The Hidden History of Texas

Episode 87 of the Hidden History of Texas - The Towns the Company Owned There was a time in East Texas…when you could live your entire life…without ever leaving the reach of a single company. They built your house. They paid your wages. They sold you your food. They taught your children…and sometimes… they buried your dead. These were the company towns of East Texas places that don’t always show up in the history books…but helped build the state as we know it. The Piney Woods System Long before oil changed Texas…the wealth of East Texas came from the forest. Endless stretches of longleaf pine straight, tall, and valuable. But the forests weren’t near cities. They were deep in the Piney Woods…isolated… difficult… and expensive to reach. So the lumber companies did something remarkable. They didn’t just build mills. They built entire towns. Places like Diboll, Manning, and Camden weren’t accidents of settlement they were designed systems. Efficient. Controlled. Purpose-built. A Life Inside the System In these towns…you didn’t just work for the company. You lived inside it. Your house? Owned by the company. Your groceries? Bought at the company store. Your paycheck? Sometimes paid in cash…sometimes in scrip, currency only good inside that same system. And if you stepped back and looked at it what you saw wasn’t just a town. It was a closed loop. A complete economic ecosystem…decades before anyone used words like “platform” or “vertical integration.” Diboll: The Model Town Take Diboll, for example. Built around the Southern Pine Lumber Company, it became one of the most structured company towns in Texas. Neighborhoods were organized. Workers were grouped, sometimes by job, sometimes by race. Life had a rhythm… defined by the mill whistle. Diboll lasted longer than most. Not because the system changed…but because the company adapted just enough to survive. Many others weren’t so fortunate. When the Forest Was Gone The thing about timber towns…is that they were built on something that could disappear. Tree by tree. Rail line by rail line. And when the forest was gone…the reason for the town disappeared with it. Places like Manning faded quietly. No dramatic collapse. No headlines. Just… empty houses. Silent tracks. And the slow return of the forest. Then Came Oil Then, in 1930, everything changed. The East Texas Oil Boom didn’t just create wealth, it created chaos. Where timber towns were planned…oil towns exploded. Kilgore. Joinerville and dozens more. Overnight, forests filled with derricks. Fields turned into tent cities, shacks were thrown up, and hurried streets. The companies were still there, but control was looser. Faster. Rougher. Temporary. If timber towns were systems…oil towns were surges. Control vs. Freedom And that’s the contrast that defines this hidden chapter. Timber towns offered stability, but at the cost of control. Oil towns offered opportunity but at the cost of order. Two different models of the same idea: What happens when an entire community…is built around a single industry? Closing Today, if you drive through East Texas…you’ll pass through places like Diboll without thinking twice. You might not notice what used to be there. The rows of company houses. The store where everyone shopped. The mill that set the rhythm of life. But the pattern hasn’t disappeared. It’s just changed form. Because the idea of a “company town”…never really went away. It evolved. From the forests of the Piney Woods…to the oil fields beneath them…this is another chapter in the Hidden History of Texas. But in reality, History isn’t over yet, because “The Company Town Never Left” There’s a phrase we don’t use much anymore. “Company town.” It sounds like something from another century; something tied to sawmills… rail lines… and oil derricks. But if you look a little closer…the idea didn’t disappear. It just changed form. In those East Texas towns, the company controlled the essentials. Where you lived. Where you worked. Where you...

Episode 86 - Ma Ferguson the first woman governor of Texas Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Hidden History of Texas. I’m Hank Wilson and this is Episode 86 – were I continue telling y’all about some of the “notorious” governors we’ve had. This episode is devoted to Miriam Amanda (Ma) Ferguson, the first woman governor of Texas. Born in Bell County on June13, 1875, to Joseph L. and Eliza (Garrison) Wallace, she attended Salado College and Baylor Female College at Belton. In 1899 at the age of 24 she married James Edward Ferguson in a ceremony in Bell County. She served as the first lady of Texas during the gubernatorial terms of her husband, who managed to get himself impeached during his second administration. I talked about his administration in a previous episode, which I’m sure is still available. Even though he had been impeached and forced out of office in 1924 Old Pa Ferguson tried to once again run for Governor. Now even in Texas we sometimes draw line as to who or what we want in the governor’s office, and the court’s said he was not eligible. In order to keep power in the family Miriam or Ma as she was known entered the race for the Texas governorship. Why was she called Ma? Prior to this entrance into politics, she had devoted her energies almost exclusively to her husband and two daughters and because of this and the combination of her first and middle initials, her supporters called her "Ma" Ferguson. While, in theory it was her campaign, she made it clear that if she were elected, she would follow the advice of her husband. This meant then, as she proudly said, that Texas thus would gain "two governors for the price of one." One goal of her campaign was to have her husband’s name vindicated. She promised to make extensive cuts in state appropriations. She condemned the Ku Klux Klan, and opposed passing new liquor legislation, (this was during the years leading up to prohibition). Initially, in the primary, she trailed the Klan-supported prohibitionist candidate, Felix D. Robertson; however, she was able to easily defeat him in an August run-off to become the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Then in November of 1924 she handily defeated the Republican nominee, George C. Butte, a former dean of the University of Texas law school. Many folks are unaware that in those days, the Republicans where the more liberal of the parties and the democrats were in favor of segregation and generally supported the Klan. She was inaugurated fifteen days after Wyoming's Nellie Ross, thus becoming the second woman governor in United States history. Her first administration is remember by historians as being dominated by political strife and controversy. What did she do or didn’t do? She did fulfilled a campaign promise to secure an antimask law against the Ku Klux Klan, (for those who are truly unaware of the KKK, they, much like today when people wear masks or hoods to cover their faces, the Klan wore hoods because they don’t want people to know who they are) however the courts overturned it. In her administration a series of events took place that many current voters can recognize due to how they seem to occur in today’s politics. For example, she had pledged to reduce state expenditures and the budget by $15 million, but in fact they increased. She and her husband, remember Pa, were accused of irregularities both in the granting of pardons and paroles and in the letting of road contracts by the state highway department. It seems that Ma Ferguson pardoned an average of 100 convicts a month, and she and "Pa" both were accused by critics of accepting bribes of land and cash payments. An attempt to impeach Ma failed, but in 1926 those controversies helped Attorney General Daniel James Moody defeat her and win the governorship. Two years later, in 1928, she decided not to run for office, but in 1930 the Texas Supreme Court once again rejected her husband's petition to place his name on the ballot for governor, so she...

