True Stories of Amazing People and Places in Texas

Favorite Books, Authors and Articles about Hale County People, Places and Events. What's your Favorite? Here's our list of favorite books about people and places in Plainview, Hale Center, Petersburg and Abernathy.

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Norfleet: The Manhunter's Own True Story- The Amazing Experiences of an Intrepid Texas Rancher with An International Swindling Ring

The true story of a Hale County Rancher and Farmer who at age 55 became a famous manhunter and captured a gang of conmen who had swindled him out of $45,000 in 1919 . .

In 1919, Hale County Texas rancher J. Frank Norfleet lost everything he had in a stock market swindle—twice. But instead of slinking home in shame, he turned the tables on the confidence men. Armed with a revolver and a suitcase full of disguises, Norfleet set out to capture the five men who had conned him, allowing himself to be ensnared in the con again and again to gather evidence on his enemies. Through the story of Norfleet’s ingenious reverse-swindle, Amy Reading reveals the fascinating mechanics behind the big con . . . Read more Look inside

By true crime writer Lana Payne Barnett features another trilogy of homicides from the Texas Panhandle. The case of cocaine addicted Robert Blake who murders Fred Conner and dumps the body on a lonely Texas highway is a fascinating read. The hunt for the fugitive is an exciting one as J. Frank Norfleet pulls out all the stops to find the person who murdered his friend. Blake is eventually arrested, tried, convicted and executed. While on death row he pens an account of his exploits that become the basis for the most popular Broadway Play of 1930 . . . Read more Look Inside

J. Wright Mooar tells the story of the buffalo hunter, from the hunter's perspective, in this first-person account published more than seventy years ago.

"James Winford Hunt moved with his parents to the Texas Panhandle in 1881. He worked on a ranch until he could save enough money to purchase printing equipment. When he did, he started the Press Leader in Lubbock. He then moved his publishing venture to Plainview, establishing the Texan Press . . . " Read more Look inside

Agricultural and urban development came late to the Texas South Plains, and frontier life lingered well into the twentieth century. In the decade preceding World War I numerous land companies flourished in the area and acted as catalysts for settlement and economic expansion. Prominent among these companies was the Plainview-based Texas Land and Development Company, founded in 1912 . . . Read more Look inside

Short Stories of Life and Customs on the Plains of Texas

by Bonnie Faye James Gaston

Bonnie Gaston grew up during the Depression six miles south of Littlefield Texas. As an adult she was an award-winning elementary school in Plainview. This is her joyful story of growing up on the Texas Plains . . . Read more

Hale County Facts and Folklore - Volume II

Historical and genealogical information on Hale County, Texas, including photos of people, buildings and biographical info of the original settlers in this area . . . Read more

In the mid 1930s, North America's Great Plains faced one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in world history.

"... encouraged farmers in the 1930s to invest thousands of dollars to tap the aquifer, at first in the most southerly portion of the Bowl around Lubbock and Plainview, Texas, where water-bearing strata ar not so deep. Then, in the late fifties and the sixties, following another drought, underground water became the newest bonanza resource . . .  Read more Look inside

Nineteen Jumps and a Prayer

In the summer of 1970, 18-year-old Travis Monday joined the U.S. Army and volunteered for Airborne School and for Vietnam. Thirty-five years later he wrote his own story -- Nineteen Jumps and a Prayer. His adventures as an Army paratrooper and as a Vietnam veteran also serve as a platform for telling the stories of others . . . Read more

From the earliest days of European settlement, Americans have cherished the sight of a windmill—an instantly recognizable feature of the American landscape. Boasting nearly two hundred striking images, this book is the first devoted to photographs illustrating historic wind machines throughout North America. Found inside: "A windmill pumped water into this earthen stock-watering tank where a Church of Christ minister administered baptism to Robert Hall at Petersburg Texas at the turn of the century "  . . . Read more

Medicine and Cowboys Sixty Years Ago and Today's Politics

These disconnected notes were written after office hours, about cowboys, and medical practice sixty years ago, for the amusement of some of my older patients, who lived during that period here in West Texas area. Most of the old-timers are riding herd (now up in the sky). At a recent reunion that is held cacti summer, Colonel Goodnight suggested that a petition be presented to St. Peter requesting him to designate the sky over the West Texas Panhandle as the permanent home of the cowboys. It was pointed out that bow-legged cowboys . . . Read more

In the winter of 1901, James W. Jarrott led a band of twenty-five homesteader families toward the Llano Estacado in far West Texas, newly opened for settlement by a populist Texas legislature.

Found Inside: " In early 1900, he made his first excursion to  the South Plains. He visited family friends, Lewis and Blanch Faulkner, who had relocated to Plainview, Texas. There he first became intrigued by stories of that vas unfenced and unpopulated Llano Estacado Frontier ..." Read more Look inside

Land of Bright Promise: Advertising the Texas Panhandle and South Plains, 1870-1917

Land of Bright Promise is a fascinating exploration of the multitude of land promotions and types of advertising that attracted more than 175,000 settlers to the Panhandle–South Plains area of Texas from the late years of the nineteenth century to the early years of the twentieth. Shunned by settlers for decades because of its popular but forbidding image as a desert filled with desperados, savage Indians, and solitary ranchers, the region was seen as an agricultural and cultural wasteland. The territory, consequently, was among the last to be settled in the . . . Read more

Lela Belle's Christian beliefs supported Prohibition. Joe Callaway's ambivalence toward faith shocks his family. But when Lela and Joe meet, their love is instantaneous.

