The Aguayo Expedition made a big impact on Spanish Texas, though it is not widely known. In 1719, France took over East Texas, forcing Spain to fall back to San Antonio. The Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo sought to reclaim the land, so he offered to lead the effort and received the viceroy’s approval. Aguayo gathered about 500 mounted soldiers and over 4,000 horses, cattle, sheep, and mules. Juan Rodriguez led the group, and their goal was to take back Texas and restore the mission system.

The expedition crossed the Rio Grande on March 20, 1721, and arrived in San Antonio by April 4. At the same time, Domingo Ramon led a group that took control of La Bahía del Espíritu Santo. Aguayo then headed east with the friars who had been waiting in San Antonio since the French arrived. They traveled through areas that would later become New Braunfels, San Marcos, Austin, Belton, and Waco. Because of heavy rains, they avoided Apache territory and followed the Balcones Escarpment, but kept moving toward the old Spanish settlements between the Trinity and Red River. Native communities welcomed the Spanish. Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, the French commander in the area, agreed to move his forces back to Natchitoches. Aguayo used this opportunity to rebuild six missions: San Francisco de los Neches, San Jose de los Nazonis, Purisima Concepcion de los Hainai, Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches, Dolores de los Ais, and San Miguel de Linares de los Adaes. He also rebuilt the presidio of Dolores de los Tejas and set up a new presidio at Los Adaes to protect the frontier.

By fall 1721, Aguayo was back in San Antonio and worked to strengthen the settlement. He started a third mission, San Francisco Xavier de Naxara, and rebuilt the presidio. During a visit to La Bahía, he founded the presidio of Nuestra Señora de Loreto and the mission of Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga. He also established a direct sea route from La Bahía to Veracruz to supply the missions.

Aguayo left 219 soldiers at the various presidios and returned to Coahuila. The expedition ended on May 31, 1722. In just two years, he increased the number of missions in Texas from 2 to 10 and the number of presidios from 1 to 4. He also increased the military presence from fifty to 269 soldiers and made Spain’s claim to Texas so strong that France never tried to take it again.

Mission Dolores de los Ais is a good example of how these frontier missions operated. It was located near Ayish Bayou in what is now San Augustine. Priests built a wooden church, small homes, and an orchard that they watered by hand. They tried to convert the Ais people, who visited for short times but did not settle there. Archaeological finds at the site show a mix of Spanish, Native, and French goods, indicating that people on the frontier traded and adapted to survive.

Diary of Franciscan Br. Juan Antonio de la Peña
From San Antonio through Future DeWitt Colony to La Bahia, December 9, 1721 to April 26, 1722

Eleanor Claire Buckley - “The Aguayo Expedition in Texas and Louisiana, 1719–1722​”

C. W. Hackett - The Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo and His Recovery of Texas from the French, 1719-1723

March 31, 1995. It’s been thirty-one years since Selena died, but sometimes it still feels like it just happened. I could share the story everyone knows: her childhood, her family’s hard work, and the journey to fame, but you’ve probably seen the movie with J Lo, the Netflix series, or one of the many documentaries. Instead, this is about a gringa from deep South Texas who grew up with Selena’s music playing in the background and still mourns her death.

People call her a Latina icon, and she truly was, but in South Texas, she meant even more. She belonged to everyone, including gringos. Selena and I would be about the same age now, and sometimes I wonder what her life would be like today. I remember the first time I saw her on TV in eighth grade. She was on the Domingo Peña Show, a local variety show from Corpus Christi, about forty miles from where I grew up. She and her band wore sparkly eighties outfits, their hair teased high, and even through the TV, you could feel Selena’s energy.

The first time I saw her live was at a quinceañera. Talk about bragging rights for my friend whose birthday it was! The next time I saw her was at a small club in Corpus, though I can’t remember the name. The stage was barely big enough for the band, but her presence filled the whole place. She truly owned it. After that night, I went to see her whenever I could. I watched her perform in Dallas, El Paso, Austin, Albuquerque, and more. Every show felt like a celebration.

Tragically, all those celebrations became memories too soon. In 1995, I was living in Lubbock. Those were the days before the internet and cell phones. I stopped by a friend’s house, and she told me Selena had died. The TV was on, showing a red pickup surrounded by police. I sat down in front of the TV and didn’t move. I remember those first hours. TV stations had interrupted their regular shows, and every reporter kept repeating the same news. Someone had shot Selena, and the woman who did it had locked herself in a truck with a gun. Cameras gathered outside the Days Inn on Navigation in Corpus Christi. Reporters looked into the camera with little to say. Everyone waited for updates. We waited for Yolanda Saldívar to give up.

By evening, major news outlets confirmed what we could barely process. Selena had been shot by her fan club president, a woman she had trusted and welcomed into her inner circle. Just weeks earlier, Selena and her family confronted her about missing money.

All of this led up to the terrible moment. Selena was trying to get the financial documents. She went into that motel room, and when she tried to leave, Yolanda shot her.

I can still remember how people described Selena running toward the lobby, leaving a trail of blood. She collapsed but still managed to say the room number. Hotel workers called 911, and paramedics rushed in, but her wound was too severe. The bullet had severed a major artery. By the time she got to the hospital, she had lost too much blood. Doctors pronounced her dead at 1:05 p.m.

Vigils began almost right away. By Friday night, whole cities were mourning. Thousands of fans gathered across the Southwest. Reporters talked to people who could barely speak. Everyone said the same thing: that it felt like losing a family member.

My own mourning connected me to thousands of others. In Corpus Christi, over sixty thousand people lined up for her public viewing. I was one of them. I had never seen anything like it. People came from all over Texas and nearby states. They wanted one last moment with her. They wanted to say goodbye.

Selena was laid to rest on Monday, April 3, 1995. News about her death filled every channel. The whole country watched as Yolanda Saldívar was taken into custody. She remains in prison, where she belongs. I won’t go into the trial, because she does not deserve more of my attention.

Selena had always been a symbol, whether she wanted to be or not, but in death, she has become an icon, whose legacy will last forever.

This is part of my Texas history.

In South Texas, the top three villains are El Cucuy, La Llorona, and the woman who killed Selena.

I have stayed in haunted hotels on purpose, walked through abandoned places with a flashlight, and dragged friends along to scare ourselves silly. I have seen a few things and felt others, but I know for sure that these stories know how to unsettle you in the best possible way.

These four places below sit miles apart, but they share the same strange heartbeat. Each one carries a history that refuses to stay quiet. Each one draws people who want to see something they cannot explain. And each one reminds you that Texas holds more secrets than any map can show.

Bragg Road and the Ghost Lights of the Big Thicket

The Big Thicket feels different as soon as the sun sets behind the pines. The air gets thick, and the darkness quickly takes over. People in Hardin County know this feeling, especially on Bragg Road. Locals call it Ghost Road, and stories about strange lights there have been told for over a hundred years.

The light floats far down the road like it wants you to follow. Some nights it glows white or pale blue. Other nights, it flickers green or yellow. Drivers creep forward, thinking they can catch it, but the light slips away every time. A few brave people will step out of their cars and walk toward it.

Stories about the light have been told in the Big Thicket for generations. One legend says a railroad brakeman lost his head in an accident when the Santa Fe line was built. His body was found, but his head never was. People claim he still walks the old rail bed with his lantern, searching for it. Others talk about a hunter who got lost and never made it out. Some whisper about murdered workers, lost brides, and restless spirits who can’t leave the place where their lives ended.

Scientists mention swamp gas and reflections, but those explanations are no fun. When the light appears on a night, steady and bright, it’s hard not to feel like something is watching from the trees, waiting to see if you’ll keep going or turn back.

The Baker Hotel

The Baker Hotel towers over Mineral Wells. It opened in 1929 with fourteen floors, 450 rooms, and a mineral spa that promised healing. Bonnie and Clyde stayed there. The Three Stooges stayed there. Judy Garland stayed there. From the start, the hotel was full of life.

But when the Great Depression hit, the hotel went bankrupt. New owners tried to save it, and the military used it during World War II. The doors closed in 1972, and the building was left empty. People say the Baker Hotel never really lost its guests. They just stopped checking out.

T. D. Baker, the man who built the hotel, still walks the eleventh floor. Visitors smell cigar smoke in the hallway. Tour guides knock before they enter his suite because they do not want to upset him. Small items vanish from pockets and purses, then show up on the floor hours later, as if to remind everyone that Baker still runs the place.

His mistress is said to haunt the seventh floor. She had red hair, green eyes, and loved lavender perfume. People say she jumped from her window when the affair became too much. Her perfume sometimes drifts through the halls, and men feel a poke on the arm when she’s interested. A maid once found broken glass and red lipstick smeared in a room that had been empty for years.

The hotel is home to darker spirits as well. A bellhop died in a terrible elevator accident in the 1950s, and people claim to see only the top half of his body moving through the halls. A young boy who came for healing is seen walking with a shaggy dog. He asks mediums for help, though most spirits in the Baker seem content to stay.

People visit the Baker expecting to be scared, but it feels more like a strange sanctuary. The sick once came here to rest. Some died in its rooms. Others stayed because the hotel brought them peace. When night falls over Mineral Wells, the Baker Hotel seems to glow with the quiet energy of a place that remembers everyone who ever entered.