Welcome to episode 85 of the Hidden History of Texas, today I'm talking about one of the most Notorious Governors of Texas - James "PA" Ferguson. James Edward (Pa) Ferguson, Texas governor, was born in 1871 near Salado, which is in Bell County and is fairly close to where I am, to James Edward and Fannie (Fitzpatrick) Ferguson. Sadly, his father passed away when Pa was only four, and his mother, being a true strong Texas woman stayed on working the farm and he began working in the fields as a young boy. When he was 12, he entered Salado College, which was a local preparatory school, but in a sign of things to come, was expelled for disobedience. At age 16 he left home for a life on the road and wandered throughout the Western states, where he did any type of job he could find. Eventually he returned home to Bell County, where he tried farming and working on a railroad-bridge gang. He did use this time to begin to study law and in 1897 he was admitted to the bar. He opened up a practice in Belton and then in 1899 he married Miriam A. Wallace. The couple had two children and since in those days lawyers weren’t as busy as they are today, he expanded his personal interests to real estate and insurance. He then turned his attention to banking and for several years was not only a member of the Texas Bankers Association but also associated with the Farmers State Bank of Belton. In 1907 he moved his family to the larger town of Temple where he joined in the formation and establishment of the Temple State Bank. Needless to say, it was during this time period when he was involved with banking that he also took an active interest in county and local politics. In spite of the fact that he never held a local office he was very aware of how local politics worked. He was a staunch opponent of prohibition and had fought against allowing what was known as the local-option out of Bell County. He served as a campaign manager for Robert V. Davidson in 1910 and worked with Oscar B. Colquitt in his successful gubernatorial campaign in 1912. Prohibition had been a major issue in the 1914 campaign, and there were candidates for the governor’s race on both sides of the issue. The prohibitionists held an elimination convention and pledged their support to Thomas H. Ball of Houston. The anti-prohibitionists tried to have their own convention, but Ferguson, even though he had been identified as an anti-prohibitionist, refused to publicly support it. As a result, the leaders at the convention was not able to eliminate him from receiving their endorsement and while they did not endorse him the other anti-prohibition candidates withdrew from the race. Due to his popularity Ferguson easily won the nomination by a majority of about 40,000 votes. Ferguson proved to be one of the more captivating speakers and had a native ability to persuade people. He was a masterful public speaker. His most popular and talked about proposition was a law that would actually limit how much rent a landlord could charge. For the folks who were known as “tenant farmers” this proved to be very popular. It was not popular among landowners, and he tried to assure landowners that the law would prove to be beneficial to everyone. After his election he was successful in getting the law passed, but it was soon declared unconstitutional. During his term the state began to provide aid to rural schools and there was enacted a relatively minor law that required compulsory school attendance. He was in favor of helping schools, and colleges were permitted to begin building programs. In order to pay for everything, educational appropriation bills were more generous than usual. Needless to say, these changes increased the ad valorem tax rate for state purposes advanced from 12½ to 30 cents. The prison system increased its landownership and since Texas had many ‘prison farms’ the system benefited from the rising price of farm commodities. During World War I the system became self-sustaining and...

This is Episode 84 - Notorious Governors of Texas Edmund J. Davis and the first of our series of Notorious Governors of Texas. With all the politics in the news today, I’ve naturally been thinking about politics and politicians. One group that has always intrigued me are governors. Not presidents, or senators, or members of the house, but governors. They’re the ones who really give a state its identity, well at least in a way, because they’re most often the ‘face’ of the state. Here in Texas, our current governor seems to love making pronouncements about how his administration is going to fight this or that evil that might be encroaching on Texan’s freedoms. More often than not, it’s usually just a bunch of fluff that his advisors know will make his hard-core supporters emotional and get him on the evening news. After all he’s running for re-election and needs to make sure people don’t forget about him. Naturally this got me to thinking about Texas governors in the past, so I started researching what I thought of the most notorious governors in the history of the state. These governors often gained notoriety due to the turbulent, defining political eras in which they served, such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Progressive era scandals. So, today I’m going to start a series on these leaders from the past. First is Edmund J. Davis: Union Army Officer and Reconstruction Governor of Texas. Davis was governor in the reconstruction period 1870 and 1874. He was a Republican, (not the type of Republican we have today, these were the anti-slavery, pro-union republicans). Since he was a Republican during Reconstruction, needless to say he was very unpopular with a large percentage of white Texans. They thought of him as a tyrant, because he believed in using the state police and he was adamant in enforcing what many considered to be radical Republican policies. Who was he, and how did he become governor? As were many Texans at the time, he wasn’t originally from Texas. He was born at St. Augustine, Florida, on October 2, 1827, to William Godwin and Mary Ann (Channer) Davis. His lineage traced back to a Grandfather Godwin Davis, who had immigrated from England to Virginia and had fought and perished during the Revolutionary War. His father, who lived in South Carolina, was a land developer and attorney in St. Augustine. As a young man Davis was educated in Florida, and at age 19 moved, with the family to Galveston, Texas, in January 1848. In Galveston he started a career working in the post office while he undertook the study of law. In 1849 he relocated to Corpus Christi, where he worked in a store and continued to read and study law and in the fall of 1849, he was admitted to the bar. Between 1849 and 1853 he was an inspector and deputy collector of customs at Laredo. In 1853 he became district attorney of the Twelfth Judicial District at Brownsville. About 1856 Governor Elisha M. Pease named him judge of the same district, and Davis continued to serve as a state judge until 1861. As judge he accompanied the ranger unit of Capt. William G. Tobin, who was involved in the Cortina affair at Brownsville in 1859 On April 6, 1858, Davis married Elizabeth Anne Britton, daughter of Forbes Britton, a state senator and friend of Sam Houston. Now we have his personal story, but this is Texas and in Texas nothing is simple, particularly politics. Davis was a Whig until the mid-1850s. OK, who were the Whigs? They were a major political party that was very active from 1834 to 1854. They were originally formed in order to oppose President Andrew Jackson's policies and his desire to expand executive power. (see power hungry president’s isn’t exactly anything new in American history). They supported Henry Clay’s "American System," and they believed in modernization, industrialization, protective tariffs, and a national bank. The fell apart by infighting over the expansion of slavery into new territories. This caused Northern "Conscience"...

