Texas History
April 21, 2022
The Wet, Wild History of Aqua Thrill Way, Austin’s 1970s Water Park
It may not have been safe, but it sure was fun.
Texas History
Latest
101-150 of 696 Articles
Texas Country Reporter
April 6, 2022
A Vast Military History Archive Is Hiding in Plain Sight on This Texas Campus
The Texas Heritage Museum at Hill College has grown into a nationally recognized collection specializing Civil War history.
Texas History
March 28, 2022
The Texas Monthly Writer Who Set Out to Find “Real” Texas—in Marfa
Over several years, Richard West spent two months in seven Texas locales. His reporting eventually won the National Magazine Award.
Texas History
March 25, 2022
The Surprising, Fraught History of the Texan Jewish Experience
Galveston was once the Ellis Island of the South. But Jewish arrivals had to navigate a society marked by racial and religious politics.
Texas History
March 24, 2022
Tayhlor Coleman Didn’t Know How Hard Texas Made It to Vote—Until She Started Living the #Vanlife
The seventh-generation Texan is roaming the state in her van, registering voters—and digging into her family's history in the long struggle for voting rights.
Texas Country Reporter
March 18, 2022
This Costumed Brownsville Historian Will Warm Your Heart
Gene Fernandez has an outfit for every story, but his infectious love for local history is the star of the show.
Texas History
March 15, 2022
The Forgotten Texas Scientist Who Helped Develop the Polio Vaccine
Northeast Texas–born Byron Bennett was one of four key researchers on the team that created the lifesaving vaccine, but the spotlight shone only on Jonas Salk.
The Stand Up Desk
March 14, 2022
A Texas Monthly Editor Stumbles Into the Sordid World of the Massage Parlor King
Greg Curtis’s first story about Sam Corey was supposed to be a colorful human interest piece, but in some ways it was actually the beginning of a heinous murder.
Texas Country Reporter
March 9, 2022
Two Guys in Houston Are Bringing Back 100-Year-Old Mosaic Tile Street Signs
Joey Sanchez and Eric Maier are behind the Blue Tile Project, a movement to locate and restore the original tile street signs across the Bayou City.
Texas History
March 4, 2022
How Legendary Sportswriter Gary Cartwright Joined Texas Monthly
He was the magazine’s first big hire and—over the next few decades—delivered some of its most memorable stories.
Texas History
February 28, 2022
The Story Behind the Story: “The Greatest Experience of Your Life”
A popular columnist embeds herself inside the exclusive world of girls’ summer camps.
Texas History
February 16, 2022
The Story Behind the Story: “The Coming of Redneck Hip,” November 1973
A pair of Texas Monthly writers chronicle an emerging scene that would end up defining a city and changing American music forever.
Texas History
February 7, 2022
Texas Monthly’s First Editor Looks Back at What He Got Right and Wrong
Bill Broyles—now best known as a Hollywood screenwriter—remembers the magazine’s first issue.
Music
January 25, 2022
Eighty Years Later, We��re Still ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’
How a simple, two-chord song written by an Iowan became (clap clap clap clap) our unofficial state anthem.
Texas History
January 17, 2022
The Secrets of Bonfire Shelter
Archaeologists are uncovering new clues at a canyon where ancient Texans once hunted bison en masse.
Texas History
December 15, 2021
The Quirky History of the Osage Orange, Texas’s Ugliest Fruit
Once eaten by woolly mammoths, and later used by Indigenous Texans and settlers for its sturdy wood, this strange plant has spread from Texas across the country.
Texas History
December 1, 2021
It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Barbette, a Gender-bending 1920s Aerialist From Round Rock
Performing death-defying trapeze stunts in drag, he shocked Parisian audiences.
Critters
November 29, 2021
At a Camel Conference in the Hill Country, Cameleers Swap Tips (and Watch Out for Slime)
Need help saddling your 1,300-pound dromedary? The Southwest Camel Conference is the place to be.
Film & TV
November 16, 2021
The Legendary Flop of ‘The Legend of the Lone Ranger’
How an Amarillo oilman stole the mask right off the Lone Ranger’s face, and made one of film’s most infamous failures in the process.
Texas History
October 29, 2021
Houston’s First Black Cemetery Was Neglected For Decades. One Group Is Leading Its Rejuvenation.
Olivewood Cemetery is the resting ground of many Houston trailblazers and an important piece of the history of the African diaspora.
Sports
October 22, 2021
The Great Burkburnett Football Field Feud of 1972
Decades after the Wichita County town saved its stadium from an oilman’s plan to drill at midfield, the structure has been condemned—after pipes once donated by oil companies rusted out.
Books
October 21, 2021
What Texas Inherited From Larry McMurtry
A recent tribute in Archer City gave Texans an overdue opportunity to pay their respects to their state’s greatest writer.
Texas History
October 14, 2021
Why We Need Strong Texas Women
Ann Richards, Farrah Fawcett, Beyoncé. An excerpt from TM’s new book, ‘Being Texan,’ explores a strain of toughness in the iconography of the state’s females.
Texas History
October 5, 2021
Staffers at the Most Haunted Hotels in Texas Tell Their Spooooookiest Stories
Owners and employees of five haunted hotels describe their most unsettling encounters with less-than-corporeal guests.
Texas History
September 30, 2021
Monica Muñoz Martinez Is Setting the Record Straight on Texas’s History of Border Violence
The UT historian and newly minted MacArthur fellow wants justice for victims and their descendants.