They are renovating the hotel. It is scheduled to reopen in 2028.

Goatman’s Bridge

I have been to Goatman’s Bridge. We showed up with cheap beer, too much confidence, and not nearly enough sense. The woods felt alive, the bridge groaned under our feet, and every snapped twig sent us running for our lives. Somewhere out there, a very shaky video exists with all of us yelling and sprinting back to the car. We scared ourselves silly, and we loved every second of it.

The Old Alton Bridge is hidden in the woods outside Denton, and it feels unsettling as soon as you get there. The iron creaks, the trees seem to close in. Locals call it Goatman’s Bridge for a reason. People say a creature waits there, half man and half goat, with horns that scrape the branches and eyes that glow like coals.

The bridge was built in 1884 to carry wagons across Hickory Creek. The town of Alton disappeared long ago, but the bridge remained. Cars used it for years until a new road opened in 2001.

People describe the Goatman in different ways, but the details are always chilling. Some say he’s eight feet tall, with a man’s upper body and a goat’s legs. Some say his fur glows red like embers. Others say he blends into the darkness so well that you only notice him when he moves. Sightings often happen alongside disappearances, and stories say he only wakes when he’s hungry.

The legend says that saying his name on the bridge brings him out of the shadows. People claim he sleeps under the planks during the day and comes out at night to hunt. Crossing at three in the morning is said to be especially dangerous. Some talk about seeing fire, hearing screams in the trees, and a woman crying for a child she lost long ago.

Another story is about Oscar Washburn, a Black goat farmer who lived near the bridge in the 1930s. His neighbors respected him, but the local Klan resented his success. They dragged him to the bridge one night and tried to hang him, but when they checked the rope, Oscar was gone. No one knows what happened to him, and the legend says his spirit came back to claim the bridge.

Visitors talk about seeing strange lights in the woods, feeling hands grab them in the dark, and rocks falling out of nowhere. Paranormal teams visit from all over, and the bridge always has something strange to offer. Whether the Goatman is just a story, a tragedy, or something even older, the Old Alton Bridge keeps its secrets.

Yorktown Memorial Hospital

Yorktown Memorial Hospital sits on the edge of town. The building stretches across 30,000 square feet of granite and concrete, and the bushes around it grow wild.

The Felician Sisters built the hospital in the 1950s, and for a while, it was a place of comfort. With two floors, long wings, a chapel, a basement, and an observation tower, it felt like a small city. The hospital closed in 1986 when a new one opened in Cuero. A rehab center used the building for a few years, but it shut down in the early 1990s. After that, the building was empty, and the stories grew. Locals whispered about malpractice, strange deaths, and patients who never left. Some say hundreds died inside those walls.

Some stories will make the hair on your arms stand up. Stories about a surgeon who made deadly mistakes and still walks the halls. And a black figure with glowing red eyes that lurks in the chapel and growls when someone reads scripture. The nuns who lived on the second floor still roam the halls and shove or scratch at men with tattoos.

Visitors report cold spots and a heavy feeling in their chests. Some feel invisible hands brush their arms. The basement is the most intense. People see a black mist moving between rooms, hear moans, feel dizzy, and struggle to breathe. The old priest’s quarters are filled with shadowy figures and angry voices that shout things like “get out” and “you are not safe.” The chapel upstairs has its own darkness. People hear organ music when no one is there, and a tall shadow figure sits in the pews, watching anyone who enters.

Yorktown Memorial Hospital attracts ghost hunters from all over. There are tours and overnight investigations to challenge even the bravest visitors. But the spirits inside don’t welcome everyone. Some push, some whisper, some cling, and some seem to want more than just attention.

Texas Keeps Its Ghosts Close

Every part of Texas has a story, but these four places hold on to their legends. People come for the thrill, the mystery, or the hope of seeing something strange.

Texas gets quiet after dark, but the silence never lasts. Something always moves. Something always watches. And if you listen long enough, you’ll understand why these ghost stories never go away.

Sources

TexasEscapes.com

Hauntedrooms.com

AtlasObscura.com

When talking about Dallas’ founders, most people mention John Neely Bryan. But another founder is often left out of the story. Her name was Sarah Horton Cockrell. She built bridges, hotels, businesses, and a real estate empire that helped transform Dallas from a frontier settlement into a growing city.

Sarah Horton was born in Virginia in 1819. Twenty-five years later, in 1844, her family moved to Texas and settled near Eagle Ford in Dallas County. At that time, the area was barely a settlement, just open land and a few scattered cabins.

In September 1847, Sarah married Alexander Cockrell, a Kentucky native who came to Texas during the Mexican-American War. After leaving the Army, he stayed in Texas and started an ox-drawn freight business between Dallas County and Jefferson, then a major port on the New Orleans route. He hauled goods, bought land, and befriended John Neely Bryan, who had claimed the land that would become downtown Dallas. In 1852 or 1853, Alexander bought Bryan’s remaining headright, which included the city’s center. Dallas had about 200 residents, a small cluster of buildings. Alexander saw potential. He built a sawmill, gristmill, and commercial building. He also wanted to build a permanent bridge to connect Dallas to the region.

People used a ferry to cross the Trinity River until Alexander bought it from Bryan. After the purchase, he wanted something better: a toll bridge. He cut timber, milled it, and built a wooden bridge that opened in 1858. This bold move changed local travel.

But Alexander’s success did not last long. On April 3, 1858, shortly after the bridge opened, he was shot and killed by the new city marshal, Andrew M. Moore, reportedly over a debt Moore owed the Cockrells. Moore was tried for murder and acquitted. The details are still unclear, but one thing was certain: Sarah was left a widow with young children and a growing business to manage.

In 1858, most women would have stepped back. But Sarah stepped forward.

She was already keeping the books, managing money, and handling correspondence for the family businesses. She knew how everything worked. After Alexander died, she took full control. Her first major project was the St. Nicholas Hotel, among Dallas’ earliest hotels. It gave travelers a place to stay and showed Dallas wanted to be more than a frontier stop. In 1860, a fire swept through downtown, destroying the business district, including her hotel.

She rebuilt. Sarah opened the Dallas Hotel, later called the St. Charles, and kept moving forward. That year, she received permission from the Texas Legislature to build an iron suspension bridge across the Trinity River, replacing the old wooden one and providing travelers and businesses with a stronger, more reliable crossing.

The 1860 fire was soon followed by a larger disruption: when the Civil War broke out in 1861, all progress stopped. Investors left, materials became hard to find, and the bridge project was put on hold for several years.

After the war, she found new investors and revived the plan. Construction began in 1870. On March 2, 1872, the new iron toll bridge opened. It spanned roughly 300 feet, stood 56 feet above low water, and cost about $65,000—a huge sum then. The bridge linked Dallas to major southern and western roads, becoming one of the city’s key early infrastructure projects.

People called it the Dallas Bridge, and many historians say it was Sarah’s greatest contribution to the city’s growth.

Even though she started the bridge company and owned most of the shares, social rules at the time kept her off the board. Her son and son-in-law represented her interests instead. Today, she would have been the CEO, the board chair, and the public face of the project. Back then, she worked behind the scenes while still running the business.

Ten years after the bridge opened, Dallas County bought it for $41,600 and made it free for everyone to use. The bridge stayed in use until about 1890, when the county replaced it.

She bought a one‑third interest in Todd Mills, Dallas’ second flour mill, in 1872. Three years later, she bought the rest. She formed S. H. Cockrell and Company with her son and son‑in‑law; flour milling became a major industry in Dallas.

In the 1880s, she moved into real estate. She bought, sold, leased, and rented land, working with railroads, churches, businesses, and individuals on dozens of deals each year. In 1884, she opened the Sarah Cockrell Addition, a new neighborhood. In 1885, she and her son Frank built the five-story Cockrell Office Building, then one of Dallas’s tallest buildings.

By the early 1890s, Sarah owned about a quarter of downtown Dallas, thousands of acres in Dallas County, and more properties in Houston, Mineral Wells, and Cleburne.

In 1868, she joined the Dallas County Agricultural and Mechanical Association. She was one of five women among over a hundred members. She donated land and money to help start the First Methodist Church at Ross and Harwood. A stained-glass window honors her today. Her children ran multiple businesses, building a legacy that outlived her. She died on April 26, 1892, and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery.

Today, many people call her Dallas’s first capitalist. She was a builder, risk-taker, and visionary. She lived at a time when few expected women to run businesses, sign contracts, or shape cities.

Her story deserves to be told alongside the men whose names fill the history books.
Sarah’s legacy shows that true transformation comes from those who dare to lead, even when few expect it.

Brooks, Gayla “Dallas’ first millionaire”. Advocate.

Goldthwaite, Carmen (2012). Texas Dames: Sassy and Savvy Women Throughout Lone Star History.

Enstam, Elizabeth York (1998). Women and the Creation of Urban Life: Dallas, Texas,

Jovita Idar was born in Laredo, Texas, in 1885. She grew up in a big, supportive family that valued community, justice, and education. Her father, Nicasio, ran a Spanish-language newspaper and stood up for civil rights. Their home was always busy with printing, lively discussions, and conversations about the challenges Mexican Americans faced in South Texas.

