The Big Bend
Author: Ronnie C. Tyler
Publisher:
Published: 1975
Total Pages: 298
ISBN-13:
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In the Shadow of the Chinatis
Author: David W. Keller
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2019-01-31
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 1623497353
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWinner, 2020 Al Lowman Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas County or Local History There is a deep and abiding connection between humans and the land in Pinto Canyon—a remote and rugged place near the border with Mexico in the Texas Big Bend. Here the land assumes a certain primacy, defined not by the ephemera of plants and animals but by the very bedrock that rises far above the silvery flow of Pinto Creek— looming masses that break the horizon into a hundred different vistas. Yet, over time, people managed to survive and sometimes even thrive in this harsh environment. In the Shadow of the Chinatis combines the rich narratives of history, natural history, and archeology to tell the story of the landscape as well as the people who once inhabited it. Settling the land was difficult, staying on it even more so, but one family proved especially resilient. Rising above their meager origins, the Prietos eventually amassed a 12,000-acre ranch in the shadow of the Chinati Mountains to become the most successful of Pinto Canyon’s early settlers. But starting with the tense years of the Great Depression, the family faced a series of tragedies: one son was killed by a Texas Ranger, and another by the deranged son of Chico Cano, the Big Bend’s most notorious bandit. Ultimately, growing rifts in the family forced the sale of the ranch, marking the end of an era. Bearing the hallmarks of an epic tragedy, the departure of the Prieto family signaled a transition away from ranching towards a new style of landownership based on a completely different model. Today, Pinto Canyon’s scenic and scientific value increasingly overshadows the marginal economics of its past. In the Shadow of the Chinatis reveals a rich tapestry of interaction between humans and their environment, providing a unique examination of the Big Bend region and the people who call it home.
The Big Bend
Author: Tyler
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9780890967065
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA long needed account of the human invasion of this rugged Texas desert land.
On the Border
Author: Tom Miller
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2016-02-02
Total Pages: 249
ISBN-13: 1504029372
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTom Miller’s On the Border frames the land between the United States and Mexico as a Third Country, one 2,000 miles long and twenty miles wide. This Third Country has its own laws and its own outlaws. Its music, language, and food are unique. On the Border, a first-person travel narrative, portrays this bi-national culture, “unforgettable to every reader lucky enough to discover this gem of southwestern Americana.” (San Diego Union-Tribune) It’s a “deftly written book,” said the New Times Book Review. “Mr. Miller has drawn a lively sketch of this unruly, unpredictable place.” Traveling from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, Miller offers “cultural history and fine journalism.” (Dallas Times Herald) Among his stops is Rosa’s Cantina in El Paso, the Arizona site where a rancher sadistically tortured three Mexican campesinos, and the 100,000-watt XERF radio station where Wolfman Jack broadcasts nightly. He interviews children in both countries, all of whom insist that the candy on the other side is superior. On the Border, translated into Spanish, French, and Japanese, was the first book to identify and describe this land as a Third Country. Miller “knows this country,” says Newsday, “feels its joys and sorrows, hears its music and loves its soul.”
Lizards on the Mantel, Burros at the Door
Author: Etta Koch
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2010-07-05
Total Pages: 206
ISBN-13: 0292788428
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA warm, witty memoir of a young family’s rugged adventure living in the newly established Big Bend National Park in the 1940s. A woman who went West with her husband in the 1840s must have expected hardships and privation, but during the 1940s, when Etta Koch stopped off in Big Bend with her young family and a twenty-three-foot travel trailer in tow—which they named Porky, the Road Hog—she anticipated a brief, civilized camping trip between her old home in Ohio and a new one in Arizona. It was only when she found herself moving into an old rock house without plumbing or electricity in the new Big Bend National Park that Etta realized she’d left her sheltered life behind for an experience in frontier living. In this book based on her journals and letters, Etta Koch and her daughter June Cooper Price chronicle their family’s first years—1944–1946—in the Big Bend. Etta describes how her photographer husband Peter Koch became captivated by the region as a place for natural history filmmaking—and how she and their three young daughters slowly adapted to a pioneer lifestyle during his months-long absences on the photo-lecture circuit. In vivid, often humorous anecdotes, she describes making the rock house into a home, getting to know the Park Service personnel and other neighbors, coping with the local wildlife, and, most of all, learning to love the rugged landscape and the hardy individuals who call it home.
