A true Texas fact

[woodman6415]

 

[Tony]

The Texas Quote of the Day: "Hell, Judge ... I've got that much in my right-hand pocket." "Then look in your left-hand pocket and see if you can find two years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth." ----- Exchange between Galveston bootlegger John Nounes and Judge Joseph Hutcheson after the judge fined Nounes $5.000 in May, 1926

 

[woodman6415]

The Texas Quote of the Day:

"We hadn't much more'n got to the herd when the air freshened an' things was gettin' right. Then it got cold an' we could hear it comin'. Thunder and lightnin' seemed to spring out of the mesquites. The foreman passed the word: 'Hold 'em till they git wet,' an' we began to circle. The cattle was on their feet in a second, with the first cold air; but we got the mill [circling] started by the time the storm hit. I've seen lightnin'. . .but thet was lightnin' right. As far as thet's concerned, I've seen balls o' fire on the end of a steer's horn many a time, but there was a ball o' fire on the end of both horns of every one of them thousin' steers, an' the light in the balls of their eyes looked like two thousin' more. Talk about a monkey wrench fallin' from a windmill an' giving you a sight o' the stars, or one of them Andy Jackson fireworks clubs puttin' off Roman candles at a Fort Worth parade! They're just sensations; this here show I'm tellin' you about was a real experience. We seen things."

----- former trail cowboy Frank Hastings recalls a cattle stampede in "A Ranchman's Recollections," 1921

 

[woodman6415]

Today is Willie Nelson's birthday. He's 87. The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day was shamelessly purloined from Joe Nick Patoski's excellent biography of Willie Nelson, which I feel is mandatory reading for every Texan.

It seems that when Willie recorded the Red Headed Stranger album, it only took him five days of recording and one day of mixing. The total cost for those six days was 4,000 dollars. Columbia had advanced Willie 60,000 dollars for the recording, which was in keeping with the usual length of time it took to make such recordings back then, the infinite number of times each song was recorded before finally a "winner" was selected to go on the album, etc... The 60k advance was non-recoupable, meaning whatever Willie didn't spend on the advance he got to keep. Enough was left over to upgrade the band bus and instruments and still have some running change. It was the first time Willie had total artistic control over an LP and the lean, spare, laid-back style you hear on the record is exactly what Willie wanted.

Incidentally, folks who heard the LP before it was released were wondering what the heck Willie was doing. Phil York, the recording engineer, said "I didn't know this album was anything special. I knew it wasn't Nashville cookie-cutter formula. I remember thinking, 'What's he going to do with this? Nashville isn't going to buy it. It wasn't cut there and it isn't their sound." Joe Gracey, the famous KOKE-FM dee-jay from Austin said, "I thought it was a career-ending mistake, because it was too stark and too-off-the-wall. I thought he had just taken a really hard road."

Noted attorney Joe Jamail, one of Willie's really good friends, said to Willie, "Willie, that album isn't going to sell sh*t."

History has recorded how wrong they all were. "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," became one of Willie's biggest all-time hits. The album went multi-platinum and made Willie one of country music's most recognizable stars. And I was reading all this in Joe Nick's book and thinking, "Joe Jamail may be a super-smart trial lawyer, but his musical taste sucks!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLIE!

 

[Wildthings]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLIE!

 

[trc65]

My one and only Willie Nelson experience was at the First Farm Aid concert in Champaign Il at the Univ of Illinois. I was a junior at the U of I and of course got tickets. No reserved seats, so we were in the stadium at 8:00 am to pick some good seats. Don't remember what time the event started, but it went on all day, into the night, and finally finished after midnight. At various times roamed the stadium to visit others and listen at different places. Unbelievable experience, with outstanding group of performers.

Willie finally took the stage around 11:00 pm and we figured that he would play maybe a half hour and they would finish the night with the promised fireworks by midnight. Nope, not Willie. He played the equivalent of a full concert himself, and refused to relinquish the stage until he was ready to quit. As I recall, it was almost 1:30 am by the time he stopped and the entirety of Champaign/Urbana was woken by the almost half hour fireworks show!

