Today marks 56 years since the notorious Kent State shootings that left four unarmed college students dead at the hands of the Ohio National Guard while protesting operations in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. It was a boiling point for intranational tensions in a turbulent time of civil rights struggles, antiwar sentiment, and a skyrocketing… Read more »
[Disclaimer: Contains graphic news footage and written details some may find disturbing] May 22, 1953. In his palatial residence in the exclusive Park Hill neighborhood of Fort Worth, 61-year-old oilman William P. Clark is found with a rifle by his side and a bullet in the head. He had been dead for three days. While… Read more »
November 6, 1954. It’s college football season, and New Haven is roaring. The Yale Bowl is packed with 73,600 fans — over twice the attendance of any home game of the season — as the Bulldogs face off against the Army Cadets. Towering over the throngs of spectators and sportsmen is the press box filled… Read more »
Pat Kirkwood. Gambler. Stock car racer. Businessman. Beatnik Beelzebub. The great and powerful Ozymandian charlatan of chivalry and charm. Lord of the underworld weirdos from hipsters to gangsters with connections to anyone from Gene Autry to Amon G. Carter, George Carlin to Jack Ruby. A man of controversy and public service, admired and reviled by… Read more »
Helena once thrived. Tucked away east of the San Antonio River, the unassuming Karnes County town founded in 1852 quickly developed into a crucial South Texas commercial center between San Antonio and Goliad. The former Mexican trading post soon became a highly populated area, gaining a post office, headed by town founder Thomas Ruckman as… Read more »
Deeply engrained in both rock ‘n’ roll lore and Texas culture is a wiry, bespectacled good ol’ boy from Lubbock that would inspire Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Eric Clapton among many other ‘rock god’ contenders, and remain an iconic staple in American popular culture. Despite his tragically brief life, Charles Hardin… Read more »
After the blood-soaked horrors of World War I, men, to say the least, were not alright on a spiritual or existential level. This could explain why a bunch of Dallas men got tired of swapping traumatic war stories and decided they needed to inject a little frivolity into their male-bonding. With fabulous hats. Thus, April… Read more »
They say everything is bigger in Texas. This includes the big foot of a tall tale. Many cultures have their own regional folktales about elusive cryptids rarely seen by civilized society. The Yeti of the Himalayas, the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland, chupacabras, Mothman, the Jersey Devil, the Fouke Monster, and of course, Sasquatch of… Read more »
Fort Worth radio station WBAP 820 was established in 1922 as an AM news and talk show. The station expanded to include the television program WBAP-TV in 1948, and an FM radio station the following year. WBAP shared frequencies on AM radio with the station WFAA until 1970, when they paid WFAA for sole occupancy… Read more »
In 1930 Paul and Thomas Braniff founded Braniff Airways, Inc. The two petitioned the US Postal Service for a Chicago-Dallas airmail route in 1935, making Braniff Airways the first company to hold that route, and allowing them to eventually grow into a major airline company. Braniff assisted in World War II, grew their passenger business,… Read more »
