Books
August 26, 2021
An Incendiary History of Civil Rights in Dallas Gets a Timely Reissue
First published in 1987, ‘The Accommodation’ still resonates today.
Texas History
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Books
August 25, 2021
A Joyful New Read Celebrates Galveston’s Bygone Black-Owned Restaurants
Part historical text, part recipe book, ‘Lost Restaurants’ memorializes the self-made entrepreneurs who uplifted the island during its years of segregation.
Texas History
August 18, 2021
Quiz: Which of These Weird Texas Town Names Are Real?
No Googling allowed.
Texas History
August 6, 2021
In Memoriam: On MTV’s Fortieth Anniversary, Don’t Forget to Thank Michael Nesmith
The Texas native helped make the music video into an art form, and was instrumental in creating the network that defined a generation.
Texas History
July 15, 2021
The LBJ Library’s New Lady Bird Exhibit Is a Delight
The former first lady is best known for her love of wildflowers, but this peaceful, dreamy show reveals much more.
Texas History
June 24, 2021
The Strange, Soggy Saga of Glurpo, San Marcos’s Underwater Clown
Apparently, children did not find him creepy in the 1950s.
Texas History
June 22, 2021
The Resurrection of Bass Reeves
His almost superhuman exploits made him one of the West's most feared lawmen. Today, the legendary deputy U.S. marshal is widely believed to be the real Lone Ranger. But his true legacy is even greater.
Texas History
June 22, 2021
A Pioneering Black Singer’s Compositions, Long Forgotten, May Finally Have an Audience
Waco-born baritone Jules Bledsoe starred on Broadway and toured Europe, but his original opera and other works languish in obscurity. A Baylor professor hopes to change that.
Art
June 16, 2021
Meet the Artist Behind Galveston’s New Juneteenth Mural
Reginald Adams led the team that designed ‘Absolute Equality,’ a landmark mural marking the spot where slavery was abolished in Texas.
Books
May 22, 2021
As the LBJ Library Turns 50, the Man Who Planned Its Dedication Recalls a Few Surprises
Lyndon B. Johnson rehearsed his speech in the bathroom, the new fountain doused the guests, and the booze flowed freely.
Texas History
May 19, 2021
The Next Battle of the Alamo!
Is Phil Collins’s legendary Texana collection everything it’s cracked up to be? An adapted excerpt from ‘Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth.’
Books
May 6, 2021
The Texas Rangers Tried (and Failed) to Capture Pancho Villa. The Conflict Still Shapes the Texas-Mexico Border Today.
Jeff Guinn’s ‘War on the Border’ punctures the myth of the Rangers as frontier heroes.
Texas History
April 19, 2021
Juanita Craft Helped Integrate the Texas State Fair—And Inspired the Next Generation of Civil Rights Activists
The subject of our latest Texans You Should Know history profile started 182 NAACP chapters and welcomed kids and power brokers alike into her South Dallas home.
Books
March 22, 2021
Even at a Funeral, LBJ and Lady Bird Couldn’t Make Their Peace With the Kennedys
This exclusive excerpt from a new biography of the late first lady chronicles an emotionally fraught experience in the wake of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Texas History
March 9, 2021
How Polly Abarca Fought to Bring Birth Control to South Texas
The nurse and activist helped secure the country’s first federal family-planning grant, which became a national model.
Texas History
January 20, 2021
How Manny Guerra Shaped the Tejano Music Scene
The San Antonio producer created a style that would endure for decades—and he helped Selena get her start.
By Cat Cardenas![Cat Cardenas's Profile Photo]()
Books
January 20, 2021
Texas’s Most Famous Historian Looks Back at His Own, Legendary Life
Walter Prescott Webb’s previously unpublished memoir recounts the experiences that shaped his best-known—and most controversial—works.
Texas History
January 5, 2021
Until 1968, a Married Texas Woman Couldn’t Own Property or Start a Business Without Her Husband’s Permission. This Dallas Attorney Changed That.
Louise Raggio fought to pass a landmark law that gave equal rights to Texas women.
The Culture
December 18, 2020
Texas Monthly Recommends: A West Texas Animal Shelter
Plus: the pleasures of pickling, a feminist take on the Mexican Revolution, and a Georgetown jeweler.
Texas History
December 15, 2020
What Happened at Pease River Wasn’t a Battle. It Was a Massacre.
How a Texas Ranger’s personal mythology came to be accepted as popular history.
Books
December 12, 2020
We Need to Talk About Secession
With chatter about Texas leaving the union on the rise, two new books remind us what it was like the last time we tried to go it alone.
Texas History
November 20, 2020
A Trove of Vintage Photos Reveals a Bygone Texas—and Beyond
A Houston exhibit of images scavenged from junk shops and flea markets offers a view of the past that anticipates the present.
Texas History
November 18, 2020
Texans You Should Know: How a Black Cowboy’s Discovery Changed the Field of Archaeology
George McJunkin found a prehistoric bison skeleton that upended theories about human existence in the Americas.
Texas History
November 6, 2020
Slavery Was Integral to Texas’s Transition From Republic to Statehood, but This Textbook Doesn’t Tell the Full Story
The version of Texas history taught in school is often anglicized and sanitized. We examine how one textbook falls short.
Film & TV
November 4, 2020
Olympic Protester Tommie Smith Reclaims His Legacy in a New Documentary
The Texan athlete, who famously raised his fist on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, is the subject of a new film premiering this week on Starz.