 

[woodman6415]

The Texas Quote of the Day:

"As Gus Hartman came back from his Buffalo hunt from up north [about 1878], he come upon emigrant wagon and team, and a middle aged man and woman in great distress. He could see that the plains from the camp was all burned off. Their camp was where or near where Pampa Texas now stands. The woman told him they were on their way to New Mexico, that they had camped there the day before late in the afternoon, that their daughter, Frances, walked off south of their camp, as she usually took a walk, after riding in the wagon all day. And the woman and her husband had started a fire to prepare their supper. The buffalo grass was about knee high and thick on the ground, and the wind blowing quite hard from the north. Frances had walked off south from the camp. They accidentally let the fire catch in the dry grass. They tried to put the fire out but they could do nothing with it. Then they thought of Frances but the black smoke rolling on the ground, and the blaze leaping ten feet high and traveling almost as fast as a horse could run, they were sure Frances had been caught. [They] had been hunting for her since daylight but found no trace of her. They would go to places where they could see something still smoking and burning to find an antelope, deer, wolf or some other animal caught by the raging fire, and burned to death.

[Now], there had been an Indian following the wagon, and as they were up on the staked plains, a level country, they had not seen this Indian... The Indian saw this girl Frances, running before the fire. He mounted his horse and dashed in to the thick smoke, and a few feet ahead of that awful fire and grabbed Frances by one arm lifted her on his horse in front of himself, without slacking his own speed, and turned in the direction the fire was going. He had on only buckskin trousers and mockasons [sic], and an Indian blanket around his body.

Frances did not know what had picked her up, as she had her apron over her face at the time. She said the heat and smoke had about smothered her, but she said she could hear the pounding of the horses feet on the ground, and knew she was on a horse. The Indian was riding a very fast horse & had to let him out to his fastest speed to keep ahead of the fire. The wind whipping the fire this way and that. The fire spread so fast he could not turn to the right or left. They ran south until they got down off the plains, then they took it more slowly until they cross a creek, some five miles farther. It was almost dark when the Indian let Frances down on the ground, then he got off of his horse and tied him to a tree that stood near by. He then pulled grass and fixed her a kind of bed in a small ditch, and motioned to Frances to get down in there, and spread his blanket over her. He watched over her through a long cold nite, and next morning took her back to within a half a mile or so of their wagon and pointed to it, and let her down on the ground. Then putting his hand on her head he looked in her eyes a long moment, whirled his coal black steed, and went like the wind back across the burned prairie, leaving only a trail of dust the way he disappeared."

----- Rufe Lefors "The Autobiography of Rufe LeFors," 1946

 

[woodman6415]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:

Famed Fort Worth honky-tonk Billy Bob's Texas was originally built as a cattle barn in the early 1900s. The building was later enclosed as a City of Fort Worth Centennial project in 1936. With sloped floors for easy cleaning due to the cattle pens, the building had the perfect setting for a concert venue, but that would have to wait nearly 40 years. During that gap, the building was used as an AT-10 airplane manufacturing plant and a department store. Clark’s Department Store was so large that the stock boys had to wear roller skates.

 

[Tony]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:

Famed Fort Worth honky-tonk Billy Bob's Texas was originally built as a cattle barn in the early 1900s. The building was later enclosed as a City of Fort Worth Centennial project in 1936. With sloped floors for easy cleaning due to the cattle pens, the building had the perfect setting for a concert venue, but that would have to wait nearly 40 years. During that gap, the building was used as an AT-10 airplane manufacturing plant and a department store. Clark’s Department Store was so large that the stock boys had to wear roller skates.

It's surely a great place to tip back some cold ones!

 

[Tony]

This is a long read but but dang interesting.

