Texas Almanac 2012–2013


Book Description

First published in 1857, the Texas Almanac has a long history of chronicling the Lone Star State and its residents. The Almanac's 66th edition is printed in full color and includes hundreds of photographs from every region of the state. Color maps of the state and each of its 254 counties show relief, major and minor roads, waterways, parks, and other attractions. Each county map is accompanied by a profile outlining that county's history, physical features, recreation, population, and economy. Special features in the 66th Edition include: • An article on the birth of the Austin music scene and the influence on it by legendary musician Willie Nelson, written by Nelson biographer Joe Nick Patoski. The Austin music scene is recognized worldwide through Austin City Limits, the longest running music program on American television. • A history of the Civil War in Texas to mark the 150th year since the beginning of that conflict. Composed by Texana writer Mike Cox, the article highlights the unique aspects of the war in Texas, such as the Great Hanging at Gainesville and the Battle of Palmito Ranch. • Newly released 2010 population figures. • A complete history of voter turnout in Texas going back to 1866. • A history of professional football in Texas. • Comprehensive lists of high school football and basketball championships, Texas Olympians, and Texas Sports Hall of Fame inductees. The Texas Almanac 2012–2013 includes articles and data about: • history and government • population and demographics • the natural environment • sports and recreation • business and transportation • oil and minerals • agriculture • science and health • education • culture and the arts • obituaries of notable Texans • pronunciation guide to town and county names







Texas


Book Description

For twenty years the Historical Atlas of Texas stood as a trusted resource for students and aficionados of the state. Now this key reference has been thoroughly updated and expanded—and even rechristened. Texas: A Historical Atlas more accurately reflects the Lone Star State at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Its 86 entries feature 175 newly designed maps—more than twice the number in the original volume—illustrating the most significant aspects of the state’s history, geography, and current affairs. The heart of the book is its wealth of historical information. Sections devoted to indigenous peoples of Texas and its exploration and settlement offer more than 45 entries with visual depictions of everything from the routes of Spanish explorers to empresario grants to cattle trails. In another 31 articles, coverage of modern and contemporary Texas takes in hurricanes and highways, power plants and population trends. Practically everything about this atlas is new. All of the essays have been updated to reflect recent scholarship, while more than 30 appear for the first time, addressing such subjects as the Texas Declaration of Independence, early roads, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Texas-Oklahoma boundary disputes, and the tideland oil controversy. A dozen new entries for “Contemporary Texas” alone chart aspects of industry, agriculture, and minority demographics. Nearly all of the expanded essays are accompanied by multiple maps—everyone in full color. The most comprehensive, state-of-the-art work of its kind, Texas: A Historical Atlas is more than just a reference. It is a striking visual introduction to the Lone Star State.




Texas Almanac 2016-2017


Book Description

THE TEXAS ALMANAC 2016–2017 includes these new feature articles: • A history of Texas’ various food regions—from Tex-Mex to barbecue—written by Dotty Griffith, longtime food writer for The Dallas Morning News and author of The Texas Holiday Cookbook, Celebrating Barbecue, and Wild About Chili. • A look at the big business of Texas wine, including a history of grape growing and winemaking, written by Melinda Esco, author of Texas Wineries. • The story of Assault, the feisty chestnut colt from King Ranch who injured his right forefoot as a foal but loved to run and went on to win the 1946 Triple Crown. This article spotlights the 70th anniversary of Assault’s historic feat, which earned him the nickname “The Club-Footed Comet.” • A overview of professional and college sports in Texas written by Norm Hitzges, a popular sports-talk radio host in the DFW area for 40 years; the author of several sports books, including Greatest Team Ever: The Dallas Cowboys Dynasty of The 1990s; and the television play-by-play voice for the Dallas Sidekicks. MAJOR SECTIONS UPDATED FOR EACH EDITION An illustrated History of The Lone Star State. The Environment, including geology, plant life, wildlife, rivers, lakes. Weather highlights of the previous two years, plus a list of destructive weather dating from 1766. Agriculture, including data on production of crops, fruits, vegetables, livestock, and dairy. A Pronunciation Guide to Texas town and county names. Business and Transportation, with an expanded section on Oil and Gas. A two-year Astronomical Calendar, including moon phases, sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, eclipses, and meteor showers. Recreation, with details on state and national parks, landmarks, and wildlife refuges. Sports, including lists of high school and college sports champions, the records of professional sports teams, as well as lists of Texas Olympians and Texas Sports Hall of Fame inductees. Counties, a large section featuring detailed county maps and profiles for Texas’ 254 counties. Population figures, including the latest estimates from the State Data Center. A comprehensive list of Texas cities and towns. Politics, Elections, and information on Federal, State, and Local governments. Culture and the Arts, including a list of civic and religious holidays. Health and Science, with charts of vital statistics. Education, including a complete list of colleges and universities, and University Interscholastic League results. Obituaries of notable Texans.




Texas Almanac, 1998-1999


Book Description

Provides statistical information about Texas such as government, economic, educational, business, agricultural, religious and cultural.




