Observations & Reflections on Texas Folklore (open access)

Observations & Reflections on Texas Folklore

Collection of popular folklore of Texas, including stories about hunting, warfare, religion, Texas traditions, and other miscellaneous folk tales. The index begins on page 149.
Date: 1972
Creator: Abernethy, Francis Edward
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sonovagun Stew: A Folklore Miscellany (open access)

Sonovagun Stew: A Folklore Miscellany

Collection of popular Texas folklore, including cowboy and gaucho songs, information about boat-making and other folk crafts, religious anecdotes, and other miscellaneous stories of early cowboy life in Texas. The index begins on page 165.
Date: 2017
Creator: Abernethy, Francis Edward
System: The UNT Digital Library
Observations & Reflections on Texas Folklore (open access)

Observations & Reflections on Texas Folklore

Collection of popular folklore of Texas, including stories about hunting, warfare, religion, Texas traditions, and other miscellaneous folk tales. The index begins on page 149.
Date: 2017
Creator: Abernethy, Francis Edward
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sonovagun Stew: A Folklore Miscellany (open access)

Sonovagun Stew: A Folklore Miscellany

This volume of the Publications of the Texas Folklore Society contains popular Texas folklore, including cowboy and gaucho songs, information about boat-making and other folk crafts, religious anecdotes, and other miscellaneous stories of early cowboy life in Texas. The index begins on page 165.
Date: 1985
Creator: Abernethy, Francis Edward
System: The UNT Digital Library

Sutherland Springs, Texas: Saratoga on the Cibolo

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In Sutherland Springs, Texas, Richard B. McCaslin explores the rise and fall of this rural community near San Antonio primarily through the lens of its aspirations to become a resort spa town, because of its mineral water springs, around the turn of the twentieth century. Texas real estate developers, initially more interested in oil, brought Sutherland Springs to its peak as a resort in the early twentieth century, but failed to transform the farming settlement into a resort town. The decline in water tables during the late twentieth century reduced the mineral water flows, and the town faded. Sutherland Springs’s history thus provides great insights into the importance of water in shaping settlement. Beyond the story of resort spa aspirations lies a history of the community and its people itself. McCaslin provides a complete history of Sutherland Springs from early settlement through Civil War and into the twentieth century, its agricultural and oil-drilling exploits alongside its mineral water appeal, as well as a complete community history of the various settlers and owners of the springs/hotel. The contents include: Setting a pattern -- Losing a generation -- Another start uphill -- Building new Sutherland Springs -- Century of decline -- Endnotes.
Date: February 2017
Creator: McCaslin, Richard B.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Along the Texas Forts Trail

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The task of providing military defense for the Texas Frontier was never an easy one because the territory was claimed by some of the greatest querrilla fighters of all times—the Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, and Lipans. Protecting a line running from the Red River southwest to El Paso was an impossible task, but following the Mexican War the federal government attempted to do so by establishing a line of forts. During the Civil War the forts were virtually abandoned and the Indians once again ruled the area. Following the war when the military began to restore the old forts, they found that the Indians no longer fought with bows and arrows but shouldered the latest firearms. With their new weapons the Indians were able to inflict tremendous destruction, bringing demands from settlers for more protection. In the summer of 1866 a new line of forts appeared through central Texas under the leadership of General Philip H. Sheridan, commander of federal forces in Louisiana and Texas. Guardians of a raw young land and focal points of high adventure, the old forts were indispensable in their day of service and it is fitting that they be preserved. In and around the forts and …
Date: October 15, 1997
Creator: Aston, B. W.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Country Cop: True Tales from a Texas Deputy Sheriff

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Book is author's memoir about his years as a Deputy Sheriff in Parker County, Texas. He served as a patrol officer, public relations officer, and as a member of the Crimes Against Children division, among other duties.
Date: May 2020
Creator: Goodson, Barry
System: The UNT Digital Library