This is Don Enrique Esparza, the last survivor of the Battle of the Alamo, late in his life. In November, 1902, the San Antonio Light Newspaper published the following article about Enrique Esparza and it is fantastic. Here is the text: "Since the death of Senora Candelaria Villanueva, several years ago at the age of 112 there is but one person alive who claims to have been in the siege of the Alamo. That person is Enrique Esparza, now 74 years old, who, firm-stepped, clear-minded and clear-eyed, bids fair to live to the age of the woman who for so long shared honors with him. Enrique Esparza, who tells one of the most interesting stories ever narrated, works a truck garden on Nogalitos street between the southern Pacific Railroad track and the San Pedro creek. Here he lives with the family of his son, Victor Esparza. Every morning he is up before daybreak and helps load the wagons with garden stuff that is to be taken up town to market. He is a farmer of experience and contributes very materially to the success of the beautiful five acres garden, of which he is the joint proprietor. While claims of Enrique Esparza have been known among those familiar with the historical work done by the Daughters of the Republic, an organization which has taken great interest in getting first-hand information of the period of Texas Independence, the old man was not available up to about five years ago, for the reason that he resided on his farm in Atascosa county. This accounts for the fact that he is not well enough known to be included in the itinerary when San Antonians are proudly doing the town with their friends. Esparza tells a straight story. Every syllable he speaks to uttered with confidence and in his tale, he frequently makes digressions, going into details of relationship of early families of San Antonio and showing a tenacious memory. At the time of the fight of the Alamo he was 8 years old. His father was a defender, and his father's own brother an assailant of the Alamo. He was a witness of his mother's grief, and had his own grief, at the slaughter in which his father was included. As he narrated to a reporter the events in which he was so deeply concerned, his voice several times choked and he could not proceed for emotion. While he has a fair idea of English, he preferred to talk in Spanish. "My father, Gregorio Esparza, belonged to Benavides' company, in the American army," said Esparza, "and I think it was in February, 1836, that the company was ordered to Goliad when my father was ordered back alone to San Antonio, for what I don't know. When he got here there were rumors that Santa Ana was on the way here, and many residents sent their families away. One of my father's friends told him that he could have a wagon and team and all necessary provisions for a trip, if he wanted to take his family away. There were six of us besides my father; my mother, whose name was Anita, my eldest sister, myself and three younger brothers, one a baby in arms. I was 8 years old. "My father decided to take the offer and move the family to San Felipe. Everything was ready, when one morning, Mr. W. Smith, who was godfather to my youngest brother, came to our house on North Flores street, just above where the Presbyterian church now is, and told my mother to tell my father when he came in that Santa Ana had come. (Northeast corner of Houston and N. Flores Streets.) "When my father came my mother asked him what he would do. You know the Americans had the Alamo, which had been fortified a few months before by General Cos. "Well, I'm going to the fort" my father said. "Well, if pop goes, I am going along, and the whole family too. "It took the whole day to move and an hour before sundown we were inside the fort. Where was a bridge over the river about where Commerce street crosses it, and just as we got to it we could her Santa Anna's drums beating on Milam Square, and just as we were crossing the ditch going into the fort Santa Anna fired his salute on Milam Square. "There were a few other families who had gone in. A Mrs. Cabury[?] and her sister, a Mrs. Victoriana, and a family of several girls, two of whom I knew afterwards, Mrs. Dickson, Mrs. Juana Melton, a Mexican woman who had married an American, also a woman named Concepcion Losoya and her son, Juan, who was a little older than I. "The first thing I remember after getting inside the fort was seeing Mrs. Melton making circles on the ground with an umbrella. I had seen very few umbrellas. While I was walking around about dark I went near a man named Fuentes who was talking at a distance with a soldier. When the latter got near me he said to Fuentes: "Did you know they had cut the water off?" "The fort was built around a square. The present Hugo-Schmeltzer building is part of it. I remember the main entrance was on the south side of the large enclosure. The quarters were not in the church, but on the south side of the fort, on either side of the entrance, and were part of the convent. There was a ditch of running water back of the church and another along the west side of Alamo Plaza. We couldn't got to the latter ditch as it was under fire and it was the other one that Santa Anna cut off. The next morning after we had gotten in the fort I saw the men drawing water from a well that was in the convent yard. The well was located a little south of the center of the square. I don't know whether it is there now or not. "On the first night a company of which my father was one went out and captured some prisoners. One of them was a Mexican soldier, and all through the siege, he interpreted the bugle calls on the Mexican side, and in this way the Americans know about the movements of the enemy. "After the first day there was fighting. The Mexicans had a cannon somewhere near where Dwyer avenue now is, and every fifteen minutes they dropped a shot into the fort. "The roof of the Alamo had been taken off and the south side filled up with dirt almost to the