Death on the Lonely Llano Estacado

Death on the Lonely Llano Estacado
Author :
Publisher : University of North Texas Press
Total Pages : 235
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781574417067
ISBN-13 : 1574417061
Rating : 4/5 (67 Downloads)

Synopsis Death on the Lonely Llano Estacado by : Bill Neal

In the winter of 1901, James W. Jarrott led a band of twenty-five homesteader families toward the Llano Estacado in far West Texas, newly opened for settlement by a populist Texas legislature. But frontier cattlemen who had been pasturing their herds on the unfenced prairie land were enraged by the encroachment of these “nesters.” In August 1902 a famous hired assassin, Jim Miller, ambushed and murdered J. W. Jarrott. Who hired Miller? This crime has never been solved, until now. Award-winning author Bill Neal investigates this cold case and successfully pieces together all the threads of circumstantial evidence to fit the noose snugly around the neck of Jim Miller’s employer. What emerges from these pages is the strength of intriguing characters in an engrossing narrative: Jim Jarrott, the diminutive advocate who fearlessly champions the cause of the little guy. The ruthless and slippery assassin, Deacon Jim Miller. And finally Jarrott’s young widow Mollie, who perseveres and prospers against great odds and tells the settlers to “Stay put!”

Historic Tales of the Llano Estacado

Historic Tales of the Llano Estacado
Author :
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages : 224
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781467146548
ISBN-13 : 1467146544
Rating : 4/5 (48 Downloads)

Synopsis Historic Tales of the Llano Estacado by : Edited by Paul H. Carlson and David J. Murrah

The distinctive high mesa straddling West Texas and Eastern New Mexico creates a vista that is equal parts sprawling lore and big blue sky. From Lubbock, the area's informal capital, to the farthest reaches of the staked plains known as the Llano Estacado, the land and its inhabitants trace a tradition of tenacity through numberless cycles of dust storms and drought. In 1887, a bison hunter observed antelope, sand crane and coyote alike crowding together to drink from the same wet-weather lake. A similarly odd assortment of characters shared and shaped the region's heritage, although neighborliness has occasionally been strained by incidents like the 1903 Fence Cutting War. David Murrah and Paul Carlson have collected some three dozen vignettes that stretch across the uncharted terrain of the tableland's past.

Hell Paso

Hell Paso
Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages : 457
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781493041510
ISBN-13 : 1493041517
Rating : 4/5 (10 Downloads)

Synopsis Hell Paso by : Samuel K. Dolan

Spanning a thirty-year period, from the late 1800s until the 1920s, Hell Paso is the true story of the desperate men and notorious women that made El Paso, Texas the Old West’s most dangerous town. Supported by official court documents, government records, oral histories and period newspaper accounts, this book offers a bird’s eye view of the one-time “murder metropolis” of the Southwest.

Tragedy and Triumph on the Texas Plains: Curious Historic Chronicles from Murders to Movies

Tragedy and Triumph on the Texas Plains: Curious Historic Chronicles from Murders to Movies
Author :
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages : 144
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781467149037
ISBN-13 : 1467149039
Rating : 4/5 (37 Downloads)

Synopsis Tragedy and Triumph on the Texas Plains: Curious Historic Chronicles from Murders to Movies by : Chuck Lanehart

Out on the Texas Plains, wrangling with history resembles taking in the sunset--a stampede of splendor and shadow all at once. Roam an Ohio-sized patch of prairie and take stock of the heroic tasks and moral dilemmas facing the unforgettable characters who called West Texas home. Ben Hogan sinks a putt with the focus of the Clovis man who hunted mammoth in the same spot thousands of years before. Lubbock's largest lawsuit runs its interminable course. And a starving Roy Rogers makes a quick meal of jackrabbit on the Llano Estacado. Chuck Lanehart gathers statesmen and journalists, outlaws and entertainers, in these profiles of the Texas Plains.

Now You Are Told

Now You Are Told
Author :
Publisher : Covenant Books, Inc.
Total Pages : 197
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781644680537
ISBN-13 : 164468053X
Rating : 4/5 (37 Downloads)

Synopsis Now You Are Told by : Bill Neal

In Now You Are Told: A Collection of True Tales from My Yesteryears, Bill Neal tells both serious and often funny and memorable true stories from his life. He begins with a history of the area, including the Comanche Indians, and how they influenced the naming of his hometown of Medicine Mound, Texas. These stories give us a glimpse of frontier life during the thirties and forties while growing up on a large West Texas ranch. One vivid childhood memory includes December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and forever changed life in America. After becoming friends with A. C. Greene, his college journalism teacher, Bill started an interesting career as a news reporter in several West Texas towns. Later, a desire to be his own boss led him to a new career. After graduating number one from his University of Texas Law School class in 1964, Bill returned to his home turf to practice law. He tells us of the unbelievable cases he handled-some funny and some sad-during his forty-year law career, as well as other unbelievable incidences that happened along the way.

