Texas History
May 3, 2023
Marrying an Elephant, Adopting a Chimp: Tales From the Life of Houston’s Wildest Zookeeper
Charismatic German immigrant Hans Nagel revolutionized the Houston Zoo and kept it afloat during the Great Depression.
Texas History
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Texas History
April 27, 2023
Why These Ugly, Abandoned Longview Homes May Be Worth Saving
Behind the run-down exteriors of these concrete houses lies the story of an East Texas innovator and his one-of-a-kind machine.
Texas History
April 14, 2023
The Glowing Letter That Brought Thousands of German Immigrants to Texas Was a Lie
Friedrich Ernst’s missive portrayed Texas as a paradise. His wife and daughter begged to differ.
Texas History
April 11, 2023
The Oil Boom That Went Bust
In the eighties, petroleum prices went through the roof, and Texans, flush with cash, went a little crazy—before it all came crashing down. Will we ever learn?
Texas History
April 10, 2023
A Writer Revisits His Search for His Grandfather’s Darkest Secrets
Author John Phillip Santos’s 2010 “Tejano elegy” explores family secrets that reveal “the deepest mysteries of being human.”
Texas Country Reporter
March 31, 2023
An East Texas Local Wants You to Remember Trammel’s Trace
The early road used by Native Americans and settlers ran through what would become Gary Pinkerton’s family farm in Rusk County.
Texas Country Reporter
March 31, 2023
A Group of Singing Quilters Shares the History of the Underground Railroad
From the rural East Texas community of Pleasant Hill, a group of women depicts the sights and sounds that guided people to freedom.
Style & Design
March 21, 2023
Eighty Years Later, Houston’s Eldorado Ballroom Swings Back to Life
Built in 1939, the nightclub once hosted Duke Ellington and Ray Charles. After a $9.7 million renovation, it’ll welcome a new generation of music lovers.
Texas History
March 20, 2023
What Is Left to Say About Waco? ‘Waco: American Apocalypse’ Doesn’t Even Try
Netflix’s new docuseries revisits the 1993 standoff between David Koresh and the federal government without any agenda—or real purpose.
Texas Country Reporter
March 19, 2023
A Small-town Gun Museum Tells a Story of Our Past
Dale Acker is the collector behind the Up in Arms museum in Nazareth, which is home to more historical weapons and artifacts than the town has people.
Texas Country Reporter
March 10, 2023
Meet the Caretaker of This Cold War Relic Located 200 Feet Underground
Years ago, Larry Sanders became the proud owner of a decommissioned Atlas ICBM nuclear missile silo that was ready for use during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Texas History
February 28, 2023
This Texan Was a Master of a Curious Midcentury Art Form, the Industrial Musical
Brands once staged elaborate productions for their employees. No one was better at making them than Mexia-born Michael Brown.
Tacos
February 28, 2023
Jimmy Carter’s Peanut-and-Egg Taco Made Quite the Impression on San Antonians
A local restauranteur created the dish to honor Carter's election, and it was just one instance of the importance of Mexican food in the former president's public life.
Politics & Policy
February 28, 2023
Linda Coffee Argued Roe v. Wade. Now She’s Auctioning Off Her Archive.
A conversation on abortion rights with the Dallas lawyer whose argument against Texas’s abortion law changed the course of history.
Texas Country Reporter
February 27, 2023
Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival Is More Than an Event. It’s the Story of Shankleville, One of the State’s Early Freedom Colonies.
Texas Country Reporter visits Lareatha Clay & Phillip White, organizers of the festival in Shankleville and descendants of the community's founders.
Texas History
February 23, 2023
Inside the Decades-long Effort to Commemorate a Notorious Waco Lynching
After years of opposition and delay, Waco finally has posted a historical marker about the 1916 murder of Jesse Washington.
Texas History
February 23, 2023
How Florence Butt—Not Her Son—Launched the H-E-B Empire
It should be called F-T-B.
Texas History
February 21, 2023
Pop Quiz: What Inspired the “Tex Education” Quiz?
Long before quizzes littered the internet, TM’s Anne Dingus delighted readers with a hundred-question series that doubled as a “CliffsNotes of Texas history.”
Texas History
February 14, 2023
The Killing of José Campos Torres
Decades before the recent police violence in Memphis, a brutally beaten Latino man was tossed by officers into a Houston bayou and drowned. The protests that followed continue to echo in the city to this day.
Texas History
February 6, 2023
The Alamo’s New Battle Plan
A $500 million restoration seeks to reverse almost two centuries of cultural and physical neglect at the most popular historic site in Texas. There’s never been more of a concerted effort to make things right.
Sports
January 26, 2023
The Rise and Fall and Resurgence of Pro Wrestling’s “Texas Death Match”
With WWE in San Antonio for the Royal Rumble, we look at the history of a particularly Texan contribution to the world of scripted combat.
Texas Icons
January 17, 2023
See How Texas’s Big-city Skylines Have Changed Over the Past Half Century
Why has San Antonio fallen behind Houston, Dallas, and Austin?
Texas Icons
January 17, 2023
How the Texas Rangers Became One of the Most Powerful Forces in the State
Texas’s elite police agency has evolved from a frontier organization to one famed for its expert interrogators. But some high-profile cases have tarnished that reputation.
Texas Icons
January 17, 2023
The Daughters of the Republic of Texas Haven’t Left the Alamo
The organization may have lost the right to manage the historical site, but key members still have a major influence on its future.
Texas Icons
January 17, 2023
We’ve Always Claimed That Everything Is Bigger Here. It’s Time for Us to Prove It.
