Resource Type

Tales From the Big Thicket

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Edited collection of writing about the Big Thicket area in Texas, including geographic descriptions, anecdotes, historical accounts, and other aspects of the people and features of the region. Index starts on page 235.
Date: February 15, 2002
Creator: Abernethy, Francis E.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Rula Walid Bibi, April 24, 2011

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Interview with Rula Walid Bibi, Palestinian-born immigrant to Plano, Texas, for the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Bibi's personal experience with discrimination of Palestinians in the Middle East, childhood in Kuwait City, education at the University of Kuwait and Midwestern State University, family experiences during the First Gulf War and circumstances surrounding her immigration to Texas in 1990, thoughts on religion, experiences as a single mother as well as experiences of living in Wichita Falls, Dallas, Richardson, Garland, and Plano. Bibi talks about her first impressions of the U.S., her career in medical technologies, her marriage to an American man and his conversion to Islam, her involvement with political organizations, and thoughts on American education and foreign policy.
Date: April 24, 2011
Creator: Abigail, R. Matthew & Bibi, Rula Walid
System: The UNT Digital Library

Some People Let You Down

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The nine stories in Mike Alberti’s debut collection shine a sharp light on small-town American life —not the Arcadian small towns of yesteryear, but the old mill towns hanging on after the mill has stopped running, the deserted agricultural communities in the middle of vast industrial farms, places where bad luck has become part of the weather. But even in these blighted, neglected landscapes, the possibility of renewal always presents itself: there is hope for these places and the characters who inhabit them. In these fresh, innovative stories, some people let you down, but some people don’t.
Date: November 15, 2020
Creator: Alberti, Mike, 1987-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Bruce Gordon Elliot, May 17, 2002

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Interview with Bruce Elliot, a Navy veteran and POW from Montezuma, Kansas. Elliot discusses his family, joining the Navy and volunteering for Asiatic service, the start of war and the bombing of Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines, retreat to Corregidor, capture by the Japanese, escaping internment on Palawan and joining Moro guerillas, sabotage, linking up with Australian forces, evacuation to Australia and returning to the United States, becoming a deepsea diver, and Korean War service. In appendix are a photo of Elliot, a map of the Philippines, two photos of a POW camp on Palawan, and a photo of three of his comrades.
Date: May 17, 2002
Creator: Alexander, Bill & Elliot, Bruce Gordon
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Colonel John. E. Olson, March 15, 1998

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Interview with Colonel John E. Olson, a Army WWII veteran and POW from Leavenworth, Kansas. Olson discusses his family background, commissioning in the Army from West Point, assignment to the Philippines in 1939 as an infantry officer, the start of the war, withdrawal to Bataan and the ensuing battle and surrender, the Bataan Death March, internment at Cabanatuan, transfer to Osaka, experiences there in internment at a factory labor camp, liberation, organizing the evacuation of POWs, returning to the US, and his postwar career.
Date: March 15, 1998
Creator: Alexander, Bill & Olson, John E.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Old Riot, New Ranger: Captain Jack Dean, Texas Ranger and U.S. Marshal

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Award-winning author Bob Alexander presents a biography of 20th-century Ranger Captain Jack Dean, who holds the distinction of being one of only five men to serve in both the Officer’s Corps of the Rangers and also as a President-appointed United States Marshal. Jack Dean’s service in Texas Ranger history occurred at a time when the institution was undergoing a philosophical revamping and restructuring, all hastened by America’s Civil Rights Movement, landmark decisions handed down by the United States Supreme Court, zooming advances in forensic technology, and focused efforts designed to diversify and professionalize the Rangers. His job choice caused him to circulate in the duplicitous underworld of dishonesty and criminality where twisted self-interest overrode compliance with societal norms. His biography is packed with true-crime calamities: double murders, single murders, negligent homicides, suicides, jailbreaks, manhunts, armed robberies and home invasions, kidnappings, public corruption, sexual assaults, illicit gambling, car-theft rings, dope smuggling, and arms trafficking. “Bob Alexander personally interviewed Jack Dean, a renowned Texas lawman who wore a badge for forty-three years. These conversations form the core of a well-researched and fascinating account of Lone Star justice from the mid-twentieth century into the new millennium.” —Darren L. Ivey, author of The Ranger …
Date: July 2018
Creator: Alexander, Bob
System: The UNT Digital Library

