This publication of the Dallas-Fort Worth Section of the American Chemical Society includes information about research, prominent scientist, organizational business, and various other stories of interest to the community.

Utilizing many sources new to publication, James L. Haley delivers a most readable and enjoyable narrative history of Texas, told through stories—the words and recollections of Texans who actually lived the state’s spectacular history. From Jim Bowie’s and Davy Crockett’s myth-enshrouded stand at the Alamo, to the Mexican-American War, and to Sam Houston’s heroic failed effort to keep Texas in the Union during the Civil War, the transitions in Texas history have often been as painful and tense as the “normal” periods in between. Here, in all of its epic grandeur, is the story of Texas as its own passionate nation.

After he died, Townes Van Zandt found the success that he sabotaged throughout his short life despite the release of sixteen brilliant albums. Since his death, numerous albums both by and in honor of him have been released and many critical articles published, in addition to several books (including Robert Hardy’s A Deeper Blue by UNT Press). For the Sake of the Song collects ten essays on Townes Van Zandt from a variety of approaches. Contributors examine his legacy; his use of the minor key; his reception in the Austin music scene; and an exploration of his relationship with Richard Dobson, with whom he toured as part of the Hemmer Ridge Mountain Boys. An introduction by editors Ann Norton Holbrook and Dan Beller- McKenna provides an overview of Van Zandt’s literary excellence and philosophical wisdom, rare among even the best songwriters.

America’s Wild West created an untold number of notorious characters, and in southwestern Texas, John King Fisher (1855– 1884) was foremost among them. To friends and foes alike, he insisted he be called “King.” He found a home in the tough sun-beaten Nueces Strip, a lawless land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. There he gathered a gang of rustlers around him at his ranch on Pendencia Creek. For a decade King and his gang raided both sides of the Rio Grande, shooting down any who opposed them. Newspapers claimed King killed potential witnesses—he was never convicted of cattle or horse stealing, or murder. King’s reign ended when he was arrested by Texas Ranger Captain Leander McNelly. In no uncertain terms he advised Fisher to change his ways, so King became deputy sheriff of Uvalde County. But his hard-won respectability would not last. On a spring night in 1884, King made the mistake of accompanying the truly notorious gambler and gunfighter Ben Thompson on a tour of San Antonio, where several years prior Thompson shot down Jack Harris at the latter’s saloon and theater, the Vaudeville. Recklessly, King Fisher accompanied Thompson back to the theater, where assassins were …

“There are some poets we admire for a mastery that allows them to tell a story, express an epiphany, form a conclusion, all gracefully and even memorably— yet language in some way remains external to them. But there are other poets in whom language seems to arise spontaneously, fulfilling a design in which the poet’s intention feels secondary. Books by these poets we read with a gathering sense of excitement and recognition at the linguistic web being drawn deliberately tighter around a nucleus of human experience that is both familiar and completely new, until at last it seems no phrase is misplaced and no word lacks its resonance with what has come before. Such a book is Austin Segrest’s Door to Remain.”— Karl Kirchwey, author of Poems of Rome and judge

Identified with Texas is the first published biography of Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease (1812-1883), presented by historian Elizabeth Whitlow as a dual biography of Pease and his wife, Lucadia Niles Pease (1813-1905). Pease volunteered to fight in the first battle of the Revolution at Gonzales, and he served with the Texan Army at the Siege of Bexar. Pease served in the first three state legislatures after Texas joined the Union in 1845, was elected governor in 1853 and re-elected in 1855, and returned to the governorship as an interim appointee from 1867 to 1869 during Reconstruction. His achievements in all these positions were substantial. Lucadia Niles Pease was known as the Governor’s “Lady.” Moreover, her early, independent travel and her stated position as a “woman’s rights woman” in the 1850s, as well as her support for sending a daughter away to college in the 1870s to earn a degree, all serve as markers of her intelligence and the strength of her convictions. To tell their story, Whitlow mined thousands of letters and papers saved by the Pease family and housed in the Austin History Center of the Austin Public Library, as well as in the Governor’s Papers at the …

Our Stories: Black Families in Early Dallas enlarges upon two pubLications by the late Dr. Mamie McKnight’s organization, Black Dallas Remembered—First African American Families of Dallas (1987) and African American Families and Settlements of Dallas (1990). Our Stories is the history of Black citizens of Dallas going about their lives in freedom, as described by the late Eva Partee McMillan: “The ex-slaves purchased land, built homes, raised their children, erected their educational and religious facilities, educated their children, and profited from their labor. “ Our Stories brings together memoirs from many of Dallas’s earliest Black families, as handed down over the generations to their twentieth-century descendants. The period covered begins in the 1850s and goes through the 1930s. Included are detailed descriptions of more than thirty early Dallas communities formed by free African Americans, along with the histories of fifty-seven early Black families, and brief biographies of many of the early leaders of these Black communities. The stories reveal hardships endured and struggles overcome, but the storytellers focus on the triumphs over adversity and the successes achieved against the odds. The histories include the founding of churches, schools, newspapers, hospitals, grocery stores, businesses, and other institutions established to nourish and …

