Books about Texas
1,2,3 Si!: Numbers in English y Español
Madeleine Budnick (author), San Antonio Museum of Art (artwork)
With ArteKids, children discover the world of art and learn English and Spanish at the same time. Introduce your child to the fundamentals of numbers and counting while connecting them to the world of art in a unique, fun, and colorful way. The book incorporates artwork found in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art, along with phrases and words in English and Spanish, to make bilingual learning and art...
The bold, bilingual 10-page board book (suitable for chewing for the toothless set as well) should make teaching numbers to kids a little easier—and a lot more fun. — San Antonio Express-News
300 Years of San Antonio and Bexar County
Claudia Guerra (editor), Char Miller (foreword)
300 Years of San Antonio & Bexar County captures the iconic stories, moments, people, and places that define one of the oldest communities in the United States. A collection of diverse authors joined forces to produce this richly illustrated and complexly woven thematic telling of the city's history. From its earliest legacy as home to many indigenous peoples to its municipal founding by the Canary Islanders, a...
Highly recommended for those who prize the sharing of our separate and entwined stories as important to developing a better understanding of each other and what our city... — San Antonio Current
Alamo to Espada: A Vintage Postcard Profile of San Antonio's Spanish Missions
Lewis F. Fisher (author)
San Antonio's five Spanish missions, including the Alamo, were being pulled from the brink of destruction at the start of the twentieth century, just as picture postcards were coming into vogue. Alamo to Espada profiles the dramatic transformation with more than 150 illustrations and a chapter for each mission. A special section features postcard images showing the variety of ways the Alamo has been remembered—in...
American Venice: The Epic Story of San Antonio's River
In American Venice, Lewis Fisher uncovers the evolution of San Antonio's beloved River Walk. He shares how San Antonians refused to give up on the vital water source that provided for them from before the city's beginnings. In 1941 neglect, civic uprisings, and bursts of creativity culminated in the completion of a Works Project Administration undertaking designed by Robert H. H. Hugman. The resulting River Walk...
Lewis Fisher has made a lifestyle and a living writing about San Antonio history, and in particular, its river. — Texas Public Radio
Animal Amigos!: Artsy Creatures in English y Español
With ArteKids, children discover the world of art and learn English and Spanish at the same time. Introduce your child to the fundamentals of animal life by connecting them to the world of art in a unique, fun, and colorful way. The book incorporates artwork found in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art with phrases and words in English and Spanish to make bilingual learning and art exciting for eager...
The Architectural Legacy of Alfred Giles: Selected Restorations
Mary Carolyn Hollers George (author), W. Eugene George (photographs)
The Architectural Legacy of Alfred Giles focuses on architect Alfred Giles's work in Texas and northern Mexico. Giles, who practiced from the 1870s to the 1920s after emigrating from England, designed buildings reflecting a great variety of styles derived from architectural forms of the past, combining them in original ways. Giles produced designs for unpretentious domestic residences and showy mansions, county...
Art at Our Doorstep: San Antonio Writers and Artists
Nan Cuba (editor), Riley Robinson (editor)
Art at Our Doorstep: San Antonio Writers and Artists pays tribute to the city's vibrant creative community. A gathering of literary and visual art, the book features poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from the city's writers, as well as images of painting, sculpture, photography, and installations from the city's artists. All gathered here are closely associated with the city or have been in years past, and together they...
Hailed as a much-needed cultural encyclopedia for San Antonio. — San Antonio Current
Balcones Heights: A Crossroads of San Antonio
Residents of suburban Balcones Heights (an enclave of San Antonio, Texas) were incorporated in 1948 to gain zoning protection, only to find themselves relying heavily on revenue from traffic fines to run the city. A few decades later, two interstate highways intersected at Balcones Heights, drawing a regional shopping mall yielding sales tax revenues that could suddenly fund new municipal services. Its isolated,...
Call it a suburban rags-to-riches story. The miniscule municipality of Balcones Heights was once in such desperate straits that it initiated a draft for street repairs. It... — San Antonio Express-News
Baseball in the Lone Star State: The Texas League's Greatest Hits
Tom Kayser (author), David King (author)
In vivid episodic chapters, Tom Kayser and David King create an entertaining history of the Texas League, providing a broad picture of the shifting character of baseball operations in this century-old minor league. Portrayed are the many varied and often colorful owners, managers, and players who did so much to give this league a powerful place in Texas culture. Accompanying the text are dozens of black-and-white...
The book is a treasure of baseball stories that often cross the line as downright freakish records. — Pecan Park Eagle
Beer across Texas: A Guide to the Brews and Brewmasters of the Lone Star State
Paul W. Hightower (author), Travis E. Poling (author)
Beer across Texas guides readers through nearly three dozen breweries, microbreweries, and brewpubs throughout the Lone Star State, from El Paso and Houston to Lubbock to South Padre Island. Meet brewers, discover their top labels, and find out what to look for at each brewery. Learn how to identify the distinctive tastes of the five basic styles of lagers and the seventeen major styles of ales. This unique book...