Higher Education in Texas: Its Beginnings to 1970

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Higher Education in Texas is the first book to tell the history, defining events, and critical participants in the development of higher education in Texas from approximately 1838 to 1970. Charles Matthews, Chancellor Emeritus of the Texas State University System, begins the story with the land grant policies of the Spanish, Mexicans, Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas that led to the growth of Texas. Religious organizations supplied the first of many colleges, years before the Texas Legislature began to fund and support public colleges and universities. Matthews devotes a chapter to the junior/community colleges and their impact on providing a low-cost education alternative for local students. These community colleges also played a major role in economic development in their communities. Further chapters explore the access and equity in educating women, African Americans, and Hispanics.
Date: February 2018
Creator: Matthews, Charles R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Folklore: in All of Us, in All We Do (open access)

Folklore: in All of Us, in All We Do

Compilation of articles about various topics related to folklore organized into five chapters by subject: "The first tackles this issue of folklore and its relationship to history, with some of the articles trying to provide some of that folkloric filler to historical facts. Another chapter focuses on women; one features various types of occupational lore; and another is a tongue-in-cheek look at 'shady characters' such as police officers, politicians, and horsetraders. A final chapter has no theme; it is a catch-all, containing a few interesting articles you may remember from some of our [Texas Folklore Society's] most recent meetings" (p. viii).
Date: December 15, 2006
Creator: Untiedt, Kenneth L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Happy Hunting Ground (open access)

Happy Hunting Ground

Collection of popular folklore from Central and South America, including Mexican ballads, primitive art, cowboy dances, reptile myths, superstitions, Indian pictographs, and other folktales. The index begins on page 127.
Date: 1925
Creator: Texas Folklore Society & Dobie, J. Frank (James Frank), 1888-1964
System: The UNT Digital Library

Roseborough: A Novel

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In Roseborough, Jane Roberts Wood returns with a keenly observed tale of bighearted people in small-town Texas. Three weeks after Mary Lou’s Gypsy husband dies, her fourteen-year-old daughter, Echo, runs away. Numbed by grief and grounded only by her job at the Dairy Queen, she impulsively signs up for Anne Hamilton’s single-parenting class at the nearby community college. Anne, complex and passionate, has avoided the risks that come with commitment. Knowing nothing of the stages of grief or the process of recovery, Mary Lou begins a sometimes comic, yet poignant, journey to find Echo. Compelled by Mary Lou’s story and her strange daughter, Anne begins her own journey that can ultimately set her free.
Date: October 15, 2009
Creator: Wood, Jane Roberts
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Johnson-sims Feud: Romeo and Juliet, West Texas Style

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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 visit in 1916, Gladys and her brother Sid shot him dead on the Snyder square teeming with shoppers. One of the best lawyers in West Texas, Judge Cullen Higgins (son of the old feudist Pink Higgins) managed to win acquittal for both Gladys and Sid. In the tradition of Texas feudists since the 1840s, the Sims family sought revenge. Sims’ son-in-law, Gee McMeans, led an attack in Sweetwater and shot Billy Johnson’s bodyguard, Frank Hamer, twice, while Gladys—by now Mrs. Hamer—fired at another assassin. Hamer shot back, killed McMeans, and was no-billed on the spot by a grand …
Date: August 15, 2010
Creator: O'Neal, Bill
System: The UNT Digital Library
Both Sides of the Border: A Scattering of Texas Folklore (open access)

Both Sides of the Border: A Scattering of Texas Folklore

Collection of Tex-Mex folklore and related essays, including papers presented at Texas Folklore Society meetings. The book is organized into four topical categories: I. Remembering Our Ancestors, II. Texas-Mexican Folklore, III. Miscellaneous Memorabilia, and IV. The Family Saga (Cont'd).
Date: November 15, 2004
Creator: Abernethy, Francis Edward & Untiedt, Kenneth L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Family Saga: A Collection of Texas Family Legends (open access)

The Family Saga: A Collection of Texas Family Legends

Series of family anecdotes, collected from authors across the state of Texas describing general family history, how families arrived in Texas, and experiences related to the Civil War, Indians, animals, religion, ghosts, feuds, historic figures, and various other topics. Index starts on page 349.
Date: 2003
Creator: Abernethy, Francis Edward; Lincecum, Jerry Bryan & Vick, Frances Brannen, 1935-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Straight Texas (open access)