There’s a phrase we use and hear a lot in Texas. “Don’t mess with Texas.” It’s supposed to refer to us having a feeling of independence, grit, and self-reliance.But when it comes to books, and who gets to read them, we Texans have a long, complicated history of messing with what our fellow Texans do. Today, when we hear about book bans or library purges, it can feel like something new. Like a sudden crisis. But the truth is far less comfortable. Book censorship in Texas isn’t an anomaly.It’s a tradition. And like most traditions, it tells us a lot about who has power… and who’s afraid of losing it. Not a complete transcript.....

“The Quiet Texan Behind the Oval Office: Colonel Edward Mandell House” Welcome to Episode 82 of the Hidden History of Texas, Yes, I took the holidays off and feel refreshed and ready to go here in 2026. I hope each and all of you had a wonderful holiday season. Now it’s time to get back into it. If you pay attention to the world of political news, then you’ve probably heard the name Steven Miller. If you haven’t, he’s a primary advisor to President Trump. There are some who think that Mr. Miller is the most powerful person in Washington. That he wields more power and influence inside the administration than anyone else. He is what some call the power behind the throne, and they are surprised that someone like this exists. However, it’s not rare at all, throughout history there have been men who were incredibly powerful but whom most people can’t name. The question becomes, how on earth does a person rule a nation, a country without actually being the ruler? How does someone rule without ruling? It’s important to understand that real power doesn’t always sit at the top. Many times, the real power is held by a person that many people are unaware even exists. Real power operates quietly, seemingly in the shadows, through trust and access. One such person’s name was Edward Mandell House, and of course, he came from Texas.” And at one point during World War I, he was one of the most influential men in Washington. He either shaped or helped shape American foreign policy. He was never elected to office. He held no cabinet position, and he most certainly did not have a public mandate to do what he did. Who was Edward Mandell House? He was born in Houston on July 26, 1858, to Mary Elizabeth (Shearn) and Thomas William House. He was the youngest of seven children. Thomas, his father, was one of the leading citizens of Texas. He was a wealthy merchant, a banker, and a landowner. As did many wealthy children in that time period, Edward had a privileged youth. Growing up he met many prominent people who visited his family’s large homes in Galveston and Houston. He also spent time enjoying life at his father's sugar plantation near Arcola Junction. And like many Texas boys, he rode, hunted, and admired the gunfighters of the era. He would often roam the flat, vast coastal plain near Houston. After his mother passed away on January 28, 1870, his father sent him away to boarding school. First a school in Virginia and then to one in New Haven, Connecticut. He was not a serious student, but he made several connections that would serve him well in life. It was also there that he became intrigued with politics. He and his closest friend, Oliver T. Morton (the son of Senator Oliver Perry Morton of Indiana), became fascinated by the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 and the crisis that followed it. (If you think there are allegations of election fraud now, you should really look into how crooked elections have often been in our nation’s past) The two young men traveled to New York and Washington studying the events that were taking place. This might have been one of those moments in time when seeds of a person’s destiny are planted. This election and the intrigue that surrounded it and how political power is really wielded seems to have left a lasting impression on the young House. In the autumn of 1877 while attending Cornell University, his father became ill and he returned to Texas to attend to him. In 1880 after the death of his father, he decided to remain in Texas and help manage the estate. In 1881 he married Loulie Hunter of Hunter, Texas. The young couple honeymooned and spent a year in Europe after which they returned to Houston. A Return to Texas It was during this time that House began to supervise his family's extensive landholdings which were spread throughout Texas. He moved his family to Austin in the fall of 1885 for two reasons. First, he wanted to escape the heat and humidity of Houston, (I can attest to that, I left Houston for the...

Welcome to Episode 81 - Texas Economy in the 1850s, Cotton, Tariffs, and Boomtowns. Today's show is a little shorter than most. I was really afraid I'd start to get political and lose my focus. TBH, I'm tremendously opposed to tariffs, especially when they affect agriculture and working folks. Anyway....Here's a partial transcript Today, we’re traveling back to the 1850s—a decade of cotton, cattle, and booming ports, but also one of economic tension and national panic. Imagine standing on the docks of Galveston in 1855. Sailors unload heavy bales of cotton destined for England, while merchants hustle to get imported tools, fine fabrics, and wine onto wagons bound for Houston and beyond. This bustling port was Texas’s economic lifeline, connecting rural plantations to global markets. Cotton was king in East Texas, and thanks to low federal tariffs, planters could buy imported goods without breaking the bank. Meanwhile, settlers and ranchers across the state were doing the same, relying on affordable tools and supplies to carve out farms on the frontier. During this decade, the United States had some of the lowest tariffs in its history. The Walker Tariff of 1846 and the Tariff of 1857 brought import taxes down to roughly 17–25%, depending on the product. For Texas, that meant cheap imports and profitable exports. Unlike the industrial North, which wanted protective tariffs to shield factories from British competition, Texans had little industry to protect. Low tariffs suited the state’s agricultural economy perfectly. But 1857 also brought the Panic of 1857, a nationwide financial crisis. In New York and Philadelphia, banks failed, factories closed, and workers were laid off by the thousands. Across the Midwest, farmers watched wheat prices collapse. Now, here’s the fascinating part: Texas largely escaped the worst of it. Cotton prices stayed steady, and the state’s rural economy—while affected by some credit shortages—remained stable. Newspapers at the time proudly reported that Texas’s soil and cotton shielded its citizens from Northern calamities, reinforcing the belief that the Southern economic system was stronger than the North’s industrial model.

