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The historical landscape of West Texas is littered with colorful tales of remarkable deeds and doers, the rise of down-and-outers to mega fortune, local folks who have gone on to celebrity status in endeavors ranging from White House politics and movie stardom to evildoers and the lawmen who pursued them. By best account, however, there’s…

Sometimes, it’s the accidents of history that have the most far-reaching influence. When the fabled French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, landed 200 colonists at Matagorda Bay in early 1685, he was actually seeking the Mississippi River. Three years earlier, La Salle had become the first European to descend the big river to…

Ralph hogged the show at Aquarena Springs

Stories of the quirky former Texas statesman

Aside from the soldiers and supplies that Texas provided to the Confederacy, the state’s most important contribution to the Civil War might have been the salt processed at the Swenson Salines in Lampasas County, near Lometa. While the Confederacy lasted, the place was one of several across the country known as the Confederate Salt Works….