Rawhide Ranger, Ira Aten: Enforcing Law on the Texas Frontier

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Ira Aten (1862-1953) was the epitome of a frontier lawman. At age twenty he enrolled in Company D during the transition of the Rangers from Indian fighters to topnotch peace officers. This unit—and Aten—would have a lively time making their mark in nineteenth-century Texas. The preponderance of Texas Ranger treatments center on the outfit as an institution or spotlight the narratives of specific captains. Bob Alexander aptly demonstrated in Winchester Warriors: Texas Rangers of Company D, 1874-1901 that there is merit in probing the lives of everyday working Rangers. Aten is an ideal example. The years Ira spent as a Ranger are jam-packed with adventure, border troubles, shoot-outs, solving major crimes—a quadruple homicide—and manhunts. Aten’s role in these and epochal Texas events such as the racially insensitive Jaybird/Woodpecker Feud and the bloody Fence Cutting Wars earned Ira’s spot in the Ranger Hall of Fame. His law enforcing deeds transcend days with the Rangers. Ira served two counties as sheriff, terms spiked with excitement. Afterward, for ten years on the XIT, he was tasked with clearing the ranch’s Escarbada Division of cattle thieves. Aten’s story spins on an axis of spine-tingling Texas history. Moving to California, Ira was active in transforming …
Date: July 15, 2011
Creator: Alexander, Bob
System: The UNT Digital Library

Riding Lucifer's Line: Ranger Deaths Along the Texas-mexico Border

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The Texas-Mexico border is trouble. Haphazardly splashing across the meandering Rio Grande into Mexico is—or at least can be—risky business, hazardous to one’s health and well-being. Kirby W. Dendy, the Chief of Texas Rangers, corroborates the sobering reality: “As their predecessors for over one hundred forty years before them did, today’s Texas Rangers continue to battle violence and transnational criminals along the Texas-Mexico border.” In Riding Lucifer’s Line, Bob Alexander, in his characteristic storytelling style, surveys the personal tragedies of twenty-five Texas Rangers who made the ultimate sacrifice as they scouted and enforced laws throughout borderland counties adjacent to the Rio Grande. The timeframe commences in 1874 with formation of the Frontier Battalion, which is when the Texas Rangers were actually institutionalized as a law enforcing entity, and concludes with the last known Texas Ranger death along the border in 1921. Alexander also discusses the transition of the Rangers in two introductory sections: “The Frontier Battalion Era, 1874-1901” and “The Ranger Force Era, 1901-1935,” wherein he follows Texas Rangers moving from an epochal narrative of the Old West to more modern, technological times. Written absent a preprogrammed agenda, Riding Lucifer’s Line is legitimate history. Adhering to facts, the author is …
Date: May 15, 2013
Creator: Alexander, Bob
System: The UNT Digital Library

Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands: The Wild West Life of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones

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Many well-read students, historians, and loyal aficionados of Texas Ranger lore know the name of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones (1856-1893), who died on the Texas-Mexico border in a shootout with Mexican rustlers. In Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands, Bob Alexander has now penned the first full-length biography of this important nineteenth-century Texas Ranger. At an early age Frank Jones, a native Texan, would become a Frontier Battalion era Ranger. His enlistment with the Rangers coincided with their transition from Indian fighters to lawmen. While serving in the Frontier Battalion officers' corps of Company D, Frank Jones supervised three of the four “great” captains of that era: J.A. Brooks, John H. Rogers, and John R. Hughes. Besides Austin Ira Aten and his younger brothers Calvin Grant Aten and Edwin Dunlap Aten, Captain Jones also managed law enforcement activities of numerous other noteworthy Rangers, such as Philip Cuney "P.C." Baird, Benjamin Dennis Lindsey, Bazzell Lamar "Baz" Outlaw, J. Walter Durbin, Jim King, Frank Schmid, and Charley Fusselman, to name just a few. Frank Jones’ law enforcing life was anything but boring. Not only would he find himself dodging bullets and returning fire, but those Rangers under his supervision would also experience gunplay. …
Date: March 2015
Creator: Alexander, Bob
System: The UNT Digital Library

