The Great, Late Townes Van Zandt
More than a year after his death, he’s still being remembered as the best Texas songwriter of his time. This month’s star-studded Austin City Limits tribute shows why.
More than a year after his death, he’s still being remembered as the best Texas songwriter of his time. This month’s star-studded Austin City Limits tribute shows why.
There is one star on Texas’ flag but many in its firmament. The portraits showcase Texans who skyrocketed to celebrity or success.
Why was Howard Hughes’s plane nicknamed the Spruce Goose?
How did Audie Murphy win the Congressional Medal of Honor?
Conflicting accounts of the killing of German immigrants in the Hill Country during the Civil War are creating a certain amount of dis-Comfort.
Which Tex sang “High Noon” and which was a member of the Manson family?
The life and legacy of a Texas icon.
A history mystery involving ranching’s King family.
What respiratory ailment afflicted Jimmie Rodgers, prompting fans to shout “Spit ’er up and sing some more”?
This month Eakin Press will publish The Alamo Almanac and Book of Lists. Among the interesting items compiled by author William R. Chemerka is one that has nothing to do with history—not really, anyway: It’s the Top Twenty Most Frequently Asked Questions at the Alamo.1. “Where’s the bathroom?”2. “Is this
Who was Jesse James—really? And where is he buried?
WEST OF THE PECOS THERE IS NO LAW; west of El Paso there is no God.” So went the saying in unsettled West Texas—until the day in 1882 when Roy Bean became a justice of the peace in dusty little Langtry, where the sign over the Jersey Lilly, his combination
Once, before fast-food franchises and ecotourists took over Alpine, the Gallego family’s Mexican restaurant survived and thrived. Today, the kitchen is closed.
In which Texas towns did Georgia O’Keeffe teach art, and for which photographer did she pose nude?
Which sports did Babe Didrikson dominate, and in what Hepburn-Tracy film did she appear?
Dallas’ Sloane Simpson was a society queen who enchanted New York, seduced Mexico City, and turned Acapulco into a jet-set getaway. But when she died last year at age eighty, she was almost completely forgotten.
How a man named Eldrewey Stearns began the fight for civil rights in Houston.
A South Texan adds a chapter to the Apollo 13 story.
Texas City lives on, fifty years after the infamous explosion.
How did Susanna Dickinson survive the Battle of the Alamo, and who played her in John Wayne’s movie?
What was Bill Pickett’s nickname, and how did he wrestle steers to the ground?
For three centuries the Kickapoo Indians moved from place to place across North America to avoid assimilation. Today they live on the outskirts of Eagle Pass: unwelcome, yet unwilling to give up the fight to preserve their culture.
The day John F. Kennedy was shot, I rushed down to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where I was the night police reporter, to help answer the phones on the city desk. A woman caller asked, “Is there anyone there who can take me to Dallas?” and I said, “Well, this
Rock, don’t run, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, where Texas greats from T-Bone Walker to Sly Stone get their due.
To whom were Bonnie and Clyde really married, and whose saxophone was found in their car?
The last surviving Teepee Motel in Texas.
In Texas the ultimate arbiter of good taste has always been Neiman Marcus, the Dallas-based department store that marks its ninetieth birthday next year.
What did Uvalde’s John Nance garner think the vice presidency was really worth?
Thirty years later, the legacy of Charles Whitman’s shooting spree at the University of Texas still towers above us.
What is Darrell Royal’s code name, and what does his middle initial stand for?
A few days in the tiny East Texas hamlet my mom now calls home proved the old maxim: Entertainment value is inversely proportional to population size.
He never met a man who didn’t like him. L.T. Felty, who died March 17, was born in Hickory Creek, but he spent forty-plus years in Waxahachie, where his genial and helpful manner as a schoolteacher and coach earned him the unofficial title of Mr. Waxahachie. (Christened solely with rhyming
The world-famous rock art of the Lower Pecos has long left scholars in awe—and in the dark. Now a group of Texas archaeologists has unlocked the sacred secrets of the ancient shamans.
A new book about Lee Harvey Oswald reveals that conspiracy theorists are still straining to repackage old news into something new.
Since the day Stanley Marsh 3 finally went too far and locked up George Whittenburg’s son in a chicken coop, all of Amarillo has been abuzz about the bizarre battle between these intractable foes.
On February 19, 1846, the flag was lowered on the Republic of Texas for the last time. Here’s a look back at what was our national interest, and all that it might have been.
A loving look back at nine grand old movie houses from the golden age of small-town Texas.
Dome, sweet dome.
Just as congressional hearings are set to begin, an exclusive excerpt from a new book casts a different light on the government’s role in the fiery end to the siege at Mount Carmel.
New York fireman Bill Groneman is disputing a critical piece of Alamo lore—and historians everywhere are burning mad.
During the first week of April, as the Legislature considered the case for concealed weapons, Texas mourned the consequences of two gun-related tragedies in Corpus Christi: the murder of Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla Perez and the shooting of five workers at a refinery inspection company by a disgruntled
Now is the time to visit New Mexico, where the A-bomb exploded on the scene half a century ago.
Rachel Oswald did not kill John F. Kennedy, but for more than three decades she has struggled to make peace with the darkest day in Texas history.
Preacher Howdy Fowler dreamed of crossing the West by camel. Many spine-jarring miles later, his wish has come true.
Forget the Alamo. The real spirit and history of Texas come alive at San Antonio’s eighteenth-century churches.
These days everybody wants a piece of the Alamo. Can the Daughters of the Republic of Texas hang on to their sacred shrine?
We are sixth-generation Texans and we are Jews. My family’s history is an account of the price we have paid to be both.
A look back at San Antonio Fiesta gowns reveals how the dresses have gone from elegant to excessive.
Four quickie Branch Davidian books reveal that the full story has yet to come out.
Are the legendary lawmen necessary? Yes, but their inability to grapple with the modern world threatens to make them irrelevant.