October 18, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode, Gene and Scott get ready to hear students interview the esteemed former State Historian of Texas, Bill O'Neal. A noted storyteller, Bill shares his lifelong passion for Texas history and talks about Texas symbols. Tune in for engaging anecdotes about Texas traditions and gain a renewed appreciation for the symbols that shape the Lone Star State.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It is solely our thoughts andideas, based upon our
professional training and studyof the past.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit, and with some who've made it
and, of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
I'm Scott Sosbeck and I'm GenePreuss, and this is Talking
(00:36):
Texas History.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
I'm Gene Preuss.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
I'm Gene Preuss and I'm ScottSosner.
Scott, today we have a specialtreat in store, at least for you
and me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
A treat for us, because you know what somebody
told me one time?
That delegation is the betterpart of leadership right.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And so we've done kind of delegation.
What we've done is we've gotpeople to do work for us,
haven't we?
That's right.
So I assigned students in aTexas history course this is an
honors Texas history course.
This past spring I had them dosome interviews and we're going
to hear some of those interviewsthroughout the next few months.
Today we have a special oneformer state historian of Texas,
bill O'Neill.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Bill, no doubt no more.
He is Bill's a greatstoryteller.
He's a great Texas historian.
I think our listeners will geta big treat from listening to
Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So they're going to talk about.
They asked Bill to talk aboutsymbols of Texas and he goes
through a long list and so we'regoing to hear this and they
talk about a couple of otherthings.
So I've asked my students,roberto and Anthony, to
interview Bill O'Neill, and solet's go ahead and listen in.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Let's look forward to hearing it, hi Good morning.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Good morning.
Good morning, all right, let'sstart forward to hearing it
retired.
Taught in the classroom for40-something years, taught Texas
history for over 30 years atleast one class every semester,
and I served as state historianof Texas.
(02:34):
I was appointed by GovernorPerry in 2012, and I served a
six-year tenure and I write alot of history books.
I have written 57 so far,anyway, and I've got four
daughters, and they're all inthe field of education too.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Quite the extensive background in Texas history.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Well, I hope so.
I've been crazy about it eversince I was a little boy.
I've been crazy about it eversince I was a little boy.
Texas history is taughtbeginning in the fourth grade.
And when I was in the fourthgrade I was attending Sam
Houston Elementary School inCorsican, Texas, and my parents
(03:17):
took me to Huntsville and showedme a lot of the Sam Houston
stuff and then they took me tothe San Jacinto Monument and I
got to go up there and have beenreturning ever since for
various programs and such, andduring that same period I also
got to see the Alamo and MissionSan Jose.
(03:38):
I did a traveling Texas historycourse which was the first one
in the state.
For credit it was a three-hourcredit.
We had a 2,100-mile field tripall across the state.
So I've got a pretty goodbackground in Texas history.
Love it, it's been a passion ofmine.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
How long did the trip take, the three-hour trip?
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It was the trip, the field trip part.
Now we were in the classroomjust a few days, but the field
trip was 2,100 miles, seven days, six nights.
Two of the nights were camping.
We camped out in Big Bend andalso in the Davis Mountains.
(04:19):
The whole idea of that coursewas to experience Texas history
and so in the course of thatfield trip we went to every
place you can imagine every kindof landmark, battlefields,
missions, forts, everything Icould squeeze in in a seven-day
(04:43):
period.
It was a seven day period, itwas.
It was.
It was very educationalexperience and I did it twice.
I did it twice a semester, forI mean, excuse me, twice a
summer for a little over 20years.
So I conducted about 40 plus ofthose traveling Texas history
(05:04):
field trips, plus of thosetraveling Texas history field
trips, very extensive, and I'mpleased to say that a number of
schools tried to copy us.
There were other schools thatheard about it and four-year
schools even and they tried todo their own version of that
Still proud to say you're theoriginal.
(05:26):
Oh yeah, man, Ours was theoriginal.
It was the best you bet.
I'm glad you figured that out.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Are there any Texas State symbols that?
Speaker 4 (05:56):
hold historical significance.
Oh, my goodness, yes, of courseyou have to start with the Lone
Star, our nickname of it, thelone star flag, or something.
The outline of Texas is afavorite bracelet charm for a
lot of people, and so sure, yeah, the lone star, you have to
start with that.
Then the Alamo is next, ofcourse.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
There are symbols of the Alamo, the facade of the
famous old church.
You know that's the one, andagain that's used for a bracelet
symbol and for, you know, for alapel pin.
I have a longhorn lapel pin.
My goodness, the Texas longhorn.
(06:41):
Golly, you've got to have that.
And so I have that.
And in fact, right here in myroom, above the entrance to this
room, I have a set of Longhornsthat are just a little over six
feet wide, and so sure you'vegot to have those.
(07:01):
I did some graduate school atthe University of Texas and
loved those longhorns from thattime on.
And then, by the way, when Imentioned the longhorns and
certainly that is a veryidentifiable state symbol of
(07:22):
Texas, let's don't forget.
Now, the longhorn is a largemammal.
But what about our small mammal?
Well, you know we have thenine-banded armadillo, and so an
armadillo is a very significantstatement.
In fact, you may or may notknow that the San Saba, the
(07:46):
armadillos, are the mascot oftheir team and they call
themselves the Dillas the Dillas.