Whiskey River Ranger: The Old West Life of Baz Outlaw

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Captain Frank Jones, a famed nineteenth-century Texas Ranger, said of his company’s top sergeant, Baz Outlaw (1854-1894), “A man of unusual courage and coolness and in a close place is worth two or three ordinary men.” Another old-time Texas Ranger declared that Baz Outlaw “was one of the worst and most dangerous” because “he never knew what fear was.” But not all thought so highly of him. In Whiskey River Ranger, Bob Alexander tells for the first time the full story of this troubled Texas Ranger and his losing battle with alcoholism. In his career Baz Outlaw wore a badge as a Texas Ranger and also as a Deputy U.S. Marshal. He could be a fearless and crackerjack lawman, as well as an unmanageable manic. Although Baz Outlaw’s badge-wearing career was sometimes heroically creditable, at other times his self-induced nightmarish imbroglios teased and tested Texas Ranger management’s resoluteness. Baz Outlaw’s true-life story is jam-packed with fellows owning well-known names, including Texas Rangers, city marshals, sheriffs, and steely-eyed mean-spirited miscreants. Baz Outlaw’s tale is complete with horseback chases, explosive train robberies, vigilante justice (or injustice), nighttime ambushes and bushwhacking, and episodes of scorching six-shooter finality. Baz met his end in a …
Date: April 2016
Creator: Alexander, Bob
System: The UNT Digital Library

Winchester Warriors: Texas Rangers of Company D, 1874-1901

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The Texas Rangers were institutionally birthed in 1874 with the formation of the Frontier Battalion. They were tasked with interdicting Indian incursions into the frontier settlements and dealing with the lawlessness running rampant throughout Texas. In an effort to put a human face on the Rangers, Bob Alexander tells the story of one of the six companies of the Frontier Battalion, Company D. Readers follow the Rangers of Company D as—over time—it transforms from a unit of adventurous boys into a reasonably well-oiled law enforcement machine staffed by career-oriented lawmen. Beginning with their start as Indian fighters against the Comanches and Kiowas, Alexander explores the history of Company D as they rounded up numerous Texas outlaws and cattle thieves, engaged in border skirmishes along the Rio Grande, and participated in notable episodes such as the fence cutter wars. Winchester Warriors is an evenhanded and impartial assessment of Company D and its colorful cadre of Texas Rangers. Their laudable deeds are explored in detail, but by the same token their shameful misadventures are not whitewashed. These Texas Rangers were simply people, good and bad—and sometimes indifferent. This new study, extensively researched in both primary and secondary sources, will appeal to scholars …
Date: August 15, 2009
Creator: Alexander, Bob
System: The UNT Digital Library

Tall Walls and High Fences: Officers and Offenders, the Texas Prison Story

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Texas has one of the world’s largest prison systems, in operation for more than 170 years and currently employing more than 28,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of people have been involved in the prison business in Texas: inmates, correctional officers, public officials, private industry representatives, and volunteers have all entered the secure facilities and experienced a different world. Previous books on Texas prisons have focused either on records and data of the prisons, personal memoirs by both inmates and correctional officers, or accounts of prison breaks. Tall Walls and High Fences is the first comprehensive history of Texas prisons, written by a former law enforcement officer and an officer of the Texas prisons. Bob Alexander and Richard K. Alford chronicle the significant events and transformation of the Texas prison system from its earliest times to the present day, paying special attention to the human side of the story. Incarceration policy evolved from isolation to hard labor to rodeo and educational opportunities, with reform measures becoming an ever-evolving quest. The complex job of the correctional officer has evolved as well—they must ensure custody and control over the inmate population at all times, in order to provide a proper environment conducive to …
Date: October 15, 2020
Creator: Alexander, Bob & Alford, Richard K.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Texas Rangers: Lives, Legend, and Legacy