Straight Texas

Volume of popular folklore of Texas, including tales about the origins of various cities and towns, personal anecdotes, songs, superstitions and other miscellaneous legends. The index begins on page 341.
Date: 1966
Creator: Dobie, J. Frank
System: The UNT Digital Library
Corners of Texas (open access)

Corners of Texas

This volume contains popular folklore of Texas, including information about folk music, folk arts and crafts, history of Texas, prominent Texas writers, and other miscellaneous folklore. The index begins on page 285.
Date: 1993
Creator: Abernethy, Francis Edward
System: The UNT Digital Library

Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man

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Frank Reaugh (1860–1945; pronounced “Ray”) was called “the Dean of Texas artists” for good reason. His pastels documented the wide-open spaces of the West as they were vanishing in the late nineteenth century, and his plein air techniques influenced generations of artists. His students include a “Who’s Who” of twentieth-century Texas painters: Alexandre Hogue, Reveau Bassett, and Lucretia Coke, among others. He was an advocate of painting by observation, and encouraged his students to do the same by organizing legendary sketch trips to West Texas. Reaugh also earned the title of Renaissance man by inventing a portable easel that allowed him to paint in high winds, and developing a formula for pastels, which he marketed. A founder of the Dallas Art Society, which became the Dallas Museum of Art, Reaugh was central to Dallas and Oak Cliff artistic circles for many years until infighting and politics drove him out of fashion. He died isolated and poor in 1945. The last decade has seen a resurgence of interest in Reaugh, through gallery shows, exhibitions, and a recent documentary. Despite his importance and this growing public profile, however, Rounded Up in Glory is the first full-length biography. Michael Grauer argues for Reaugh’s …
Date: August 2016
Creator: Grauer, Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Notorious Luke Short: Sporting Man of the Wild West

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Luke Short 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 "Dodge City War," he banded together with Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and others to protect his ownership interests in the Long Branch Saloon—an event commemorated by the famous "Dodge City Peace Commission" photograph. During his lifetime, Luke Short became one of the best known sporting men in the United States, and one of the wealthiest. The irony is that Luke Short is best remembered for being the winning gunfighter in two of the most celebrated showdowns in Old West history: the shootout with Charlie Storms in Tombstone, Arizona, and the showdown against Jim Courtright in Fort Worth, Texas. He would have hated that. The contents include: -The cowboy by birth -- Tall tales and short facts -- The gambler by choice -- Get out of Dodge! -- A plain statement & shots from Short -- The Dodge City peace commission -- The White Elephant in Panther City -- Sporting men of Fort Worth -- Dead man in a shooting gallery -- Mrs. Luke Short -- The war on the gambling fraternity -- State …
Date: June 2015
Creator: DeMattos, Jack & Parsons, Chuck
System: The UNT Digital Library
Legends of Texas (open access)

Legends of Texas

Collection of popular Texas legends, including tales about buried treasure, the supernatural, pirates, origins of Texas flowers, and other miscellaneous legends. The index begins on page 271.
Date: 1984
Creator: Dobie, J. Frank (James Frank), 1888-1964
System: The UNT Digital Library

Written in Blood: the History of Fort Worth's Fallen Lawmen

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In 2010 Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth’s Fallen Lawmen, Volume 1, told the stories of thirteen Fort Worth law officers who died in the line of duty between 1861 and 1909. Now Richard F. Selcer and Kevin S. Foster are back with Volume 2 covering another baker’s dozen line-of-duty deaths that occurred between 1910 and 1928. Not counting the two officers who died of natural causes, these are more tales of murder, mayhem, and dirty work from all branches of local law enforcement: police, sheriff’s deputies, constables, and special officers, just like in Volume 1. This era was, if anything, bloodier than the preceding era of the first volume. Fort Worth experienced a race riot, two lynchings, and martial law imposed by the U.S. Army while Camp Bowie was operating. Bushwhacking (such as happened to Peter Howard in 1915) and assassinations (such as happened to Jeff Couch in 1920) replaced blood feuds and old-fashioned shootouts as leading causes of death among lawmen. Violence was not confined to the streets either; a Police Commissioner was gunned down in his city hall office in 1917. Even the new category of “vehicular homicide” claimed a lawman’s life.
Date: October 15, 2011
Creator: Selcer, Richard F. & Foster, Kevin S.
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Light Crust Doughboys Are on the Air: Celebrating Seventy Years of Texas Music