The Texas craft-brewing scene has finally reached a benchmark: It's gotten big enough to have a book written about it. . . . We've arrived. — Austin Chronicle
The Biker's Guide to Texas: 25 Great Motorcycle Rides in the Lone Star State
Dorothy Waldman (author)
This is the book Texas bikers have been waiting for. There's plenty about what to see and do along the way, but the focus is on the rides: where to go, what signs to look for, how far the next turnoff is, when to be especially alert for what's around a sharp bend, when you can expect to relax a bit and just cruise. These twenty-five great rides have been scouted by Dorothy Waldman, who became a "Biker Babe" in her...
Dorothy traipses the state, traveling the open road from the Oklahoma border to the silvery Rio Grande, and she shares tidbits of history and riding tips along the way. — Texas Highways
Black & Blanco!: Engaging Art in English y Español
With ArteKids, children discover the world of art and learn English and Spanish at the same time. Introduce your child to the fundamentals of contrasting colors while connecting them to the world of art in a unique, fun, and colorful way. The book incorporates artwork found in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art with phrases and words in English and Spanish to make bilingual learning and art exciting for...
Children and adults will find much to savor in these titles—so much, in fact, that they may even be inspired to connect with their inner Picassos. — Kirkus Reviews
Bob and Helen Kleberg of King Ranch
Helen Kleberg Groves (author), Anne and Tobin Armstrong (foreword), Bill Benson (contributor)
King Ranch. The name is embroidered in the tapestry of Texas, rising from the sunbaked coastal plains in the infancy of the state itself. King Ranch is the inspiration of legends and speculation, tradition and history. Rawhide-tough through drought, Indian attacks, Civil War, and the Great Depression, among other trials, King Ranch is the star of Texas. Now the memoirs of Helen King Kleberg Alexander-Groves, the only...
Groves tells a compelling story of one of the most famous ranches in America. — Fauquier Times-Democrat
Bronchos to Spurs: Sports in San Antonio since 1888
Chris Foltz (author)
Bronchos to Spurs is a historical guide to sports in San Antonio and includes the dramatic early story of the Spurs—five-time National Basketball Association champions—complete with team rosters, scoring records, and a wealth of other important facts and figures. Then there's baseball, which launched San Antonio's big league sports in 1888. The Texas League champion Missions are likewise recounted in story and...
C. H. Guenther & Son at 150 Years: The Legacy of a Texas Milling Pioneer
San Antonio-based C. H. Guenther & Son, founded by a young German immigrant in 1851, is the oldest family-owned business in Texas and the oldest continually operated family-owned milling company in the United States. Evolution from waterwheels to computers and from plain flour to mixes and frozen foods form the backdrop to this lavishly illustrated story of a company whose Pioneer and White Wings brands approach...
Canary Islanders in Texas: The Story of the Founding of San Antonio
Armando Curbelo Fuentes (author)
Immigrants from the archipelago of the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Western Africa played a vital role in San Antonio's early history. Canary Islanders in Texas tells the story of the fifty-five Canary Islanders who arrived in South Texas in 1731 and founded the original municipality of San Fernando de Béxar (renamed San Antonio in the nineteenth century after Texas's independence from Mexico). Through the...
Chili Queens, Hay Wagons, and Fandangos: The Spanish Plazas in Frontier San Antonio
As San Antonio's frontier era was ending in the 1870s and 1880s, Military Plaza was a vivid outdoor market. By night it was a crowded dining venue where storied chili queens dished out spicy meals and saloons and fandango halls pulsed nearby. A cathedral dating from 1738 faced Main Plaza, where Apache chieftains and Spaniards had long ago buried a hatchet, a lance, six arrows, and a horse to signify peace. On Alamo...
The greatest strength of the book is the rarely seen photographs and artwork that bring the plazas to life. Fisher illustrates the book with views of the plazas and their... — San Antonio Express-News
Clowns and Rats Scare Me
Cary Clack (author), Naomi Shihab Nye (foreword)
Cary Clack is beloved in San Antonio, and for good reason. He brings wit and wisdom to his writings, making his columns the first thing people turn to in the morning paper. It's fair to say that Clack speaks to people beyond his local fans, using his heartfelt, probing, and powerful approach to cover national issues such as terrorism, racism, and child abuse. After 9/11 he spent weeks in New York City, observing...
Cary's witty, often poignant columns cut to the heart of social and political matters, offering the homespun wisdom he earned growing up on the East Side, studying life... — San Antonio Magazine
Colores Everywhere!: Colors in English y Español
With ArteKids, children discover the world of art and learn English and Spanish at the same time. Introduce your child to the fundamentals of colors by connecting them to the world of art in a unique, fun, and colorful way. The book incorporates artwork found in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art, along with phrases and words in English and Spanish, to make bilingual learning and art exciting for eager...