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Authors Bob Alexander and Donaly E. Brice grappled with several issues when deciding how to relate a general history of the Texas Rangers. Should emphasis be placed on their frontier defense against Indians, or focus more on their role as guardians of the peace and statewide law enforcers? What about the tumultuous Mexican Revolution period, 1910-1920? And how to deal with myths and legends such as One Riot, One Ranger? Texas Rangers: Lives, Legend, and Legacy is the authors’ answer to these questions, a one-volume history of the Texas Rangers. The authors begin with the earliest Rangers in the pre-Republic years in 1823 and take the story up through the Republic, Mexican War, and Civil War. Then, with the advent of the Frontier Battalion, the authors focus in detail on each company A through F, relating what was happening within each company concurrently. Thereafter, Alexander and Brice tell the famous episodes of the Rangers that forged their legend, and bring the story up through the twentieth century to the present day in the final chapters.
Date: July 2017
Creator: Alexander, Bob & Brice, Donaly E.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Tammy Brake-Regitz, October 17, 2015

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Transcript of an interview with Canadian immigrant Tammy Brake-Regitz. Brake-Regitz talks about growing up in Canada and the decision to visit the United States in her twenties leading to her love of America and living the American Dream; Differences in Canada life and life in the United States; Her pursuit in a medical career; and decision to seek an American citizenship.
Date: October 17, 2015
Creator: Alexander, Matthew & Brake-Regitz, Tammy, 1972-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Alessandro Buccilli, April 6, 2011

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Interview with Italian immigrant Alessandro Buccilli, Director of Marketing and Sales Administration for Peterbilt Motors Company, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. Buccilli discusses his family background in Rome, Italy, his education, employment in the U.S., the shifts in perceptions about Italy and the U.S., social responsibility, learning English, his perspectives on the importance of language and culture, raising American children, and his legacy. The interview also includes Buccilli's comparisons of opportunities, bureaucracy, culture, and national immigration debates in Italy and the U.S.
Date: April 6, 2011
Creator: Alexander, Matthew & Buccilli, Alessandro
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Erio Enzo Pedini, November 15, 2015

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Transcript of an interview with Erio Enzo Pedini, an immigrant from the Republic of San Marino. Pedini recounts memories growing up in the Republic of San Marino and going to school in Italy; Coming to America in 1958 and the differences in cultures and lifestyles; Living and working in Detroit, Michigan; becoming a U.S. citizen; moving to Dallas, Texas; and working in the building industry.
Date: November 15, 2015
Creator: Alexander, Matthew & Pedini, Erio Enzo 1946-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Admiral J. Lloyd Abbot, Jr., March 14, 1998

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Transcript of an interview with Admiral J. Lloyd Abbot, Jr., a Navy veteran, comments about his service in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Abbot discusses the U. S. Naval Academy, 1935-39; assignment to USS Enterprise, 1939; assignment to USS Gilmer, 1939-41; flight training at Pensacola, 1941; assignment to Advanced Carrier Training Group (Pacific), 1941-42; assignment to VF-6 (Fighting 6) aboard the USS Enterprise, 1942; assignment to VS-1D-14 in the South Pacific, 1942-43; commanding officer of VS-66, Wallis Island, 1943; antisubmarine patrols out of Wallis Island; assignment to Nanumea, 1943; assignment to Tarawa, 1943-44, with an SBD squadron; assignment to the Chief of Naval Air Training, Pensacola, 1944-46, as engineering officer; and his postwar naval and civilian career.
Date: March 14, 1998
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Abbot, J. Lloyd, Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Shuford M. Alexander, Jr., December 2, 1999

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Interview with engineer and Army Air Forces veteran Shuford M. Alexander, Jr. The interview includes Alexander's personal experiences about being a fighter pilot in Italy during World War II, basic training, flight training, various assignments and transfers, Operation STRANGLE, being shot down by flak over Piacenza, and being rescued by Italian partisans. Additionally, Alexander talks about his link-up with a British A-4 Mission and his attempt to reach Allied lines, his betrayal by a German agent and his subsequent capture, escaping and continuing his search for Allied lines, his observations and opinions about the partisans, a second encounter with a British A-4 Mission, the Martani family in the village of Tosca, his group's trek through mountain snow to reach Allied lines, meeting with British paratroopers and with African-American soldiers from the 92nd Infantry Division, and his reunion with his squadron in Pisa. The interview includes an appendix with a narrative by Alexander.
Date: December 2, 1999
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Alexander, Shuford M., Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Robert O. Andrews, September 20, 2003