roof on that side so that there was a slanting embankment up which the Americans could run and take positions. During the fight I saw numbers who were shot in the head as soon as they exposed themselves from the roof. There were holes made in the walls of the fort and the Americans continually shot from these also. We also had two cannon, one at the main entrance and one at the northwest corner of the fort near the post office. The cannon were seldom fired. "I remember Crockett. He was a tall, slim man, with black whiskers. He was always at the head. The Mexicans called him Don Benito. The Americans said he was Crockett. He would often come to the fire and warm his hands and say a few words to us in the Spanish language. I also remember hearing the names of Travis and Bowie mentioned, but I never saw either of them that I know of. "After the first few days I remember that a messenger came from somewhere with word that help was coming. The Americans celebrated it by beating the drums and playing on the flute. But after about seven days fighting there was an armistice of three days and during this time Don Benito had conferences every day with Santa Anna. Badio, the interpreter, was a close friend of my father, and I heard him tell my father in the quarters that Santa Anna had offered to let the Americans go with their lives if they would surrender, but the Mexicans would be treated as rebels. "During the armistice my father told my mother she had better take the children and go, while she could do so safely. But my mother said: "No!, if you're going to stay, so am I. If they kill one they can kill us all. "Only one person went out during the armistice, a woman named Trinidad Saucedo. "Don Benito, or Crockett, as the Americans called him, assembled the men on the last day and told them Santa Anna's terms, but none of them believed that any one who surrendered would get out alive, so they all said as they would have to die any how they would fight it out. "The fighting began again and continued every day, and nearly every night,. One night there was music in the Mexican camp and the Mexican prisoner said it meant that reinforcements had arrived. "We then had another messenger who got through the lines, saying that communication had been cut off and the promised reinforcements could not be sent. "On the last night my father was not out, but he and my mother were sleeping together in headquarters. About 2 o'clock in the morning there was a great shooting and firing at the northwest corner of the fort, and I heard my mother say: "Gregorio, the soldiers have jumped the wall. The fight's begun. "He got up and picked up his arms and went into the fight. I never saw him again. My uncle told me afterwards that Santa Anna gave him permission to get my father's body, and that he found it where the thick of the fight had been. "We could hear the Mexican officers shouting to the men to jump over, and the men were fighting so close that we could hear them strike each other. It was so dark that we couldn't see anything, and the families that were in the quarters just huddled up in the corners. My mother's children were near her. Finally they began shooting through the dark into the room where we were. A boy who was wrapped in a blanket in one corer was hit and killed. The Mexicans fired into the room for at least fifteen minutes. It was a miracle, but none of us children were touched. "By daybreak the firing had almost stopped, and through the window we could see shadows of men moving around inside the fort. The Mexicans went from room to room looking for an American to kill. While it was still dark a man stepped into the room and pointed his bayonet at my mother's breast, demanding: "Where's the money the Americans had?" "If they had any,' said my mother, "you may look for it.' "Then an officer stepped in and said: "What are you doing? The women and children are not to be hurt. "The officer then told my mother to pick out her own family and get her belongings and the other women were given the same instructions. When it was broad day the Mexicans began to remove the dead. There were so many killed that it took several days to carry them away. "The families, with their baggage, were then sent under guard to the house of Don Ramon Musquiz, which was located where Frank Brothers store now is, on Main Plaza.(Southeast corner of Soledad and Commerce Streets, now a parking lot, 1991). Here we were given coffee and some food, and were told that we would go before the president at 2 o'clock. On our way to the Musquiz house we passed up Commerce street, and it was crowded as far as Presa street with soldiers who did not fire a shot during the battle. Santa Anna had many times more troops than he could use. "At 3 o'clock we went before Santa Anna. His quarters were in a house which stood where L. Wolfson's store now is.(Middle of Commerce Street, north side, between Main Avenue and Soledad Street). He had a great stack of silver money on a table before him, and a pile of blankets. One by one the women were sent into a side room to make their declaration, and on coming out were given $2 and a blanket. While my mother was waiting her turn Mrs. Melton, who had never recognized my mother as an acquaintance, and who was considered an aristocrat, sent her brother, Juan Losoya, across the room to my mother to ask the favor that nothing be said to the president about her marriage with an American. "My mother told Juan to tell her not to be afraid. "Mrs. Dickson was there, also several other woman. After the president had given my mother her $2 and blanket, he told her she was free to go where she liked. We gathered what belongings we could together and went to our cousin's place on North Flores street, where we remained several months." This photo of Enrique Esparaza is courtesy the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at UT-Austin. The Briscoe Center is a fantastically interesting repository to visit.