She attended the Holding Institute, a Methodist school in Laredo, and earned her teaching certificate in 1903. Her first job was in Los Ojuelos, a small town where Spanish-speaking children faced harsh segregation. The school was in poor condition and had very few resources. Jovita did her best to help, but the system made real change difficult. She saw how racism affected her students and realized that teaching alone could not solve larger problems.

She started working at her father’s newspaper, La Crónica, with her two brothers. The paper gave Mexican Americans a voice and shared news and support. Jovita wrote about segregation, poverty, violence, and the rise in lynchings against Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

In 1910 and 1911, La Crónica focused on the main problems in the borderlands. The paper reported on school discrimination, the loss of Mexican culture, and the economic hardships families faced. It also supported revolutionary groups in Mexico. Jovita and her family wanted to bring Mexican communities together on both sides of the border. They organized El Primer Congreso Mexicanista, the First Mexicanist Congress, in September 1911. Delegates met in Laredo to discuss education, labor, social issues, and economic inequality. Women took part fully, many for the first time. The Congress marked a turning point and helped start one of the first feminist movements in Mexican American history. Jovita believed women needed political power to protect their families and communities. That same year, she founded the League of Mexican Women and became its first president. The group worked to improve education for poor children and encouraged women to learn, work, and lead. Jovita also started El Estudiante, a bilingual newspaper for teachers, so they could share ideas and work together to improve schools.

Her activism went beyond the border. In 1913, during the Mexican Revolution, she went to Mexico with her friend Leonor Villegas de Magnón to help care for the wounded. Since the Red Cross would not treat insurgents, Villegas de Magnón started La Cruz Blanca, the White Cross, a neutral medical group. Jovita joined the revolutionary forces and traveled through northern Mexico with them. She cared for soldiers, civilians, and anyone hurt in the fighting. She saw the effects of war firsthand and brought those memories back to Texas.

By 1914, Jovita was working at El Progreso, another Spanish-language newspaper. She wrote an editorial that criticized President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send U.S. troops to the border. Her article angered the Texas Rangers, who had a long history of violence against Mexican communities. They came to the newspaper office to shut it down. Jovita stood in the doorway and refused to move. She defended the paper’s right to free speech and made the Rangers leave. They came back later and destroyed the office, but her actions became one of the most important moments in Texas civil rights history.

After the attack on El Progreso, Jovita went back to La Crónica. When her father died in 1914, she took charge of the paper and kept her family’s mission alive. In 1916, she and her brother Eduardo started a new newspaper called Evolución.

In 1917, Jovita married Bartolo Juárez and moved to San Antonio. She stayed involved in many activities. She joined the Democratic Party and led community talks about politics and civil rights. She started free kindergartens for Spanish-speaking children. She also worked as an interpreter at a county hospital, helping immigrant families understand their rights and fill out paperwork. She wrote for El Heraldo Cristiano, a Methodist publication, and continued to fight for education and equality.

Throughout her life, Jovita filled many roles: teacher, journalist, nurse, political organizer, and strong defender of her community. She believed in the power of women’s education and often said, “When you educate a woman, you educate a family.” She lived by this belief every day.

Jovita Idar died in San Antonio in 1946 at the age of 60.

Bessie Coleman was the world’s first licensed Black pilot. Born in Atlanta, Texas, on January 26, 1892, she was the twelfth of thirteen children. After her father left for Indian Territory in 1900, her mother, Susan, raised the family alone.

Money was tight, so Bessie and her siblings helped however they could. She graduated from high school and enrolled at Langston University in Oklahoma, but left after one semester due to a lack of funds.

Seeking better opportunities, she moved to Chicago to live near her brother. Beauty school didn’t work out, but she found work as a manicurist and later opened a small chili parlor that turned a profit.

Chicago didn’t fulfill her dream of flying. No American aviation school would admit African Americans, but she refused to give up. With help from Robert S. Abbott, editor of the Chicago Weekly Defender, she went to France for flight training. After ten months at Le Crotoy, she earned her pilot’s license on June 15, 1921, from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, becoming the first Black person in the world to hold one.

Bessie returned to the U.S. to pursue a flying career and hopes of opening an aviation school for Black students. To sharpen her skills, she traveled to Europe in 1922 for training with the chief pilot of the Fokker Aircraft Company in Germany.

Her American debut was September 3, 1922, at Curtiss Field near Manhattan. Crowds loved her. She then toured the country, performing in air shows.

She often flew Curtiss JN-4D Jenny planes and other surplus military aircraft. Between shows, she visited schools and churches to encourage young Black men and women to explore aviation and to advocate for fair treatment. In Waxahachie, she refused to fly unless Black spectators could enter through the same gate as white attendees. Organizers changed the rule.

Bessie died on April 30, 1926. During a test flight in Jacksonville, Florida, her plane dove, flipped, and threw her from the cockpit, killing her instantly. Her mechanic and publicity agent, William Wills, died moments later in the crash. Investigators believed a loose wrench jammed the controls.

Though Bessie never had the chance to open the flying school she dreamed of, her influence only grew after her death. Her legacy would soon inspire future generations.

In 1931, the Bessie Coleman Aero Groups held the first all-Black air show in the U.S., drawing 15,000 spectators. Over the decades, honors continued: in 1977, Black female student pilots in Indiana formed the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club; in 1990, Chicago renamed a street Bessie Coleman Drive, and in 1992, declared May 2 as Bessie Coleman Day. The U.S. Postal Service honored her with a commemorative stamp in 1995.

More than a century later, Bessie’s story still resonates. She showed the world what can happen when someone simply refuses to take no for an answer.

I grew up in the Coastal Bend, not far from Baffin Bay, right in the stretch where the Karankawa and Coahuiltecan worlds overlapped. My dad talked about the Karankawa all the time. When we wandered through the brush on our ranch, he’d point out what we could eat and how the Karankawa probably ate the same things: desert hackberry berries (he called them “South Texas survival berries”), Texas persimmons, mesquite beans, and all kinds of wild plants. When we went fishing, he would tell me how the Karankawa caught fish by shooting them with a bow and arrow and how they rubbed shark oil on their skin to keep mosquitoes off.

In junior high, we had a track meet in Riviera, and I remember seeing big pieces of wood in the end zone. Workers had been digging to install new goalposts and uncovered Indigenous graves. My aunt taught at the school, so she took me back later to watch the archaeologists work. They told me the remains were likely Karankawa.

I got obsessed and headed straight to the school library. That place was wild; half the books were things middle‑schoolers definitely weren’t supposed to read, which of course made us read them even more. Stephen King everywhere.

But there was one, written in the 50s, called Cannibal Coast by Ed Kilman. The title alone was enough to make me curious. The cover added to the drama: three stereotyped, reddish‑skinned “Indians” crouched in the dunes with bows and lances, watching a Spanish ship approach.

Kilman claimed he was writing a history of the Karankawa. But instead of history, the book read more like an attack. He described the Karankawa as “the meanest, greediest, laziest, most treacherous, lecherous, vicious, cowardly, insolent aborigines of the Southwest.” He repeated old stories about “towering ogres” who supposedly ate flesh from living victims and ate it while dancing and screaming. That is WAY extreme and not at all true.

But it matched the way the Karankawa had been portrayed for centuries by the Spanish, French, and eventually, Mexicans and Anglos who fought them for their land. In 7th-grade Texas history, students learned only three things about the Karankawa: they were cannibals, giants, and extinct.

The truth was far more complicated. Like many Native groups in Texas, the Karankawa were devastated by war, disease, and displacement after the Spanish arrived in the 1500s. As they were forced into other communities, they lost much of their language and cultural identity. But because they fought fiercely to defend their territory, estuaries, prairies, and coastlines that newcomers desperately wanted, they were demonized as seven‑foot monsters hungry for human flesh. Stephen F. Austin even wrote in 1821 that “The Karanquas may be called universal enemies to man…there will be no way of subduing them but extermination.””

The Gulf Coast was the “front line of colonization,” and the Karankawa were the first to meet Europeans like Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. Cabeza de Vaca himself wrote that the people he met were “large and well proportioned” and incredibly generous, bringing food to the starving Spaniards and showing “great grief and pity” for them.

But once Europeans realized the Karankawa were strong and defended their land, they needed a justification for killing them. So they painted them as cannibals and monsters.

The cannibalism stories were exaggerated. As one researcher explained, the Karankawa practiced a ritual form of exocannibalism, eating small parts of enemies killed in battle to symbolize victory or gain strength. They did not eat people for food. Their territory was full of fish, shellfish, and game. Cabeza de Vaca even wrote that the Karankawa were horrified when they saw starving Spaniards eating their own dead. The dramatic stories about roasting living victims were almost certainly invented.

By 1840, most coastal tribes in Texas had been reduced to small groups. Francis Moore Jr. wrote that they were “mere remnants” driven from their homelands. Because they were uprooted so completely, researchers later had little chance to study their cultures.

The Coahuiltecans, who lived in the same general region, were not a single tribe but more than 200 small groups spread from Corpus Christi Bay to the Rio Grande and west toward the Pecos. They lived with limited resources, surviving through hunting, gathering, and fishing. Their homes were simple wickiups made of willow poles and skins. Their ceremonies included dancing, feasting, and the use of peyote. Warfare was constant, and they sometimes practiced ritual cannibalism similar to other coastal tribes.

