All her life, Joan Crawford raised other people’s eyebrows as often as she reapplied her own. From the time she arrived in Hollywood, the temperamental Texan provoked hostility and gossip, and her wide-eyed flapper persona soon hardened into that of a sleek, steely sophisticate. But the arrogance accompanied a massive talent;
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.
After thieves stole his daughter’s horse, deputy U.S. marshal Parnell McNamara didn’t make a federal case out of it. Instead, he rounded up a group of old-style lawmen and lit out after them.
Conflicting accounts of the killing of German immigrants in the Hill Country during the Civil War are creating a certain amount of dis-Comfort.
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
Which sports did Babe Didrikson dominate, and in what Hepburn-Tracy film did she appear?
For seven days Rick McLaren and his armed cohorts were holed up in their Republic of Texas “embassy” while reporters dug for stories, lawmen kept watch, and the residents of nearby Fort Davis wished they’d all go away.
How a man named Eldrewey Stearns began the fight for civil rights in Houston.
In an excerpt from Michael Lind’s epic poem The Alamo, a hero of the revolution falls in the fight for freedom.
A year after Kris Kristofferson’s standout role in Lone Star, Hollywood is still marveling over his comeback. He is too. by Gary Cartwright
How did Susanna Dickinson survive the Battle of the Alamo, and who played her in John Wayne’s movie?
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
An archeological dig in Matagorda Bay unearths a bureaucratic feud.
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.
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.
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.
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.
He was no William Barrett Travis, but in many ways, the leader of the Brand Davidians was an archetypal Texan to the end.
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,”
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.
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.
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.