Then there's the State Seal,again another lapel pin of mine.
I've got a lot of lapel pins andtie tacks that have all kinds
of Texas stuff on them.
Goodness, we're in the seasonright now for bluebonnets, and
(08:08):
that's, the bluebonnet is, ofcourse, the flower of Texas, and
this is the time of year.
I have a daughter who just tookher three kids out.
This is the 12th year in a row.
They were little bitty whenthey started it and they have
pictures taken in a field ofblue bonnets near Ennis, texas,
(08:30):
and that's within an hour ofwhere they live.
She does that every year andthat's become quite a family
tradition now, and an awful lotof people love to have their
children photographed in fieldsof blue bonnets.
What about the state bird?
That's the mockingbird, as youmay well know, and the state
(08:54):
amphibian, and you don't seenearly as many of them as you
did when I was a kid, huntingaround with my BB gun, I would
go shoot horned toads.
Well, shame on me.
I wish I had known better atthe time.
But anyway, the horned toad is,oh, you know, tcu, the horned
(09:15):
frogs they call themselves, andthat's our favorite amphibian.
What about our song Texas, ourTexas Boy?
That's a wonderful.
That's a wonderful song, butdon't forget, a lot of people
actually think that Deep in theHeart of Texas is our state song
(09:37):
.
It's Texas, our Texas, but Deepin the Heart of Texas is close
by.
Did you know that our folk dance, the Texas, the official Texas
folk dance, is the square danceas it should be?
And along those lines, afavorite form of Texas music is
(09:59):
Texas swing.
The legendary fiddler Bob Wills, from out in West Texas, made
Texas swing a nationalphenomenon actually swing a
national phenomenon actuallyduring the 1930s and 40s when
swing music, big band swingmusic, was a favorite and he had
(10:21):
a big band Texas swing band.
The state motto is friendship.
Way back when the Spanish firstencountered Caddo Indians as
they were moving around throughTexas, the Indians would raise
their hand and say somethinglike they didn't understand
(10:42):
exactly what they were saying,but they assumed that the
Indians were saying somethingabout friendship and so that
became the state motto, if youwill, is friendship, and from
that, whatever they were saying,thanks to the Caddo's.
Well, we got the word Texassomewhere in here.
(11:03):
Oh that's the origin of the wordTexas.
Hey man, texas fruit, though theTexas red grapefruit, that
depends on your taste.
I've been doing some worklately.
I had a book come out on thefamous Texas Ranger ripped
forward and, by the way, there'sanother symbol for you is the
Texas Ranger badge.
(11:24):
The Texas Ranger badge is alone star with a inside a wheel,
a circular wheel, star with ainside a wheel, a circular wheel
.
And, uh, anyway, this, thisfamous texas ranger from the
1800s, is, uh, he came alongabout the time that the pistol
was being developed and hefavored a large model walker
(11:46):
coat.
These are old percussion cap,cap and ball pistols and he had
a Walker Colt named after SamWalker, a famous Texas Ranger
warrior, who was killed, shot inthe head, during the war with
Mexico.
He was in Mexico when thathappened, but the Walker Colt
was a much improved pistol and avery large and heavy pistol.
(12:09):
In fact, when you loaded it up,the chamber was quite large and
they had special cartridges andwhen you loaded that thing up
with six cartridges it was oneounce less than five pounds.
So when you were going to shootsomebody with that thing, you
(12:29):
had to extend your arm and boy,that thing was going to try to
pull down on it.
And so that was the, thepowerful Walker Colt, and it
became a.
It became a symbol of the West.
These were very powerful gunsthis Rip Ford, whom I've written
(12:50):
the book about.
He shot an opponent and knockedhim down and they walked it off
.
What distance was it?
It turned out it was 125 yards.
How far is that, distance-wise,with open sights?
(13:11):
That is one football field 100yards plus two end zones.
10 yards and 10 yards.
It's 120 yards plus anadditional five yards.
That is a heck of a pistol shotand it just shows not just how
good a shot that guy was, but italso shows how powerful that
(13:34):
particular handgun was.
So the Texas, as you may know,was the gunfighter capital of
the Old West.
There were more gunfighters whowere from Texas, more
gunfighters who were killed inTexas.
It was, the gunfights just wereincredible.
There were more blood feuds inTexas.
It was, the gunfights just wereincredible.
There were more blood feuds inTexas.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
What are gunfighters?
If you don't mind me asking,Can you elaborate on that?
What gunfighters On gunfighters, yeah, yeah, gunfighters yeah,
like what did they do?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Well, they just, you know, Texans generally were a
great many Texans were armedwith guns, handguns in
particular, and if they tookoffense at something, well, the
shooting would start, and so youmight have a saloon fight.
You might have Tascosa out inthe Texas.
Panhandle was the gunfightercapital of Texas during the
(14:33):
1880s.
They had a lot of shootoutsthere and again they had blood
feuds.
The first blood feud in Texasstarted in the 1840s, right
where I am I'm talking to youfrom Carthage, texas, and there
was a blood feud in thisvicinity that lasted for several
years and it was the firstTexas blood feud, but hardly the
(14:56):
last.
Those blood feuds went on forsomething like 75 years in Texas
.