New Mexico Historical Review

New Mexico Historical Review
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 544
Release :
ISBN-10 : UIUC:30112126729489
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (89 Downloads)

Synopsis New Mexico Historical Review by : Lansing Bartlett Bloom

El Llano Estacado

El Llano Estacado
Author :
Publisher : Texas State Historical Assn
Total Pages : 432
Release :
ISBN-10 : UVA:X004145142
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (42 Downloads)

Synopsis El Llano Estacado by : John Miller Morris

Using historical writings of early explorers, the author captures the mystery and magic of the great Llano Estacado or "Staked Plains" that begin in West Texas and extend north and west. Particularly amusing is the effort of early railroad surveyors to find underground water at the edge of the Llano (aka the caprock) only to miss one of North America's largest aquifers (the Ogalla) by a matter of miles and in some cases yards.

Vengeance is Mine

Vengeance is Mine
Author :
Publisher : University of North Texas Press
Total Pages : 328
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781574413175
ISBN-13 : 1574413171
Rating : 4/5 (75 Downloads)

Synopsis Vengeance is Mine by : Bill Neal

The 1912 Boyce-Sneed feud in West Texas began with Lena Snyder Sneed, the headstrong wife; Al Boyce, Jr., Lena's reckless lover; and John Beal Sneed, Lena's vindictive husband, who responded to Lena's plea for a divorce by locking her in an insane asylum. The lovers escaped to Canada, but Sneed assassinated Al's unarmed father, and eventually killed Al Boyce, Jr., who had returned to Texas.

In Their Shoes

In Their Shoes
Author :
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages : 255
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780875655277
ISBN-13 : 0875655270
Rating : 4/5 (77 Downloads)

Synopsis In Their Shoes by : Grace Halsell

Probably no American journalist, man or woman, has had a more extraordinary career than Grace Halsell. Before President Lyndon Johnson personally hired her to work in the White House, Halsell had, over a period of two decades, written her way around the world - Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Orient, and the Americas. Born on the windswept plains of West Texas, Halsell was encouraged from the age of five by her pioneer father, who had led cattle drives on the Chisolm Trail, "to travel, to get the benefit" of knowing other peoples. She began her travels at the age of twenty, going first to Mexico and then touring the British Isles by bicycle. Halsell studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and lived in London, Tokyo, Berlin, and Seoul. In Hong Kong, where she lived on a fishing junk with a Chineses family of nineteen, she wrote a column for the Tiger Standard; in Tokyo, where she slept on tatami mats, ate raw fish and took scalding ofuro baths, she was a columnist for the Japan Times. Moving to South America, she traveled on a tug for 2,000 miles down the Amazon and crossed the Andes by jeep. In Lima, she became a columnist for the Spanish-langauge daily, La Prensa. Halsell has seen the Big Buddha, the Taj Mahal, the pyramids and the Machu Micchu, has interviewed presidents, movie stars, kinds, and prime ministers. Her newspaper dispatches for the New York Herald Tribune, the New York Post, and the Christian Science Monitor have datelined war zones in Korea, Vietnam, and Bosnia, as well as Russia, China, Macedonia, and Albania.

The Last Sheriff in Texas

The Last Sheriff in Texas
Author :
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Total Pages : 0
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781640091269
ISBN-13 : 1640091262
Rating : 4/5 (69 Downloads)

Synopsis The Last Sheriff in Texas by : James P. McCollom

An Amazon Best History Book of the Month This true crime story transports readers to a tumultuous time in Texas history—when the old ways clashed with the new—as it sheds light on police brutality, gun control, Mexican American civil rights, and much more “[A] riveting story of a time when sheriffs could get away with murder.” —Dallas Morning News Beeville, Texas, was the most American of small towns—the place that GIs had fantasized about while fighting through the ruins of Europe, a place of good schools, clean streets, and churches. Old West justice ruled, as evidenced by a 1947 shootout when outlaws surprised popular sheriff Vail Ennis at a gas station and shot him five times, point–blank, in the belly. Ennis managed to draw his gun and put three bullets in each assailant; he reloaded and shot them three times more. Time magazine’s full–page article on the shooting was seen by some as a referendum on law enforcement owing to the sheriff’s extreme violence, but supportive telegrams from across America poured into Beeville’s tiny post office. Yet when a second violent incident threw Ennis into the crosshairs of public opinion once again, the uprising was orchestrated by an unlikely figure: his close friend and Beeville’s favorite son, Johnny Barnhart. Barnhart confronted Ennis in the election of 1952: a landmark standoff between old Texas, with its culture of cowboy bravery and violence, and urban Texas, with its lawyers, oil institutions, and a growing Mexican population. The town would never be the same again. The Last Sheriff in Texas is a riveting narrative about the postwar American landscape, an era grappling with the same issues we continue to face today. Debate over excessive force in law enforcement, Anglo–Mexican relations, gun control, the influence of the media, urban–rural conflict, the power of the oil industry, mistrust of politicians and the political process—all have surprising historical precedence in the story of Vail Ennis and Johnny Barnhart.