Historic Texas from the Air
Author: David Buisseret
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2009-06-01
Total Pages: 219
ISBN-13: 0292719272
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe extremely varied geography of Texas, ranging from lush piney woods to arid, mountainous deserts, has played a major role in the settlement and development of the state. To gain full perspective on the influence of the land on the people of Texas, you really have to take to the air—and the authors of Historic Texas from the Air have done just that. In this beautiful book, dramatic aerial photography provides a complete panorama of seventy-three historic sites from around the state, showing them in extensive geographic context and revealing details unavailable to a ground-based observer. Each site in Historic Texas from the Air appears in a full-page color photograph, accompanied by a concise description of the site's history and importance. Contemporary and historical photographs, vintage postcard images, and maps offer further visual information about the sites. The book opens with images of significant natural landforms, such as the Chisos Mountains and the Big Thicket, then shows the development of Texas history through Indian spiritual sites (including Caddo Mounds and Enchanted Rock), relics from the French and Spanish occupation (such as the wreck of the Belle and the Alamo), Anglo forts and methods of communication (including Fort Davis and Salado's Stagecoach Inn), nineteenth-century settlements and industries (such as Granbury's courthouse square and Kreische Brewery in La Grange), and significant twentieth-century locales, (including Spindletop, the LBJ Ranch, and the Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport). For anyone seeking a visual, vital overview of Texas history, Historic Texas from the Air is the perfect place to begin.
Tejano West Texas
Author: Arnoldo De León
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2015-07-24
Total Pages: 194
ISBN-13: 1623493056
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFeaturing a side of Tejano history too often neglected, author Arnoldo De León shows that people of Spanish-Mexican descent were not passive players in or, worse, absent from West Texas history but instead were active agents at the center of it. The collection of essays in Tejano West Texas—many never before published—will correct decades of historiographical oversight by emphasizing the centrality of the Mexican American experience in the history of the region. De León, a true dean of Tejano history, showcases the continued presence and contribution of Mexican Americans to West Texas. This collection begins in the 1770s when settlers of Mexican descent first began migrating to Presidio and then to other sections of the Big Bend. De León then turns his attention to the nineteenth century when Mexican immigrants and other Texans searched for work throughout the West Texas hinterland, and his coverage continues onward through the twentieth century. Mexican American and Texas history scholars will find Tejano West Texas to be an invaluable addition to the Tejano narrative.
Texas Place Names
Author: Edward Callary
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2020-06-02
Total Pages: 430
ISBN-13: 1477320644
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWas Gasoline, Texas, named in honor of a gas station? Nope, but the name does honor the town’s original claim to fame: a gasoline-powered cotton gin. Is Paris, Texas, a reference to Paris, France? Yes: Thomas Poteet, who donated land for the town site, thought it would be an improvement over “Pin Hook,” the original name of the Lamar County seat. Ding Dong’s story has a nice ring to it, derived from two store owners named Bell, who lived in Bell County, of course. Tracing the turning points, fascinating characters, and cultural crossroads that shaped Texas history, Texas Place Names provides the colorful stories behind these and more than three thousand other county, city, and community names. Drawing on in-depth research to present the facts behind the folklore, linguist Edward Callary also clarifies pronunciations (it’s NAY-chis for Neches, referring to a Caddoan people whose name was attached to the Neches River during a Spanish expedition). A great resource for road trippers and historians alike, Texas Place Names alphabetically charts centuries of humanity through the enduring words (and, occasionally, the fateful spelling gaffes) left behind by men and women from all walks of life.
Wings over the Mexican Border
Author: Kenneth B. Ragsdale
Publisher: Univ of TX + ORM
Published: 2010-07-05
Total Pages: 433
ISBN-13: 029275759X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA Texas historian reveals how a borderland ranch became the proving ground for American combat aviation and a flashpoint for US-Mexico relations. Against a backdrop of revolution, border banditry, freewheeling aerial dramatics, and World War II, Kenneth B. Ragsdale tells the story of Elmo Johnson’s Big Bend ranch in southwestern Texas. This remote airfield is where hundreds of young Army Air Corps pilots demonstrated the US military’s reconnaissance and emergency response capabilities and, in so doing, dramatized the changing role of the airplane as an instrument of war and peace. Ragsdale vividly portrays the development of the US aerial strike force; the men who would go on to become combat leaders; and especially Elmo Johnson himself, the Big Bend rancher, trader, and rural sage who emerges as the dominant figure at one of the most unusual facilities in the annals of the Air Corps. Ragsdale also examines how these aerial escapades effected border tensions. He provides a reflective look at US–Mexican relations from the 1920s through the 1940s, paying special attention to the tense days during and after the Escobar Rebellion of 1929. Wings over the Mexican Border tells a stirring story of the American frontier juxtaposed with the new age of aerial technology.