It was early in the 20thcentury before they finally
subsided, and there were many ofthese things and there were
many of these things, and somore blood feuds in Texas than
in any other state or territory,more gunfights, actual
(15:16):
gunfights between opponents inTexas than in any other state,
more gunfighters were from Texasthan any other state or
territory and more gunfighterswere killed in Texas than in the
state.
So Texas was indeed thegunfighter capital of the Wild
(15:39):
West.
I was thinking about thesymbols.
And I mentioned the music amoment ago Texas Swing and with
its folk dance, the square dance.
There was something else.
What is our favorite musicalinstrument in Texas?
And that is officially theacoustical guitar.
(16:00):
I'm headed down to Houstontomorrow to participate in the
San Jacinto weekend.
I'm going to get to give a talkfrom the San Jacinto Monument
on Saturday morning and whileI'm down there, see when you're
there.
You're where the USS Texas wasmoored for many decades.
(16:25):
It is the oldest battleship inthe world.
It was a dreadnought built.
Well, it was laid down prior toWorld War I.
It participated in World War Iand World War II before we got
it back.
The USS Texas BB-35 was itsmarkings.
Now what about the most famousTall ship?
(16:47):
They're reworking thebattleship Texas right now.
It needs repairs and it'sgetting them in a dry dock.
But the Most famous tall shipin Texas and that is the Alyssa
and it is in Galveston Harborand it may be Touring.
It's a wonderful touristattraction, something I really
(17:08):
like.
And it is in Galveston Harborand it may be touring.
It's a wonderful touristattraction, something I really
like.
And, my goodness, we talkedabout the Texas flag.
You know the pledge honor theTexas flag.
I pledge allegiance to theeTexas, one state under God, one
and indivisible.
And I get to talk to variousSRT groups DRT groups Now,
(17:35):
that's sons of the Republic ofTexas, daughters of the Republic
of Texas and when I get tospeak to them we always turn
around and pledge allegiance tothe United States flag, but also
we make that pledge honor theTexas flag as well.
What is the favorite Texassport?
Well, I think everybody oughtto know that it's rodeo.
The rodeo rodear.
(17:55):
That came from the Spanish, fromthe vaquitos, and Anglos
adapted it and it became anenormously famous sport
horsebacking, bullbacking, it'sreally something here's a, by
the way that leads us to thefact that, hey, what is the
(18:17):
state hat?
Well, the state hat, and I'vegot a bunch of them around here.
The state hat is the cowboy hat, of course, and I've got a.
I'm looking at a gray one andI've got a.
My goodness, I've got a, got abig, big black one up there, and
a brown one that I love to wear.
So that's our, our state hat.
(18:39):
What is our?
What is the state knife?
Well, of course, it's the Bowieknife, the famous, legendary
knife fighter, jim Bowie, he, uh, he came up with, uh, with
those.
What is?
What is the traditional Texasfootwear?
It is the.
It is the cowboy boot, ofcourse.
(19:01):
And um, my goodness, here's onethat you may not have thought
of as a Texas symbol.
There long was a saying that theBible belt of the United States
was the South.
(19:22):
The Southern states were theBible belt of Texas, and Texas,
it was said, is the buckle onthe Bible Belt.
Texas was the buckle on theBible Belt, and you could tell
it by going around as the townswere formed.
You could see on almost everycorner there would be a church,
and so Texas was very devout inthat way.
(19:44):
And, of course, early on, theCatholics were the only religion
in Texas, the only formalreligion in Texas.
Goodness, I think of thechuckwagon when I'm thinking of
cowboy boots and so forth, andchuckwagon-offs are great fun,
(20:06):
and boy do they have fine food,Wonderful food to eat.
Did you know that the statedish Talk about a symbol.
The state dish is consideredchili and the state horse is the
quarter horse, and I own thequarter horse.
A daughter of mine really didenjoy riding and so we had we
(20:30):
owned a quarter horse together,sunny, three socks, it had three
white stockings above itshooves.
And what are the most famousranches in Texas?
Well, I guess it's a tie.
The King Ranch is one of themost famous ranches in the
entire world and it still hasclose to a million acres today
(20:51):
800 and some odd thousand acres,and it was over one million
acres at its height.
And then the largest ranch everunder one fence anywhere was
the XIT.
It covered 10 counties in Texas.
You had branding iron that hadan XIT face on it, and the XIT
(21:15):
was 3 million acres.
The Texas state government inthe 1880s needed to build a new
state capital.
We didn't have the kind ofmoney that we wanted to spend on
a splendid state capital, large, wonderful place.
And so that was the period ofthe cattle boom and the state of
(21:38):
Texas offered three millionacres of land in the Texas
Panhandle to any company thatwould build us the kind of state
capital we wanted.
And so we got that magnificentstate capital in Austin that
opened in 1888.
And in return, of course theXIT had a magnificent ranch and
(22:04):
indeed a lot of people don'tknow it.
But as a finishing ranch overthe last couple of years as they
raised their cows they leased 2million acres in Montana and
would drive herds up there andthen around the gosh they'd open
up a can of peaches and thecook on the chuck wagon could
(22:27):
make peach cobbler and that's astate symbol itself.
Oh, we have a state railroad andyou probably know it by.
You guys have probably donesome kind of a show on it.
But the Texas State Railroadruns, you know, out of Palestine
(22:50):
to Rusk, palestine to Rusk, andit's great fun and while I was
state historian my wife and Itook a nice trip on that 30 some
odd mile railroad.
It's great fun.
