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.
My third year organizing the JFK assassination conference was one year too many.
Twenty years later, Jerry Jeff Walker returns to the town his music put on the map.
Happy two-hundredth birthday, Stephen F. Austin. You were the Father of Texas—and more.
Decades after his family controlled Galveston’s liquor and gambling, 89-year-old Vic Maceo is clinging to his gangster past—and to his pistol.
He was no William Barrett Travis, but in many ways, the leader of the Brand Davidians was an archetypal Texan to the end.
His wives! His lives! A bountiful birthday guide to Sam Houston, Texas’ ultimate hero.
All across Texas, vandals are searching for ancient treasures by looting Indian campgrounds—including the one on my family’s ranch.
How a cut of meat from the wrong side of the street rose to culinary stardom, plus a guide to Texas’ most authentic fajitas.
Old-timers around Canon recall that in 1959, when Harry Wheeler erected the seven-ton concrete-and-stucco cowboy outside his trading post and curio shop, he had to bring in a truck and crane from a local drilling company to set the big galoot on his feet. Towering over U.S. 60, Tex Randall
Bigger than life, drive-in movies defined America’s giddy age of hula hoops, poodle skirts, and blue suede shoes.
THE HOME OF SAM HOUSTON’S WIDOW, Margaret Lea Houston, and their eight children is for sale. A shrine of Texana, the 1830’s Greek Revival classic in the tiny hamlet of Independence comes complete with a Houston family heirloom piano that is said to render a ghostly “Come to the Bower,”
Janis Joplin’s life was about music, rebellion, and excess—but she was influenced most by her tormented relationship with the people and spirit of Port Arthur.
Johnny’s Round Top cafe had a colorful history that spanned more than fifty years before the restaurant went out of business in 1989. Built by a franchiser who was partial to rotating roofs that looked like circus tents, the Round Top in Big Spring was one of a modest chain
Memories of growing up (and growing up restless) in working-class Oak Cliff.
Who came first—Indiana Jones of Hollywood or Vendyl Jones of Arlington, the archaeologist who has spent years trying to dig up the fabled Ark of the Covenant?
It chopped, it scraped, it cut, it carved! Texas’ own Alibates flint helped civilize a continent.
An ethnic club’s new home brings a touch of Germany to San Antonio.
Sure, they were gangsters, but they were our gangsters.
Summertime is warm-and-fuzzy season for fans of Texas’ favorite fruit.
Carrollton’s Vanilla Ice is the country’s coolest rapper, and several other Texas acts are hot on his heels.
Retracing the trail that tamed the Texas wilderness—the Camino Real.
Clues left behind by a former Dallas cop convinced his son that he killed President Kennedy—but that’s just the beginning of the mystery.
