Texas Tales

These tales trace the Texas story from Cabeza de Vaca, who trekked barefoot across the country recording the first accounts of Indian life, to empresarios like Stephen F. Austin and Don Martín DeLeón, who brought settlers into Mexican Texas. There are visionaries like Padre José Nicolás Ballí, the Singer Family, and Sam Robertson who tried and failed to develop Padre Island into the wonderland that it is today. Legendary characters like Sally Skull, who had five husbands and may have killed some of them, and Josiah Wilbarger, who was scalped and lived another ten years to tell about it. Shanghai Pierce, cattleman extraordinaire, had no qualms about rounding up other folks' calves, and Tol Barret drilled Texas' first oil well over thirty years before Spindletop changed the world. The Sanctified Sisters got rich running a commune for women, and millionaire oilman Edgar B. Davis gave away his fortune as fast as he made it. Sam Houston, Jean Lafitte, Antonio López de Santa Anna, Lucy Kidd Key, Minnie Fisher Cunningham, and many more--early-day adventurers, Civil War heroes, and latter-day artists and musicians created the patchwork called Texas.

Myra Hargrave McIlvain, a sixth-generation Texan, has written historical markers for the Texas Historical Commission and articles for newspapers and magazines, such as Texas Highways. She authored six nonfiction books, including Texas Tales, about famous and infamous Texas sites and characters. In recent years, McIlvain penned six award-winning books of historical fiction.Whether she is telling stories in her books, blogs, or lectures, McIlvain views history as the story of a people, and the people she knows best have made Texas home.

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