The Karankawa, by contrast, were known for their strength, height, and fierce independence. They lived along the coast and nearby islands, traveling by pirogue and living in portable withak lodges. They decorated themselves with feathers, beads, and blue facial tattoos. They drank yaupon tea, used powerful six‑foot bows, and played games like wrestling and hatchet throwing.

Only one or two of their five bands survived into the 1840s. In 1852, Anglo settlers attacked a Karankawa camp near Refugio, destroying their last stronghold on the Texas coast. Survivors fled south to the Rio Grande delta, where they continued to resist. In 1858, Juan Cortina, along with other rancheros, attacked what was speculated to be the final surviving members of the Karankawa “when they were surprised at their hiding place in Texas and were exterminated”.

The Karankawa were not the giants, cannibals, or “ogres” that generations of Texans were taught to fear. They were a Gulf Coast people who lived for thousands of years along the bays, islands, and estuaries from Matagorda to Baffin Bay. The stories that painted them as violent or monstrous were not reflections of who they were, but of what colonizers needed them to be. Because the Karankawa defended their homeland fiercely, Europeans, Mexicans, and later Anglos exaggerated their rituals, distorted their appearance, and repeated sensational myths until they became “truth” in schoolbooks. In reality, they were skilled canoe‑builders, traders, hunters, and navigators whose culture was rich, complex, and deeply adapted to the coast. Their ritual practices were no more extreme than those of many other Indigenous groups, and their supposed “giant” stature was simply above average for the era.

War, disease, and forced removal broke apart their communities, but the people themselves did not vanish. Survivors wove themselves into other Native and Mexican communities along the Rio Grande and around Corpus Christi. Their descendants are still here, and several groups actively reclaim and protect Karankawa identity, history, and sacred sites. The claim that they “went extinct” was a convenient myth—one that hid the violence done to them and justified the theft of their land.

In the end, the Karankawa story is not one of savagery but of survival and resilience.

Sources

Karankawas.com

Albert Gatschet - The Karankawa Indians, The Coast People of Texas

Vivien L. Geneser - Native transgressions: a look at the portrayal of Karankawa natives in Texas history textbooks and trade books

AccessGeneaology.com

Kingsville Record

Edward Kilman - Cannibal Coast

In 1917, General John Pershing was in Mexico, trying to catch Pancho Villa and stop the raids that were causing problems in U.S. border towns. Villa kept escaping, and Pershing faced another challenge unrelated to his main mission. He did not have enough people to keep the Army going.

Chinese immigrants living in northern Mexico stepped in to help. Many were already used to the hard work the Army needed. They cleared land for the troops, cooked meals, washed uniforms, brought clean water, and set up small shops for soldiers.

Life was dangerous for Chinese immigrants in Mexico. They often faced violence and persecution, and those who helped the U.S. Army knew they would be at risk when the troops left. So, when Pershing began withdrawing, 527 Chinese refugees followed him north. They trusted him because he had promised to protect them.

But Pershing’s promise ran afoul of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese nationals from immigrating or seeking asylum. Pershing had given his word, but the law made it impossible to keep. He asked immigration officials for special permission to bring the refugees across the border, explaining that he wanted to keep his promise.

They were eventually allowed into the United States, but only because Pershing insisted. Instead of safety, they found themselves in a guarded Army camp. Their situation drew national attention. They were stuck between two countries, unable to stay or return to Mexico.

Pershing helped again. He said the men could keep working for the Army, just like they had in Mexico. This gave them temporary protection. They were sent to San Antonio, where they cleared land and lived at Fort Sam Houston, Camp Wilson, and Kelly Field.

Then the United States entered World War I. Suddenly, their labor was essential. They took on exhausting, low‑paid jobs at Army posts across the South. One estimate suggested that their work freed up 1,000 American soldiers for other wartime duties.

After the war ended, their future was uncertain again. Politicians argued about what should happen to them, often using stereotypes and racist language. This uncertainty lasted for years.

By then, Pershing was one of the most respected people in the country. He used his influence to urge Congress to solve the problem. In 1921, he asked lawmakers to give the men legal status. Congress agreed and passed Public Resolution 29, allowing them to remain in the United States as permanent residents.

More than twenty years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act was finally repealed. Only then could these men apply for citizenship, and almost all of them did.

Sources:

KSAT 12 History Untold: Pershing’s Chinese descendants take pride in their history

Asian American Education Project

Chinese American Forum

Inside 410

Almost everyone I know in Texas has visited the Alamo at least once. You take the tour, hear the familiar story about brave Texians fighting Mexican forces, and stop by the gift shop before leaving. Maybe you buy a coonskin cap to feel like Davy Crockett and take a photo by the Chapel. Then you head home feeling proud to be from Texas.

The Texas history we learned was straightforward and mostly told from an Anglo perspective. We hear that men like Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, and the Alamo defenders were heroes. Santa Anna is portrayed as a tyrannical villain, and the Texas Revolution is portrayed as a fight for freedom. “Remember the Alamo,” right?

This is the part where I commit heresy.

The real story is more complicated. The Texas Revolution was not really a revolution. Many American settlers wanted to keep slavery, which Mexico had banned. Racism and white supremacy played a big role in the conflict, but the importance of slavery is often left out, while Mexicans are made to look like the enemy. We never learned that slavery was a key part of this chapter in Texas history.

People also rarely mention the Alamo’s earliest history. Before it was a battlefield, it was an 18th-century Spanish mission built to convert Indigenous people. Mission San Antonio de Valero was part of Spain’s plan to control the region by changing Native communities. The mission system spread Christianity but also forced Indigenous people into European-style settlements that supported colonial rule. This pattern happened all over the Americas, where religion and so-called “civilizing” language were used to justify taking land and forcing Native peoples to change.

The fall of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, is one of the most famous events in Texas history. Hollywood made it into a legend, but the battle was only one part of a much bigger story. The events stretch back to Mexico’s fight for independence from Spain and continued into the American Civil War. Seeing the Alamo this way shows how racial conflict, political ambition, and economic pressure shaped America’s westward expansion.

In 1821, Stephen F. Austin began bringing Anglo-American colonizers into the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas. He set up his colonies using the same systems that supported slavery in the South. Mexico was dealing with its own political problems and did little to control these Anglo settlements.

Mexico tried to stop Anglo immigration in 1830, but colonizers kept coming. By 1835, there was open rebellion. In December, a group mostly made up of rebels, squatters, and mercenaries from the United States took over San Antonio and the Alamo.

On March 2, 1836, a convention led mostly by recent arrivals from the United States declared independence from Mexico. They created the Republic of Texas. Some historians call it a rehearsal for the Confederate States of America. Santa Anna began his siege of the Alamo on February 23 and took it back on March 6.

The Republic of Texas lasted until December 29, 1845, when the United States annexed it as a slave state. Annexation was always the goal. It secured land taken from Mexico, protected slavery, and encouraged more Anglo immigration. Texas joined the Union without set borders, which made it easier for the United States to start the Mexican-American War in 1846. That war ended with the United States taking Mexican territory all the way to the Pacific.

The phrase “Manifest Destiny” was first used during debates over Texas’ annexation in 1845. The Alamo became a powerful symbol of Anglo-American victory, often used to make Mexicans and their descendants look like villains and to call for symbolic revenge for a battle long past.

By the late nineteenth century, school textbooks described the defenders as godlike and made Mexican soldiers look like monsters. These stories mixed racism, religion, and exaggeration into a powerful myth that shaped Texas identity for generations.

This rewritten version of history led to many myths about the Alamo. Each myth reveals more about what later generations wanted or feared than about what actually happened in 1836.

Myth 1: The Alamo Was Never the Fortress We Imagine

Many people imagine the Alamo as a strong, important fortress, but it wasn’t. Mexican officers saw it as a weak, oversized building with walls that were too long and crumbling, and there was no roof. It didn’t even get its iconic hump until 1850. Lt. Colonel José Enrique de la Peña even called it “unimportant, politically or militarily,” a view shared by other Mexican officers. Texian engineer G. B. Jameson tried to make improvements, but he had little time, few tools, and a garrison that would not help. Travis thought 200 men could hold the Alamo. Jameson believed they could beat the Mexican army ten to one. Both were wrong.

Myth 2: The Defenders Did Not Arrive Expecting to Die

The popular story says the garrison chose death over surrender, but eyewitness accounts tell a different story. De la Peña wrote that Travis eventually agreed with the men: if no reinforcements arrived by March 5, they would surrender or try to escape at night. Women inside the Alamo and Joe, Travis’s enslaved man, confirmed this. General Vicente Filisola added that Travis tried to negotiate through a woman on March 5, asking only for the defenders’ lives. Santa Anna refused.

Santa Anna wanted a dramatic victory, not a peaceful surrender. He also worried that reinforcements might arrive, so he attacked before dawn on March 6. During the siege, the defenders expected help. Travis thought Tejanos would join him, but by March 3, he realized they would not. He wrote that San Antonio’s citizens were “all our enemies except those who have joined us heretofore.” Once surrounded, the garrison had few options. A few escaped as couriers; Tejanos were offered amnesty, and the rest were trapped in a position never meant to be defended.

