial releases, leases, easements, contracts of sale, bills of sale, homestead designations, various types of agreements, powers of attorney, revocations of powers of attorney, restrictions, removals of disabilities (minor, coveture), certified copies of probate proceedings, certified copies of divorce decrees (when real property is divided), extensions, options, rental divisions, and amended restrictions. Specific information includes instrument number, kind of instrument, date and place of execution, names of parties involved, amounts of principal and interest (when applicable), description of property, signatures of parties, and notarization. Also includes recording certificate, showing date filed, date recorded, and signature of county clerk or deputy. Arranged chronologically by date recorded.
Date: 1930-12/1931-03
Creator: Travis County (Tex.). Clerk's Office.
System: The Portal to Texas History
FCC Record, Volume 7, No. 25, Pages 7819 to 8527, November 30 - December 11, 1992 (open access)

FCC Record, Volume 7, No. 25, Pages 7819 to 8527, November 30 - December 11, 1992

Biweekly, comprehensive compilation of decisions, reports, public notices, and other documents of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
Date: December 1992
Creator: United States. Federal Communications Commission.
System: The UNT Digital Library