Texas Almanac 2014–2015


Book Description

FEATURES OF THE TEXAS ALMANAC 2014–2015 • Sketches of eight historic ranches of Texas by Texana writer Mike Cox. • Article on the Texas art and artists by Houston businessman and art collector J.P. Bryan, who has amassed the world’s largest Texana collection. • Coverage of the 2012 elections, redistricting, and the 2012 Texas Olympic medalists. • An update on Major League Baseball in Texas. • Lists of sports champions — high school, college, and professional. MAJOR SECTIONS UPDATED FOR EACH EDITION • The Environment, including geology, plant life, wildlife, rivers, and lakes. • Weather highlights of the previous two years, plus a list of destructive weather dating from 1766. • Two-year Astronomical Calendar that shows moon phases, times of sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, eclipses, and meteor showers. • Recreation, with details on state and national parks and forests, landmarks, and fairs and festivals. • Sports, including lists of high school football and basketball champions, professional sports teams, Texas Olympians, and Texas Sports Hall of Fame inductees. • Counties section, with detailed county maps and profiles for Texas’s 254 counties. • Population figures from the 2010 US Census and State Data Center estimates as of 2012. • Comprehensive list of Texas Cities and Towns. • Politics, Elections, and information on Federal, State, and Local Governments. • Culture and the Arts, including a list of civic and religious Holidays. • Religion census of 2010 by denomination and adherents; breakdown on metro areas and counties. • Health and Science, with charts of vital statistics. • Education, including a complete list of colleges and universities, and UIL results. • Business and Transportation, with an expanded section on Oil and Gas. • Agriculture, including data on production of crops, fruits, vegetables, livestock, and dairy. • Obituaries of notable Texans. • Pronunciation Guide to Texas town and county names.




Texas Obscurities


Book Description

Some of these quirky true stories might surprise even the most proud Texan. Austin sat the first all-woman state supreme court in the nation in 1925. A utopian colony thrived in Kristenstad during the Great Depression. Bats taken from the Bracken and Ney Caves and Devil's Sinkhole were developed as a secret weapon that vied with the Manhattan Project to shorten World War II. In Slaton in 1922, German priest Joseph M. Keller was kidnapped, tarred and feathered amid anti-German fervor following World War I. Author E.R. Bills offers this collection of trials, tribulations and intrigue that is sure to enrich one's understanding of the biggest state in the Lower Forty-eight.




Marfa and Presidio County, Texas


Book Description

Authors Louise S. O'Connor and Cecilia Thompson present a simple encyclopedic study of the Trans-Pecos area of Texas with emphasis on Presidio County VICTORIA, Texas — In their quest to complete their study and to share a better knowledge and understanding of a part of Texas that is still somewhat a frontier, authors Louise S. O'Connor and Cecilia Thompson reveal the first volume of their book "Marfa and Presidio County, Texas: A Social, Economic, and Cultural Study 1937 to 2008 Volume One, 1937 - 1989." In a book that offers a closer look at the past and the present, readers will see how a place known as a tourist area and a center of contemporary art came to be. It returns to the pre-historic era of Far West Texas and bring readers up to the present with yearly reports on the region as well as extensive formal research and personal interviews with present day people who live in Presidio County. A case study worth reading, this book is an eye-opener for a better understanding of how this small yet historically rich land is what it is now. Packed with the economic, social, and cultural history of Presidio County; this book gives readers, both lay and the historians, a clear and complete picture of the events that lead to the preservation, industrialization, and the improvement of one of the frontiers of the United States of America.




West Texas


Book Description

The Big Bend, the Big Country, the Big Empty. The High Plains, the Permian and the Panhandle. Cowboys, Cowtown and the curl of a killer tornado. A place where “you can stretch your eyeballs.” Where the Hale-Bopp comet, “hardly visible above some smoggy, light-polluted cities, looked like it could drop into the Pecos River at any moment.” West Texas, home to the state’s biggest legends, is chronicled by two authors who have spent most of their careers crisscrossing it. Mike Cochran and John Lumpkin, Associated Press journalists, bring their experiences to the pages of this handsome volume, accompanied by fifty photographs of the West Texas landscape, its people and its history. Converse with West Texas characters like Stanley Marsh 3, conman Billy Sol Estes, and Big Spring’s merry messiah, Marj Carpenter. Meet Gordon Wood, Friday night football’s winningest coach, and Groner Pitts, Brownwood’s liveliest undertaker. Remember ranching icon Watt Matthews, the founders of Santa Rita No. 1, and Lubbock’s C. W. Stubblefield, magnet to blues and country music stars. Honor Hallie Stillwell, Frenchy McCormick, and even modern art’s Georgia O’Keeffe, who put their stamp on Texas’s most fascinating region. A West Texan once said, “They show no pictures of my province or even neighboring provinces. They leave a big hole in Texas.” No more is that the case, thanks to Mike Cochran and John Lumpkin.




Wanted


Book Description

Along with the settlement of the Texas frontier came rustlers, public drunks, gunfighters, and other outlaws. A jail in which to incarcerate the lawbreakers was thus often the first public building raised in a new town. Later, as government developed, public buildings—notably county courthouses and jails—assumed not only practical but also symbolic importance. The architecture of these buildings in the nineteenth century reflected the power and status with which the community imbued the government; many of the same architects applied the aesthetic standards of the day to both. In later years, the safety and at least limited comfort of the prisoners became concerns and jails were remodeled or abandoned to other uses in favor of modern, more utilitarian structures. In this heavily illustrated guide to the historic county jails of Texas, Ed Blackburn Jr. takes readers to each of the 254 counties in the state, presenting brief histories and of the counties and their structures that housed their criminals. He provides general information about the architecture and location of the buildings and, when possible, describes the present uses of those that have been decommissioned. Interviews with local officials, historians, and newspaper publishers have yielded colorful anecdotes for many of the jails. Revealing photographs of many of the old jails have been gathered from local and archival sources, and Blackburn himself has taken pictures of extant buildings. Together, these words and images not only provide a survey of the way Texans have housed their criminals, but also, with the aid of thumbnail maps of county locations, offer residents and tourists throughout the state a guide to a fascinating aspect of architectural and cultural history.