 

[woodman6415]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:

The Comanches used to enter Mexico on raiding parties via the Comanche War Trail, which crossed the Trans-Pecos from the northeast, then split into two forks when it reached the Big Bend country. One fork crossed the Rio Grande near present-day Lajitas, then continued into Mexico via San Carlos and the Rio Conchos valley. The main trail crossed the Rio Grande at the Chisos ford, between Santa Elena and Mariscal Canyons, then continued by the Laguna de Jaco into the northern portion of the despoblado (uninhabited, open country or "no man's land"). So distinctive was this trail that early explorers never failed to mention it if they saw it. A mile wide in places, it was littered with the skeletons of livestock driven from Mexico. A Colonel Langberg reported that it was "wider than any royal road," and "so well beaten that it appears that suitable engineers had constructed it." The land was rutted and in some spots vegetation was burned off, graphically revealing the extent to which the Comanches had subdued the heretofore untamed Big Bend country. Today the trail is almost invisible, even to the trained eye. A research team from UT found that erosion and vegetation have made it almost impossible to distinguish the trail from the surrounding desert.

 

[Nubsnstubs]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:

The Comanches used to enter Mexico on raiding parties via the Comanche War Trail, which crossed the Trans-Pecos from the northeast, then split into two forks when it reached the Big Bend country. One fork crossed the Rio Grande s vegetation was burned off, graphically revealing the extent to which the Comanches had subdued the heretofore untamed Big Bend country. Today the trail is almost invisible, even to the trained eye. A research team from UT found that erosion and vegetation have made it almost impossible to distinguish the trail from the surrounding desert.

Yep, and we have greenies whining we're destroying the landscape. It took just about 20 years for the desert to obliterate any evidence of a hole I dug 24-25 years earlier for a pit BBQ. I did manage to locate the spot because of a can I buried......... Jerry

 

[Tony]

A week ago, 4 tornadoes tore through East Texas, specifically Polk County, where my In-laws live. A tree fell on their house. They were unhurt but the house is a total loss. Nikki and I went there this weekend to help get what we could salvage out of the house. We drive through Huntsville on the way and I've passed by the sign pointing to Sam Houston's grave 100 times over the years. I'm embarrassed to say I've never stopped to see it and pay my respects. On the way back today I did. The cemetery is in disrepair, I hope it's only a temporary thing due to Covid-19. It's still an impressive thing to see.

 

[Wildthings]

yep been there done that! great place for history.

 

[woodman6415]

Arcane Texas Fact

Barton Springs in Austin is named for early settler William Barton, who came to the area was still part of Mexico. William Barton died in 1840. What follows is his obituary, written by a long-gone newspaper at the time of his death:

Texas Sentinel, Austin, Texas, April 15, 1840:

Died, on Friday, 11 instant, near this city, Mr. William BARTON, aged 58 years.

Mr. BARTON was a native of South Carolina, and moved to the state of Alabama during the wars with the Indians in 1816 and 1817. From that state he came to Texas. His whole life has been spent upon the frontier, and he has been aptly styled the Daniel Boone of Texas. He has seen many hairbreadth escapes and a narrative of his life would form a very interesting biography. He removed to the place where he died about three years ago. It was then twelve miles above the highest settlers on the east of the Colorado, and on the west there was not another person for more than forty miles. The Indians frequently surrounded his house and have taken a few shots at him. He has always contended that he should never be murdered by an Indian. In his manners he was frank and
confiding, and died not only lamented by his old companions upon the frontier, but by all who have become acquainted with him, since the rapid settlement and improvement of the country around him. He was emphatically an honest and an upright man.

