Download or read book Crossing Rio Pecos written by Patrick Dearen and published by TCU Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mythic Old West - the war cry of the Indian, the blast of the cowboy's six-shooter, the crack of the stage-driver's whip, the thunder of the stampeding longhorn. While documented history was painting dreary lives for pioneers in many other locations, the Pecos stirred with color and drama and nurtured the stuff of legend. Long after irrigation and dams rendered the river a polluted trickle, Patrick Dearen went seeking out the crossings and the stories behind them. In.
Download or read book Crossing Rio Pecos written by Patrick Dearen and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-03 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pecos River flows snake-like out of New Mexico and across West Texas before striking the Rio Grande. In frontier Texas, the Pecos was more moat than river—a deadly barrier of quicksand, treacherous currents, and impossibly steep banks. Only at its crossings, with legendary names such as Horsehead and Pontoon, could travelers hope to gain passage. Even if the river proved obliging, Indian raiders and outlaws often did not. Long after irrigation and dams rendered the river a polluted trickle, Patrick Dearen went seeking out the crossings and the stories behind them. In Crossing Rio Pecos—a follow-up to his Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier—he draws upon years of research to relate the history and folklore of all the crossings—Horsehead, Pontoon, Pope’s, Emigrant, Salt, Spanish Dam, Adobe, “S,” and Lancaster. Meticulously documented, Crossing Rio Pecos emerges as the definitive study of these gateways which were so vital to the opening of the western frontier.
Download or read book Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier Revisited written by Patrick Dearen and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-14 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1988, Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier was acclaimed by reviewers as “superb,” “significant,” and “utterly delightful.” In this revised edition, Patrick Dearen draws upon the latest in scholarship to update his study of the Pecos River country of West Texas. It’s a land wild with tales that blend history, geography, and folklore, and from his search emerge six fascinating accounts: -Castle Gap, a break in a mesa twelve miles east of the Pecos River, used by Comanches, emigrants, stage drivers, and cattle drovers; -Horsehead Crossing, the most infamous ford of the Old West; -Juan Cordona Lake, a salt lake where sandstorms and skull-baking sun defied early efforts to mine salt vital to survival; -The “bulto” or ghost who wanders the Fort Stockton night; -Lost Wagon Train, a forty-wagon caravan buried in the sands; -The lost mine of Will Sublett, who found gold and kept its location secret unto death. Although linked by the search for treasure, the stories are as varied as the land itself. They speak eloquently of the Pecos country, its heritage, and its people.
Download or read book Bitter Waters written by Patrick Dearen and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rising at 11,750 feet in the Sangre de Cristo range and snaking 926 miles through New Mexico and Texas to the Rio Grande, the Pecos River is one of the most storied waterways in the American West. It is also one of the most troubled. In 1942, the National Resources Planning Board observed that the Pecos River basin “probably presents a greater aggregation of problems associated with land and water use than any other irrigated basin in the Western U.S.” In the twenty-first century, the river’s problems have only multiplied. Bitter Waters, the first book-length study of the entire Pecos, traces the river’s environmental history from the arrival of the first Europeans in the sixteenth century to today. Running clear at its source and turning salty in its middle reach, the Pecos River has served as both a magnet of veneration and an object of scorn. Patrick Dearen, who has written about the Pecos since the 1980s, draws on more than 150 interviews and a wealth of primary sources to trace the river’s natural evolution and man’s interaction with it. Irrigation projects, dams, invasive saltcedar, forest proliferation, fires, floods, flow decline, usage conflicts, water quality deterioration—Dearen offers a thorough and clearly written account of what each factor has meant to the river and its prospects. As fine-grained in detail as it is sweeping in breadth, the picture Bitter Waters presents is sobering but not without hope, as it also extends to potential solutions to the Pecos River’s problems and the current efforts to undo decades of damage. Combining the research skills of an accomplished historian, the investigative techniques of a veteran journalist, and the engaging style of an award-winning novelist, this powerful and accessible work of environmental history may well mark a turning point in the Pecos’s fortunes.
Download or read book The Lower Pecos River Pandale to Lake Amistad written by Louis F. Aulbach and published by Louis F. Aulbach. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Cowboy of the Pecos written by Patrick Dearen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1880s, the Pecos River region of Texas and southern New Mexico was known as “the cowboy’s paradise.” And the cowboys who worked in and around the river were known as “the most expert cowboys in the world.” A Cowboy of the Pecos vividly reveals tells the story of the Pecos cowboy from the first Goodnight-Loving cattle drive to the 1920s. These meticulously researched and entertaining stories offer a glimpse into a forgotten and yet mythologized era. Includes archival photographs.
