The Hidden History of Texas

Before the Old Three Hundred: Who Would Move to Texas?

Imagine somebody knocks on your door. They've got an interesting proposition. Pack up your family. Sell what you can't carry. Leave your home. Travel hundreds of mil

The Freedmen’s Bureau: The Promise and the Reality

Hello, and welcome to Political Realignment. I'm Hank Wilson. In our last episode, we stood with America at the end of the Civil War and asked a deceptively simple quest

Pecos: West of the River

There are rivers that divide a landscape. And there are rivers that divide the imagination. In Texas, the Pecos managed to do both. For generations, the words West of

Episode 97: La Junta de los Ríos, Before There Was a Border

La Junta de los Ríos, Before There Was a Border (Partial Transcript....) If you stand near Presidio, Texas, and look across the Rio Grande toward Ojinaga, Mexico, you're

A Nation Rebuilt

A Nation Rebuilt The war ended, but the constitutional questions had just begun. Hello, and welcome to Political Realignment. I'm Hank Wilson. I'd like to begin with a

From Frontier Forts to Frontier Towns: Fort Davis and Fort Stockton

Hello friends, and welcome back to Hidden History of Texas. Last time, we visited Alpine, a mountain community that showed us how people learned not simply to travel thr

Episode 95 – Alpine: Where the Mountains Became Home

Episode 95 – Alpine: Where the Mountains Became Home Alpine is often described as the gateway to Big Bend, but its story is far richer than that. In this episode of Hidd

The Frontier Forts: Guarding West Texas

Officers' row (ruins), looking west, before the National Park Service acquired Fort Davis National Historic Site. The Frontier Forts: Guarding West Texas Hello friends,

Brown v. Board: The Cornerstone of Change

Brown v. Board: The Cornerstone of Change When we began this series, we started with the election of 1964. From there, we journeyed through 1968... 1972... 1976... a

1980: Restoring Confidence

Welcome to another episode of The Political Realignment a Hidden History of Texas series How does a nation recover its confidence? That question hung over America in 19

The Trans-Pecos: Texas Beyond the Mountains

Hello friends, and welcome back to Hidden History of Texas. This is episode 93 The Trans-Pecos: Texas Beyond the Mountains (NOTE: This is not a verbatim transcript) Last

1976 After Watergate

1976: After Watergate America celebrated its 200th birthday in 1976. The Bicentennial brought parades, fireworks, tall ships, patriotic ceremonies, and a renewed apprec

Episode 92 – El Paso: The Pass of the North…The Rio Grande Frontier, Part One

Hello friends, and welcome back to Hidden History of Texas. This is episode 92 – this is the first in a series I’m calling The Rio Grande Frontier – Welcome to El Paso: T