Texas History
December 19, 2023
The Thorny History of the Poinsettia’s Namesake
Joel R. Poinsett, the first American minister to Mexico, was supposed to help the U.S. buy Texas. He meddled in local politics instead.
Texas History
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Texas History
December 4, 2023
This 1879 Map Is Now the Priciest Map of Texas Ever Sold at Auction
It fetched $705,000, topping the list of about 165 items from Ted Lusher's Texana collection.
Texas History
November 30, 2023
A Treasure Trove of Texas History Is Up for Auction. Here Are the Coolest Items.
An original broadsheet announcing the fall of the Alamo, the first book published in Texas, and other stuff that Phil Collins will probably buy.
News
November 21, 2023
Sixty Years After JFK’s Assassination, Two Authors Claim “Incontrovertible Proof” of a “Conspiracy”
In their new book ‘Chokeholds,’ researchers argue Lee Harvey Oswald was just one piece of a sprawling conspiracy—one that other investigators claim never existed at all.
Sports
November 14, 2023
The Pioneering, Barnstorming Women’s Basketball Stars of the Texas Cowgirls
The Texas Cowgirls weren’t all from the state, but the groundbreaking women’s pro team promoted itself with loads of Texas mystique.
Film & TV
October 27, 2023
The Horror Sequel That Made All of Texas Out to Be Insane
Tobe Hooper’s ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’ satirizes yuppie greed by painting the entire state with a broad and bloody brush.
Books
October 17, 2023
Dispatch From the Ghosts of Bookstores Past
The independent bookstores of sixties and seventies San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas created community and opened whole new worlds for Texans.
Film & TV
October 16, 2023
Ken Burns’s ‘The American Buffalo’ Isn’t Really About Bison
It’s about the violence that white settlers wrought upon the West—and the path to redemption.
Texas History
October 11, 2023
The U.S.S. Texas, Once the World’s Most Formidable Battleship, Gets a Dramatic Makeover
The famously powerful dreadnought was hailed by Hemingway and played a key role in several famous battles.
Texas History
October 4, 2023
Come for the Dr Pepper Float, Stay for the Civil Rights History
Waco’s Dr Pepper Museum offers an insightful exhibit on the 1960s lunch counter protests that helped desegregate Texas.
The Texanist
October 2, 2023
The Texanist’s Texas Trivia Test 3
Beans in chili, the Houston Oilers, and mutton busting: test your knowledge of all things Texan.
Style & Design
September 25, 2023
Frank Lloyd Wright Built Just One Freestanding Theater in His Lifetime. Dallas Has Let It Fall Into Disrepair.
The Kalita Humphreys Theater was built by arguably the most famous American architect of the twentieth century. It’s now a shell of its former self, and the city can’t decide how—or if—it’ll restore it.
Texas History
September 25, 2023
One Woman Brought Funnel Cake to the State Fair of Texas—And Changed the Game Forever
Fernie the Funnel Cake Queen made the deep-fried, sugar-dusted treat a best-seller, and now her daughters continue her legacy with innovations including a funnel cake–flavored wine cocktail.
Texas History
September 18, 2023
The Donkey Lady Has Haunted Generations of San Antonians. She Has Her Own Talk Show.
The legendary Donkey Lady is alive (sort of) and has a lot to say about San Antonio.
Style & Design
September 12, 2023
North Texans Are Rallying to Save a Marvel of Space-age Architecture—and a True Crime Landmark
The Como Motel, where Candy Montgomery famously met up with Allan Gore, has recently been sold. Locals are organizing to ensure it doesn’t end up as a parking lot.
Libations
September 12, 2023
At 90, Riley’s Tavern Is Filled With Smoke, Music, and History
This Hill Country bar and honky-tonk—the first in the state to obtain a liquor license after Prohibition—still fosters community after nine decades.
Energy
August 15, 2023
We’re All Living in the World Enron Created
When the go-go Houston corporation collapsed in spectacular fashion, it became a punch line across the nation. But some of the bad guys had the last laugh.
Texas History
July 28, 2023
The Myths and Melodies of Forgotten Bluesman Texas Alexander
The early blues singer helped define the genre and achieved major success—until a story of murder tainted his legacy.
Politics & Policy
July 18, 2023
Texas Is Now a Majority-Minority State. Why Haven’t Our Politics Changed?
Since 2004, non-Hispanic white residents have been outnumbered in Texas. And to the apparent surprise of many, that hasn’t worked out all that well for the Democratic Party.
Critters
July 6, 2023
The Surprisingly Sinister History Behind Texas’s Cliff Chirping Frog
It’s named for frontier naturalist Gabriel Marnoch, who led a life of crime while discovering new species.
Texas History
June 29, 2023
The Texanist’s Texas Trivia Test 2
It’s time to find out just how much you know about the Lone Star State.
Libations
June 26, 2023
Eight Things You Need to Know About the History of Texas Whiskey
Andrew Braunberg, author of ‘Fires, Floods, Explosions, and Bloodshed: A History of Texas Whiskey,’ shares some fascinating details from his book.
Texas History
June 20, 2023
What Hurricane Harvey Taught Us (and Didn’t Teach Us)
Six years ago, the mother of all storms arrived and brought home a lesson too many of us have refused to learn: our penchant for bravely adapting to circumstances has its limits.
Texas History
June 16, 2023
Opal Lee, Fort Worth’s “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” Is Still Marching at 96
She led the movement to gain federal recognition of the holiday. This June 19, she’ll again walk 2.5 miles, marking the 2.5 years it took for news of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas.
Texas History
May 18, 2023
The Story We’ve Been Told About Juneteenth Is Wrong
The real history is much messier—and more inspiring.
