A  government wagon train forded the Red River on Aug. 20, 1857 and began the long, hard trip across the Lone Star State. What it was like to travel in Texas in those hot and dangerous days before cars, trains, planes and – gasp! – air conditioning?  While most voyagers were too busy staying alive t...

The Dallas Morning News in the July 27, 1918 issue endorsed William P. Hobby for governor with an editorial cartoon showing a tight-lipped Texan casting his ballot “for law and order.” The illustration was a none too subtle slap at the colorless incumbent’s challenger, “Farmer Jim” Ferguson who had ...

By Bartee Haile W hen his last rival worthy of the name fled Galveston for a healthier climate on July 21, 1817, the self-proclaimed “President of Texas” consolidated complete control of the island. Whether Jean Lafitte made that ludicrous claim after going into business on the strip of sand off the...

By Bartee Haile O n July 1, 1855, Gov. Elisha Pease called upon James Callahan, a veteran Indian fighter with a hard-as-nails reputation, to save an endangered species — the frontier settler.  After nine years of the Potomac politicians going back on their word, nothing Washington did should have su...

By Bartee Haile C hoosing his words carefully after an all-day meeting with railroad representatives on May 25, 1949, Mayor T. Leo Moore refrained from declaring victory in his protracted struggle with the Fort Worth & Denver but did maintain the train would continue to stop at Electra under certain...

By Bartee Haile H undreds of Cow Towners skipped church on Sunday, May 19, 1929 and slipped out to the municipal airport to give the Fort Worth a rousing send-off.  Though dangerously overloaded with fuel and every conceivable carry-on, the monoplane cleared the runway with plenty of room to spare a...

By Bartee Haile O n the afternoon of May 7, 1946, Dick Kleberg drove out to where several vaqueros were branding calves on the King Ranch, and everyone stopped what he was doing to listen to the Kentucky Derby on the car radio. Eight years earlier, Bob and Dick Kleberg, Capt. Richard King’s grandson...

By Bartee Haile H undreds of “Rough Riders” descended on San Antonio on May 5, 1898 itching to lend Teddy Roosevelt a hand in kicking the Spaniards out of Cuba. In the crowded lobby of the Menger Hotel, tobacco-chewing cowboys rubbed shoulders with East Coast dandies, one and all anxious to renew ac...

By Bartee Haile. P roving he was in top-notch pre-war form, the big Red Sox pitcher named “Tex” won his third start in 13 days on April 29, 1946. Cecil Carlton Hughson was born in 1916 at the tiny community of Buda south of Austin and grew up in nearby Kyle.  When it came time to choose a college, h...