For more than fifty years, the state I call home has repeatedly surprised me. The Texas of 2023? Well, it’s got me thinking a lot about how far we have, and haven’t, come.
Texas Country Reporter
January 10, 2023
The Black Cowboy Museum, in Rosenberg, Fills an Important Gap
Former roper and country music singer Larry Callies was always a cowboy at heart, but when he was growing up, he rarely saw any representations of Black cowboys, despite a rich history. So in 2017, he founded the Black Cowboy Museum, which features a collection of
Texas History
December 19, 2022
Opinion: Examining the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Parts of Texas Rangers History
In marking the Rangers’ bicentennial, we should engage with critiques of the organization’s history and have more open, honest discussions.
White Hats
December 13, 2022
White Hats, Episode 6: Memorials and Monuments
As Texas Rangers’ 2023 bicentennial approaches, debates around the Rangers’ legacy become urgent again.
White Hats
December 7, 2022
Opinion: The Texas Rangers Bicentennial Is a Time to Reflect, Not Celebrate Mythology
It is time to address Ranger history thoroughly so the many wounds done to communities across Texas can finally be addressed.
White Hats
December 6, 2022
White Hats, Episode 5: Bias Toward Action
How does the Texas Rangers’ legacy as frontier lawmen affect the men and women who wear the badge today?
White Hats
December 1, 2022
Who Owns the Narrative? Texas Law Enforcement Versus Tejano Journalists
At the turn of the century, Mexican American publications paid a price for challenging the local sheriff and elements of the Texas Rangers.
White Hats
November 29, 2022
Delve Deeper Into the Violent, Complex History of the Texas Rangers With These Eleven Stories
The truth is more nuanced, and more instructive, than the myth.
White Hats
November 29, 2022
White Hats, Episode 4: The Cold Case
The Texas Rangers face a reckoning at the Capitol—and go on to become pop-culture heroes.
White Hats
November 22, 2022
White Hats, Episode 3: La Hora de Sangre
The Mexican Revolution gave the Texas Rangers a new calling. But it also became the darkest chapter in Rangers history.
White Hats
November 16, 2022
The Friendship That Inspired a Myth: Texas Ranger Jack Coffee Hays and Lipan Apache Chief Flacco
The historic partnership became pop-culture lore, but Texas’s broken promises to the tribe illustrated a different reality.
White Hats
November 15, 2022
‘White Hats,’ Episode 2: Ghosts of the Wild West
From Enchanted Rock to Fort Parker to the Guadalupe Mountains, we trace three early Ranger legends that mean very different things depending on whose history you claim as your own.
White Hats
November 15, 2022
‘White Hats,’ Episode 1: Rangers and ‘Rinches’
On the first episode of ‘White Hats,’ we visit the museum that tells the Rangers’ official history, then drive to South Texas to hear about efforts to bring other perspectives into the mainstream.
Texas History
October 12, 2022
Luckenbach Is a Hill Country Treasure. Can It Be Saved?
A bitter feud is pitting Hondo Crouch’s descendants against longtime locals as well as encroaching developers.
Texas History
October 4, 2022
Did JFK Really Eat the World’s Largest Tamale?
How a San Antonio restaurant manager pioneered the art of taco diplomacy.
Style & Design
September 27, 2022
A Legendary 100-Year-Old Carousel Will Spin Again in Austin
The ride greeted families at Playland Park in San Antonio before it was disbanded and sold. Now an Austin entrepreneur is putting it back together again.
Texas Country Reporter
September 12, 2022
The Story Behind a 70-Foot Concrete Arrow Near Odessa
A hundred years ago, U.S. airmail pilots depended on a coast-to-coast bread-crumb trail of arrows—though most have been destroyed, buried, lost, or forgotten.
Texas History
September 8, 2022
Farewell to the Dean of Texas’s Capitol Press Corps
How Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka held the powerful to account—and made Texas a better place.
Sports
August 30, 2022
The Night the Astrodome Got Rained Out
As rains fall across Texas, remember the 1976 Houston deluge that improbably shut down an Astros game at the famed “weather-proof” Astrodome.
Texas History
July 21, 2022
The Real Meaning of Texas Ranger Monuments
In recent years, Seguin has honored the group with memorials. My father agreed to build one—but then started having second thoughts.
Texas Country Reporter
July 11, 2022
Mister McKinney Is the Ms. Frizzle of Houston History
Okay, so it’s not a magic vehicle, but the fast-talking tour guide covers Houston’s neighborhoods from an open-air school bus.
Texas History
May 31, 2022
How Texas Monthly Chronicled the Eighties Oil Bust Via a Beloved Houston Clothier
Bobby Sakowitz dressed Houston’s most stylish through the seventies and eighties boom years. Then things went bust.
Texas History
May 31, 2022
How “Cowgirl Accordionist” Cleo Raymond Helped Texas Country Music Find Its Sound
The 99-year-old North Texas musician stumped for LBJ, toured with the USO, and still recalls hundreds of tunes.
Texas Country Reporter
May 24, 2022
Remembering the Texas Town That Did, Indeed, Start the Fire
A museum in San Felipe, 40 miles west of Houston, commemorates the unique history behind Stephen F. Austin’s founding colony.
Texas History
May 23, 2022
How a Texas Monthly Editor Got Inside a Billion-Dollar Wall Street Power Play
Joe Nocera’s pitched profile of then-little-known T. Boone Pickens got him unprecedented access to Pickens’s 1982 attempt to take over Cities Service.
Texas History
April 28, 2022
A Texas Monthly Editor’s Journey Into the Heart of King Ranch
The legendary cattle empire had been largely closed off from the outside world until the magazine’s founding editor gained access to King Ranch.