The state bread we're talkingabout food a little bit.
It's called pan de campo, breadof the camp.
State bread is pan de campo andyou guys may know this already.
(23:17):
But the most decorated hero ofWorld War II, which is the
largest war in world history,was an East Texas farm boy,
northeast Texas from up in theGreenville area, named Audie
Murphy, and a great many peopleknow that already.
There's an Audie Murphy Museumup there.
But what they don't know isthat the most decorated sailor
(23:40):
of World War II was also a Texanand that was Lieutenant
Commander, a submarine commandernamed Sam Dealey and he is from
the famous Dealey Plaza,dealey's of the Dallas area, and
he was a magnificent submarinecommander.
Unfortunately he was killedduring the war.
(24:02):
So those that's, you know,those are a lot, of, a lot of
the symbols that we identifywith Texas, I think.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Any other state symbols that like have some
origin in like Native Americanwords or like something.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Oh, I don't know about the languages and of
course, as you know, the Spanishwas the dominant language in
Texas for a long time.
The Spanish came to Texas inthe early 1500s and began to
settle Texas and there were some25 missions built and Catholic
(24:43):
missions built around Texas.
That's more than anywhere else.
They were very active inCalifornia also, but they built
22 missions in California and 25in Texas.
So we were the leader there, asin so many other things, and so
golly close to.
If you start in the early 1500s, you know you're saying well,
(25:06):
almost three-fourths of Texashistory was Spanish history.
The Spanish attached Texas toMexico.
And did you know that the veryfirst Thanksgiving was in Texas
rather than in the in the pillthey had?
(25:27):
We had a, we had a Thanksgivingceremony out at El Paso del
Norte.
That happened in, let's say,1598, whereas the pilgrims had
their Thanksgiving in 1621.
And so we had a Thanksgivingceremony in Texas for 23 years
(25:49):
before they ever had one inpilgrim land way up in New
England.
There were 11 priests present,400 colonists and there was a
feast.
Indians helped out.
It was the real deal.
I wrote a little book on it onetime, an old children's book.
It's a bilingual book a page ofEnglish and a page of Spanish,
(26:13):
so naturally Texans played alarge part in that.
More Texas cities or towns withprofessional baseball teams than
in any other state.
We are way over 100.
Now most of those teams wereminor league teams.
(26:36):
Only the Houston Astros and theTexas Rangers have been major
league teams.
But boy, the sport was verypopular in Texas, and so we had
the Texas League, and we stilldo.
We have the East Texas League,the West Texas League and so
(26:59):
forth, and all of it added up tomore than 100 professional
teams.
I'm not talking about semi-pro,I'm talking talking about
semi-pro, I'm talking aboutprofessional.
This was in the heyday ofprofessional baseball, and Texas
, of course, was the leader inthat, and we've been the leader
in so many things.
You know it's easy to be aTexas bragger.
(27:23):
That's me.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
I guess we talked about chili being a state food,
right, but in it being a statefood, they don't consider beans
to be a part of that.
Now, I love beans in my chili.
What do you think about beansnot being allowed in state chili
?
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Hey, hey, that's okay with me because I prefer the
chili straight.
Let me tell you, I'm fromCorsicana, texas.
Corsicana is the home Wolfbrand chili and boy, of course
you can buy it with beans.
You can buy a can of chili withbeans Wolf brand chili.
(28:04):
I prefer my chili straight, nobeans.
You can buy a can of chili withbeans Wolf Brand chili.
I prefer my chili straight, nobeans.
I love with tortillas, I loveall that you bet, but I want
chili straight.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Fair enough.
I have another question too Arethere any state symbols you
think are controversial or thatare controversial?
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I don't know.
Texas has such a strong historywe were going to go in this
direction or that that naturally, some of the things are
controversial, some of thethings are controversial, and so
almost anything that would bestrong enough to have a symbol,
(28:53):
there might be some controversyattached to it.
So, yeah, that's possible, sure.
Well, it's been great funtalking to you guys about the
symbols of Texas.
Again, you have as rich ahistory and a culture as Texas
has and there are going to be alot of symbols and it was fun
trying to figure out what youguys would want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Well, thank you for spending a bit of your day to
talk with us about Texas statesymbols.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
It's my pleasure.
I hope this turns out to be aworthwhile program.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Well, that was a good one.
They even, you know, eventhough they didn't ask him, Bill
did tell them what he knows.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
That's right and Bill knows a lot.
So the fact that Bill, we gotall this in 30 minutes, this is
great.
I mean Bill could go on forhours telling his I don't know
if anybody knows this billtaught texas history at panola
college for a long time and heused to when every time he came
in to give certain segments ofhistory like, for example, he's
(29:58):
doing, the texas revolution billwould quite often dress up in
in the gar of the time Like hewould look like somebody maybe
that bought the island and hewas talking about cattle drives.
He would look like a Texascowboy on a trail.
Or if he's talking aboutWilliam Jennings Bryan, he'd
wear a suit like WilliamJennings Bryan may have worn
(30:19):
when he was given his cross ofgold speech.
It's just, it's fascinating.
Bill does this when he would goaround the state, do these
things, and I wish, I wish someof our listeners could see Bill
while he does these types ofthings.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I'd like to see his wardrobe.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
No, it's a big one.
It's a big one.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Well, scott, that was a good one, and I want to thank
everybody for listening.
