The Twilight of the Texas Rangers
Are the legendary lawmen necessary? Yes, but their inability to grapple with the modern world threatens to make them irrelevant.
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.
Director Oliver Stone may not be sure who did it or how, but he is sure he knows why.
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.
Discover the charms of Galveston off-season, when the only visitors are you, the gulls, and the ghosts.
Searching for tourist courts, fillin’ stations, and other relics of a Texas that is no more.
On September 8, 1900, a devastating hurricane blasted Galveston, changing life on the Island forever.
A Dublin bottler is the only one in Texas who’s still sweet on traditional Dr. Pepper.
But for this ever-so-practical invention, Texas history as we know it would be gone with the wind.
Five favorites from the wide-open spaces, in words and pictures.
In which a landlubber chronicles the saga of getting his sea legs aboard the good ship Elissa.
Three cheers for Lawrence Herkimer and his leap to fame.
In early 1836, after the fall of the Alamo, a small episode in Texas history revealed an aspect of our character we’d just as soon forget.
They were the classic Texas Indians—fierce, majestic, and free. Today’s Comanches find their lives defined by legends and bitter truths.
The case against conspiracy.
Though the leaders of Mexico’s revolution all lived short and violent lives, a handful of those who rode with them have survived to a ripe old age in Texas.
In the small world of country’s New Traditionalism, George Strait and Steve Earle still manage to be worlds apart.
How did bluebonnets and cacti get that glazed look?
Where the heck is Salado, and why are world-famous intellectuals flocking there?
It began in 1865 as a joyous celebration of emancipation. Today young black Texans find the holiday overshadowed by more immediate concerns.
She started out as a wide-eyed Waco cowgirl and ended up a New York speakeasy queen.
Whether a frontiersman needed to skin a bear, chop wood, or fight in a due, Jim Bowie’s weapon was the tool of choice.
Conover Hunt and the Sixth Floor Museum.
Descendants of famous Texans like Sam Houston and Davy Crockett don’t even try to fill their forefathers’ shoes. They just do their best to keep them polished.
Willie Nelson’s true love may have a body that’s worse for the wear, but woe to the man who tries to pick it up.
On the eve of the 1964 national elections, Texas historian J. Evetts Haley published a scathing attack on President Lyndon B. Johnson. The book sold seven million copies, but Johnson still won the race.
For centuries, scientists have searched for the answers to the mystery of Nosehenge. Now—for the first time—the startling truth.
Anne Bass married one of the richest men in America. With his money and her ambition she became an important cultural force in Fort Worth and New York. Life was perfect. Then her husband left her.
The secrets of love seen through a glass, clearly.
Texas Medal of Honor winners remember the day when they were invincible.