Step into a colorful pageantry of the powerful people who once ruled and still influence the great state of Texas. From the Caddo in the Piney Woods, the Lipan Apache in the Southwest, the Wichita at the Red River, and the Comanche across the Great Plains to the Alabama-Coushatta in the Big Thicket, five nations come alive through myth and history in Jane Archer's vividly written book about the first Texans.
Part of our growing Mysteries and Legends series, Mysteries and Legends of Texas explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in Texas’s history. Each episode included in the book is a story unto itself, and the tone and style of the book is lively and easy to read for a general audience interested in Texas history.
Texas Myths and Legends explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in Texas’s history. Each episode included in the book is a story unto itself, and the tone and style of the book is lively and easy to read for a general audience interested in Texas history. The more than a dozen stories answer questions such as: Is the "Navidad Wildman"—aka Bigfoot—alive and well in Texas? Was the creature in one Texas woman's freezer the legendary blood-sucking beast known as the chupacabra? Just what are the mysterious Marfa Lights? Manifestations of otherworldly beings? Can they be explained scientifically? Is Jefferson the most haunted city in Texas? Or should the title go to San Antonio, which has enough ghosts to warrant at least three advertised ghost hunt tours? From rumors of Jean Lafitte's buried treasures to the hanging of Chipita Rodriguez and the love story of Frenchy McCormick, Texas Myths and Legends makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of the state's most fascinating and compelling stories.
Tuck this book under your arm, jump in your car, and get ready to discover the ghosts of North Texas! These aren't tall tales-these are stories about places you can visit on your own ghost-hunting excursion!
Tradition meets tragedy in the chilling local lore of the Rio Grande Valley. Hidden in the dense brush and around oxbow lakes wait sinister secrets, unnerving vestiges of the past and wraiths of those claimed by the winding river. The spirit of a murdered student in Brownsville paces the locker room where she met her end. Tortured souls of patients lost in the Harlingen Insane Asylum refuse to be forgotten. Guests at the LaBorde Hotel in Rio Grande City report visions of the Red Lady, who was spurned by the soldier she loved and driven to suicide. Author David Bowles explores these and more of the most harrowing ghost stories from Fort Brown to Fort Ringgold and all the haunted hotels, chapels and ruins in between.
A New York Times bestseller! “Lively and absorbing. . ." — The New York Times Book Review "Engrossing." —Wall Street Journal “Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
This Volume Number 6 contains folklore of the Texas-Mexican Vaquero; Tales and Rhymes of a Texas Household; Lore of the Llano Estacado; Names in the Old Cheyenne and Arapahoe Territory; Nicknames in Texas Oil Fields; The Devil's Grotto; Myths of the Tejas Indians; Ballads and songs of the Frontier Folk; several essays on cowboys songs, etc.