Books
August 26, 2021
An Incendiary History of Civil Rights in Dallas Gets a Timely Reissue
First published in 1987, ‘The Accommodation’ still resonates today.
Books
August 25, 2021
A Joyful New Read Celebrates Galveston’s Bygone Black-Owned Restaurants
Part historical text, part recipe book, ‘Lost Restaurants’ memorializes the self-made entrepreneurs who uplifted the island during its years of segregation.
Texas History
August 18, 2021
Quiz: Which of These Weird Texas Town Names Are Real?
No Googling allowed.
Texas History
August 6, 2021
In Memoriam: On MTV’s Fortieth Anniversary, Don’t Forget to Thank Michael Nesmith
The Texas native helped make the music video into an art form, and was instrumental in creating the network that defined a generation.
Texas History
July 15, 2021
The LBJ Library’s New Lady Bird Exhibit Is a Delight
The former first lady is best known for her love of wildflowers, but this peaceful, dreamy show reveals much more.
Texas History
June 24, 2021
The Strange, Soggy Saga of Glurpo, San Marcos’s Underwater Clown
Apparently, children did not find him creepy in the 1950s.
Texas History
June 22, 2021
The Resurrection of Bass Reeves
His almost superhuman exploits made him one of the West's most feared lawmen. Today, the legendary deputy U.S. marshal is widely believed to be the real Lone Ranger. But his true legacy is even greater.
Texas History
June 22, 2021
A Pioneering Black Singer’s Compositions, Long Forgotten, May Finally Have an Audience
Waco-born baritone Jules Bledsoe starred on Broadway and toured Europe, but his original opera and other works languish in obscurity. A Baylor professor hopes to change that.
Art
June 16, 2021
Meet the Artist Behind Galveston’s New Juneteenth Mural
Reginald Adams led the team that designed ‘Absolute Equality,’ a landmark mural marking the spot where slavery was abolished in Texas.
Books
May 22, 2021
As the LBJ Library Turns 50, the Man Who Planned Its Dedication Recalls a Few Surprises
Lyndon B. Johnson rehearsed his speech in the bathroom, the new fountain doused the guests, and the booze flowed freely.
Texas History
May 19, 2021
The Next Battle of the Alamo!
Is Phil Collins’s legendary Texana collection everything it’s cracked up to be? An adapted excerpt from ‘Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth.’
Books
May 6, 2021
The Texas Rangers Tried (and Failed) to Capture Pancho Villa. The Conflict Still Shapes the Texas-Mexico Border Today.
Jeff Guinn’s ‘War on the Border’ punctures the myth of the Rangers as frontier heroes.
Texas History
April 19, 2021
Juanita Craft Helped Integrate the Texas State Fair—And Inspired the Next Generation of Civil Rights Activists
The subject of our latest Texans You Should Know history profile started 182 NAACP chapters and welcomed kids and power brokers alike into her South Dallas home.
Books
March 22, 2021
Even at a Funeral, LBJ and Lady Bird Couldn’t Make Their Peace With the Kennedys
This exclusive excerpt from a new biography of the late first lady chronicles an emotionally fraught experience in the wake of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Texas History
March 9, 2021
How Polly Abarca Fought to Bring Birth Control to South Texas
The nurse and activist helped secure the country’s first federal family-planning grant, which became a national model.
Texas History
January 20, 2021
How Manny Guerra Shaped the Tejano Music Scene
The San Antonio producer created a style that would endure for decades—and he helped Selena get her start.
Books
January 20, 2021
Texas’s Most Famous Historian Looks Back at His Own, Legendary Life
Walter Prescott Webb’s previously unpublished memoir recounts the experiences that shaped his best-known—and most controversial—works.
Texas History
January 5, 2021
Until 1968, a Married Texas Woman Couldn’t Own Property or Start a Business Without Her Husband’s Permission. This Dallas Attorney Changed That.
Louise Raggio fought to pass a landmark law that gave equal rights to Texas women.
The Culture
December 18, 2020
Texas Monthly Recommends: A West Texas Animal Shelter
Plus: the pleasures of pickling, a feminist take on the Mexican Revolution, and a Georgetown jeweler.
Texas History
December 15, 2020
What Happened at Pease River Wasn’t a Battle. It Was a Massacre.
How a Texas Ranger’s personal mythology came to be accepted as popular history.
Books
December 12, 2020
We Need to Talk About Secession
With chatter about Texas leaving the union on the rise, two new books remind us what it was like the last time we tried to go it alone.
Texas History
November 20, 2020
A Trove of Vintage Photos Reveals a Bygone Texas—and Beyond
A Houston exhibit of images scavenged from junk shops and flea markets offers a view of the past that anticipates the present.
Texas History
November 18, 2020
Texans You Should Know: How a Black Cowboy’s Discovery Changed the Field of Archaeology
George McJunkin found a prehistoric bison skeleton that upended theories about human existence in the Americas.
Texas History
November 6, 2020
Slavery Was Integral to Texas’s Transition From Republic to Statehood, but This Textbook Doesn’t Tell the Full Story
The version of Texas history taught in school is often anglicized and sanitized. We examine how one textbook falls short.
Film & TV
November 4, 2020
Olympic Protester Tommie Smith Reclaims His Legacy in a New Documentary
The Texan athlete, who famously raised his fist on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, is the subject of a new film premiering this week on Starz.