Download or read book The West Texas Power Plant That Saved the World written by Andy Bowman and published by . This book was released on 2023-08-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How one solar power plant might chart a sustainable path forward for enlisting American capitalism in the fight against climate change.

Download or read book The Last Alarm written by Amber Adamson and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-02 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, a fire siren ripped through a quiet evening in the Central Texas town of West. Members of the West Volunteer Fire Department suited up and headed toward the blaze at the West Fertilizer Company. At the West EMS building, several volunteer firefighters from surrounding communities who were in class heard the call and went as well. Other community citizens, some trained as first responders, headed toward the fire to see how they could help. Minutes later, those fighting the fire realized they were in over their heads. As the men were working to pull out until more help could arrive, the fertilizer plant violently erupted, killing 12 of the first responders on the scene. Three of the community's approximately 2,800 citizens were killed that night. Houses were destroyed for blocks. Hundreds were hurt, and dozens were missing. The earth shook for miles. Word spread fast as first responders across Central Texas -- and soon the state and the world -- learned of what happened in West. As help streamed in, volunteer and career fire fighters, EMS workers and other first responders stood shoulder-to-shoulder putting out fires, triaging the injured and evacuating the town. Over the next few days, hundreds more would converge on West to remember the fallen -- 12 men who died honorably in the line of duty. That devastating night, and the long, hard days that followed forever will stay in the minds of those who were called to serve. This is their story of sacrifice and spirit."--Book jacket.

Download or read book The Texas City Disaster 1947 written by Hugh W. Stephens and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On April 16, 1947, a small fire broke out among bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the hold of the ship Grandcamp as it lay docked at Texas City, Texas. Despite immediate attempts to extinguish the fire, it rapidly intensified until the Grandcamp exploded in a blast that caused massive loss of life and property. In the ensuing chaos, no one gave much thought to the ship in the next slip, the High Flyer. It exploded sixteen hours later. The story of the Texas City explosions—America’s worst industrial disaster in terms of casualties—has never been fully told until now. In this book, Hugh W. Stephens draws on official reports, newspaper and magazine articles, personal letters, and interviews with several dozen survivors to provide the first full account of the disaster at Texas City. Stephens describes the two explosions and the heroic efforts of Southeast Texans to rescue survivors and cope with extensive property damage. At the same time, he explores why the disaster occurred, showing how a chain of indifference and negligence made a serious industrial accident almost inevitable, while a lack of emergency planning allowed it to escalate into a major catastrophe. This gripping, cautionary tale holds important lessons for a wide reading public.

Download or read book West Texas written by Paul H. Carlson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas is as well known for its diversity of landscape and culture as it is for its enormity. But West Texas, despite being popularized in film and song, has largely been ignored by historians as a distinct and cultural geographic space. In West Texas: A History of the Giant Side of the State, Paul H. Carlson and Bruce A. Glasrud rectify that oversight. This volume assembles a diverse set of essays covering the grand sweep of West Texas history from the ancient to the contemporary. In four parts—comprehending the place, people, politics and economic life, and society and culture—Carlson and Glasrud and their contributors survey the confluence of life and landscape shaping the West Texas of today. Early chapters define the region. The “giant side of Texas” is a nineteenth-century geographical description of a vast area that includes the Panhandle, Llano Estacado, Permian Basin, and Big Bend–Trans-Pecos country. It is an arid, windblown environment that connects intimately with the history of Texas culture. Carlson and Glasrud take a nonlinear approach to exploring the many cultural influences on West Texas, including the Tejanos, the oil and gas economy, and the major cities. Readers can sample topics in whichever order they please, whether they are interested in learning about ranching, recreation, or turn-of-the-century education. Throughout, familiar western themes arise: the urban growth of El Paso is contrasted with the mid-century decline of small towns and the social shifting that followed. Well-known Texas scholars explore popular perceptions of West Texas as sparsely populated and rife with social contradiction and rugged individualism. West Texas comes into yet clearer view through essays on West Texas women, poets, Native peoples, and musicians. Gathered here is a long overdue consideration of the landscape, culture, and everyday lives of one of America’s most iconic and understudied regions.

