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by Dr. Joe H Alcorta

"I was born in a humble house in Novice, Texas, on October 22, 1939. Novice was a real small town composed of a grocery store, a few business firms and the doctor's office. Dr. Kidd of Novice was the M.D. who came to our house and delivered me. At the time of my birth, Dad was working in the fields doing manual labor..." Read more Look inside

Thomas E. Ketchum, better known as 'