Cotton was the Confederacy's lifeblood. Its sale funded arms, critical supplies and paid for the government, but the union blockade kept it from foreign markets. Matamoros, Mexico became the South's "backdoor." Cotton caravans had to cross the dangerous Texas plains--fraught with bandits, Comanche, lack of water, and other deadly challenges--then, sell the cotton in a market teaming with fraudsters and scalawags ..read more

Post Civil War, "cowboying" was a tough, demanding job, one which attracted scores of newly freed blacks. Some were especially notable ..read more

Juneteenth is probably an example of "What you know for sure, that ain't so ..read more

Held prisoner by the Mexican government, the Texian volunteers of the Mier Expedition were forced to participate in a lottery--ten percent of them to be executed by a firing squad. Who lived and who died was settled by the drawing of a white or black bean. This is a first-hand report from Big Foot Wallace, one of the soldiers who drew a white bean and lived to tell the dramatic story of the black bean death lottery ..read more

PART I: The Mier Expedition and the Black Bean Lottery of Death When the Republic of Texas is plagued by Mexican military raids, a planned reprisal results in the ill-fated Mier Expedition of 1842. After some success, the volunteer soldiers are told to abort, but many continue and end up as prisoners of Mexico. Things do not go well for them. As told by participant Big Foot Wallace ..read more

Was a Texan the first to fly an "airship" nearly forty years before the Wright Brothers ..read more

Stampeding Buffalo over a cliff--to fall to their death--was an effective, but dangerous technique used by early native people to hunt buffalo. The cliff site was called a "buffalo jump ..read more

Answer: A Texas cattle rancher named Maverick who left his mark on Texas, but wouldn't brand his mark on his cattle ..read more

Fire Unites Texas German Communities every Spring for 146 years ..read more

German warrior fought for six nations, including the Republic of Texas and The Confederacy ..read more