Download or read book Saving San Antonio written by Lewis F. Fisher and published by Trinity University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few American cities enjoy the likes of San Antonio's visual links with its dramatic past. The Alamo and four other Spanish missions, recently marked as a UNESCO World Heritage site, are the most obvious but there are a host of landmarks and folkways that have survived over the course of nearly three centuries that still lend San Antonio an "odd and antiquated foreignness." Adding to the charm of the nation's seventh largest city is the San Antonio River, saved to become a winding linear park through the heart of downtown and beyond and a world model for sensitive urban development. San Antonio's heritage has not been preserved by accident. The wrecking balls and headlong development that accompanied progress in nineteenth-century San Antonio roused an indigenous historic preservation movement—the first west of the Mississippi River to become effective. Its thrust has increased since the mid-1920s with the pioneering work of the San Antonio Conservation Society. In Saving San Antonio, Texas historian Lewis Fisher peels back the myths surrounding more than a century of preservation triumphs and failures to reveal a lively mosaic that portrays the saving of San Antonio's cultural and architectural soul. The process, entertaining in the telling, has reverberated throughout the United States and provided significant lessons for the built environments and economies of cities everywhere.
Download or read book Maphead written by Ken Jennings and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of mapmaking while offering insight into the role of cartography in human civilization and sharing anecdotes about the cultural arenas frequented by map enthusiasts.
Download or read book Tracks Along the Pecos written by Bill J. Leftwich and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book aims to put forth a general knowledge of the Pecos River Valley region from the Indian times to the early 1900's.
Download or read book Springs of Texas written by Gunnar M. Brune and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explores the natural history of Texas and more than 2900 springs in 183 Texas counties. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the general characteristics of springs - their physical and prehistoric settings, their historical significance, and their associated flora and fauna.
Download or read book From Presidio to the Pecos River written by Orville B. Shelburne, Jr. and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1848 treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War described a boundary between the two countries that was to be ascertained by a joint boundary commission effort. The section of the boundary along the Rio Grande from Presidio to the mouth of the Pecos River was arguably the most challenging, and it was surveyed by two American parties, one led by civilian surveyor M. T. W. Chandler in 1852, and the second led by Lieutenant Nathaniel Michler in 1853. Our understanding of these two surveys across the greater Big Bend has long been limited to the official reports and maps housed in the National Archives and never widely published. The discovery by Orville B. Shelburne of the journal kept by Dr. Charles C. Parry, surgeon-botanist-geologist for the 1852 party, has dramatically enriched the story by giving us a firsthand view of the Chandler boundary survey as it unfolded. Parry’s journal forms the basis of From Presidio to the Pecos River, which documents the day-to-day working of the survey teams. The story Shelburne tells is one of scientific exploration under duress—surveyors stranded in towering canyons overnight without food or shelter; piloting inflatable rubber boats down wild rivers; rising to the challenges of a profoundly remote area, including the possibility of Indian attack. Shelburne’s comparison of the original boundary maps with their modern counterparts reveals the limitations of terrain and equipment on the survey teams. Shelburne's book provides a window on the adventure, near disaster, and true accomplishment of the surveyors’ work in documenting the course of the Rio Grande across the Big Bend region.
Download or read book Crossing Between Worlds written by Jeanne M. Simonelli and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2008-03-07 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Navajo people of Canyon de Chelly must negotiate a delicate balance between the old and the new as they struggle to maintain their traditional ways of life in the midst of archaeologists, U.S. Park Service employees, and the increasing numbers of tourists who come to visit this hauntingly beautiful part of northeastern Arizona. Anthropologist-writer Jeanne Simonelli, who worked at Canyon de Chelly as a seasonal park ranger, interweaves stories of her personal experiences and friendships with canyon residents with discussions of native history and culture in the region. Focusing on the members of one extended Navajo family, Simonelli describes the small moments of their daily lives: shearing goats, baking bread, attending a solemn all-night health ceremony, washing clothes at the local laundromat, playing traditional games and contemporary sports, talking about the history of the Dinthe Navajo peopleand pondering the changes they have witnessed in the canyon and the difficulties they confront. Crossing Between Worlds is sumptuously illustrated with insightful black-and-white photographs that document the everyday activities of Navajo families in one of the most spectacular corners of the American Southwest.