We've let them wrap up, sowe're going to do the same.
Have a good day.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Next time, folks, again, maybe we'll let somebody
do our work for us.
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It is solely our thoughts andideas, based upon our
professional training and studyof the past.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit, and with some who've made it
and, of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
I'm Scott Sosbeck and I'm GenePreuss, and this is Talking
(00:36):
Texas History.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
I'm Gene Preuss.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
I'm Gene Preuss and I'm ScottSosner.
Scott, today we have a specialtreat in store, at least for you
and me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
A treat for us, because you know what somebody
told me one time?
That delegation is the betterpart of leadership right.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And so we've done kind of delegation.
What we've done is we've gotpeople to do work for us,
haven't we?
That's right.
So I assigned students in aTexas history course this is an
honors Texas history course.
This past spring I had them dosome interviews and we're going
to hear some of those interviewsthroughout the next few months.
Today we have a special oneformer state historian of Texas,
bill O'Neill.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Bill, no doubt no more.
He is Bill's a greatstoryteller.
He's a great Texas historian.
I think our listeners will geta big treat from listening to
Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So they're going to talk about.
They asked Bill to talk aboutsymbols of Texas and he goes
through a long list and so we'regoing to hear this and they
talk about a couple of otherthings.
So I've asked my students,roberto and Anthony, to
interview Bill O'Neill, and solet's go ahead and listen in.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Let's look forward to hearing it, hi Good morning.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Good morning.
Good morning, all right, let'sstart forward to hearing it
retired.
Taught in the classroom for40-something years, taught Texas
history for over 30 years atleast one class every semester,
and I served as state historianof Texas.
(02:34):
I was appointed by GovernorPerry in 2012, and I served a
six-year tenure and I write alot of history books.
I have written 57 so far,anyway, and I've got four
daughters, and they're all inthe field of education too.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Quite the extensive background in Texas history.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Well, I hope so.
I've been crazy about it eversince I was a little boy.
I've been crazy about it eversince I was a little boy.
Texas history is taughtbeginning in the fourth grade.
And when I was in the fourthgrade I was attending Sam
Houston Elementary School inCorsican, Texas, and my parents
(03:17):
took me to Huntsville and showedme a lot of the Sam Houston
stuff and then they took me tothe San Jacinto Monument and I
got to go up there and have beenreturning ever since for
various programs and such, andduring that same period I also
got to see the Alamo and MissionSan Jose.
(03:38):
I did a traveling Texas historycourse which was the first one
in the state.
For credit it was a three-hourcredit.
We had a 2,100-mile field tripall across the state.
So I've got a pretty goodbackground in Texas history.
Love it, it's been a passion ofmine.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
How long did the trip take, the three-hour trip?
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It was the trip, the field trip part.
Now we were in the classroomjust a few days, but the field
trip was 2,100 miles, seven days, six nights.
Two of the nights were camping.
We camped out in Big Bend andalso in the Davis Mountains.
(04:19):
The whole idea of that coursewas to experience Texas history
and so in the course of thatfield trip we went to every
place you can imagine every kindof landmark, battlefields,
missions, forts, everything Icould squeeze in in a seven-day
(04:43):
period.
It was a seven day period, itwas.
It was.
It was very educationalexperience and I did it twice.
I did it twice a semester, forI mean, excuse me, twice a
summer for a little over 20years.
So I conducted about 40 plus ofthose traveling Texas history
(05:04):
field trips, plus of thosetraveling Texas history field
trips, very extensive, and I'mpleased to say that a number of
schools tried to copy us.
There were other schools thatheard about it and four-year
schools even and they tried todo their own version of that
Still proud to say you're theoriginal.
(05:26):
Oh yeah, man, Ours was theoriginal.
It was the best you bet.
I'm glad you figured that out.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Are there any Texas State symbols that?
Speaker 4 (05:56):
hold historical significance.
Oh, my goodness, yes, of courseyou have to start with the Lone
Star, our nickname of it, thelone star flag, or something.
The outline of Texas is afavorite bracelet charm for a
lot of people, and so sure, yeah, the lone star, you have to
start with that.
Then the Alamo is next, ofcourse.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
There are symbols of the Alamo, the facade of the
famous old church.
You know that's the one, andagain that's used for a bracelet
symbol and for, you know, for alapel pin.
I have a longhorn lapel pin.
My goodness, the Texas longhorn.
(06:41):
Golly, you've got to have that.
And so I have that.
And in fact, right here in myroom, above the entrance to this
room, I have a set of Longhornsthat are just a little over six
feet wide, and so sure you'vegot to have those.
(07:01):
I did some graduate school atthe University of Texas and
loved those longhorns from thattime on.
And then, by the way, when Imentioned the longhorns and
certainly that is a veryidentifiable state symbol of
(07:22):
Texas, let's don't forget.
Now, the longhorn is a largemammal.
But what about our small mammal?
Well, you know we have thenine-banded armadillo, and so an
armadillo is a very significantstatement.
In fact, you may or may notknow that the San Saba, the
(07:46):
armadillos, are the mascot oftheir team and they call
themselves the Dillas the Dillas.
Then there's the State Seal,again another lapel pin of mine.
I've got a lot of lapel pins andtie tacks that have all kinds
of Texas stuff on them.