Download or read book Jane s Window written by Jane Dunn Sibley and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the southern portion of what was known as the Sibley’s Pezuna del Caballo (Horse’s Hoof) Ranch in West Texas’ Culberson County are two mountains that nearly meet, forming a gap that frames a salt flat where Indians and later, pioneers came to gather salt to preserve foodstuffs. According to the US Geological Survey, the gap that provides this breathtaking and historic view is named “Jane’s Window.” In Jane’s Window: My Spirited Life in West Texas and Austin, Jane Dunn Sibley, the inimitable namesake of that mountain gap, gives readers a similarly enchanting view: she tells the story of a small-town West Texas girl coming into her own in Texas’ capital city, where her commitment to philanthropy and the arts and her flair for fashion—epitomized by her signature buzzard feather—have made her name a society staple. Growing up during the Depression in Fort Stockton, Jane Sibley learned first-hand the value of hard work and determination. In what she describes as “a more innocent age,” she experienced the “pleasant life” of a rural community with good schools, friends and neighbors, and daily dips in the Comanche Springs swimming pool. She arrived as a student at the University of Texas only ninety days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and studied art under such luminaries as sculptor Charles Umlauf. Her enchanting stories of returning to Fort Stockton, working in the oil industry, marrying local doctor D. J. Sibley, and rearing a family evoke both her love for her origins and her clear-eyed aspirations. The Sibleys never discussed the details of their good fortune, and, to their gratitude, no one ever asked. In Jane’s Window, Sibley narrates travel adventures, shares vignettes of famous visitors, and tells of her favorite causes, among which the Austin Symphony and the preservation of lower Pecos prehistoric rock art are especially prominent. Peopled with vivid characters and told in Sibley’s uniquely down-to-earth and humorous manner, Jane’s Window paints a portrait of a life filled to the brim with events both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

Download or read book West Texas Tales written by Mike Cox and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-21 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historian Mike Cox has been writing about Texas history for four decades, sharing tales that have been overlooked or forgotten through the years. Travel to El Paso during the "Big Blow" of 1895, brave the frontier with Elizabeth Russell Baker, and stare down the infamous killer known as Old Three Toe. From frontier stories and ghost towns to famous folks and accounts of everyday life, this collection of West Texas Tales has it all.

Download or read book The Great Plains written by Walter Prescott Webb and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1959-01-01 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the changes initiated into the systems and culture of the plain dwellers

Download or read book The Wall That Failed written by Evelyn Rossler Stroder and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2017-09-20 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wall that was five feet high and built of concrete, rock, and mortar split Crane, Texas, in half more than a half century ago—with blacks on one side and whites on the other. Evelyn Rossler Stroder, a longtime teacher, gave little thought to the wall as she ran teacher errands to the former Bethune School for blacks, which in the late 1960s became the Bethune Annex to the Crane school system. In this history, she explores the origins of the wall, the community’s recollection of it, and how it symbolized the ugliness of racial segregation. She also examines the consequences of separating the school systems, swimming pools, movie theaters, and most every facet of life in the small oil field community. The story also celebrates how sports brought the two communities together, beginning with the Bethune basketball team, which had won three state championships in their conference of all-black schools, coming together with their new, white classmates in 1965. The integrated team brought Crane all the way to the state finals. Discover how sports helped a small West Texas town move forward in this inspiring tale about The Wall That Failed.

Download or read book Marfa written by Kathleen Shafer and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This inviting book explores how small-town Marfa, Texas, has become a landmark arts destination and tourist attraction, despite--and because of--its remote location in the immense Chihuahuan desert.

Download or read book The Johnson Sims Feud written by Bill O'Neal and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Johnson & Sims families were pioneer ranchers, settling in the same region--Lampasas & Burnet counties--in the dangerous years before the Civil War. After the War, Billy & Nannie Johnson & Dave & Laura Sims establish large ranches in adjoining counties in West Texas. At the turn of the century the two families united in a marriage of 14-year-old Gladys Johnson & 21-year-old Ed Sims. Several years later a nasty divorce ensued due in part to Gladys willfulness & Ed's drinking. More trouble followed over custody of their two children & Gladys took matters into her own hands.....