Myth 3: The Siege Was Not the Epic Standoff of Legend

Movies and textbooks show the Alamo siege as a dramatic, action-packed event, but the real siege was much quieter. The Mexican army surrounded the Alamo for 13 days, but their artillery was outdated and ineffective. The Texians stopped firing their cannons because they were running out of gunpowder.

Filisola later wrote that twenty well-placed cannons could have destroyed the walls in less than an hour. Instead, the Mexican army dug trenches and slowly moved their guns closer. Reports from that time show how weak the walls were. Captain John Sowers Brooks wrote that every cannon shot went right through them. Eyewitnesses described the Mexican lines closing in, Texian supplies running out, and growing fear that help would not arrive.

Myth 4: The Battle Was Not a Long, Heroic Last Stand

The famous image of the Alamo shows defenders fighting to the last breath in a long, dramatic battle. In reality, the fight was short and chaotic. Most of the garrison was asleep when the attack started before dawn on March 6. Joe, Travis’ enslaved man, said only one sentry was awake. Three picket guards outside the fort were asleep and were bayoneted before they could sound an alarm.

Mexican officers described the battle as quick. De la Peña said the fighting lasted about an hour. Colonel Juan Almonte wrote that the attack began at 5:30 and ended around 6:00. Once the walls were breached, most defenders offered little organized resistance. Tucker estimated that the fighting inside lasted twenty to thirty minutes.

The strongest resistance came from 50 to 75 men trapped near the hospital. Many were already wounded and could not escape. The rest did what soldiers often do when a position falls: they tried to run. Up to 120 men fled the fort in three groups, but Mexican cavalry stopped almost all of them.

Myth 5: The Defenders Were Not Long‑Time Colonists Fighting for Their Rights

The usual story says the Alamo defenders were long-time settlers fighting for their rights under the Mexican Constitution, but most were not. Historian Walter Lord estimated that two-thirds were recent arrivals from the United States. Only a few had lived in Texas for six years or more, and many had been there for just a few weeks.

Mexican officer de la Peña wrote that only about thirty defenders were actual colonists. He called the rest “pirates,” a term used for foreigners who entered Mexico illegally. Historian Paul D. Lack’s research shows that during the Alamo and Goliad campaigns, 78 percent of fighters had lived in Texas for less than four months.

Many came for land, opportunity, or to expand a slave-based economy. Mexico had granted Texian settlers significant privileges, including tariff-free periods. Historian Frederick Merk said the revolt stemmed from aggressive American frontiersmen seeking land, not from constitutional complaints. Even San Antonio first denied the garrison the right to vote in the 1836 Convention because it was seen as an occupying army, not a group of citizens.

Myth 6: The Defenders Did Not Represent a Unified, Heroic Ideal

The last myth says the defenders were a united symbol of courage and sacrifice. In reality, the garrison included recent immigrants, adventurers, enslavers, newcomers from Europe, and only a few long-time settlers. They had many different reasons for being there.

The idea of the defenders as united heroes came later, spread by newspapers, speeches, textbooks, and Hollywood movies. These stories turned the defenders into icons, made Mexicans look like villains, and hid the complicated political, racial, and economic reasons behind the conflict. The myth helped justify expansion, support Manifest Destiny, and reinforce a racial view of Anglo-American superiority.

The real story is more complicated. It includes mistakes, different goals, and Tejanos caught in the middle. Some men fought, some ran, some surrendered, and some died in ways that do not match the legend.

The Alamo We Remember vs. The Alamo That Actually Existed

The Alamo became a symbol of Texas identity. Over time, stories turned into myths. They changed a short, chaotic battle into a founding legend and made ordinary men like Davy Crockett and William Travis into legends.

Learning the real history doesn’t take anything away from their courage. It just places the battle inside the bigger struggle between Mexico and the United States and reminds us that the truth is always messier and far more interesting than the legends built on it.

If you want to read more about the actual building, I wrote about that previously.

When the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969, people around the world celebrated. At the same time, the Apollo program made major breakthroughs on Earth, thanks in part to a young Texan named Frances “Poppy” Northcutt.

Northcutt broke barriers as the first woman to work in an operational support role at Houston’s Mission Control Center. While most women at the time received clerical or support assignments, she stepped straight into the technical core of NASA’s biggest missions.

She joined NASA soon after earning her degree in math from the University of Texas at Austin in 1965. NASA hired her as a “computress,” a title that reflected the era more than her talent. She began by running calculations for the Gemini program and, within a year, earned a promotion to the technical staff.

She specialized in trans‑earth injection, the set of maneuvers that brought astronauts home from lunar orbit. During missions like Apollo 8, Apollo 11, and Apollo 13, she worked in a staff support room that Mission Control relied on for calculations and troubleshooting. She worked as the only woman in the room, and the men around her had to adjust to seeing a woman in a job they believed was reserved for men. One day, she noticed an internal camera pointed at her. She switched on the feed, saw the camera aimed directly at her, said, “OK. Now I know,” and went right back to work.

Northcutt worked in the Mission Planning and Analysis room, the center responsible for figuring out how to get astronauts to the Moon and back safely. Her team designed the return‑to‑Earth path for Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to leave Earth orbit. While checking the numbers, she spotted problems in the early plan and recalculated the trajectory so the spacecraft could swing around the Moon using less fuel. That level of precision mattered, especially on a mission that pushed every limit NASA had ever faced. Apollo 8 reached the Moon, orbited it, and returned home safely on December 27, 1968.

She continued her work with TRW and NASA for several more years, including on later missions such as Apollo 13. When an oxygen tank exploded on the spacecraft, Northcutt and the engineers who built the mission’s computer program immediately searched for a way to bring the crew home. The software she helped create calculated the emergency maneuvers that guided the damaged spacecraft back to Earth. For this work, Northcutt and the entire Mission Operations Team received the Presidential Medal of Freedom Team Award.

While still at TRW, Northcutt expanded her efforts beyond engineering. She joined the company’s affirmative action committee and pushed for better pregnancy‑leave policies. Working as one of the few women in the room made her see how much needed to change, so she threw herself into the women’s liberation movement. She organized demonstrations, wrote press releases, coordinated speeches, and worked closely with the National Organization for Women to build support for gender equality.

Her activism soon reached beyond her workplace. She spoke at Houston City Council meetings, and in 1974, the mayor appointed her as Houston’s first Women’s Advocate. In that role, she helped pass major reforms that improved women’s status in the city. She worked with the Houston Police Department to open the door for women to become police officers and pushed the Fire Department to hire women as well. She led a major equal‑pay study of the city’s payroll. She even counted women’s and men’s bathrooms across Houston to expose unequal public accommodations and push for change.

Her work created real progress. The number of women on boards and commissions grew significantly because she insisted they deserved a seat at the table. She also helped pass a law that stopped hospitals from charging women for rape kits, protecting survivors from unfair costs. Over time, she became president of both the Houston and Texas chapters of the National Organization for Women.

During this period, she still officially worked for TRW, receiving part of her salary while the company loaned her to the city. When that arrangement ended, she returned to TRW for a time, but she believed that doing a job well eventually meant working yourself out of it. She left for a year to try a position at Merrill Lynch, then moved into TRW’s Controls division while attending law school at night.

In 1984, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center and became a criminal defense attorney. She focused her legal work on civil rights, continuing the fight she had supported for years. She worked with Jane’s Due Process, an organization that protects the rights of pregnant minors. She later joined the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, where she became the first prosecutor in the Domestic Violence Unit.

Frances “Poppy” Northcutt did far more than help bring astronauts home from the Moon. She opened doors for future generations of women in science, engineering, and space exploration.

Before 1918, Porvenir, Texas, was a peaceful place. Mexican American families settled in the Presidio County desert, building homes, raising children, and working hard. They kept livestock, farmed small plots, and valued education. Around 20 children went to a small public school where Harry Warren taught.

The border region changed quickly. The Mexican Revolution crossed the Rio Grande, and anti-Mexican feelings in Texas grew with each new rumor. State leaders used the Texas Rangers to enforce racial control.

The First Raid

Before sunrise on January 24, 1918, Texas Rangers from Company B and local vigilantes stormed into Porvenir. They forced families out of their beds at gunpoint and searched every house. They eventually took three men—Román Nieves, Nutemio González, and Manuel Fierro—and held them for two days without explanation. When the Rangers released the men on January 26, fear spread through the village.

The Massacre

Early on January 28, 1918, Company B returned. This time, four local ranchers—Buck Pool, John Pool, Tom Snyder, and Raymond Fitzgerald—joined them. Soldiers from the Eighth U.S. Cavalry Regiment also arrived. The group surrounded Porvenir while families slept. They dragged residents from their homes again and separated fifteen unarmed men and boys from the others.

The Rangers marched the group away from the village and shot them close to their homes. Their bodies stayed where they fell.

Flight and Testimony

The survivors ran across the Rio Grande in fear. Mexican troops gave them shelter, food, and protection. They also let families recover the bodies of their loved ones and bury them in Mexico. Even while grieving, the survivors acted quickly. They gave sworn statements to Mexican officials to keep the truth alive.

One survivor, Juan Méndez, wrote to Gen. J. C. Murguía in Ojinaga. He described the massacre and begged for protection for the “suffering people” of Porvenir. His words showed how desperate the families were after losing everything in one night.

By February 15, the Mexican embassy filed a formal protest with U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing, demanding accountability.