Welcome to the Hidden History of Texas. This is Episode 80 – Texas Politics as the 1850s Begin. I’m your host and guide Hank Wilson. Texas politics is a contact sport, and actually today’s Texas politics and politicians often seem like they still are set in 200 years ago. In fact, if you think about some of the laws that are being passed today, if you didn’t know better, you’d think that you had somehow traveled back in time to the 1850s. Currently there are portions of the political world that are trying to roll back civil rights. Racial animosity is at an all-time high. There is little tolerance for those who don’t think like the party in power wants you to think. Texas politics today are a mess and as they were in 1850. What was Texas and America like in 1850? Frankly, as I mentioned, it was a mess, the country was mired in controversy after controversy, especially when it came to the issue of slavery. Texas itself, after lowering the flag of the Republic in 1846 struggled to find its footing. After the war with Mexico in 1848 the state government was bound and determined to make the Rio Grande river, especially the far western part, the state’s boundary. Well, this meant that most of Eastern New Mexico, including an area that reached all the way to Santa Fe would become a part of Texas. In fact, in 1848 the state legislature declared that part of Eastern New Mexico to be named Santa Fe County and the governor, George T. Wood, sent Spruce Baird there to set up a county government. Needless to say, the proud people of Santa Fe, refused to accept the Texans and with the help of federal troops forced Baird and the other Texans with him to depart. Baird was only able to stay until July 1849 at which time he left the region Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. a major controversy was brewing between legislators from the North and those from the South. Of course, this was over the issue of slavery and especially if it was to be allowed in the newly acquired territories that had recently been acquired from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican-American war. This necessarily drew Texas into the dispute on the side of the South, remember the early Anglo settlers of Texas were mostly southerners and their allegiance was to the south and to the slave owners.... This is not the entire transcript so for the entire transcript about Texas Politics as the 1850s Begin - contact me for a free PDF

This is episode 79 of the Hidden History of Texas, Central Texas Floods of the 2000s. The Central Texas Floods of the 2000s damaged Lake Marble Falls 2002 Central Texas Floods The summer of 2002 brought storm after storm, pounding San Antonio and the Hill Country with relentless rain. By July, creeks had swollen into rivers, and the city’s flood-control systems groaned under the pressure. Cars floated down highways, neighborhoods were cut off, and families had to be rescued from rooftops in San Antonio’s South Side. San Antonio International Airport recorded a staggering 9.52 inches of rain on July 1 alone, setting a new record for the month Over the next week, rainfall totals in several counties reached between 25 and 35 inches, leading to widespread flash flooding. The Guadalupe and Blanco Rivers swelled beyond their banks, inundating communities and causing significant damage. The floodwaters claimed 12 lives, damaged approximately 48,000 homes, and resulted in an estimated $1 billion in damages. Twenty-four counties were declared federal disaster areas. 2015 Blanco River Flood (Wimberley & San Marcos) The event was part of a larger weather system that affected Texas and Oklahoma, producing 75 tornadoes and widespread flooding. The Blanco River, which typically flows at 93 cubic feet per second, experienced a record-breaking crest of 44.9 feet at Wimberley, Texas, with a peak flow of 175,000 cubic feet per second as a result on the night of May 23, 2015, yes it was another Memorial Day Weekend flood, and the Blanco River transformed into a wall of water. Fueled by nearly a foot of rain falling in the Hill Country, the river rose over 40 feet in just a few hours. In Wimberley, whole houses were lifted from their foundations and carried downstream like rafts, some with families still inside. In Wimberley the floodwaters rose more than 30 feet in less than three hours, overwhelming the Fischer Store Road bridge and sweeping away entire homes. The rapid rise of the river left little time for residents to evacuate, and the devastation was immense. In Wimberley alone, more than a dozen lives were lost, and the community was left to grapple with the aftermath 2025 – Kerrville & Central Texas Floods On July 4, 2025, flash floods devastated Kerrville and surrounding Hill Country communities. Late on July 3, 2025, the remnant mid-level circulation of Atlantic Tropical Storm Barry became embedded within a broader mid-level trough already containing tropical east Pacific remnant moisture This system developed into a massive thunderstorm which stalled over Central Texas. Flooding began on the morning of July 4, after significant rainfall accumulated across Central Texas. Six flash flood emergencies, which included the cities of Kerrville and Mason, were issued the same day. The Guadalupe River rose about 26 ft in 45 minutes. It surged an estimated 29 ft in the Hunt area, where more than 20 children were declared missing from a summer camp. July 5 saw more flash flood warnings for the Lake Travis area, which is part of the Colorado River watershed. In the span of a few hours, the equivalent to four months’ worth of rain fell across the Texas Hill Country region, with the highest rain totals being 20.33 inches. Over 135 people died in the flood The Central Texas Floods of the 2000s, weren't the first floods to cause destruction in the region and in all likelihood they won't be the last. All we can do is try to prepare the best we can.