As did the earlier publication 1, 2, 3, Sí! (2011), these two bilingual concept books bring works of art from the San Antonio Museum of Art's collection to a young... — Horn Book
Colors on Clay: The San José Tile Workshops of San Antonio
Susan Toomey Frost (author)
Colors on Clay brings to life the rich artistry, designers, and styles that brought the colorful tiles, bowls, plates, and other wares produced by the San José Workshops in San Antonio, Texas, into prominence nationally. Intertwining art, personality profiles, and history, Susan Toomey Frost presents the first definitive account of this intriguing story. Against the backdrop of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the...
For four decades, beginning just before the Great Depression, Ramos' depictions of South Texas and Central Mexican life—from chile queens on Alamo Plaza to vaqueros on... — San Antonio Express-News
Cornyation: San Antonio's Outrageous Fiesta Tradition
Amy L. Stone (author)
Fiesta San Antonio began in 1891 with a parade, Battle of the Flowers, in honor of the memory of the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto. Similar in many ways to Mardi Gras, the parade has evolved into a ten-day, annual festival in April with more than 100 colorful and cultural events raising money for nonprofit organizations in San Antonio. Cornyation has played an important role in the transformation of Fiesta....
Five years in the making, Stone's hotly anticipated Trinity University Press book Cornyation: San Antonio's Outrageous Fiesta Tradition presents her many findings in a... — San Antonio Current
Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas
Char Miller (author)
Char Miller combines the savvy of a historian and the street smarts of an urban observer as he delves into the special qualities of San Antonio and the larger issues characterizing South Texas. Writing with a lively and intimate style, Miller provides an overview of the region's natural and environmental history; water issues; urban development; politics; and the Alamo City's future. He subtly and successfully...
Eyes Right!: A Vintage Postcard Profile of San Antonio's Military
As the nation undertook the business of winning two world wars, tens of thousands of soldiers and airmen served tours of duty at San Antonio's major bases. Those times coincided with a surge in picture postcards, which uniquely document the scene. Eyes Right! includes rare photography from the Army's chase of Pancho Villa along the Mexican border, which San Antonio's military played an important role in. San Antonio,...
Fault Lines: Portraits of East Austin
John Langmore (author)
East Austin, just across Interstate 35 from Austin, Texas's capital city, is a historically working-class neighborhood that in recent years has become an arts district and hotbed for real estate developers targeting a young urban population. The shops and restaurants that for decades served Latino and African American residents are being crowded out by coffee shops, cocktail bars, and upscale bakeries hoping to...
John Langmore turned his lens on East Austin and discovered a rich history and community. — Austin Chronicle
Fifty Years of the Texas Observer
Char Miller (editor), Molly Ivins (foreword)
For the past five decades the Texas Observer has been an essential voice in Texas culture and politics, championing honest government, civil rights, labor, and the environment, providing a platform for many of the state's most passionate and progressive voices. Included here are ninety-one selections, including Roy Bedichek, Lou Dubose, Ronnie Dugger, Dagoberto Gilb, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Larry McMurtry, Maury...
The Texas Observer tells it like it is—and tells it the way most newspapers can't, or won't. Fifty Years of the Texas Observer delivers stories that will make you laugh... — Ann Richards, former governor of Texas
Fort Sam: The Story of Fort Sam Houston, Texas
Eldon Cagle Jr. (author)
Fort Sam profiles one of America's most historic military posts, established in San Antonio in 1876 and named a National Historic Landmark in 1975. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Fort Sam was the nation's largest Army post. The text and the more than 175 illustrations outline Fort Sam's transformation from an assortment of installations, including the Alamo, into today's sprawling 3,000-acre complex. Its...
Well crafted and chock full if information, this volume is history at its best. — Military Images
Hail of Fire: A Man and His Family Face Natural Disaster
Randy Fritz (author)
Hail of Fire: A Man and His Family Face Natural Disaster is an intimate account of the third worst wildfire in modern U.S. history, and the most destructive in the history of Texas. It is a memoir of what happened to Randy Fritz, an artist turned politician turned public policy leader, and his family during and after the Bastrop County Complex fire in 2011. Combining a searing account of the fire as it grew to...
If you've ever loved a tree—or a person—do yourself a favor: read this book, because at its core love in all its splendor and sadness is what it's... — Jan Jarboe Russell, author of The Train To Crystal City
Hello, Círculos!: Shapes in English y Español
With ArteKids, children discover the world of art and learn English and Spanish at the same time. Introduce your child to the fundamentals of shapes by connecting them to the world of art in a unique, fun, and colorful way. The book incorporates artwork found in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art, along with phrases and words in English and Spanish, to make bilingual learning and art exciting for eager...
"The art choices are really quite stunning and will engage young readers. . . . The breathtaking works of art give youngsters much to pore over." — Kirkus Reviews
HemisFair '68 and the Transformation of San Antonio
Sterlin Holmesly (author)
In 1968, a world's fair sparked a transformation in San Antonio. A monolithic Old Guard overcame four decades of post-Depression lethargy to put on the event, only to find itself overthrown by populist forces unleashed by the new energy. As change rippled outward, rising minority political groups gained a decisive voice in economic developments. In Hemisfair '68, Holmesly records the HemisFair and post-HemisFair...
For anyone with even a casual interest in local history, this book is an invaluable resource, and some of it is fun to read as well. — San Antonio Express-News
Hi Mom, Send Sheep!: My Life as the Coyote and After
Tim Derk (author), David Robinson (foreword)
At the age of forty-seven, Tim Derk's career as mascot for the San Antonio Spurs was soaring as the team headed toward their third NBA Championship. That career ended abruptly when he suffered a massive stroke. Despite remarkable success in regaining speech and movement, Derk knew there was no going back. Hi Mom, Send Sheep! is his fond look at his years as the Coyote. Beginning with his recruitment from a community...
Tim's life is his best act. Picking up the house key can be more heroic than a back flip basket dunk in a furry costume. It's heart we're talking about, and Tim's heart... — Phil Hardberger, former mayor of San Antonio
Hometown Texas
Joe Holley (author), Peter Brown (photographs)
Peter Brown and Joe Holley are interested in place and what makes people who they are. With particular interest in how people take the hand they've been dealt—fate, family, circumstance, luck—and craft a life for themselves, the authors celebrate the grit and gumption of these Texas originals. Introducing quirky characters and tenacious spirits, Holley's stories seek out the personality of the small town while Brown's...
Beauty and strangeness is a theme of 'Hometown Texas'. Both writer and photographer see things that most of us drive right past as we buzz through Bigfoot or Martindale or... — San Antonio Express-News
The Horse That Fell through the Stage: and Other Tales of a Texas Veterinarian
Mason L. Matthews (author)
One evening Mason Matthews got a phone call. As a singer at San Antonio's Alameda Theater was about to mount a horse backstage and ride out in front of the audience, her horse had fallen through the floor. Would Dr. Matthews come over and figure out what to do? This was one of many dilemmas the veterinarian faced during his nearly half-century career. Texas ranchers had emergencies as they began to stock African...
Immigrant Miller Picks Texas: The Letters of Carl Hilmar Guenther
Carl Hilmar Guenther (author)
The letters in Immigrant Miller Picks Texas describe the odyssey of Carl Hilmar Guenther, who sailed from Germany in 1848 at the age of twenty-two to seek his fortune in America. For two years he tried his hand at construction and factory work in New York, farming and milling in Wisconsin and Ohio, and carpentry on a plantation in Louisiana. Then he learned of opportunities in Texas. In 1851 Guenther built the only...
In a Special Light
Elroy Bode (author)
In a Special Light is a collection of essays and short pieces by Texas writer Elroy Bode. In simple but memorable prose, Bode explores his home city of El Paso, as well as the land and people of Central Texas. He observes everyday events—a young boy in a barbershop; plaza life; a young couple in Smoky's Barbecue. Bode also reflects on his life as a high school English teacher, a father, and a writer. The work of Bode,...
This polished Texas writer is drawn to look for meaning in the simple moment observed. — Dianne Young
Inside South Austin: A Guide
Diane Barnet (author)
South Austin is a quirky part of town, sort of the Texas answer to Greenwich Village in New York or the Left Bank in Paris. Big business and government stay on the far side of Lady Bird Lake. There may be glittering vistas across to the Texas capitol, but the main goal over here seems to be to keep Austin weird. Inside South Austin guides readers to vacant lots sprouting gourmet kitchens in Airstream trailers and...
Juan O'Gorman: A Confluence of Civilizations
Catherine Nixon Cooke (author)
Juan O'Gorman: A Confluence of Civilizations follows O'Gorman's life and the creation of his mural Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas, a spectacular piece of midcentury public art that stands the test of time as one of the Mexican artist's most influential works. O'Gorman was a muralist, painter, mosaic artist, critic, and professor, as well as an architect. He is possibly best known for his close friendship...
Lou: From Brooklyn to Broadway, the University of the Incarnate Word's 25 Years with Dr. Louis J. Agnese Jr.
Patricia A. Watkins (author)
When Lou Agnese was hired as the eighth president of Incarnate Word College in 1985, he was one of the youngest university presidents in the United States. At thirty-three, the Brooklyn native faced the daunting challenge of reviving an institution with a shrinking enrollment and an uncertain future whose student demographics were out of step with San Antonio. Having served more than three decades as president of the...
Lou Agnese has an indomitable personality. I only hope to become as successful at accomplishing my dreams as he has been at his. — David Robinson, NBA Hall of Fame member
Love Deeper Than a River: My Life in San Antonio
Lila Banks Cockrell (author), Catherine Nixon Cooke (author), Henry Cisneros (foreword)
Lila Banks Cockrell has been an important voice in San Antonio politics and public life for more than six decades. In Love Deeper Than a River, she recalls her life as a public servant in the city she loves and, as member of the Greatest Generation, recounts how coming of age during Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, and the burgeoning civil rights movement influenced her political views and kindled her...