Goodness, we're in the seasonright now for bluebonnets, and
(08:08):
that's, the bluebonnet is, ofcourse, the flower of Texas, and
this is the time of year.
I have a daughter who just tookher three kids out.
This is the 12th year in a row.
They were little bitty whenthey started it and they have
pictures taken in a field ofblue bonnets near Ennis, texas,
(08:30):
and that's within an hour ofwhere they live.
She does that every year andthat's become quite a family
tradition now, and an awful lotof people love to have their
children photographed in fieldsof blue bonnets.
What about the state bird?
That's the mockingbird, as youmay well know, and the state
(08:54):
amphibian, and you don't seenearly as many of them as you
did when I was a kid, huntingaround with my BB gun, I would
go shoot horned toads.
Well, shame on me.
I wish I had known better atthe time.
But anyway, the horned toad is,oh, you know, tcu, the horned
(09:15):
frogs they call themselves, andthat's our favorite amphibian.
What about our song Texas, ourTexas Boy?
That's a wonderful.
That's a wonderful song, butdon't forget, a lot of people
actually think that Deep in theHeart of Texas is our state song
(09:37):
.
It's Texas, our Texas, but Deepin the Heart of Texas is close
by.
Did you know that our folk dance, the Texas, the official Texas
folk dance, is the square danceas it should be?
And along those lines, afavorite form of Texas music is
(09:59):
Texas swing.
The legendary fiddler Bob Wills, from out in West Texas, made
Texas swing a nationalphenomenon actually swing a
national phenomenon actuallyduring the 1930s and 40s when
swing music, big band swingmusic, was a favorite and he had
(10:21):
a big band Texas swing band.
The state motto is friendship.
Way back when the Spanish firstencountered Caddo Indians as
they were moving around throughTexas, the Indians would raise
their hand and say somethinglike they didn't understand
(10:42):
exactly what they were saying,but they assumed that the
Indians were saying somethingabout friendship and so that
became the state motto, if youwill, is friendship, and from
that, whatever they were saying,thanks to the Caddo's.
Well, we got the word Texassomewhere in here.
(11:03):
Oh that's the origin of the wordTexas.
Hey man, texas fruit, though theTexas red grapefruit, that
depends on your taste.
I've been doing some worklately.
I had a book come out on thefamous Texas Ranger ripped
forward and, by the way, there'sanother symbol for you is the
Texas Ranger badge.
(11:24):
The Texas Ranger badge is alone star with a inside a wheel,
a circular wheel, star with ainside a wheel, a circular wheel
.
And, uh, anyway, this, thisfamous texas ranger from the
1800s, is, uh, he came alongabout the time that the pistol
was being developed and hefavored a large model walker
(11:46):
coat.
These are old percussion cap,cap and ball pistols and he had
a Walker Colt named after SamWalker, a famous Texas Ranger
warrior, who was killed, shot inthe head, during the war with
Mexico.
He was in Mexico when thathappened, but the Walker Colt
was a much improved pistol and avery large and heavy pistol.
(12:09):
In fact, when you loaded it up,the chamber was quite large and
they had special cartridges andwhen you loaded that thing up
with six cartridges it was oneounce less than five pounds.
So when you were going to shootsomebody with that thing, you
(12:29):
had to extend your arm and boy,that thing was going to try to
pull down on it.
And so that was the, thepowerful Walker Colt, and it
became a.
It became a symbol of the West.
These were very powerful gunsthis Rip Ford, whom I've written
(12:50):
the book about.
He shot an opponent and knockedhim down and they walked it off
.
What distance was it?
It turned out it was 125 yards.
How far is that, distance-wise,with open sights?
(13:11):
That is one football field 100yards plus two end zones.
10 yards and 10 yards.
It's 120 yards plus anadditional five yards.
That is a heck of a pistol shotand it just shows not just how
good a shot that guy was, but italso shows how powerful that
(13:34):
particular handgun was.
So the Texas, as you may know,was the gunfighter capital of
the Old West.
There were more gunfighters whowere from Texas, more
gunfighters who were killed inTexas.
It was, the gunfights just wereincredible.
There were more blood feuds inTexas.
It was, the gunfights just wereincredible.
There were more blood feuds inTexas.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
What are gunfighters?
If you don't mind me asking,Can you elaborate on that?
What gunfighters On gunfighters, yeah, yeah, gunfighters yeah,
like what did they do?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Well, they just, you know, Texans generally were a
great many Texans were armedwith guns, handguns in
particular, and if they tookoffense at something, well, the
shooting would start, and so youmight have a saloon fight.
You might have Tascosa out inthe Texas.
Panhandle was the gunfightercapital of Texas during the
(14:33):
1880s.
They had a lot of shootoutsthere and again they had blood
feuds.
The first blood feud in Texasstarted in the 1840s, right
where I am I'm talking to youfrom Carthage, texas, and there
was a blood feud in thisvicinity that lasted for several
years and it was the firstTexas blood feud, but hardly the
(14:56):
last.
Those blood feuds went on forsomething like 75 years in Texas
.
It was early in the 20thcentury before they finally
subsided, and there were many ofthese things and there were
many of these things, and somore blood feuds in Texas than
in any other state or territory,more gunfights, actual
(15:16):
gunfights between opponents inTexas than in any other state,
more gunfighters were from Texasthan any other state or
territory and more gunfighterswere killed in Texas than in the
state.