Download or read book Let s Cross Before Dark written by Bill Winsor and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 627 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Let’s Cross Before Dark... A History of the Ferries, Fords and River Crossings of Texas The state of Texas claims over 12,000 named rivers and streams stretching approximately 80,000 linear miles within its boundaries. In this book, Bill Winsor identifies and locates over 550 named river crossings within the state that once served as vital destinations for Native Americans, European explorers, and Mexican and American soldiers and colonists. Winsor has catalogued their origins and histories. Included in the work are maps of major rivers and their crossings as well as select images of early ferry operations of Texas. In addition to an alpha index of the crossings, the 625-page book presents an in-depth examination of the roles principal rivers and their crossings assumed in the framing of Texas history. Each of its fourteen chapters explores the founding of these various sites and the characters that brought them to life. This information, under one cover, presents an incomparable resource for future generations to better understand and appreciate the historical relevance of these vanishing theaters of history.
Download or read book The Big Drift written by Patrick Dearen and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-14 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will Brite is a Slash Five cowboy working in the Middle Concho region of Texas in the winter of 1884 when a blizzard descends upon him—the likes of which he has never seen. Trapped under his horse and entangled in a barbed wire fence, Will finds an unexpected (and unwelcome) savior in the form of Zeke Boles, a former slave on the run from a bloody, guilt-filled past. In Zeke’s dark features Will sees a reflection of the haunting memories he has been trying to escape for so long, but he reluctantly offers him shelter for the night at the Slash Five camp. Little does he know that their lives will be inexorably linked in the spring of ’85 through what will be one of the most brutal roundups of the nineteenth century. Follow Will, Zeke, and the rest of the Slash Fives as they ride through West Texas in search of stray cattle in an unforgettable tale of love, redemption, and true grit.
Download or read book Texas Blood written by Roger D. Hodge and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Ian Frazier's Great Plains, and as vivid as the work of Cormac McCarthy, an intoxicating, singularly illuminating history of the Texas borderlands from their settlement through seven generations of Roger D. Hodge's ranching family. What brought the author's family to Texas? What is it about Texas that for centuries has exerted a powerful allure for adventurers and scoundrels, dreamers and desperate souls, outlaws and outliers? In search of answers, Hodge travels across his home state--which he loves and hates in shifting measure--tracing the wanderings of his ancestors into forgotten histories along vanished roads. Here is an unsentimental, keenly insightful attempt to grapple with all that makes Texas so magical, punishing, and polarizing. Here is a spellbindingly evocative portrait of the borderlands--with its brutal history of colonization, conquest, and genocide; where stories of death and drugs and desperation play out daily. And here is a contemplation of what it means that the ranching industry that has sustained families like Hodge's for almost two centuries is quickly fading away, taking with it a part of our larger, deep-rooted cultural inheritance. A wholly original fusion of memoir and history--as piercing as it is elegiac--Texas Blood is a triumph.
Download or read book Haunted Border written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 Elmer Kelton Award Winner Spur Award-Winning Author Patrick Dearen "Fast-paced, gripping, and exciting . . . An unusual but interesting concept for a western story."—Historical Novel Society. In 1870, Jake Graves faced a choice: allow Comanches to carry off his sister, or shoot her. Unwilling to fire, he has been tortured for decades by the brutal end that he could have spared her. The incident bred in him a hatred for Indians that persists to this day in 1917 on the Cross C Ranch on the Texas-Mexico border. Now Jake learns that his daughter Dru wants to marry Apache foreman Nub DeJarnett. Even before Jake can process the news, Mexican bandits kidnap Dru and her cousin Ruthie. The bandit leader, Rentería, considers himself a tlahuelpuchi, a shape-shifting agent of evil, and he needs the women’s blood to survive. Whether man or monster, Rentería is a killer. Through a stretch of Chihuahuan Desert teeming with mystery, Jake and Nub take up the chase on horseback, for Rentería believes that Dru is his reincarnated sister and plans to slay her on the Rio Grande where his sister became his first kill. Haunted Border is based on a taped account by a survivor of the true-life Brite Ranch Raid of 1917.
Download or read book Rivers of Texas written by Verne Huser and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004-03-31 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the landscape, history, geology, and recreational opportunities afforded by the rivers of Texas, presenting information about each river's size, location, tributaries, discharge, and special sites.