While the book serves as a handy history of San Antonio's emergence onto the national stage, it also suggests how modern politicians at all levels may find a way past the... — San Antonio Express-News
Marfa Garden: The Wonders of Dry Desert Plants
Jim Fissel (author), Martha Hughes (author), Jim Martinez (author), Mary Lou Saxon (author), Dallas Baxter (foreword)
Marfa Garden is a full-color celebration of more than sixty flowering plants of the Chihuahuan Desert and neighboring regions. The desert, North America's second largest at 140,000 square miles, spans West Texas, parts of New Mexico and Arizona, and northern Mexico. It is a surprising showcase for colorful plant diversity. Presented in a style reminiscent of naturalist Karl Blossfeldt's Art Forms in Nature, the book...
The book's overriding purpose is to encourage us to rethink our ideas about the desert land of West Texas... Marfa Garden's intent is to get the region's visitors and... — Texas Monthly
Mary Bonner: Impressions of a Printmaker
Mary Carolyn Hollers George (author), Lyle Williams (introduction), Jane Lewis (afterword)
Mary Bonner: Impressions of a Printmaker is the definitive account of the life of an iconic Texas artist known for her delicate etchings and prints of the places and people that make South Texas unique. Mary Bonner begins with the artist's early years in San Antonio and continues through her awakening as an artist at the Woodstock colony in upstate New York in summer 1922 to her years in France under the instruction...
Maverick: The American Name That Became a Legend
By definition, a maverick is a "lone dissenter" who "takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates" or "a person pursuing rebellious, even potentially disruptive policies or ideas." The word maverick has evolved in the English language from being the term for an unbranded stray calf to a label given to a nontraditional person or to a more extreme "uncontrollable individualist, iconoclast, unstable...
In this fascinating, well-illustrated work, Fisher outdoes all his prior literary output in style and verve with a book that not only lets the real Sam Maverick stand up... — San Antonio Express-News
Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick: A Journal of Early Texas
This new edition of the Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick—until now unchanged since the first in 1921—is carefully reedited with new illustrations and, for the first time, an index and extensive annotations to put the leading characters and subjects into perspective.As the young wife of Samuel A. Maverick, a Yale-educated landholder whose name has entered the English language, Mary Adams Maverick came to Texas less than two...
A vivid picture of life on the Texas frontier. — New Handbook of Texas
On the Border: An Environmental History of San Antonio
Char Miller (editor)
This collection of eleven essays examines the environmental history of San Antonio, drawing on an interdisciplinary array of authors and insights to highlight the evolving relationship between the city's residents and the South Texas landscape and showing how the human community and the natural environment have shaped each other. The border of the title refers to San Antonio's location at the edge of the Great Plains...
Scholars interested in regional, environmental, and urban history will appreciate the book. So will thoughtful residents of San Antonio, if they hope that their city will... — American Historical Review
Photography on the South Texas Frontier: Images from the Witte Museum Collection
Bruce M. Shackelford (author)
The images in Photography on the South Texas Frontier catch South Texans through more than 150 years of formal and informal moments in studios, at home, at work, and at play. The photographs, most published for the first time, are from the top-ranked collection of the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas. The illustrations were scanned in color, yielding a range of tones that otherwise disappear when historic images...
These rare photographs, edited with such great affection, insight, and skill, provide a unique window into our region's past and deserve an honored place on the bookshelf... — San Antonio Express-News
Place Names of San Antonio: plus Bexar and Surrounding Counties
David P. Green (author)
We deal with dozens of place names in the course of everyday life—of streets, schools, parks, towns, natural features. Do the names mean anything beyond just labeling where we live, the routes we drive or the places we're going? This enlarged edition of Place Names of San Antonio identifies the origins of nearly 1,000 familiar place names in the San Antonio region. Naming sleuth Dr. David P. Green cracks mysteries...
The Railroads of San Antonio and South Central Texas
Hugh Hemphill (author)
As Toyota scouted the nation in 2002 for a new plant location, a San Antonio site's proximity to two rail lines clinched the decision. It was the city's greatest economic breakthrough in recent years. Of even greater effect was the arrival of the first railroad 125 years earlier, launching the region's growth. These landmark events and others are outlined in The Railroads of San Antonio and South Central Texas, the...
Rainy Days and Starry Nights: Growing Up in the South Texas Brush Country
Lois Zook Wauson (author)
Depression and the worst drought in Texas history did not make life easy for a large family on a small South Texas farm in the mid-twentieth century. Lawrence Zook tried growing cotton, corn, peanuts, even black-eyed peas on his 100 sandy acres thirty miles southeast of San Antonio, near Floresville, known today as the Peanut Capital of Texas. His family survived, though he tended to be disagreeable when it didn't...
The South Texas brush country appears to the alien visitor a desolate landscape that is far removed from the beaten path of urban society. To those who call the region... — Journal of South Texas
Ranch Gates of the Southwest
Lucy R. Lippard (introduction), Daniel M. Olsen (photographs), Henk van Assen (photographs), Kenneth I. Helphand (contributor)
In the wide open landscapes of the Southwest, ranch gates stand out as singular icons of a way of life common to the region. Not only symbols of ranching culture, they also offer insight into the design, landscape, and cultural history of the Southwest. Ranch Gates of the Southwest explores in images and text how these entryways lead to an understanding of the people and the land across a territory that covers...