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Interview with Robert O. Andrews, businessman and an Army Air Forces veteran, concerning his experiences in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II. Andrews discusses his pre-war education and farming activities in Olney, Texas; enlistment in the Army Air Forces, c. 1941; assignment to Chanute Field, Illinois, c. 1941-42; Officer Candidate School, Miami Beach, Florida, c. 1942; assignment to Perrin Field, Sherman, Texas, c. 1942-44; overseas transport to India; assignment to Warazup, Burma, 1944-45; his reaction to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and postwar career in business.
Date: September 20, 2003
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Andrews, Robert O., 1919-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Jean Balch, October 12, 1996

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Interview with Navy veteran Jean Balch, including Balch's personal experiences about the Pacific theater, being a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II, boot camp, radio, radar, and gunnery school, operations during the Leyte invasion, missions over Luzon, and raids on Japanese installations on Formosa and Saigon, French Indo-China. Additionally, Balch talks about his plane being shot down on a raid to Hong Kong and his capture on January 16, 1945, interrogations and beatings by the Kempei-tai, imprisonment at Ofuna, Honshu, solitary confinement for six months and continued interrogation, beatings by Japanese prison guards, starvation diet, the end of the war and liberation, and his participation in the war crimes trials held by the International Military Tribunal.
Date: October 12, 1996
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Balch, Jean
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Mansfield Millington Bascom, January 29, 2000

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Interview with engineer and Army veteran Mansfield Millington Bascom. The interview includes Bascom's personal experiences about the European Theater during World War II, basic training, action on the Siegfried Line, the Battle of Aachen, individual episodes of close ground combat, German tank concentrations immediately prior to the Ardennes Offensive, being wounded and evacuating from the front, recuperation, and returning to the states.
Date: January 29, 2000
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Bascom, Mansfield Millington
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with John L. Bates, Jr., September 21, 2003

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Interview with attorney and Army veteran John L. Bates Jr. The Interview includes Bates' personal experiences in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II, Officer Candidate School, being selected for the Counter Intelligence Corps, British Intelligence School, assignment to Kweiyang, China, the end of the war and his transfer to the War Crimes Section as an Assistant Theater Judge Advocate, his assignment to Hankow to investigate the executions of three of Jimmy Doolittle's pilots and to Formosa to investigate war crimes, dealing with Japanese military personnel accused of committing atrocities against Allied POWs on Formosa, and his postwar career in the Army Reserve.
Date: September 21, 2003
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Bates, John L., Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with William J. Bates, February 7, 2001

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Interview with Navy veteran William J. Bates including personal experiences about the Pacific Theater during World War II, youth and education, the Navy Aviation Cadet Program, flight training, leaving naval aviation and attending Midshipman's School, being assigned to APc-21, operations off the coast of New Guinea with the VII Amphibious Force, providing escort duty for LCTs during assaults along the coast of New Guinea, the sinking of APc-21 by Japanese planes off New Britain Island, recuperating in New Guinea, returning to the States and being assigned to ATR-22, transferring to fleet tug ARA-182 as commanding officer, having convoy duty in the South Pacific, riding out a typhoon, disposing of Navy equipment after the war, and returning to the States.
Date: February 7, 2001
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Bates, William J.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Frank H. Bigelow, June 13, 2002

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Interview with Navy veteran Frank H. Bigelow, survivor of the siege of Corregidor. The interview includes Bigelow's personal experiences about being a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II, boyhood in North Dakota, various jobs during the Great Depression, and enlisting in the Navy. Additionally, Bigelow speaks about volunteering for duty in the Philippines and his assignment to the submarine tender USS Canopus, pre-war military life in the Philippines, the Japanese bombing of Cavite Navy Yard and the destruction of the Canopus, retreating to Bataan and to Corregidor, the fall of Corregidor, his confinement in the 92nd Garage area, the forced march down Dewey Boulevard in Manila and confinement at Cabanatuan, hell ship to Japan, coal mining for Mitsui Heavy Industries, the amputation of his leg by fellow prisoners after a mining accident, liberation, and the destruction in Nagasaki due to the atomic bomb. The interview includes an appendix with an article titled "A Soldier's Story."
Date: June 13, 2002
Creator: Alexander, William J. & Bigelow, Frank H., 1921-
System: The UNT Digital Library