Texas History
October 29, 2020
How Leaders of the Texas Revolution Fought to Preserve Slavery
The version of Texas history taught in school is often anglicized and sanitized. We examine how one textbook falls short.
Libations
October 29, 2020
Five Things You Didn’t Know About Texas Wine
The Southwest—not California—was the birthplace of the U.S. wine industry; the Panhandle—not the Hill Country—is where Texas grapes grow best; and other little-known facts.
Texas History
October 22, 2020
How One State History Textbook Erases the Stories of Black and Hispanic Texans
The version of Texas history I learned in school was woefully incomplete. And, according to two historians, this 2016 textbook is, too.
Texas History
October 13, 2020
Remember That Time a Nuclear Weapons Bunker Blew Up in San Antonio?
In 1963, Lackland Air Force Base experienced a cataclysmic explosion. People thought World War III had started. Today, it's been almost completely forgotten.
Arts & Entertainment
September 4, 2020
The Weird, Wonderful Story of Texas’s First Radio Station
From its origins airing the banter of bored firefighters to its robust classical programming today, Dallas’s WRR-FM has filled an unusual niche on the airwaves for nearly a century.
Film & TV
September 3, 2020
‘The 24th’ Tells the Overlooked Story of a Texas Race Riot That Led to the Largest Murder Trial in U.S. Military History
Kevin Willmott’s unsettling film revisits the Houston riot of 1917, in which an all-Black Army unit mutinied after enduring months of harassment.
Texas History
August 19, 2020
The Statues Are Coming Down. Maybe That’s a Missed Opportunity.
As monuments to slaveholders, Confederate soldiers, and Texas Rangers disappear across the state, we’re being forced to reconsider what should be honored, what should be commemorated, and what it’s time to let go of.
Texas History
August 18, 2020
The ‘Country Queers’ Podcast Challenges Preconceptions About Rural Areas
The multimedia oral history project features the stories of queer people, many of them Texans, who live outside cities.
Sports
July 28, 2020
Thirty Years Ago, UT Student Athletes Fought for Racial Justice
In 1990, Longhorn student athletes marched through campus united against racism. Their movement continues through players still calling for change today.
Texas History
July 22, 2020
Meet the Unruly Clan That Once Ruled the Hill Country
Living hard and free, cedar choppers clashed with respectable townsfolk in the mid-20th century.
By Wes Ferguson![Wes Ferguson's Profile Photo]()
Texas History
July 7, 2020
How Wealthy Texans Helped Create Joe McCarthy
The infamous anti-Communist senator had a lot of fans in the Lone Star State.
Texas History
July 7, 2020
Remembering Reginald Moore, the Activist Who Uncovered Sugar Land’s Dark Past
The discovery of a convict graveyard in 2018 vindicated decades of research and activism Fort Bend County had ignored.
Texas History
July 3, 2020
Why Texas Still Celebrates Confederate Heroes Day
Recent attempts to abolish the holiday have failed. But things might be different when lawmakers return to Austin in January.
Texas History
June 25, 2020
“A Watershed Moment”: How Scholarship and Activism Finally Toppled a Texas Ranger Statue in Dallas
The removal of the statue is part of a larger reappraisal of the role of the Rangers in Texas history.
Sports
June 17, 2020
The Damning History Behind UT’s ‘The Eyes of Texas’ Song
Student athletes wrote a letter urging officials to change the tune, which was first performed in a minstrel show.
Film & TV
June 15, 2020
The Pandemic Is Threatening to Close McAllen’s Historic Cine El Rey Forever
The community has united to save the 73-year-old cinema and venue, which did not qualify for federal relief funding.
Books
May 20, 2020
The Secret History of the Texas Rangers
‘Cult of Glory' upends decades of mythmaking.
Texas History
May 15, 2020
As World War II Meat Shortages Loomed, a Texas Town Hosted a Hell of a Barbecue Rivalry
In 1942, the women of Borger protested their exclusion from the town’s barbecue cook-offs. Then a mysterious challenger emerged.
Art
April 23, 2020
Pins and Needles: Clay Sculptures of Emma Tenayuca and a Pecan Tree
Play with clay and learn about an important figure from Texas history.
Texas History
April 16, 2020
Strong as Grass: A Year After a Devastating Tornado, the Caddo Nation Rebuilds in East Texas
In the aftermath of tragedy, members of the Caddo Nation are drawing on their culture and traditions to help restore Caddo Mounds State Historic Site.
By Wes Ferguson![Wes Ferguson's Profile Photo]()
True Crime
March 18, 2020
The Aftermath
In 1978, an eighth grader killed his teacher. After 20 months in a psychiatric facility, he was freed. His classmates still wonder: What really happened?
Books
March 18, 2020
How Nineteenth-Century Texas Created American Liberalism
After the Civil War, a group of politicians fought—and failed—to empower everyday Texans. But we can see their influence in the New Deal, the Great Society, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders.
Texas History
February 29, 2020
In Praise of Bessie Coleman, Trailblazing Black Texan Pilot
Coleman’s extraordinary life and career deserves to be celebrated in the canon of U.S. history.
Texas History
February 26, 2020
The Walking Tours Tracing Dallas’s Forgotten Black History
Through strolls along pedestrian bridges and historically black neighborhoods, local historians are elevating black Dallasites’ stories.
Texas History
February 19, 2020
The Legend of John Holmes Jenkins
He was a notorious deal maker known for bringing priceless pieces of Texas history back to the state. He was also a suspected forger and arsonist. Thirty years ago, he was found dead in the Colorado River near Austin, and to this day a question remains: Could John Holmes Jenkins