Ranch Gates is consummate myth-making, implying a kind of lost-Eden sense of abandonment, a quixotic relationship between people and the place they've settled. — Su Casa Magazine
The Ranch That Was Us
Becky Crouch Patterson (author), Willie Nelson (foreword)
Braiding strands of earthen insight with uproarious storytelling, legendary Texas Hill Country author Becky Patterson recreates the history of the Stieler Hill Ranch in twenty-four anecdotal chapters interspersed with original artwork. The result is a mixture of memoir and montage, treasure chest and tableau vivant of a world that's beautiful, brash, and wonderfully heartbreaking. Patterson, the daughter of Texas folk...
For us non-native Texans it would be impossible to understand the Nachfolge of Hondo's Texas without the tales of our old schoolmate from St. Stephen's Episcopal School.... — Alexandra and Terrence Malick
A Ranching Saga: The Lives of William Electious Halsell and Ewing Halsell
William Curry Holden (author), José Cisneros (illustrations)
A Ranching Saga tells the story of father and son pioneer ranchers in the Southwest. Around the turn of the century, William Electious Halsell and Ewing Halsell were integral to the growing ranching industry in Texas and Oklahoma. Through newspaper accounts, legal documents, personal correspondence, and interviews with family members, friends, and acquaintances, A Ranching Saga recounts the lives of these two...
Reagan's Comeback: Four Weeks in Texas That Changed American Politics Forever
Gilbert Garcia (author)
Reagan's Comeback is the surprising story of a pivotal point in Ronald Reagan's career: a single dramatic month during the 1976 presidential election in which he found his footing on the national stage and turned American politics upside down. Never before has anyone told the story of how Reagan fi nally found his voice as a presidential contender and overcame the powerful Republican establishment to forever change...
Gilbert Garcia has written an excellent account of the 1976 Texas presidential primary campaign between President Gerald Ford and challenger Ronald Reagan that was crucial... — Dallas Morning News
The River Spectacular: Light, Sound, Color & Craft on the San Antonio River
Wendy Weil Atwell (author)
Few projects have galvanized the imagination of San Antonians like the nine spectacular works of public art highlighting the "art reach" of the San Antonio River Walk. The River Spectacular features dramatic color photographs by Mark Menjivar exploring the array of painting, sculpture, sound and light along the 1.3 mile Urban Segment of the winding Museum Reach north of downtown. The artworks, completed in 2009, were...
River Walk: The Epic Story of San Antonio's River
River Walk untangles the story of the evolution of San Antonio's river into a travel destination for 5 million visitors each year. Of the 230 illustrations, many in color, dozens are historical images never before published. They help document how the river was revived from the sluggish trickle of a century ago to a world-renowned model for river development. Included is the most complete account—dramatically...
Lewis Fisher gets it right . . . a solidly researched text eloquently presented with detailed footnotes and illustrated with historic photographs and architectural drawings. — Texas Architect
Rosita's Bridge
Mary McMillan Fisher (author), Barbara M. Whitehead (illustrations)
This is the true story of Carla Maria presenting flowers to her grandmother, singer Rosita Fernandez, when the bridge at San Antonio's open air Arneson River Theater was named Rosita's Bridge—not just a bridge across a river but a bridge between cultures. Rosita tells Carla Maria of immigrating from Mexico in a family of sixteen children, of her father and uncles helping to build the River Walk in the late 1930s,...
Based on a true story . . . this tale focuses on Rosita Fernandez who became known as "San Antonio's First Lady of Song" during a career that spanned more than 50 years.... — Publishers Weekly
Saint Mark's Episcopal Church: 150 Years of Ministry in Downtown San Antonio, 1858–2008
How a new congregation of forty Episcopalians struggling against general rowdiness in an isolated frontier outpost of 8,000 inhabitants had the daring to commission Richard Upjohn, the nation's leading church architect, to design their church—and then to build it. This the start of one of the stories that makes San Antonio such an unusual place. As various denominations worked to establish churches in San Antonio,...
Fisher succeeds in painting a colorful historical mural of the St. Mark's community and in profiling its people as actors in an ongoing drama of service and devotion. — San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio: Our Story of 150 Years in the Alamo City
Staff of the San Antonio Express-News (author)
On Sept. 27, 1865, the San Antonio Express-News made its debut. And from the beginning, there was plenty to write about. The Civil War had just concluded, and it was only twenty-nine years after the fall of the Alamo. The Chisholm Trail, the high road of the Cattle Kingdom, began in San Antonio, which was the largest and among the most diverse cities in Texas. Spanish, German, and English were commonly spoken. The...
San Antonio: Outpost of Empires
San Antonio's unique appeal is its colorful, authentic past. San Antonio: Outpost of Empires portrays in words and pictures the evolution of the city over nearly three centuries, from the days of the colonists of New Spain to the defense of the Alamo to the rapid growth of the modern era. Here the faces of people like Davy Crockett, Robert E. Lee, Theodore Roosevelt, Geronimo, and Queen Elizabeth II mingle with...