On a cold, windy December night in 1926, hell was unleashed on a tenant farm near Farwell, the last Texas town before the New Mexico border. Prone to the bottle and fits of rage, the burly man with the smiling blue eyes was in no mood to quarrel with his third wife over his bootleg whisky and sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. He went from room to room in the house, killing his wife and each child with primitive cutting tools and his bare hands. By the time he concluded his bloody work, he had taken the lives of nine family members ranging in age from 2 to 41, committing what one local reporter called “the blackest crime” in the history of the West Texas Panhandle. Husband, father, uncle, embezzler, serial mass murderer, philanderer, child molester, convict, and military deserter, George Jefferson Hassell was many things to many people, most of them bad. His pattern of familicide crime had begun in 1917, when he slaughtered his common-law wife and her three kids in Whittier, California. Later, in Texas, he married his brother’s wife and became stepfather to her eight children. Using Hassell’s confessions and his many interviews with reporters as …

Photograph of the Historical Marker in front of St. Joseph's Catholic Church on Elmore St. in New Waverly, TX. Marker Text reads: "The Rev. Felix Orzechowski, who came to Texas in 1866 to answer an appeal for Polish missionaries, organized St. Joseph's Parish in 1869. The first Catholic church in Walker County, it served the many Polish families who settled this area in the 1870s. Church tradition often sustained the immigrants until they adjusted to life in a new country. Services were held outdoors or in private homes during Father Orzechowski's pastorate. Soon after leaving this parish in 1876, he returned to Poland and was imprisoned by ruling Russian officials for advocating democratic ideals. A frame church building was erected in 1877 under the direction of the Rev. Victor Justiana Linicki, who was a Polish baron before he became a priest. A larger edifice, designed by Tom Lavandoski, was built in 1897, and the original structure was used as a school. The present church was begun in 1905 and dedicated on the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1908, during the pastorate of the Rev. Thomas Aloysius Bily (1859-1921). The stately Gothic-style structure, designed by L.S. Green, reflects the European …

Photograph a granite marker at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. Marker reads: "No 15 Mexican Breastworks"

Photograph a granite marker at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site with the Monument rising in the background. Marker reads: "No 17 Almonte captured and greatest carnage of battle occurred."

Photograph a granite marker at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site with the Monument rising in the background. Marker reads: "No 14 Mexican Cannon"

Photograph a granite marker at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. Marker reads: "No 19 Houston wounded and horse killed under him during battle"

Photograph a granite marker at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site with the Monument rising in the background. Marker reads: "No 13 Mexican Breastworks Cavalry Engagement Under Lamar April 21, 1836"

Photograph a granite marker at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. Marker reads: "No 16 Santa Anna's Camp"

Article exploring a collaboration between the University of North Texas' The Portal to Texas History and the Rosenberg Library to archive and provide digital, open access to Galveston's newspapers. It was published as part of the conference proceedings from 87th IFLA World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) held in 2022.

Presentation exploring a collaboration between the University of North Texas' The Portal to Texas History and the Rosenberg Library to archive and provide digital, open access to Galveston's newspapers.

This publication of the Dallas-Fort Worth Section of the American Chemical Society includes information about research, prominent scientist, organizational business, and various other stories of interest to the community.

This publication of the Dallas-Fort Worth Section of the American Chemical Society includes information about research, prominent scientist, organizational business, and various other stories of interest to the community.

American Sign Language interpretation of Dr. Andrew Torget discussing the Goliad Massacre at Presidio La Bahia, where almost 400 Texas soldiers lost their lives during the Texas Revolution.

Dr. Andrew Torget discussing the Goliad Massacre at Presidio La Bahia, where almost 400 Texas soldiers lost their lives during the Texas Revolution.

American Sign Language interpretation of Dr. Torget's lecture covering the conservative backlash to the New Deal in Texas. Video contains picture-in-picture rendering of slides and original narration and was recorded after the original world record attempt in order to complete the course.

American Sign Language interpretation of Dr. Torget's lecture covering preparations for war and involvement of Texans in World War II and the transformational effects it had on the State. Video contains picture-in-picture rendering of slides and original narration and was recorded after the original world record attempt in order to complete the course.

American Sign Language interpretation of Dr. Torget's lecture covering a changing Texas around and shortly after World War II. Covers a changing economy, urbanization, politics, and the 1948 senate race. Video contains picture-in-picture rendering of slides and original narration and was recorded after the original world record attempt in order to complete the course.