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
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
The National Podcast of Texas
February 18, 2020
Daina Ramey Berry on the Courageous and Complex Contributions of Black Women
On the National Podcast of Texas, the coauthor of ‘A Black Women’s History of the United States’ lays out the ways black women transformed America.
Art
February 10, 2020
What Would a Frontier-Era Explorer Take Home From Modern-Day Texas?
Installation artist Mark Dion displays his findings in a tongue-in-cheek Fort Worth museum exhibition.
Texas History
December 30, 2019
19 Moments That Shaped Texas in 2019
It was a long, eventful year.
Texas History
November 27, 2019
The Lost Texans of the Louisiana Pines
A visit to the Zwolle Tamale Fiesta and Los Adaes, where our state’s Spanish colonial roots live on just across the Sabine River.
By Wes Ferguson![Wes Ferguson's Profile Photo]()
Film & TV
November 25, 2019
The Story Behind the Long Lost Alamo Movie of 1911
’The Immortal Alamo’ says much about the silent film era, and how San Antonio could have been Hollywood.
Texas History
November 22, 2019
JFK’s Assassination Only Grows More Distant at Dallas’s Sixth Floor Museum
Thirty years after opening, the museum approaches its dark history from an increasingly detached remove.
Texas History
November 11, 2019
“We Cannot Forget About Them”: A Southwest Pilot Brings His Father’s Remains Home to Dallas
Roy Knight Jr. was killed in action in Vietnam, and his remains were missing for decades. Now his family has finally found closure.
By Cat Cardenas![Cat Cardenas's Profile Photo]()
Texas History
October 30, 2019
A Final Toast to the Quirkiest Little Dive Bar in the Piney Woods
Ray Gene, proprietor of Longview’s singular It’ll Do Tavern, passed away last weekend.
By Wes Ferguson![Wes Ferguson's Profile Photo]()
Texas History
September 24, 2019
Dallas’s Newly Reopened Holocaust and Human Rights Museum Calls Visitors to Action
The institution has changed its mission to also acknowledge traumas experienced by other groups.
Texas History
September 18, 2019
‘Big Wonderful Thing’ Author Stephen Harrigan Explains Why Davy Crockett Was the Taylor Swift of His Day (Sort Of)
The Austin author on his fascination with H.L. Hunt, his inability to hate Santa Anna, and how he met the challenges of writing a history of Texas for the twenty-first century.
Texas History
September 18, 2019
The New Texas History
Stephen Harrigan’s ’Big Wonderful Thing’ sweeps away decades of mythmaking. Are we ready to remember the Alamo—and the Texas Rangers and the Civil War—differently?
Texas History
September 18, 2019
‘Big Wonderful Thing’ Excerpt: “Sediciosos”
In the early twentieth century, long-simmering tensions in South Texas erupted into a grim and brutal race war.
Texas History
September 18, 2019
‘Big Wonderful Thing’ Excerpt: “Savage Ware Fare”
After breaking away from Mexico, the combative Republic of Texas took its fight against Native Americans to the heart of Comanchería, led by a group of militiamen who called themselves Rangers.
Texas History
September 18, 2019
‘Big Wonderful Thing’ Excerpt: “Reason Had Left Its Throne”
As the Civil War violently divided the nation, Texan turned against Texan.
Texas History
September 18, 2019
Américo Paredes vs. J. Frank Dobie
For years, the great folklorist convinced many scholars and activists that the vaunted “Texas Man of Letters” was an anti-Mexican racist. Maybe it’s time to reconsider that judgment—as Paredes himself eventually did.
Texas History
September 18, 2019
The Battle to Rewrite Texas History
While a new generation of scholars is rewriting our history, supporters of the traditional narratives are fighting to keep their grip on the public imagination.
Music
August 30, 2019
Remembering The Texas International Pop Festival, The Lone Star State’s Answer to Woodstock
The Lewisville music festival is celebrating its 50th anniversary this weekend.
Texas History
August 23, 2019
Why Billy Bob’s, Texas’s Most Famous Honky-Tonk, Isn’t a True Honky-Tonk
A brief history of one of our most beloved (and endangered) cultural institutions.
Music
August 19, 2019
How Explosions in the Sky Became the Sound of Film and Television
Twenty years on, the band is Texas’s most subliminally recognizable export.
Personal Essay
June 28, 2019
Farewell to the “Rambling Boy,” Lonn Taylor
The Fort Davis historian and raconteur knew and loved Texas and its people like no one else.
Texas History
June 25, 2019
The Space Issue
This summer marks the fiftieth anniversary of the trip that changed the world: the Apollo 11 moon landing. Texas Monthly has written about Texas’s role in the space program for decades, and our July collector’s issue combines the best of our archives with new perspectives on the final frontier.
Texas History
June 25, 2019
Was Apollo 11 a Beginning or an End?
Fifty years after man walked on the Moon, mankind is still stranded on Earth. That’s not the way it was supposed to be.