A poetic and insightful summary of the city's origins and development to the present day. . . . Outstanding illustrations bring the author's written history to life. . . .... — Southwestern Historical Quarterly
San Antonio in Color
W. B. Thompson (illustrations)
San Antonio in Color captures the city's historic sites, including the old Catholic missions, the Paseo del Rio, and the Spanish Governor's Palace, as well as cultural institutions, such as the McNay Art Museum, the Carver Community Cultural Center, and the San Antonio Public Library. Completing the visual tour are scenes from San Antonio's neighborhoods, festivals, and popular haunts—a west side ice house, King...
San Antonio Legacy: Folklore and Legends of a Diverse People
Donald E. Everett (author), José Cisneros (illustrations)
Frontier San Antonio attracted a great many short-tempered miscreants and adventurers. It also drew missionary priests, conservative merchants, and proper ladies, who established a polite society amid all the commotion. San Antonio Legacy offers their stories, some factual and some less so, often in their own words, from disorder in the Bull's Head Saloon to hiding silver on wagons to Mexico to the lynching of Bob...
San Antonio on Wheels: The Alamo City Learns to Drive
Hugh Hemphill (author), Red McCombs (foreword)
Horseless carriages came to San Antonio to stay in 1899. Mechanized transport—including bicycles—revolutionized the way things moved in the largest city in Texas, though it took a little practice. Following a series of mishaps, in 1910 city council adopted a formal set of driving rules. The speed limit was set at eight miles an hour within one mile of San Fernando Cathedral and at fifteen miles an hour beyond that. ...
San Antonio on Wheels cannot fail to move the heart of anyone who loves his or her car. — San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio Portrait
T. R. Fehrenbach (foreword), Mike Osborne (photographs)
In San Antonio Portrait, Mike Osborne's camera captures the architectural and festive spirits of Spain and Mexico that have pervaded the city for nearly three centuries, as he takes a fresh look at treasured historic landmarks and at exciting contemporary additions to the scene. Many of the city's favorite places, and some of its most festive events, will be recognized quickly. Others may take a bit longer. A foreword...
San Antonio Uncovered: Fun Facts and Hidden Histories
Mark Louis Rybczyk (author), Robert Rivard (foreword)
San Antonio is one of the fastest growing and most dynamic cities in America. The Alamo City's charm, colorful surroundings, and diverse culture combine to make it one of the most interesting places in Texas and the nation. In San Antonio Uncovered, Mark Rybczyk examines some of the city's internationally known legends and lore (including ghost stories) and takes a nostalgic look at landmarks that have disappeared....
If you're new in town, this book is a no-brainer and will give you a leg up on local history, famous places, and notable characters. If you consider yourself a San... — Rivard Report
San Antonio's Historic Plazas, Parks, and River Walk
San Antonio enjoys a unique variety of historic public places, from plazas placed in Spanish times to the River Walk, one of the world's most renowned linear parks. In San Antonio's Historic Plazas, Parks, and River Walk, Lewis F. Fisher organizes 166 full-size vintage postcard images into panoramas displaying the transition of these spaces into modern times. Streetscapes change. Carriages fade away. Candy vendors ply...
San Antonio's Monte Vista: Architecture and Society in a Gilded Age 1890–1930
Donald E. Everett (author)
The 100-block Monte Vista National Historic District survives nearly intact from San Antonio's Gilded Age, when newly prosperous residents built the finest neighborhood of the era. Here architects drawn to the burgeoning city from across the country designed homes both elaborate and modest in an unusual variety of styles, from Queen Anne to Prairie to Tudor to Spanish Colonial Revival. In San Antonio's Monte Vista,
Saving San Antonio: The Preservation of a Heritage
Few American cities enjoy the likes of San Antonio's visual links with its dramatic past. The Alamo and four other Spanish missions, recently designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, are the most obvious, but there are countless other landmarks and folkways that lend San Antonio an "odd and antiquated foreignness." Adding to the charm of the nation's seventh largest city is the San Antonio River, saved to become a...
A superb read. — Maury Maverick Jr.
School by the River: Ursuline Academy to Southwest School of Art & Craft, 1851-2001
Maria Watson Pfeiffer (author)
When seven women of the Order of Saint Ursula and one priest arrived in frontier San Antonio, Texas in 1851 to establish a school for girls, none could predict the dramatic future facing the tranquil campus that rose on the banks of the San Antonio River. By 1970, the Ursuline Academy had moved away. Then two other groups of determined women--the San Antonio Conservation Society and the Southwest Craft Center--closed...
The Sound of Sunshine: The Story of Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children
Mary McMillan Fisher (author)
There were few options for educating deaf children when Dela White discovered in 1945 that her infant daughter, Tuleta, could not hear. Mrs. White took her to Los Angeles to enroll at the John Tracy Clinic, founded by the wife of actor Spencer Tracy and named for their deaf son. Mrs. Tracy was adamant that her son was not going to sign but would hear and speak, recalled Mrs. White. That's what she wanted for...