The Rangers’ Story Falls Apart

Texas Rangers and local ranchers tried to justify the killings. They called the victims thieves, spies, and murderers. They said the men had joined raids, including the Brite Ranch raid a month before. They also claimed they had exchanged gunfire with unknown attackers hiding in the brush. Their story fell apart almost right away.

Investigations by Mexican consuls, U.S. soldiers, and the State Department showed that the victims were unarmed and already in Ranger custody when the Rangers killed them. There was no shootout. There was no threat. The massacre was an execution.

The State Responds

On June 4, 1918, Governor William P. Hobby disbanded Company B. He fired five Rangers, reassigned others, and made Captain James Monroe Fox resign. The state rarely admitted wrongdoing by its own law enforcement, but this time it had no choice.

Fox responded with anger. In a letter written a week later, he insisted his men had only killed “Mexican bandits” and accused the governor of bowing to political pressure from Mexico.

Adj. Gen. James A. Harley replied the next day. He condemned the massacre and said clearly that Fox’s men had killed fifteen unarmed prisoners and denied them a trial by jury. Harley argued that Texas could not fight autocracy in World War I while allowing it at home. Even with strong evidence, no one was prosecuted.

Growing Public Outrage

Public anger over state violence against Mexicans grew. State Representative José Tomás Canales, the only Mexican American legislator in Texas, called for a full investigation into Ranger abuses. Hearings started in January 1919. Canales called the Porvenir massacre “cold-blooded murder” and submitted survivor testimonies, reports, and newspaper articles. More than ninety witnesses described killings, torture, threats, and abuses by Rangers across South Texas. The committee confirmed widespread atrocities. The state reduced the force and set new hiring standards, but again, no one was charged.

The Fight to Control the Narrative

In the years that followed, well-known historians tried to soften the story. Walter Prescott Webb, a leading Texas historian of the twentieth century, described Mexicans as bandits and blamed Ranger violence on a few bad officers. Survivors and their families rejected his version. They knew the truth because they had lived through it.

Texas has often hidden its past. The heroic Ranger myth is still one of the state’s strongest stories. But myths protect power, not truth.l Battles and Diplomatic Claims

In 1923, the U.S.-Mexico General Claims Commission allowed diplomatic claims. Mexican attorneys filed twelve Porvenir cases in 1926. After collecting over one hundred pieces of evidence, attorney Oscar Rebasa filed a major claim on February 15, 1935. The petition accused Texas authorities of not protecting the arrested men, taking part in the murders, and refusing to prosecute those responsible.

A Century Later

On January 28, 2018, the one hundredth anniversary of the massacre, about four hundred people gathered at the Texas State Capitol to honor the victims. Arlinda Valencia, a descendant, organized the event. Later that year, the Texas Historical Commission put up a state marker to recognize the Porvenir Massacre as a Texas tragedy.

The Porvenir Massacre was not an isolated event. It was part of a larger pattern of state violence against Mexican and Mexican American communities during a time of border conflict, revolution, and racial fear. It showed how deeply prejudice shaped law enforcement and how easily officials ignored the rights of whole communities.

Elisabet Ney was born on January 26, 1833, in Münster, Westphalia, Germany, to a stonecarver father and a mother who managed the household. She often watched her father work, which sparked her early fascination with sculpture.

As a teenager, Ney wanted more than the traditional life expected of her. At nineteen, she surprised her parents by deciding to study art. Few women attended art schools then, but Ney persisted. She traveled to Munich in 1852, studied privately, and was admitted to the Munich Academy of Art, graduating with top honors in 1854.

After Munich, Ney moved to Berlin to study with renowned sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch, whose guidance shaped her classical, realistic style. Through Rauch, she met key thinkers and artists and sculpted portraits of figures such as Jacob Grimm and Alexander von Humboldt, quickly building her reputation.

In the late 1850s and 1860s, Ney traveled around Europe sculpting notable leaders, musicians, and political figures. Her acclaimed works included busts of Schopenhauer, Garibaldi, and Bismarck, as well as a full-length statue of King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

In 1863, Ney married Scottish doctor Edmund Montgomery in Madeira. The couple left Europe in 1871 for Thomasville, Georgia, where their two sons were born. A year later, they moved to Texas and bought Liendo Plantation. For nearly twenty years, Ney managed the plantation as Montgomery conducted research. Though life there was demanding, Ney missed her artistic community.

In the 1880s, Ney visited Austin at Governor Oran M. Roberts’ invitation, renewing her passion for sculpture. In 1892, she built a studio in Hyde Park, now the Elisabet Ney Museum. From there, she sought commissions from state leaders and the community.

In her last fifteen years, Ney sculpted statues of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston for the Texas State Capitol, with copies in the U.S. Capitol. She also made a memorial to Albert Sidney Johnston for the Texas State Cemetery and created a Lady Macbeth sculpture, now in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art.

Alongside her art, Ney was active in Austin’s cultural life. She believed art could inspire and unite people. She died in Austin in 1907. Four years later, friends founded the Texas Fine Arts Association to honor her legacy and support art in Texas.

Today, Elisabet Ney is recognized as one of Texas’ first professional sculptors and one of its most influential artists. Artists, historians, and Texans continue to find inspiration from her work.

In the summer of 1910, more than 150 Black ministers in Washington, D.C., took action. They wrote to President William Howard Taft and the American public, urging them to respond after a massacre of African Americans in Slocum, a small town in East Texas. Their letter called on the nation to stop ignoring racial violence or risk losing its moral foundation.

The ministers acted after July 29, 1910, when hundreds of armed white men from Anderson County attacked Slocum. The exact number of people killed is not known, with estimates ranging from a few dozen to as many as two hundred.

The ministers began their letter by saying they wished this meeting were unnecessary. They said that if the United States enforced its laws fairly for everyone, they would not need to gather. Their words called for justice and criticized a nation that allowed racial violence.

What Led to the Slocum Massacre

Slocum had a strong Black community with successful farms, businesses, and landowners. In the weeks before the massacre, racial tensions increased. A lynching in nearby Cherokee County caused fear and anger. White residents spread rumors that Black people in Slocum were planning an uprising. A dispute over a debt owed to respected Black farmer Abe Wilson made matters worse.

These events gave white vigilantes reasons to act. A local white farmer, Jim Spurger, became the main agitator. Newspapers later reported that he said Black residents had threatened him, which helped start the violence.

When the attacks began, white mobs moved through Slocum in armed groups. Some reports said up to two hundred white men took part. Early newspaper stories claimed Black residents started the violence, but this was soon proven false.

The Death Toll and the Aftermath

Newspapers at the time reported between 8 and 22 deaths. Black residents said the real number was much higher, with at least 40 confirmed and possibly up to 200. Sheriff William H. Black said bodies were scattered in the woods, so it was almost impossible to know the true number.

Many Black families left Slocum and never returned. To survive, they left behind their homes, businesses, livestock, and land. White residents later took much of this property. For example, Jack Hollie, who had been enslaved, lost his dairy, granary, general store, and 700 acres after he and his family escaped.

Authorities called almost every resident of Slocum to testify. White men who refused were arrested. Spurger and at least fifteen others were charged, and several faced 22 counts of murder. But justice was never served. The trial was moved to Harris County, the charges were quietly dropped, and no one was prosecuted.

Slocum Today

More than a hundred years later, the effects of the massacre are still clear. Nearby towns have Black populations above 20 percent, but in Slocum, it is less than 7 percent. This change shows who was forced out and who remained.

Thanks to the efforts of descendants like Constance Hollie‑Jawaid, a historical marker was placed in 2016 to recognize what happened. It is one of the few public acknowledgments of the massacre and the lost community.

The Slocum Massacre is not just a Texas story. It is an American story about racial violence, stolen land, and the long fight for justice. It also reminds us that people across the country once organized, protested, and demanded accountability, even when it was hard.

Freedmen’s Town in Houston’s Fourth Ward stands as one of the most important places in Black Texas history. After emancipation on June 19, 1865, newly freed men and women traveled to the area looking for safety, stability, and a chance to build new lives. They created a community from the ground up. Antioch Missionary Baptist Church opened in 1866, and more churches, schools, and mutual‑aid groups soon followed. By the early 1900s, the neighborhood had become a thriving center of Black culture, business, and music.

Life in Freedmen’s Town wasn’t easy. Segregation shaped every part of daily life, and the city often denied Black residents basic services. In 1929, officials tried to push Black families into specific wards. The plan failed, but redlining and restrictive housing rules continued to limit opportunity.

As Houston expanded in the 1930s, the Fourth Ward faced growing pressure. Large sections of the neighborhood were cleared for new development and highway construction. Even when officials promised residents they could stay, new housing built during World War II went to white military families, and a wall was put up to divide the communities.

By the 1970s, much of the original neighborhood had been destroyed. Preservation groups stepped in and fought to protect what remained. Their work led to Freedmen’s Town being named a National Register Historic District in 1985. Today, organizations like the Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum continue to safeguard the surviving homes, churches, and hand‑laid brick streets built by freedmen in the 1860s.

Freedmen’s Town remains a powerful reminder of Black resilience and creativity. Visitors can explore this history through walking tours, museums, and the preserved streets that still carry the imprint of the community that built them.

