This book, which was first published in 1952, first began as a history of San Angelo and the adjacent region drained by the Conchos rivers. It grew, in writing, into a history of West Texas. It embodies author J. Evetts Haley's unequaled knowledge of the country from the Rio Grande to the Canadian, from San Antonio and Austin to the border of New Mexico.It could have been written only by a man familiar by personal acquaintance with the location of every water hole and spring, the ex...

An exciting story of a Texas Ranger, adventurer, and immigration officer who became a symbol of his age while gambling with death in the wild frontier regions of Texas, Arizona, and Old and New Mexico. Charles Goodnight knew the West of Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Dick Wooton, St. Vrain, and Lucien Maxwell. He ranged a country as vast as Bridger ranged. He rode with the boldness of Fremont, guided by the craft of Carson. His vigorous zest for life enabled him to live intensely and amply, and ...

First published in 1953, this photographic record of the real life and work of cowboys remains a perennial favorite. Erwin E. Smith was the outstanding cowboy photographer of the West, and these eighty photographs were among those he chose for an exhibit of his best work at the 1936 Texas Centennial. The text by J. Evetts Haley, a noted historian of the range, skillfully complements Smith's visual record of a vanishing way of life.

Among the famous ranch brands of Texas are the T Anchor, JA, Diamond Tail, 777, Bar C, and XIT. And the greatest of these was XIT—The XIT Ranch of Texas.It was not the first ranch in West Texas, but after its formation in the eighteen-eighties it became the largest single operation in the cow country of the Old West and covered more than three million acres, all fenced.The state of Texas patented this huge rectangle of land, at the time considered by many ...

The astonishing story of Benny Binion—a rip-roaring saga of murder, money, and the making of Las VegasBenny Binion was many things: a cowboy, a pioneering casino owner, a gangster, a killer, and founder of the hugely successful World Series of Poker.Blood Aces tells the story of Binion’s crucial role in shaping modern Las Vegas. From a Texas backwater, Binion rose to prominence on a combination of vision, determination, and brutal expediency. His f...

Betty Boyd Caroli's engrossing and informative First Ladies is both a captivating read and an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America's First Ladies. This expanded and updated fourth edition includes Laura Bush's tenure, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid, and an in-depth look at Michelle Obama, one of the most charismatic and appealing First Ladies in recent history. Covering all forty-one women from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama and including the daught...

California, Wallace Stegner observed, is like the rest of the United States, only more so. Indeed, the Golden State has always seemed to be a place where the hopes and fears of the American dream have been played out in a bigger and bolder way. And no one has done more to capture this epic story than Kevin Starr, in his acclaimed series of gripping social and cultural histories. Now Starr carries his account into the 1930s, when the political extremes that threatened so much of the Depress...

Kevin Starr is the foremost chronicler of the California dream and indeed one of the finest narrative historians writing today on any subject. The first two installments of his monumental cultural history, "Americans and the California Dream," have been hailed as "mature, well-proportioned and marvelously diverse (and diverting)" (The New York Times Book Review) and "rich in details and alive with interesting, and sometimes incredible people" (Los Angeles Times). Now, in ...

In 1922, Floyd Martin and Christine Mosley are young children, growing up in the quiet surroundings of Southern Mississippi. In 1929, the Great Depression begins and life gets a bit tougher. In 1936, Floyd and Christine meet, and, a few months later, are married. He is 22 and she is 16, and the challenges of life for them begins immediately. Their love and commitment to one another is tested from the outset. He works as a mechanic for 10 to 12 dollars a week. The monthly rent for the two-r...

This article highlights the profession of wrecking … salvage of shipwrecks, as practiced on the keys in the mid nineteenth century. This is a laser reprint of the original article.

From the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House, this is the incredible true story of how a college student and two female accomplices stole some of the rarest objects on the planet—moon rocks—from an "impregnable" high-tech vault.But breaking into a highly secure laboratory wasn't easy. Thad Roberts, an intern in a prestigious NASA training program, would have to concoct a meticulous plan to get past security checkpoints, an...

The very letters of the two words seem, as they are written, to redden with the blood-stains of unavenged crime. There is Murder in every syllable, and Want, Misery and Pestilence take startling form and crowd upon the imagination as the pen traces the words." So wrote a reporter about Five Points, the most infamous neighborhood in nineteenth-century America, the place where "slumming" was invented.All but forgotten today, Five Points was once renowned the world ov...