Lake Buchanan, built to help prevent floods in Central Texas Central Texas – The Flash Flood Capital of the State - The Floods of 1957, 1981, and 1998 1957 - The Longest Drought In Texas History Ends With Massive Floods - Central Texas Flood (Hill Country) Texas climate changes can often be considered extreme. The State is so large that one portion of it can suffer from flooding rains to extreme drought. In fact, parts of Texas are currently experiencing a drought, (as is most of the Western United States, but this book is about Texas, so…) The worst drought in Texas history was the 1950s drought, lasting from 1949 to 1957, and is considered the state's "drought of record". It was caused by prolonged periods of little to no rainfall, and as a result there was extensive agricultural losses, dried-up water resources, destructive weather event (tornadoes, windstorms, but no rain), and played a significant role in how the economic structure of the state began to shift away from the rural communities to its current model of mostly urban. The environmental effects of the drought definitely laid the foundation for the devastation that was to follow during the flood. Rivers and creeks dried up, reservoirs emptied, and the landscape was severely impacted. One interesting side effect was there were occasions when the State experienced destructive hail and multiple tornadoes. When the drought broke, it broke in a big way. They called it "The Day of the Big Cloud". The drought officially ended with a significant rain event on April 24, 1957, which brought 10 inches of rain within a few hours and marked "The Day of the Big Cloud". But that wasn’t the only water that fell from the sky. In Lampasas, on May 12th, on Mother’s Day heavy rainfall overwhelmed Lampasas, particularly its Sulphur Creek watershed, breaching levees and sending a surge of floodwaters through the heart of town. The flood inundated 68 downtown blocks: destroying 38 homes and five businesses, severely damaging 46 houses and 47 businesses and affecting about 90% of the downtown area. Total damages were estimated at $4.5 million Worse than the economic losses, five residents lost their lives during the Lampasas flood The event proved a turning point for the town; afterward, officials implemented new and substantial flood-control measures which have come in handy even in today’s world. The massive amount of rainfall turned Hill Country creeks into torrents of raging water that swept through Llano, Burnet, and Lampasas counties with a fury born of years of pent-up skies. Dozens perished as flash floods tore through towns and carried homes away like driftwood. The flood was both a tragedy and an ending. While the flood broke the back of the 1950s drought, but at a terrible human cost. Almost 25 years later Central Texas would once again see heavy flooding, this time in Austin. 1981 Austin Flood (Shoal Creek & Onion Creek) It was a summer storm that seemed ordinary at first, but by the night of May 24, 1981, Memorial Day Weekend, Austin was drowning. Shoal Creek is the largest of Austin’s north urban watersheds, encompassing approximately 8,000 acres (12.9 square miles). About 27% of the watershed is over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.[1] Its length is approximately 11 miles. It runs parallel to and between Waller Creek to its east and Johnson Creek to its west. According to the National Weather Service Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, on May 24,1981 Shoal Creek reached its record highest crest ever recorded at 23.11 feet. This record crest led to the deaths of 13 people and $36 million in damages. Shoal Creek burst its banks, turning streets into rivers that carried cars away like driftwood. Downtown stores filled with water, entire blocks of North Lamar were gutted, and homes along Onion Creek were swallowed in the flash floods. Thirteen people lost their lives that night, caught in the sudden,

1935 - A Very Wet Year in Texas and I don’t mean because prohibition had ended, but there were 3 major floods that ravaged the state. They say that April showers bring May flowers and while that is true, in Texas too many April showers can be an indication of floods to come and that was especially true in the year 1935. Central and South-Central Texas experienced heavy rains that Spring which greatly affected Austin, San Antonio and lesser cities like San Marcos, Junction, Uvalde and D'Hanis. In May, San Antonio received 14.07 inches of rain in May and over 8 inches in June. That amount of rainfall caused the downtown area to flood and the town of D'Hanis reported that 20-24 inches of rain in just 2 Hours and 45 Minutes. The biggest problem with that amount of rain in that short of time, is that once the ground is soaked the water has no place to go except to run off. Central Texas is a vast region of Texas that contains the Texas Hill Country, it’s a beautiful, hilly area on the Edwards Plateau known for its limestone bedrock, springs, canyons, and rare plants and animals. The Hill Country is characterized by its "rolling to hilly grassland," which formed as the plateau eroded over millions of years, exposing the hard limestone beneath. This region blends rural landscapes with growing towns and cities and is a significant source of water from the underground Edwards Aquifer. There are several major rivers in the Texas Hill Country including the Colorado, Guadalupe, Frio, Nueces, and Pedernales Rivers, along with several tributaries like the Llano, San Marcos, and Comal rivers. Spring fed rivers, such as the Lampasas and the Blanco. These rivers are known for their crystal-clear waters, scenic beauty, and are popular for activities such as tubing, kayaking, and fishing, with several notable outfitters offering services on their waters. It is also an area that with heavy rains is prone to severe flooding. In 1935 during the months of May and June that was born out in floods, one was the Blanco River Flood, and the other took place in Austin on the Colorado River. then in December, the city of Houston suffered one of the most catastrophic floods in Texas history.

This can turn into a raging river with enough rain Welcome to Episode 76 - When it floods it destroys – 1908 Trinity River - 1921 San Antonio. Today I'm looking at one of the more silent disasters that can hit a state and that is flash flooding and flooding in general. If you don't mind how about visiting my sponsor Ashby Navis & Tennyson Digital Publishers great audiobooks, mobile apps, and video games. Picture a dry creek bed or a street that looks calm and harmless. Then, suddenly, heavy rain falls—sometimes miles away—and all that water rushes downhill at once. In minutes, what was once dry ground can turn into a roaring river. That’s a flash flood. Unlike regular floods, which rise slowly over hours or days, a flash flood lives up to its name: it happens fast, often with little warning. Walls of water can sweep through canyons, streets, or neighborhoods, carrying debris, cars, even parts of buildings. A flash flood is nature reminding us just how quickly things can change. One moment calm, the next moment a surge of unstoppable water. It’s powerful, dangerous, and one of the hardest types of flooding to escape—because it gives so little time to react. 1908 Trinity River Flood (Dallas) Stretching from a few miles south of the Red River the Trinity River runs for 710-miles. As the river ran through Central Texas, the Caddo people called the river the Arkikosa and as it neared the Gulf Coast it was known as the Daycoa. In 1687 French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, named the river Riviere des canoës ("River of Canoes") and then in 1680 Spanish explorer Alonso de León named it, "La Santísima Trinidad" ("the Most Holy Trinity"). However, in 2022, language preservationists from the Caddo Nation determined their ancestral language lacked the letter “R” sound. So that means that the original Caddo name, Arkikosa was likely a corruption or misspelling of the word Akokisa. That word was actually taken from the language of the Atakapa people who lived in the woodlands along the Gulf Coast. The river passes through the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth and is and was a major waterway in the region. Anyway, about the flood…. In the spring of 1908. rain had fallen for days, soaking the earth until it could hold no more. By late May, the Trinity River was no longer a river, it was a roaring, unchained sea. On the morning of May 24, the people of Dallas awoke to a sight they would never forget: the river had swallowed nearly a third of their city. Homes in the bottoms lay under brown, swirling water. Families scrambled to rooftops with what little they could carry, waiting for boats to pull them to safety. The wooden bridges that once connected Dallas to Oak Cliff were gone, swept away like twigs. With rail lines drowned and telegraphs silenced, the city stood alone, an island cut off from the world. At its height, the Trinity surged more than fifty feet above normal. The flood took lives, at least a handful, records from that time period are scarce, so there may have been many more who lost their lives. We do know that thousands were left homeless. Livestock drowned in the fields, businesses were ruined, and the muddy water lingered long after the rain had stopped, reminding everyone of the river’s power. Yet out of the wreckage came resolve. Dallas leaders saw clearly that the Trinity could not be ignored or left to its own wild course. Within a few years, levees would rise, the channel would be straightened, and a grand new bridge, the Houston Street Viaduct, would span the river, a promise that Dallas would never be humbled in the same way again. 13 years later, South Texas would experience much the same from the San Antonio River and its tributaries. 1921 San Antonio Flood For 23 straight hours the rain came not from San Antonio’s skies, but from the Hill Country beyond. On September 9, 1921, torrents fell upstream, and the unsuspecting city slept as the water gathered s...

We’re talking about some of the Extreme Weather Events in Texas History. It's the 2000s and the Bad Boys are about to hit the Texas Coast, In the past few episodes, I’ve talked about some of our most devasting hurricanes. The one that wiped out the entire town of Indianola in the 1800s, how in 1900 a Hurricane devastated Galveston, and last episode in the 60s and 70s, we met hurricanes, Carla, Beaulah, and several others all of whom battered the Texas coast and brought forth death and destruction throughout the region. For a few decades it seemed like things were becoming peaceful. Even as the century changed, into the 2000s, things really were different. Not exactly silent, but they seemed to be more subdued. The ocean was entering a quieter rhythm; part of a natural heartbeat scientists call the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. The waters of the Gulf were a little cooler, the winds aloft a little harsher, slicing apart many storms before they could rise into monsters. Some years, El Niño set up shop in the Pacific, tilting the balance of the atmosphere and turning the Gulf into a hostile place for hurricanes to grow. Storms still came, but many curved away, sparing Texas and spending their fury elsewhere. To long-time coastal residents, it almost felt like a truce — as though the Gulf itself was taking a breath between great battles. But as history always warns, quiet seas are never quiet forever. Coastal cities in Texas received a warning that things might be different when in 2005 Hurricane Rita brushed the Texas-Louisiana border in 2005, and then when Humberto came along in 2007 and Ike in 2008, it was a grim reminder that Texas was always living on borrowed time. You can stream my complete audiobook on Spotify

This is episode 74 of the Hidden History of Texas and it’s time to meet some of the Mean Girls of the 60s and 70s. The 1960s and 1970s saw Texas getting hit by several storms, all of which were given ladies names, but none of whom acted very lady like. Let's meet Hurricane Carla in 1961, in1967 Hurricane Beulah's showed up, not to be outdone Hurricane Celia hit in 1970, and then in 1979 it was Hurricane Claudette. All of which devastated parts of Texas. In September of 1961, the Texas coast faced one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes in recorded history — Hurricane Carla. It turns out that Carla was indeed a monster of a storm. Out over the Gulf of Mexico, her winds reached 175 miles per hour, and by the time she aimed herself at Texas, hurricane-force winds stretched more than a hundred miles from the center. Even if you weren’t in the direct path, you were going to feel Carla’s fury. On September 11, Carla roared ashore near Port O’Connor and Port Lavaca as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm pushed a towering wall of water ranging from 15 to 20 feet high across the coast. Entire towns were swallowed by the surge. Port Lavaca was nearly destroyed, and low-lying areas across Matagorda and Calhoun Counties disappeared beneath the sea. Winds tore apart homes, ripped up piers, and flung debris miles inland. Even Houston, dozens of miles away, was shaken by hurricane-force gusts. And then came the tornadoes — more than two dozen of them, spinning off Carla’s circulation, tearing through Texas, Louisiana, and as far north as the Midwest. By the time the storm finally moved inland and began to fade, 43 lives had been lost. But that number could have been far higher. Warnings from forecasters and state officials led to half a million people evacuating the Texas coast, the largest evacuation in U.S. history up to that point. --- NOT A COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT ---