Texas History
May 16, 2023
Selena and the Geto Boys Changed Texas Music at the Same Time
The Geto Boys and Selena set the stage in the early nineties for the transformation of Texas music.
The Texanist
May 16, 2023
The Texanist: What’s the Oldest Bar in Texas?
An Austin man wants to know whether Austin’s Scholz Garten or San Antonio’s Menger Bar can claim the title of oldest continually operating bar in the state.
Texas History
May 3, 2023
Marrying an Elephant, Adopting a Chimp: Tales From the Life of Houston’s Wildest Zookeeper
Charismatic German immigrant Hans Nagel revolutionized the Houston Zoo and kept it afloat during the Great Depression.
Texas History
April 27, 2023
Why These Ugly, Abandoned Longview Homes May Be Worth Saving
Behind the run-down exteriors of these concrete houses lies the story of an East Texas innovator and his one-of-a-kind machine.
Texas History
April 14, 2023
The Glowing Letter That Brought Thousands of German Immigrants to Texas Was a Lie
Friedrich Ernst’s missive portrayed Texas as a paradise. His wife and daughter begged to differ.
Texas History
April 11, 2023
The Oil Boom That Went Bust
In the eighties, petroleum prices went through the roof, and Texans, flush with cash, went a little crazy—before it all came crashing down. Will we ever learn?
Texas History
April 10, 2023
A Writer Revisits His Search for His Grandfather’s Darkest Secrets
Author John Phillip Santos’s 2010 “Tejano elegy” explores family secrets that reveal “the deepest mysteries of being human.”
Texas History
March 31, 2023
An East Texas Local Wants You to Remember Trammel’s Trace
The early road used by Native Americans and settlers ran through what would become Gary Pinkerton’s family farm in Rusk County.
Texas History
March 31, 2023
A Group of Singing Quilters Shares the History of the Underground Railroad
From the rural East Texas community of Pleasant Hill, a group of women depicts the sights and sounds that guided people to freedom.
Style & Design
March 21, 2023
Eighty Years Later, Houston’s Eldorado Ballroom Swings Back to Life
Built in 1939, the nightclub once hosted Duke Ellington and Ray Charles. After a $9.7 million renovation, it’ll welcome a new generation of music lovers.
Texas History
March 20, 2023
What Is Left to Say About Waco? ‘Waco: American Apocalypse’ Doesn’t Even Try
Netflix’s new docuseries revisits the 1993 standoff between David Koresh and the federal government without any agenda—or real purpose.
Texas History
March 19, 2023
A Small-town Gun Museum Tells a Story of Our Past
Dale Acker is the collector behind the Up in Arms museum in Nazareth, which is home to more historical weapons and artifacts than the town has people.
Texas History
March 10, 2023
Meet the Caretaker of This Cold War Relic Located 200 Feet Underground
Years ago, Larry Sanders became the proud owner of a decommissioned Atlas ICBM nuclear missile silo that was ready for use during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Texas History
February 28, 2023
This Texan Was a Master of a Curious Midcentury Art Form, the Industrial Musical
Brands once staged elaborate productions for their employees. No one was better at making them than Mexia-born Michael Brown.
Tacos
February 28, 2023
Jimmy Carter’s Peanut-and-Egg Taco Made Quite the Impression on San Antonians
A local restauranteur created the dish to honor Carter's election, and it was just one instance of the importance of Mexican food in the former president's public life.
Politics & Policy
February 28, 2023
Linda Coffee Argued Roe v. Wade. Now She’s Auctioning Off Her Archive.
A conversation on abortion rights with the Dallas lawyer whose argument against Texas’s abortion law changed the course of history.
Texas History
February 27, 2023
Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival Is More Than an Event. It’s the Story of Shankleville, One of the State’s Early Freedom Colonies.
Texas Country Reporter visits Lareatha Clay & Phillip White, organizers of the festival in Shankleville and descendants of the community's founders.
Texas History
February 23, 2023
Inside the Decades-long Effort to Commemorate a Notorious Waco Lynching
After years of opposition and delay, Waco finally has posted a historical marker about the 1916 murder of Jesse Washington.
Texas History
February 23, 2023
How Florence Butt—Not Her Son—Launched the H-E-B Empire
It should be called F-T-B.
Texas History
February 21, 2023
Pop Quiz: What Inspired the “Tex Education” Quiz?
Long before quizzes littered the internet, TM’s Anne Dingus delighted readers with a hundred-question series that doubled as a “CliffsNotes of Texas history.”
Texas History
February 14, 2023
The Killing of José Campos Torres
Decades before the recent police violence in Memphis, a brutally beaten Latino man was tossed by officers into a Houston bayou and drowned. The protests that followed continue to echo in the city to this day.
Texas History
February 6, 2023
The Alamo’s New Battle Plan
A $500 million restoration seeks to reverse almost two centuries of cultural and physical neglect at the most popular historic site in Texas. There’s never been more of a concerted effort to make things right.
Sports
January 26, 2023
The Rise and Fall and Resurgence of Pro Wrestling’s “Texas Death Match”
With WWE in San Antonio for the Royal Rumble, we look at the history of a particularly Texan contribution to the world of scripted combat.
Texas Icons
January 17, 2023
See How Texas’s Big-city Skylines Have Changed Over the Past Half Century
Why has San Antonio fallen behind Houston, Dallas, and Austin?
Texas Icons
January 17, 2023
How the Texas Rangers Became One of the Most Powerful Forces in the State
Texas’s elite police agency has evolved from a frontier organization to one famed for its expert interrogators. But some high-profile cases have tarnished that reputation.