Chapter 34 - Plainview

"Life moved on beautifully. Daddy had plenty of time to read. The one milk cow, threee horses (two for plowing one for the buggy), and the couple of dozen white Leghorn chickens took ver little of his time . . . ". . . Read more

by Donald E Green

The scarcity of surface water which has so marked the Great Plains is even more characteristic of its subdivision, the Texas High Plains. Settlers on the plateau were forced to use pump technology to tap the vast ground water resources—the underground rain—beneath its flat surface . . . Read more

LaVern Roach, a skinny kid from the small town of Plainview, Texas, rose from obscurity to become one of boxing's most popular figures during the 1940s. Roach's rise to prominence occurred during an era when boxing shared the spotlight with baseball as the nation's top two professional sports. As a result of Roach's death--which marked the first nationally televised fight during which a boxer died . . . Read more

Life is never easy but specially so when your born in a boxcar in the center of a railroad siding in the Great Depression.

"I went to Plainview, Texas because it was not far from Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Pampa, Borger, Memphis, Quanah, Shamrock, Wellington and Paducah teams that had been on our schedule for all four years of high school. I met a girl from Petersburg, Texas, and started dating her. During the second semester, we decided to get married and continue college.A guy I'd been in . . . Read more Look inside (page 86)

Thirty Years of Sausage...Fifty Years of Ham

A memoir from the country singer and entrepreneur Jimmy Dean covers his life from his childhood in West Texas through success as a country and western entertainer to fulfillment as a sausage superstar . . . Read more

by Harley J. Redin, Wayland College Plainview, Texas

The coach of the Wayland Flying Queens, winner of five National Basketball Championships wrote The Queens Fly High in 1958 for coaches, players, and spectators interested in women's' basketball . . .

Victim of Circumstances

by Dee C. Dodson

Dee- Tales of the Past

Memoirs of Dee C. Dodson from settling of the Texas Panhandle through World War II

On the road to seek work in the cotton fields of Texas, an old Ford Model T truck breaks down and forces a change of destination that ultimately leads the protagonists to the Argentine Patagonia. Follow the anecdote-driven story of a devoted couple who spent their childhood in the U.S. Southwest during the Great Depression.

"It was only seventy-five miles to Plainview, and a quick calculation told him that they should arrive in time for an early lunch . . . Read more Look inside

by Danny Andrews

Danny Andrews was born in San Antonio but has been a resident of Plainview, Texas, since the age of nine months. "Things I have Saw and Did"  is a compilation of some 250 stories gleaned from Danny Andrew's diverse life experiences. He has been a journalist, including 39 years of column, news, feature and sports writing for the Plainview, Texas, Daily Herald. The stories include his family; growing-up in Plainview; experiences in school and Wayland . . . Read more Look inside

Marsha Sharp was the coach of the Texas Tech Lady Raiders basketball team for over twenty years. This book traces Sharp's basketball journey from her beginnings in Tulia, Plainview, Lockney and Canyon Texas through her twenty-third season with the Lady Raiders. A 2003 inductee into the national Women's Basketball Hall of Fame . . . Read more

Featuring a side of Tejano history too often neglected, author Arnoldo De León shows that people of Spanish-Mexican descent were not passive players in or, worse, absent from West Texas history but instead were active agents at the center of it . . . Read more Look inside

History of Hale County Texas

by Mary L. Cox

by Peg Davis

Come to west Texas and meet Napoleon, a fine handsome rooster and Marigold, a pretty golden colored hen as they raise their family on a small farm near Abernathy, Texas. The interactions of the chicks, with different animals on the farm, are serious, sometimes comical and maybe even dangerous . . . Read more

According to this book of haunted places in Texas, Plainview is home to seven haunted places including the Old Hilton Hotel, Wayland Baptist University, Coronado Jr. High, Masso's Department Store, Plainview High School . . .  Check it out

In this newest installment of this award winning series, the authors look at what they like to call School Spirits! Find Haunted Texas schools in Alpine. . . Levelland, Lindale, Littlefield, Lubbock, Luther, Mcallen, Mesquite, Mission, Monahans, Moody, Nacogdoches, Odessa, Pasadena, Pearsall, Plainview, Rio Hondo, San Angelo, San Antonio, San Benito, San Juan, San Marcos, Santa Ana, Sealy, Seguin, Shafter, Sweetwater, Tyler, Uvalde, Waco, Weslaco, White Oak, and Zapata, Texas . . . Read more

Found inside: "But did you know know Plainview's most famous high school dropout is the founder of Netscape?". . . Read more Look Inside