So Texas was indeed thegunfighter capital of the Wild
(15:39):
West.
I was thinking about thesymbols.
And I mentioned the music amoment ago Texas Swing and with
its folk dance, the square dance.
There was something else.
What is our favorite musicalinstrument in Texas?
And that is officially theacoustical guitar.
(16:00):
I'm headed down to Houstontomorrow to participate in the
San Jacinto weekend.
I'm going to get to give a talkfrom the San Jacinto Monument
on Saturday morning and whileI'm down there, see when you're
there.
You're where the USS Texas wasmoored for many decades.
(16:25):
It is the oldest battleship inthe world.
It was a dreadnought built.
Well, it was laid down prior toWorld War I.
It participated in World War Iand World War II before we got
it back.
The USS Texas BB-35 was itsmarkings.
Now what about the most famousTall ship?
(16:47):
They're reworking thebattleship Texas right now.
It needs repairs and it'sgetting them in a dry dock.
But the Most famous tall shipin Texas and that is the Alyssa
and it is in Galveston Harborand it may be Touring.
It's a wonderful touristattraction, something I really
(17:08):
like.
And it is in Galveston Harborand it may be touring.
It's a wonderful touristattraction, something I really
like.
And, my goodness, we talkedabout the Texas flag.
You know the pledge honor theTexas flag.
I pledge allegiance to theeTexas, one state under God, one
and indivisible.
And I get to talk to variousSRT groups DRT groups Now,
(17:35):
that's sons of the Republic ofTexas, daughters of the Republic
of Texas and when I get tospeak to them we always turn
around and pledge allegiance tothe United States flag, but also
we make that pledge honor theTexas flag as well.
What is the favorite Texassport?
Well, I think everybody oughtto know that it's rodeo.
The rodeo rodear.
(17:55):
That came from the Spanish, fromthe vaquitos, and Anglos
adapted it and it became anenormously famous sport
horsebacking, bullbacking, it'sreally something here's a, by
the way that leads us to thefact that, hey, what is the
(18:17):
state hat?
Well, the state hat, and I'vegot a bunch of them around here.
The state hat is the cowboy hat, of course, and I've got a.
I'm looking at a gray one andI've got a.
My goodness, I've got a, got abig, big black one up there, and
a brown one that I love to wear.
So that's our, our state hat.
(18:39):
What is our?
What is the state knife?
Well, of course, it's the Bowieknife, the famous, legendary
knife fighter, jim Bowie, he, uh, he came up with, uh, with
those.
What is?
What is the traditional Texasfootwear?
It is the.
It is the cowboy boot, ofcourse.
(19:01):
And um, my goodness, here's onethat you may not have thought
of as a Texas symbol.
There long was a saying that theBible belt of the United States
was the South.
(19:22):
The Southern states were theBible belt of Texas, and Texas,
it was said, is the buckle onthe Bible Belt.
Texas was the buckle on theBible Belt, and you could tell
it by going around as the townswere formed.
You could see on almost everycorner there would be a church,
and so Texas was very devout inthat way.
(19:44):
And, of course, early on, theCatholics were the only religion
in Texas, the only formalreligion in Texas.
Goodness, I think of thechuckwagon when I'm thinking of
cowboy boots and so forth, andchuckwagon-offs are great fun,
(20:06):
and boy do they have fine food,Wonderful food to eat.
Did you know that the statedish Talk about a symbol.
The state dish is consideredchili and the state horse is the
quarter horse, and I own thequarter horse.
A daughter of mine really didenjoy riding and so we had we
(20:30):
owned a quarter horse together,sunny, three socks, it had three
white stockings above itshooves.
And what are the most famousranches in Texas?
Well, I guess it's a tie.
The King Ranch is one of themost famous ranches in the
entire world and it still hasclose to a million acres today
(20:51):
800 and some odd thousand acres,and it was over one million
acres at its height.
And then the largest ranch everunder one fence anywhere was
the XIT.
It covered 10 counties in Texas.
You had branding iron that hadan XIT face on it, and the XIT
(21:15):
was 3 million acres.
The Texas state government inthe 1880s needed to build a new
state capital.
We didn't have the kind ofmoney that we wanted to spend on
a splendid state capital, large, wonderful place.
And so that was the period ofthe cattle boom and the state of
(21:38):
Texas offered three millionacres of land in the Texas
Panhandle to any company thatwould build us the kind of state
capital we wanted.
And so we got that magnificentstate capital in Austin that
opened in 1888.
And in return, of course theXIT had a magnificent ranch and
(22:04):
indeed a lot of people don'tknow it.
But as a finishing ranch overthe last couple of years as they
raised their cows they leased 2million acres in Montana and
would drive herds up there andthen around the gosh they'd open
up a can of peaches and thecook on the chuck wagon could
(22:27):
make peach cobbler and that's astate symbol itself.
Oh, we have a state railroad andyou probably know it by.
You guys have probably donesome kind of a show on it.
But the Texas State Railroadruns, you know, out of Palestine
(22:50):
to Rusk, palestine to Rusk, andit's great fun and while I was
state historian my wife and Itook a nice trip on that 30 some
odd mile railroad.
It's great fun.
The state bread we're talkingabout food a little bit.
It's called pan de campo, breadof the camp.
State bread is pan de campo andyou guys may know this already.