1900 – The Galveston Hurricane The city of Galveston sits on Galveston Island which is two miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The island is only about 50 miles from Houston, and it is a part of what are called the barrier islands. The islands sit between the mainland of Texas and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. As such, they often bear the brunt of any storm that arises in the Gulf. Galveston has a natural harbor and in the early days of Texas was regarded as the best Gulf port site between New Orleans and Veracruz. Karankawa Indians lived on the island and it is thought to be the most likely location of the shipwreck landing of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1528. It received its name in 1785 from José de Evia, who named it in Bernardo de Gálvez, the viceroy of Mexico. Mapmakers then used the name Galveston for the entire island and in 1816 Louis Aury established a naval base at the harbor in order to provide support for the Mexican revolution. It was during that time when the pirate Jean Laffite, set up a pirate camp called Campeachy to dispose of contraband and provide supplies for the freebooters. In 1821, however, the United States forced Laffite to evacuate. Mexico designated Galveston a port of entry in 1825 and established a small customshouse in 1830. During the Texas Revolution the harbor served as the port for the Texas Navy and the last point of retreat of the Texas government. Following the war Michel B. Menard and a group of investors obtained ownership of 4,605 acres at the harbor to found a town. After platting the land in gridiron fashion and adopting the name Galveston, Menard and his associates began selling town lots on April 20, 1838. The following year the Texas legislature granted incorporation to the city of Galveston with the power to elect town officers. Between that time period and 1900 Galveston struggled during the civil war and then in 1867 the island and town was ravaged by the yellow fever, and it is estimated that 20 people a day died from the disease. Regardless of the hardships, Galveston eventually thrived and in fact, It had the first structure to use electric lighting, the Galveston Pavilion; the first telephone; and the first baseball game in the state. The Galveston News, founded in 1842, is the state's oldest continuing daily newspaper. Back in the old days, many of us would get up early in the morning, walk out to our front porch and pick up the daily newspaper. It was a ritual, that was how we got our news. Now we don’t do that anymore, most of us turn on our TVs, phones or computers and get our news from there. But back in 1900, on September the 8th, if you were one of the approximately 38,000 people who lived in Galveston, Texas at that time and had awakened early and picked up your morning edition of Galveston News, you would have seen a story, not a headline, but a story on page 3 about a tropical storm that seemed to be roaming about in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s not an unusual type of story for people living along the gulf coast, especially during the month of September. However, one thing that made this story a little different was that on Friday, The Weather Bureau, now days known as the National Weather Service, had placed Galveston under a storm warning. The paper also contained a small one column story, that said that great damage had been reported from communities on the Mississippi and Louisiana Coast from the storm. Unfortunately, the story, which had originated in New Orleans at 12:45 AM, was only one paragraph and didn’t really contain much information. The local paper did print a story beneath the report that said, "At midnight the moon was shining brightly, and the sky was not as threatening as earlier in the night. The weather bureau had no late advice as to the storm's movements and it may be that the tropical disturbance has changed its course or spent its force before reaching Texas." So based on that type of reporting,

Welcome to a new series from the Hidden History of Texas. In this series I will be discussing the various Extreme Weather Events that have taken place in Texas History. This episode is an introductory one, in which I talk about Texas, what a hurricane is, and then I talk an in-depth look at what took place before, during, and after the 1900 Galveston Hurricane struck the Texas Coast. Texas is a land of extremes. From the dry deserts of the Trans-Pecos to the humid Gulf Coast, from the rolling Hill Country to the flat prairies, no state in America faces such a wide spectrum of natural fury. The very size and diversity of Texas mean that when disaster comes, it comes in many forms, hurricanes that drown entire cities, flash floods that sweep away homes in the night, tornadoes that reduce downtowns to rubble, droughts that starve farms for years, and even man-made catastrophes born of fire, gas, and explosives. In no other place is the saying “everything’s bigger in Texas” truer, or more tragic. Disasters here are not just local events. They ripple outward, changing laws, inspiring massive engineering feats, and reshaping the way communities think about safety, survival, and resilience. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the drought of the 1950s, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and the Kerrville floods of 2025—each stands not only as a story of loss, but also as a turning point in Texas history.

That's the question. Was Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, a great Texas leader or a terrible human being? And are the two ideas necessarily incompatible? Can a person be a terrible human being and still be considered a great leader? Who was Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar? He was the 2nd president of the Republic of Texas and served from 1838 until 1841. His tenure stands out, at least to me, for two totally contradictory issues. On one hand he absolutely despised the indigenous peoples of Texas and on the other he was a major support of funding public education. Well, public education for white children not all children, but I digress. Lamar was a product of his time. The story is in the podcast ---

Welcome to the Hidden History of Texas I’m Hank Wilson, and I’m talking about the presidios (or forts) the Spanish established alongside the missions. I’ll also talk about how the French became involved with Texas and their influence on the Spanish expansion of both missions and presidios. Before I go further, please if you don’t mind subscribing to the podcast, it’d be greatly appreciated. Once the Spanish decided to expand their territory northward from its base in central Mexico, they knew that in order to be successful, they needed to send more than just missionaries, and so they created the missions. They also understood that they needed to send soldiers to protect the missions and they needed civilians to build towns. The combination of presidio, the mission, and the civil settlement became the major foundation the Spanish used for colonization. Martín Enríquez, who was the fourth viceroy of New Spain (1568–80), is generally given credit with being the first to build presidios in the Southwest. He ordered the construction along the main road from Mexico City northward to Zacatecas of casas fuertes (which is translated to "fortified houses"). Over time the name was changed to presidio (from Latin praesidium, "garrisoned place"). The pattern of the early presidios was learned from the Moors and by the early eighteenth century, when Spaniards settled Texas, the patterns had not changed much.

