Wise About Texas

Why would an Army fort on the Texas frontier be built without a wall? In episode 156 of Wise About Texas, recorded live at the Young County Museum of History and Culture in Graham, Texas, host Ken Wise talks with Jim Hammond, director of Fort Belknap near Newcastle, about the 1851 post that became a crossroads of North Texas on the Butterfield trail and the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Hammond describes a soldier’s life that was far more monotonous than the movies suggest—until it wasn’t. He then tak

Episode 155: Young County Museum of History and Culture, Graham, Texas Ken Wise records live at the Young County Museum of History and Culture in Graham, Texas, during its first-anniversary celebration. Curator and board president Tony Widner and founder Shannon Potts explain how they turned a 1937 Piggly Wiggly into a museum, why Young County holds so much Texas history, and the stories behind their most prized artifacts, from a Marlow brothers pistol to a James Monroe peace medal from the Elm

In This Episode • The origins of polo in sixth-century B.C. Persia — and why it was war training, not sport • How the British found the game in India, and the first formal English rules in 1875 • James Gordon Bennett brings polo to America — and immediately sends to Texas for horses • Vanderbilts and Belmonts buying Hill Country mustangs • San Antonio as the polo pony capital of the United States by 1885 • The Texas breeders: O. W. Cardwell of Junction, “Doc” Weir of Georgetown, Jay Floyd

Show Notes The 1842 Mexican invasions of Texas and their aftermath, including the Mier expedition and the Black Bean Incident. Sam Houston's use of privateer-style commissions, authorizing Charles Warfield and later Jacob Snively to raise private forces against Mexican trade on the Santa Fe Trail. Warfield's failed raid near Mora, New Mexico, and his men's 200-mile walk back to Bent's Fort after losing their horses. The unrelated robbery and murder of Santa Fe merchant Antonio José Chávez, a

Episode 152 — Introducing Wise About Golf Golf reached Texas before the automobile did — back when men who remembered San Jacinto were still walking around. Ken introduces Wise About Golf, a new Texas golf history podcast, and makes the case that golf is not a break from Texas history but a way into it. Then episode two of the new show plays in full. In this episode ● Eleven years of Wise About Texas ● Why there is now a second podcast — and why you are the reason ● The argument: golf as a

We think and talk a lot about the Republic of Texas (I hope). But what are we talking about? Most of the early settlement in Mexican Texas was east of the Colorado River and extended up the river as far as La Grange. The battles of the Texas Revolution took place in San Antonio and ended at San Jacinto. So we have a Republic, but how big is it? What are its borders? Well, it depended on who you asked. Here’s a fun fact: If you go to Colorado this summer, as so many Texans do, you’re probably nev