Download or read book The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877 written by Paul Howard Carlson and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1877 was a drought year in West Texas. That summer, some forty buffalo soldiers struck out into the Llano Estacado, pursuing a band of raiding Comanches. Several days later they were missing and presumed dead from thirst. Although most of the soldiers straggled back into camp, four died, and others faced court-martial for desertion. Here, Carlson provides insight into the interaction of soldiers, hunters, settlers, and Indians on the Staked Plains.

Download or read book The Wind written by Dorothy Scarborough and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2011-05-18 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of Letty, a delicate girl who is forced to move from lush Virginia to desolate West Texas. The numbing blizzards, the howling sand storms, and the loneliness of the prairie all combine to undo her nerves. But it is the wind itself, a demon personified, that eventually drives her over the brink of madness.

Download or read book Emily D West and the Yellow Rose of Texas Myth written by Phillip Thomas Tucker and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, the true story of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" is told in full, revealing a host of new insights and perspectives on one of America's most popular stories. For generations, the Yellow Rose of Texas has been one of America's most popular western myths, growing larger over time and little resembling the truth of what happened on April 21, 1836, at the battle of San Jacinto, where a new Texas Republic won its independence. The woman who has been popularly connected to the story was an ordinary but also quite remarkable free black woman from the North, Emily D. West. This work reconstructs her experience, places it in full context and explores the evolution of a most fanciful myth.

Download or read book The Time it Never Rained written by Elmer Kelton and published by TCU Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Repub. of Doubleday 1973 edition, with new introductions by Kelton and an afterword.

Download or read book A Journey Through Texas Or A Saddle trip on the Southwestern Frontier with a Statistical Appendix written by Frederick Law Olmsted and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book EarthTalk written by E Magazine and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the authors of the leading environmental handbook Green Living, the best of E's nationally syndicated Q&A column, EarthTalk Knowledge of environmental issues and sustainability is increasingly important as industrialization and climate change continue to wreak havoc on our ecosystems and our psyche. As temperatures rise—and icecaps shrink and storms lash our coastal areas into oblivion—being smart about carbon footprints, waste streams and consumer choices becomes increasingly important for all of us. That’s where EarthTalk comes in. EarthTalk gathers together the best of readers' questions on the environment and the best ways to live green and answers in a quick and easy guide for the average Joe (or Jane). Searching by subject or looking up questions in the index, readers can learn everything from the difference between wild and farmed salmon to the pros and cons of nuclear power. EarthTalk provides the essential tools and tips to living in harmony with the planet.

Download or read book The Illusion of Leaving written by Jeannette Brown and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jamie Wright hates her West Texas hometown of Silver Falls, its small-minded people, the reminder of her childhood there and her failed first marriage-the source of her daddy's eternal disappointment. The size of his ranch and the influence of his pocketbook continue to make her a target for resentment. Now Big Jim is on his deathbed. Jamie's in town to plan his funeral, sell the ranch, and never look back. The funeral goes as planned, although her daddy might be galled that one of the pallbearers is Mexican. However, the reading of the will does not go as planned. The night after the funeral, Jamie and two former classmates-Wanda and Gina-go for a nostalgic ride out to the town's lovers' lane to watch the dancing lights and reminisce about high school. When a tornado system blows in, they drive to a nearby storm shelter. There, fueled by vodka, the secrets erupt. The tornado razes part of Silver Falls as well as the ranch. Jamie realizes that she is not immune to the pull of the land, the way its vast barrenness manages to sustain flora and fauna. Jamie's discovery of her father's manipulation and deceit allows her to throw off her lifelong guilt at disappointing him. She sees herself as an adult, and sees the land and the ranch as a vital part of who she is. In the process of helping clean up the tornado damage to Silver Falls, Jamie finally becomes part of the community"--