​Héctor P. García was born in 1914 in Llera, Tamaulipas, to parents who were both teachers and valued education. When the Mexican Revolution became dangerous, the family moved to Mercedes, Texas. They started over by doing manual labor and running a small dry-goods store. Despite these hardships, the Garcías aimed high. Six of their children, including Héctor, became medical doctors.

At fifteen, García joined the Citizens Military Training Corps, earned a junior officer’s commission, and graduated as valedictorian from his segregated high school. He hitchhiked 30 miles each day to attend Edinburg Junior College, then transferred to the University of Texas and graduated with honors. Medical school was tough. Because of unfair quotas, he was the only Mexican American in his class at UTMB Galveston. He completed his residency in Omaha, Nebraska, as World War II was beginning.

In 1942, García volunteered for military service. During the war, he served in the infantry, with combat engineers, and in the Medical Corps. He earned a Bronze Star and six battle stars for his service in North Africa and Italy. While stationed in Naples, he met and married Wanda Fusillo. Their first daughter was born the following year.

After the war, García returned to South Texas and opened a medical practice in Corpus Christi with his brother. He treated anyone who needed care, whether they could pay or not. His work as a doctor soon led him to activism. In 1947, he became president of the local LULAC chapter, where he fought against segregated schools, unfair policies, and the denial of veterans’ benefits.

This led to an important meeting on March 26, 1948, in a Corpus Christi classroom, where the American G.I. Forum was founded. Within a year, the group gained national attention after the Felix Longoria Affair. A funeral home in Three Rivers would not let the family of a Mexican-American soldier use the chapel. García asked Senator Lyndon B. Johnson for help, and Johnson arranged for Longoria to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. This case brought the G.I. Forum into the national civil rights spotlight and expanded its work to include education, farm labor issues, jury discrimination, school desegregation, and poll tax reform.

García’s political influence kept growing. He helped organize the Viva Kennedy and Viva Johnson clubs in 1960, becoming a key figure in Mexican American political mobilization. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to several important roles, including as an alternate ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Under his leadership, the G.I. Forum supported the landmark Hernández v. Texas case, which challenged the exclusion of Mexican Americans from juries and changed civil rights law.

Héctor P. García dedicated his life to putting service into action. His efforts ranged from small towns in South Texas to the national stage, helping win important civil rights victories and inspiring new political strength among Mexican Americans. García’s legacy lives on in the rights he helped secure and in the generations who continue to fight for equality.

As a kid, my friends and I used to tell each other the story of La Llorona at sleepovers to scare each other. We also swapped stories about the dripping noise and the dog, and the hook for a hand. Some of my friends liked to play Sara Sarita, a game where kids try to contact the ghosts of two murdered girls. WHY?! What girls?! I was always the one hiding under the covers for that one. We scared each other so much that we stayed awake as long as we could before finally falling asleep. Later, when I took a Folklore class at Texas Tech, I started to see La Llorona and other stories in a new way. I learned that folklore comes from everyday people, not just one writer or source. These stories usually grow out of daily life and the questions people want to answer. They are often meant to share cultural values, teach lessons, or explain things in nature. That doesn’t sound so scary, right? I still don’t want to hear a woman crying at night, but at least I’m not hiding under the covers anymore.

La Llorona is one of the most well-known ghosts in the Americas. She is called the Crying Woman because she drowned her children after her husband betrayed her, and now she wanders at night searching for them. People say that if you hear her crying, something bad could happen. Parents often use this story to warn kids to stay away from rivers, ditches, ponds, and other places with water.

La Llorona is more than just one story. She appears in Mexican plazas, New Mexican ditches, Texas riverbanks, and Central American legends. Her story connects to Aztec goddesses who mourned their children and to European ghosts who haunt crossroads. The image of a grieving mother wandering at night has existed in many cultures for centuries.

The details of her story change depending on where you hear it. Sometimes she is called María and was left by a wealthy lover. Other times, she is a betrayed wife. In some versions, her children are legitimate, and in others, they are not. She is usually seen in a wet white dress, and people hear her cries near water. Many people used this story as a warning. If you misbehaved, La Llorona would come for you. If you were not careful with men, you might end up like her. But in the late twentieth century, Latina writers and artists started to question this idea. Why was she always seen as the villain? Why did the story blame her instead of the systems that trapped her? What if her grief was really about women losing their children, land, and identity, not just jealousy?

Writers like Gloria Anzaldúa and Sandra Cisneros helped change the story. They made La Llorona a guide instead of a threat. Anzaldúa connected her to Indigenous ancestry and reclaimed the power that colonizers had taken. In her poem “My Black Angelos,” La Llorona helps a young girl find the herb that will save her mother. Cisneros gives another version in “Woman Hollering Creek.” Her character Cleófilas goes through abandonment and abuse, like in the old legend, but she chooses not to repeat the cycle. With help from another woman, Felice, she escapes. As Felice drives her over a creek called La Gritona, she shouts with joy. This yell is the opposite of La Llorona’s sadness. It is a cry of freedom.

In these new versions, La Llorona is no longer just a ghost meant to scare girls into obeying. She becomes a symbol for women who refuse to be forgotten. She stands for survival and freedom.

Juan Seguín is an important figure in Texas history, representing the vital role Tejanos played in the state’s fight for independence. He fought for Texas, served his community, and risked his life, but his story is often overlooked.

A Tejano Patriot in a Changing Texas

Juan Seguín was born in San Antonio in 1806. His family was respected in the community. Although he had little formal schooling, his father encouraged him to read, write, and take part in civic life. By nineteen, he had married into another well-known ranching family. By the age of 22, he was serving in public office.

In 1835, he joined the military to support the Federalist governor against Centralist forces. When the Texas Revolution started, Seguín organized a group of Tejano volunteers. They helped scout, supply, and fight alongside the Anglo rebels. He entered the Alamo with the other defenders, but was sent out as a courier before the final attack. After the Alamo fell, Seguín led the only Tejano unit at the Battle of San Jacinto. He accepted the Mexican surrender of San Antonio and later oversaw the burial of those who died at the Alamo. By the end of 1836, he was elected to the Texas Senate, becoming the only Mexican Texan in the Republic’s legislature.

Rumors, Politics, and a Turning Point

Trouble began in the early 1840s, marking a major change. Texas tried to expand into New Mexico with the Santa Fe Expedition, but it failed. The Texans were captured and forced to walk 1,500 miles to a prison in Mexico City. After the mission failed, some people quietly accused Seguín of having warned Mexican authorities, which led to suspicion and doubt.

A year later, while serving as mayor of San Antonio, Seguín wrote to President Sam Houston to ask for help. He believed Mexican forces were getting ready to invade the city. The government said it did not have the money to send support. When the Mexican military arrived, critics accused Seguín of making the threat seem bigger than it was or even helping the enemy.

The accusations grew worse, marking another turning point for Seguín. His political enemies made things even harder. Fearing for his life, Seguín resigned as mayor in 1842 and fled to Mexico, leaving behind everything he had worked for.

Seguín believed he would be safe in Mexico, but he was not. Mexican authorities arrested him as soon as he crossed the border. To them, he was a traitor for fighting for Texas independence. They gave him a choice: prison or military service. He chose military service. Forced by the situation, he fought on the Mexican side during efforts to take back Texas. Rangers chased him along the Rio Grande but never caught him. The Mexican-American War ended in 1848, and following years of forced service and hardship, Seguín wrote to Sam Houston again, asking to come home. Houston agreed, and Seguín returned to Texas later that year. But the Texas he came back to was not the same. Tejanos had lost land, political power, and safety. Suspicion was everywhere.

For many years, Seguín moved between Texas and Mexico, trying to rebuild his life. He worked as a constable, a precinct chairman, and even a county judge. But he never fully felt the sense of belonging he once had.

The Final Years

In 1870, Seguín moved to Nuevo Laredo to be close to his son Santiago. Juan Seguín died in 1890 and was buried in Nuevo Laredo, far from the land he once defended.

For a while, it seemed he might be forgotten, remembered only by his family and a few historians. Many Tejano heroes faced the same fate. Their names rarely appeared in textbooks, and more well-known Anglos overshadowed their contributions.

A Legacy Restored

As the Mexican American community in Texas asked for recognition, sharing stories like Juan Seguín’s became important for creating a more accurate history. Seguín’s name returned as a patriot who fought for Texas and paid a heavy price, helping to redefine Texas’ heroes and challenge the old, one-sided story. Seguín’s remains were returned to Texas, and he was reburied in the town named after him.

On March 19, 1966, Texas Western College, now known as UTEP, surprised the nation and changed college basketball for good. The Miners were the first team to start five Black players in an NCAA championship game. Their 72–65 win over the top-ranked Kentucky Wildcats led to the quick integration of college sports throughout the South.

Almost sixty years later, that game is still seen as one of the most important moments in sports history.

A Championship Game That Redefined College Basketball

Although segregation was no longer legal, many Southern college teams were still all-white. The ACC, SEC, and SWC had no Black players. In El Paso, a city shaped by different cultures, Don Haskins built a team that valued talent above all else.

Haskins did not set out to make a statement. He just started the best players on his team. That choice led to a historic season.