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Millions of Texans and Southwesterners have been touched over the years by the Light Crust Doughboys. From 1930 to 1952, fans faithfully tuned in to their early-morning and, later, noontime radio program, and turned out in droves to hear them play live. The Doughboys embodied the very essence of the “golden era” of radio—live performances and the dominance of programming by advertising agencies. Their radio program began as a way to sell Light Crust Flour. Their early impresario, W. Lee “Pappy” O'Daniel, quickly learned how to exploit the power of radio to influence voters, and he put that lesson to good use to become a two-time Texas governor and the model for Pappy O'Daniel in the movie, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? But the group was more than a way to push flour; the talented musicians associated with them included Bob Wills and Milton Brown, each of whom receive credit for founding western swing. With the demise of their regular radio program, the Light Crust Doughboys had to remake themselves. Trailblazers in western swing, the Doughboys explored many other musical genres, including gospel, for which they were nominated for Grammys in 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2002. They continue to play …
Date: September 15, 2002
Creator: Dempsey, John Mark
System: The UNT Digital Library

Yours to Command: the Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald

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Captain Bill McDonald (1852-1918) is the most prominent of the “Four Great Captains” of Texas Ranger history. His career straddled the changing scene from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. In 1891 McDonald became captain of Company B of the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers. “Captain Bill” and the Rangers under his command took part in a number of incidents from the Panhandle region to South Texas: the Fitzsimmons-Maher prizefight in El Paso, the Wichita Falls bank robbery, the murders by the San Saba Mob, the Reese-Townsend feud at Columbus, the lynching of the Humphries clan, the Conditt family murders near Edna, the Brownsville Raid of 1906, and the shootout with Mexican Americans near Rio Grande City. In all these endeavors, only one Ranger lost his life under McDonald’s command. McDonald’s reputation as a gunman rested upon his easily demonstrated markmanship, a flair for using his weapons to intimidate opponents, and the publicity given his numerous exploits. His ability to handle mobs resulted in a classic tale told around campfires: one riot, one Ranger. His admirers rank him as one of the great captains of Texas Ranger history. His detractors see him as an irresponsible lawman who accepted questionable …
Date: June 15, 2009
Creator: Weiss, Harold J., Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Behind the Walls: a Guide for Family and Friends of Texas Prison Inmates

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Texas holds one in every nine U.S. inmates. Behind the Walls is a detailed description of one of the world's largest prison systems by a long-time convict trained as an observer and reporter. It spotlights the day-to-day workings of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-what's good, what's bad, which programs work and which ones do not, and examines if practice really follows official policy. Written to inform about the processes, services, activities, issues, and problems of being incarcerated, this book is invaluable to anyone who has a relative or friend incarcerated in Texas, or for those who want to understand how prisoners live, eat, work, play, and die in a contemporary U.S. prison. Containing a short history of Texas prisons and advice on how to help inmates get out and stay out of prison, this book is the only one of its kind-written by a convict still incarcerated and dedicated to dispelling the ignorance and fear that shroud Texas prisons. Renaud discusses living quarters, food, and clothing, along with how prisoners handle money, mail, visits, and phone calls. He explores the issues of drugs, racism, gangs, and violence as well as what an inmate can learn about his parole, custody …
Date: December 15, 2002
Creator: Renaud, Jorge Antonio
System: The UNT Digital Library
1941: Texas Goes to War (open access)

1941: Texas Goes to War

This book is a collection of essays discussing the role of Texans in World War II. It examines both the Texas soldiers fighting in the European and Pacific theaters as well as the Texans on the Homefront. The essays describe both the military and social aspects of the war. Index starts on page 241.
Date: 1991
Creator: Lee, James Ward; Barnes, Carolyn N.; Bowman, Kent A. & Crow, Laura
System: The UNT Digital Library