The Spanish Build Missions In this episode I want to talk about the missions that the Spanish established when they colonized Texas. I’ll talk about the reasons for the missions, how many were established, and some of the good and the bad that took place in and around the missions. Spanish explorers operated under the philosophy of the three G’s, God, Gold, and Glory, the Spanish missions in Texas are a direct result of that philosophy. How did that come about? When Spain began to colonize the Americas, it was a Roman Catholic nation. That meant that while there was a King and a Queen (Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile) , they in fact owed their power to Rome and the Catholic Church. They had received Papal Dispensation for Marriage: Ferdinand and Isabella were second cousins, and under canon law, their marriage required a papal dispensation (special permission). They obtained this from Pope Sixtus IV. Once they were in power they established what we know as the Spanish Inquisition. It was founded in 1478 with the aim of suppressing heresy within Spain and its territories. While initially focusing on individuals suspected of practicing non-Catholic beliefs, the Inquisition later targeted forced converts from Judaism and Islam (conversos and Moriscos) who were suspected of secretly practicing their former faiths. They were granted this power to establish the Inquisition in Castile, when Pope Sixtus IV published a bull granting them the exclusive authority to name inquisitors, although the papacy retained the right to formally appoint the royal nominees. As defenders of the Catholic Church, they believed that whenever they encountered new peoples, and that goal was to convert the natives to Catholicism. Missions played a major role in that effort. Once the Spanish had established settlements in Mexico they turned their vision north, in search of fabled cities of gold and between 1632 and 1793, in order to establish a foothold in their northern most territory, they sent expeditions which all had at least one Spanish friar as a member. These teams traveled north from Mexico into present-day Texas, where they built dozens of missions and presidios. A presidio is a military fort and usually was built in very near proximity or at the same location as the mission in order to provide security to the friars and those who lived and worked at the mission. In all, 26 missions were established and maintained in Texas with various results. According to the Spanish belief system at the time their goals were somewhat noble. Establish Christian enclaves with communal property, labor, worship, political life, and social relations all under the guidance and supervision of the missionaries. The missionaries and Spanish authorities sought to make life within the mission communities resemble that of any Spanish villages and echo Spanish culture. To do so, the priests not only taught the Indians religion but also life skills, they felt the native peoples lacked. They introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables, and industry into the Texas area. The introduced a very structured format for day-to-day living including a highly organized routine of prayer, work, training, meals, and relaxation. Now of course in order to round out the training the missionaries also made certain to celebrate religious holidays and they held other types of celebrations. As I mentioned, the Spanish plan was for the natives to become productive Spanish citizens and to meet that goal they were taught several vocational skills, such as blacksmithing, masonry, carpentry, weaving, and more. Unfortunately the results didn’t meet the expectations, for several reasons. The day-to-day life in the missions wasn’t anything the Native Peoples had ever experienced. The priests supervised all activities in the mission; however, when we look at their methods from our current social beliefs,

The Hidden History of Texas Looking for Gold and Glory – Before I get too far into it today, how about subscribing to the podcast. Tell your friends that you’ve found the coolest place on the net to learn about Texas history. Well maybe not the coolest, but a pretty cool place, thanks I’d appreciate it. As I’ve discussed in the past, the Spanish presence in the Americas was pretty much an accident. Until Columbus bumped into the islands of Guanahani (Watling Island in the Bahamas) which Columbus named "San Salvador", Cuba, and Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). They had no idea anything or anyone was between them and Asia, remember they were looking for a shortcut route to India. Even then it wasn’t until 1519 when Alonso Álvarez de Pineda mapped the Gulf Coast for the first time that they began to realize they had stumbled upon something far different than what they originally thought. So, what intrigued the Spanish so much about this new continent they encountered? I’ve talked about how in 1528 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, explored the Gulf Coast and his exploration fell apart. He got shipwrecked and he and some of his crew wandered across present-day Texas and northern Mexico. During their journeys and capture they heard stories from the people about cities or places that were “wealthy”. Now we don’t know exactly what the indigenous people meant by wealth or how they described the various locations, but de Vaca’s later telling of those encounters sparked an interest in what the Spanish called or were labeled the "Seven Cities of Gold" or “the Seven Cities of Cibola” But why? Why would these stories matter to the Spanish? In the early 8th century Muslims had conquered what is now Spain and Portugal. The story goes that in 714 seven Catholic bishops and their faithful followers fled across the Atlantic to a land known as Antilia, the name of which, incidentally, was the source of the name Antilles, which was initially applied to the West Indian islands of the Caribbean. The story was that when they fled, they took with them vast amounts of wealth, especially in gold and silver and each of the bishops had established a city. The story, or fable, was that those 7 cities were to be found in this ‘new’ country. However, the Antillean islands failed to produce large quantities of gold and silver, but by 1539 the lands that Cabeza de Vaca and his companions reported on were thought to contain an El Dorado (or The Gold) known as Cíbola. In that year, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza dispatched Fray Marcos de Niza and the African Estevanico to search the area. This exploration cost the life of Estevanico at Háwikuh, the southernmost of the Zuñi pueblos in western New Mexico. On his return to New Spain (today’s Mexico), Fray Marcos reported that he had seen golden cities, the smallest of which was larger than Mexico City. Today we know that the good frier exaggerated what he saw, why I have no idea, but he definitely didn’t see any golden cities and certainly not one larger than Mexico City would have been at that time. In 1539, Mexico City, then known as Tenochtitlan, was a large and populous city. Estimates for its population ranged from 200,000 to 400,000, so as I said, the good frier was a, as we say, a teller of tall tales. However, in 1540 a follow-up expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado captured Háwikuh and learned the true nature of it as well as other nearby pueblos. In the following year, disappointed over the failure to find the Seven Cities of Cíbola Coronado launched a futile search for Quivira-(another legendary wealthy city) an undertaking that crossed the Panhandle. His toute took him from Arizona to New Mexico into Texas up to Oklahoma, and finally Kansas. It was there that he did find Quivira, it was situated in what is now central Kansas, now nobody is really certain of its exact location, and most think it was near present-day Lyons or Salina. What did he find?