The Spanish Acequias of San Antonio
Waynne Cox (author)
The Spanish Acequias of San Antonio is the first book on the remarkable Spanish-era acequia system that supplied water to early San Antonio. One of the acequias, serving lands near Mission Espada, remains in use today. Its 1730s stone aqueduct is a major tourist attraction. New towns throughout the semiarid Spanish Southwest depended on water from medieval systems designed by Spanish engineers, using techniques...
The crowning achievement of Waynne Cox's work in archaeology. It is the only definitive text on the irrigation system built by the Spanish in the early 1700s. — San Antonio Express-News
Spurs Nation: Major Moments in San Antonio Basketball
Staff of the San Antonio Express-News (author), Jim Lefko (introduction)
From the Memorial Day Miracle to coach Gregg Popovich's legendary leadership to winning five NBA championships, the San Antonio Spurs have brought excitement to the Alamo City and the greater NBA family since 1976. Celebrating the team with the most rabid and loyal fan base in basketball history, Spurs Nation captures the Spurs' unforgettable plays and crucial junctures from the past thirty years. Spurs Nation is the...
As the younger generation watches the new crop of players filter in, this chronicle will fill them in on who they have to thank for the caliber of basketball they are... — Rivard Report
Texas Hollywood: Filmmaking in San Antonio since 1910
Frank Thompson (author)
Hundreds of movies have been filmed in San Antonio since the first movie studio in Texas opened in the city in 1910. They range from silent flickers to major Hollywood productions, offbeat independent films, low-budget horror films, and everything in between. Some of history's most honored and loved films have been filmed in San Antonio, including the winner of the first Academy Award for Best Picture. "I much prefer...
Transforming San Antonio
Nelson W. Wolff (author), Henry Cisneros (foreword)
San Antonio boasts one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan regions, thanks to visionary personalities, key politicians, a vibrant citizenry, and a bit of luck. In this lively behind-the-scenes account, Bexar County judge and former San Antonio mayor Nelson Wolff conveys the complexity of the characters and the events—who said what to whom when and how that affected further developments. Wolff focuses on four...
Trinity University: A Tale of Three Cities
R. Douglas Brackenridge (author)
Since its founding in 1869 by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Trinity University has been engaged in realizing the dreams of its founders to become "a University of the highest order." R. Douglas Brackenridge, professor emeritus of religion at Trinity University, brings a wealth of scholarship and knowledge to this institutional history. Brackenridge traces Trinity's unique heritage from its founding in Tehuacana...
Trinity University: Honoring the Past, Shaping the Future
Trinity University (author)
Trinity University: Honoring the Past, Shaping the Future showcases the stories, moments, and people of the Trinity community's 150-year journey. From its beginnings in a lone building in Tehuacana to its roots today in the heart of San Antonio, Trinity's story is one of resilience, ambition, and success. Founded with the vision to create a new university of the highest order, Trinity's commitment to innovative...
University Health at 100: A Journey from Charity Hospital to Academic Medical Center
Karen F. Glenney (editor), George B. Hernández Jr. (editor), Nelson W. Wolff (foreword)
At the start of the twentieth century, South Texas was a melting of troops training for deployment in World War I and thousands of refugees fleeing the Mexican Revolution. With the influx of immigrants and injured veterans returning from the war, the area was in desperate need of a charity hospital to serve the burgeoning community. The city of San Antonio and Bexar County each contributed half the funding to build...
Walking Hill Country Towns: 41 Unique Walks in the Texas Hill Country
Diane Capito (author)
Walking Hill Country Towns is the classic guidebook that takes you deep into the hearts of picturesque towns that dot the Texas Hill Country between San Antonio and Austin, from Bandera to Buda, Kerrville to Kyle, Grapetown to Gruene. For those without enough time to slow down, the author keeps the routes on public streets that can be driven or bicycled. You'll find precise directions plus the locations of convenient...
The most fun was learning about small towns that I had always just whizzed by without a thought or second glance. . . . I find myself putting the book in the car every... — San Antonio Current
West of the Creek: Murder, Mayhem, and Vice in Old San Antonio
David Bowser (author)
Desperados made San Antonio a roaring Old West town just as they put their stamp on Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City. But like Denver and San Francisco, San Antonio shed its raucous frontier image as it grew into a modern metropolis. Most books on this colorful phase of San Antonio's history are long out of print. West of the Creek fills this void, reminding readers that gamblers like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson...
This little book is a gem for those drawn to reading about the fast life of the frontier, and it has a remarkable bibliography with many primary sources. — Journal of South Texas
The Wine Roads of Texas: An Essential Guide to Texas Wines and Wineries
Wes Marshall (author)
The Wine Roads of Texas is the premier guide to wines made in the nation's fifth-largest wine-producing state. It is the inspiration for the three-part PBS series with the same name. For this second edition, Austin wine writer Wes Marshall scouted new wineries from Big Bend's Davis Mountains to the bayous of East Texas, from Dallas to Del Rio, Galveston to Lubbock. Marshall met the vintners, listened to their stories...
Makes it easy for the reader who may not be familiar with the myriad wine grape varietals, winemaking techniques, etc. . . . A good read. — Houston Chronicle