 

[Tony]

The Texas Quote of the Day: "I landed in San Antonio once badly in need of a job. I made contact with Ab Blocker, noted trail boss who was starting to the Red Cloud Agency with an Indian contract herd. I asked him for a job. He said, "I'm shorthanded but I've got to know whether you are eligible or not. Can you ride a pitching bronc? Can you rope a horse out of the remuda without throwing the loop around your own head? Are you good-natured? In case of stampede at night, would you drift along in front or circle the cattle to a mill?" I said I certainly knew enough to mill them providing my night horse was fast enough to outrun the cattle. "Well," he said, "that is fine. Just one more question: Can you sing?" I said, "Yes," when I knew that I couldn't even call hogs, but I was sure needing a job. Things went along pretty well for about twenty days. It seemed every time I was on guard the cattle would get up and low and mill around the bed ground. I was afraid the boss would find out the trouble sooner or later. One night I hadn't been out ten minutes when I commenced singing to them and most of them got up and commenced milling. I was doing my best singing when all at once the boss slipped up behind me. He was in a bad humor and said: "Kid, you are fired. I thought you were causing this trouble. I thought you told me you could sing. It's a hell of a note that cattle can't stand your singing. You go back to camp and I'll finish your guard." Ab was a good singer and in a few minutes the cattle commenced laying down." ----- Cowboy Jack Potter, quoted by Floyd Benjamin Street in "The Kaw: The Heart of a Nation," 1941

 

[woodman6415]

"In 1948, I returned to France at the invitation of French Government. It was still a war-ravaged country ... but this time there was something different. It wasn't the absence of fighting, nor the silence of the big guns, nor the disappearance of uniforms and chow lines ... I didn't know what it was until one morning when I was taken to the grounds of a small French school. The children had been assembled in the play yard. They were grouped close together and arranged in wobbly little rows, their dark heads bobbing around like flower buds on long stems. One of the teachers rapped for silence. The kids quieted immediately and turned their eyes towards her. Their Faces were scrubbed and bright in the sunshine. The teacher raised her arms, and for a moment, there was no sound ... Then the teacher brought her arms down and the kids began to sing ... I Knew why I felt at home. The spirit of freedom was hovering over that play yard as it did all over France at that time. A country was free again. A people had recovered their independence and their children were grateful. They were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that. America, at that moment, never meant more to me ... The true meaning of America, you ask? It's in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman's badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper... In all these things, and many more, you'll find America. In all these things, you'll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me."

------ Audie Murphy

 

[woodman6415]

"The XIT brand was conceived of by an an old Texas trail driver named Ab Blocker, who placed it upon the first cow. She was not an animal of high pedigree, but a Longhorn from South Texas. Her color, gauntness, and perversity were historic. Nearly two centuries before, with the initial Spanish expedition into the province for the purpose of founding a settlement in 1690, there came a similar Mexican cow. She walked steaming from the waters of the Rio Grande, cropped the first grass on the northern shore, switched her tail at a persistent fly, and felt at home. Long of horn and leg, variegated in color, and belligerent of disposition, she was prophetic of the millions and millions of others to fatten upon the grasses of the border state.

As she pushed north and east with the expedition of Governor Alonzo de Leon and Father Massanet, the tallow thickened over her ribs, a little bit, and she became smooth and glossy. She sprang of hardy and wily stock. As she fled to the nearest pool or mud hole to escape the attentions of the heel fly, as she fought off the wolves by night and outran the thieving Indians by day, she built up a spirit of independence and of resourcefulness that made her a companion of the wilderness and a fighter of the frontier.

By the time the East Texas missions were abandoned, in 1693, the Longhorn had broken the ties that bound her to her native range, and when the soldiers and missionaries returned home to Mexico, she stayed in Texas. The Mexican cows matched with the wilderness, met claw and fang with horn and cow-sense, and when the Spaniards came again, twenty-three years later, Longhorn cattle grazed the East Texas grasslands. Since that first memorable day Texas has never been without cattle. For more than two centuries livestock has formed one of its chief sources of wealth. Wherever "Texas" is heard, steers are thought of, and the head of the Longhorn is as emblematic of Texas as is the lone star. Texas and Longhorns are almost synonymous."

---- J. Evetts Haley, "The XIT Ranch of Texas," 1936

 

[woodman6415]

The Texas Quote of the Day:

"We had to sleep on the prairie every night, six days' journey .... except at Goliad, and possibly one night on the Colorado, without shelter and with only such food as we carried with us, and prepared ourselves. The journey was hazardous on account of Indians, and there were white men in Texas whom I would not have cared to meet in a secluded place"

---- Ulysses S. Grant describes journeying through Texas during the Mexican-American War, 1846

 

[woodman6415]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:

Jesse James once refused to rob a bank in Mckinney, Texas, because that town had a chili parlor that Jesse liked, and he knew that he would not be able to return to eat there if he robbed the local bank.