(23:17):
But the most decorated hero ofWorld War II, which is the
largest war in world history,was an East Texas farm boy,
northeast Texas from up in theGreenville area, named Audie
Murphy, and a great many peopleknow that already.
There's an Audie Murphy Museumup there.
But what they don't know isthat the most decorated sailor
(23:40):
of World War II was also a Texanand that was Lieutenant
Commander, a submarine commandernamed Sam Dealey and he is from
the famous Dealey Plaza,dealey's of the Dallas area, and
he was a magnificent submarinecommander.
Unfortunately he was killedduring the war.
(24:02):
So those that's, you know,those are a lot, of, a lot of
the symbols that we identifywith Texas, I think.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Any other state symbols that like have some
origin in like Native Americanwords or like something.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Oh, I don't know about the languages and of
course, as you know, the Spanishwas the dominant language in
Texas for a long time.
The Spanish came to Texas inthe early 1500s and began to
settle Texas and there were some25 missions built and Catholic
(24:43):
missions built around Texas.
That's more than anywhere else.
They were very active inCalifornia also, but they built
22 missions in California and 25in Texas.
So we were the leader there, asin so many other things, and so
golly close to.
If you start in the early 1500s, you know you're saying well,
(25:06):
almost three-fourths of Texashistory was Spanish history.
The Spanish attached Texas toMexico.
And did you know that the veryfirst Thanksgiving was in Texas
rather than in the in the pillthey had?
(25:27):
We had a, we had a Thanksgivingceremony out at El Paso del
Norte.
That happened in, let's say,1598, whereas the pilgrims had
their Thanksgiving in 1621.
And so we had a Thanksgivingceremony in Texas for 23 years
(25:49):
before they ever had one inpilgrim land way up in New
England.
There were 11 priests present,400 colonists and there was a
feast.
Indians helped out.
It was the real deal.
I wrote a little book on it onetime, an old children's book.
It's a bilingual book a page ofEnglish and a page of Spanish,
(26:13):
so naturally Texans played alarge part in that.
More Texas cities or towns withprofessional baseball teams than
in any other state.
We are way over 100.
Now most of those teams wereminor league teams.
(26:36):
Only the Houston Astros and theTexas Rangers have been major
league teams.
But boy, the sport was verypopular in Texas, and so we had
the Texas League, and we stilldo.
We have the East Texas League,the West Texas League and so
(26:59):
forth, and all of it added up tomore than 100 professional
teams.
I'm not talking about semi-pro,I'm talking talking about
semi-pro, I'm talking aboutprofessional.
This was in the heyday ofprofessional baseball, and Texas
, of course, was the leader inthat, and we've been the leader
in so many things.
You know it's easy to be aTexas bragger.
(27:23):
That's me.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
I guess we talked about chili being a state food,
right, but in it being a statefood, they don't consider beans
to be a part of that.
Now, I love beans in my chili.
What do you think about beansnot being allowed in state chili
?
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Hey, hey, that's okay with me because I prefer the
chili straight.
Let me tell you, I'm fromCorsicana, texas.
Corsicana is the home Wolfbrand chili and boy, of course
you can buy it with beans.
You can buy a can of chili withbeans Wolf brand chili.
(28:04):
I prefer my chili straight, nobeans.
You can buy a can of chili withbeans Wolf Brand chili.
I prefer my chili straight, nobeans.
I love with tortillas, I loveall that you bet, but I want
chili straight.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Fair enough.
I have another question too Arethere any state symbols you
think are controversial or thatare controversial?
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I don't know.
Texas has such a strong historywe were going to go in this
direction or that that naturally, some of the things are
controversial, some of thethings are controversial, and so
almost anything that would bestrong enough to have a symbol,
(28:53):
there might be some controversyattached to it.
So, yeah, that's possible, sure.
Well, it's been great funtalking to you guys about the
symbols of Texas.
Again, you have as rich ahistory and a culture as Texas
has and there are going to be alot of symbols and it was fun
trying to figure out what youguys would want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Well, thank you for spending a bit of your day to
talk with us about Texas statesymbols.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
It's my pleasure.
I hope this turns out to be aworthwhile program.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Well, that was a good one.
They even, you know, eventhough they didn't ask him, Bill
did tell them what he knows.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
That's right and Bill knows a lot.
So the fact that Bill, we gotall this in 30 minutes, this is
great.
I mean Bill could go on forhours telling his I don't know
if anybody knows this billtaught texas history at panola
college for a long time and heused to when every time he came
in to give certain segments ofhistory like, for example, he's
(29:58):
doing, the texas revolution billwould quite often dress up in
in the gar of the time Like hewould look like somebody maybe
that bought the island and hewas talking about cattle drives.
He would look like a Texascowboy on a trail.
Or if he's talking aboutWilliam Jennings Bryan, he'd
wear a suit like WilliamJennings Bryan may have worn
(30:19):
when he was given his cross ofgold speech.
It's just, it's fascinating.
Bill does this when he would goaround the state, do these
things, and I wish, I wish someof our listeners could see Bill
while he does these types ofthings.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I'd like to see his wardrobe.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
No, it's a big one.
It's a big one.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Well, scott, that was a good one, and I want to thank
everybody for listening.
We've let them wrap up, sowe're going to do the same.
Have a good day.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Next time, folks, again, maybe we'll let somebody
do our work for us.
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