• Texas Western finished the regular season 23–1

• They survived overtime wins against Cincinnati and Kansas

• They beat Utah in the Final Four

• They entered the title game ranked No. 3 in the nation

Their opponent, Kentucky, represented traditional college basketball. The team was all white, coached by Adolph Rupp, and known as a powerhouse with national prestige.

The Moment History Walked Onto the Court

The 1966 NCAA championship was not a primetime event. It started at 10 p.m. and was not shown on a major network. Inside Cole Field House, the symbolism was clear. The crowd and officials were white, and Kentucky fans waved a Confederate flag. Five Black players in bright orange uniforms walked to center court.

Texas Western took the lead midway through the first half and never gave it back. Their disciplined offense and tough defense frustrated Kentucky’s fast‑paced style. When the final buzzer sounded, the Miners had won the national title and rewritten the future of college sports.

Why the 1966 Texas Western Team Still Matters

The impact of that game was quick and far-reaching. Southern programs began recruiting Black athletes, and there were many new scholarship opportunities. College basketball rosters diversified, and the win helped break down racial barriers.

From 1966 to 1985, the average number of Black players on college teams almost doubled. Football, baseball, and track programs also became more diverse.

Texas Western’s victory was more than just a championship. It opened doors for others.

Don Haskins’ Legacy

Haskins coached until 1999. He never made it to another Final Four, but he did not have to. His legacy is forever linked to that night in 1966, when he trusted his players, ignored outside pressure, and let talent shine.

As former Miner Harry Flournoy said, “No one will remember him without remembering us.” He was right. The story of Texas Western is about courage, change, and a team that refused to follow outdated rules.

Why This Story Still Resonates Today

The 1966 Texas Western Miners did more than win a basketball game. They changed the direction of college sports and helped move the country toward a more inclusive future. Their victory is a strong reminder of what can happen when people choose fairness over fear.

These events were depicted in the movie Glory Road (2006), which is worth watching.

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I grew up in Kleberg County, on a ranch a hundred miles from the border, where the land is flat, and there is nothing but brush, cotton, and cattle. Border Patrol was just part of the scenery. Their white trucks with the green stripe were as common as mesquite trees. Their big office sat in Kingsville, and the checkpoint south in Sarita split the drive between Kingsville and Raymondville like a permanent sign of who was allowed to move freely and who wasn’t.

As a kid, I didn’t think much about it. Border Patrol agents were at the taquerias, at Whataburger, driving down every street, acting like they owned the place. When the trains came through town, that’s when things got busy. We’d be sitting at the bank drive‑through or waiting for a train to pass, and suddenly, thirty or forty people would jump off the rail cars and scatter in every direction. La Migra would chase them, but a few agents would never catch that many people. It was hectic, but to us it was just Tuesday. At the checkpoint, if you were white, you would just get waved through. If you were brown with white people, you were probably going to get stopped and asked what you were doing or where you were going. If you were brown, you would definitely be stopped and questioned. And if La Migra were bored, your vehicle would get searched. And they weren’t even there all the time. I guess “bad guys” only go through 8 am-5 pm.

What I didn’t fully understand then, but clearly see now, was who those agents were. Most of them were Mexican-American. Several of my “friends” fathers wore that green uniform. Their kids were all no sabo kids, raised to avoid Spanish as if it were a stain. They all walked around with this air of superiority, desperate to prove they weren’t “one of those Mexicans.” The older I got, the more the Border Patrol kids grated on me. Their fathers strutted around town as if they were above the community, and that attitude seeped into their children. I was never really their friend; they were the outer‑circle kids you tolerated because small towns don’t give you many options. They were insufferable.

In a small town, you sometimes get bored, and because we didn’t see them as cops, we would roll down our windows and yell “chingra la migra” and laugh at them because they were, in our eyes, stupid—nothing like a car full of teenage girls taunting grown men.

I’m not friends with any of those no sabo kids anymore. They’ve gone full MAGA, convinced Mexicans are ruining the country, even though ICE wouldn’t hesitate to round them up because they’re brown. With age, I’ve realized what I was seeing all along: self‑loathing bastards trying to outrun their own reflection.

Growing up, we heard stories about migrants dying, run over by trains, falling from trestles where they slept to avoid snakes, feral hogs, or coyotes. These weren’t random tragedies; they were part of the landscape. And people then felt bad for them and the loss of life. Now, I hear my own family talk about how dangerous everything is and how “we need to build the wall,” and that Mexicans are ruining everything, and I find myself wondering what world they’re living in. We have Mexican Americans in our own family! How am I related to these people? Oh, right, I left Texas after school and lived in other cities like DC, NYC, and Atlanta. I got out and saw the world. I wouldn’t exactly say that going off to College Station for school is “seeing the world.” And living in Kleberg County is certainly not it.

Every so often, men would come through our ranch asking for water, food, and directions to the King Ranch. My mom, who only knew bad words in Spanish, would hand them food, say “agua,” point to the hose, then toward the ranch: “rancho.” Sometimes my dad or uncles hired them for a while. That was just what you did. You didn’t call La Migra. You didn’t threaten them. You recognized their humanity. They were people trying to make a better life, just like most of our ancestors, unless you’re Indigenous or a Mexican American whose family had the border cross them.

​I left South Texas in 1991 for college, and while the region has changed a little, it hasn’t changed that much. People talk about “Muslims coming through” or “cartel activity everywhere,” but when you ask for evidence, it’s always some friend’s uncle’s cousin who supposedly found something on his land. Meanwhile, when something real happened, like when someone broke into my uncle’s house, stole clothes, showered, and took all the nonperishable food, they told me immediately. The person didn’t take guns. They weren’t lying in wait. They were crossing the Wild Horse Desert in 100‑degree heat, trying not to die. When I go down there, it’s pretty much the same, except the Interstate is replacing Highway 77, and there is a Starbucks and a Chili’s. And there are a lot more of those cabrones in green uniforms driving around, still acting like they are superior.

Studying anthropology in college cracked everything open for me. I went home one summer and suddenly saw the whole structure, classism, colorism, and internalized hatred, laid out in front of me. What I’d grown up around wasn’t simple. It was a system, and everyone was playing their assigned role.

Now, it doesn’t matter where you came from or what your status is. Anyone can get scooped up, disappeared, beaten, or terrorized. Border Patrol and ICE aren’t just rounding up people who jumped off trains anymore. The scale is bigger. The violence is sharper. The fear is intentional.

And the people enforcing it? Many of them are still those same wannabe self‑loathing folks who grew up insisting they were better than “those Mexicans.” People who inherited their fathers’ bitterness and built their identities around distancing themselves from their own roots.

That’s the part that stays with me. Not the trucks, the checkpoints, or the trains with people looking for a better life. It’s the agents and their children who spent their whole lives trying to outrun who they were and the damage they caused along the way. They will continue to inflict damage, and as their scope and violence expand, nobody is safe.

Chinga La Migra Forever!

This is part of my Texas History.

On September 15, 1896, south of West, Texas, one of America’s weirdest publicity stunts occurred. The Crash at Crush featured two full-sized steam locomotives intentionally colliding.

William George Crush, a passenger agent for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad, known as the Katy, came up with the idea. Wanting to outdo typical promotions, he thought a dramatic train wreck would attract attention and sell tickets. The plan worked even better than he hoped.

For months, the railroad promoted the event across Texas, offering cheap round-trip tickets and free admission. They built a four-mile track in a valley surrounded by hills. A temporary town called Crush, Texas, sprang up almost overnight.

The railroad went all out. Workers drilled wells and set up telegraph offices. A depot went up, boasting a big sign with the town’s name. There were grandstands for officials, platforms for reporters, stages for speakers, and a bandstand for music lovers. They turned a Ringling Brothers circus tent into a restaurant. A carnival midway appeared, full of games, food stands, medicine shows, and cigar booths. About 300 special police officers kept things under control.

By the day of the crash, more than 40,000 people had gathered, more than the population of most Texas cities at the time. While spectators stood at least 200 yards from the tracks, journalists were allowed closer. Officials reassured everyone that the crash would be safe and insisted the engines’ boilers could handle the impact.

The two locomotives were old steam engines that the railroad no longer needed. One was painted red, and the other was painted green. Each pulled six boxcars covered in bright ads. Late in the afternoon, the trains moved slowly together for photographers to take pictures, then backed up to opposite ends of the track.

Around 5 p.m., Crush gave the signal. Crews opened throttles, rode briefly, and jumped off. The engines sped downhill, whistles blowing, rapidly gaining speed.

The trains crashed with a thunderous noise as planned. Wood splintered and metal twisted. For a moment, everything stopped. Then, in an unexpected turn, both boilers exploded.

Because both boilers exploded after the collision, pieces of iron and steel flew in all directions. As a result, debris fell onto the crowd, causing panic. Two spectators died, and at least six others were hurt.

When the dust settled, the wreckage was still smoldering. Despite the danger and several people being burned, souvenir hunters rushed in to grab pieces of wood and metal.

The story made headlines all over the country. In the immediate aftermath, Crush was fired that night, but the company quietly hired him back the next day. Despite controversy, the publicity helped Katy Railroad’s business, and Crush stayed with the company for many years.

In response to the tragedy, the railroad quickly paid cash settlements and even gave lifetime passes to the victims and their families. Nevertheless, even though the event ended in disaster, staged train wrecks stayed popular as entertainment for years after.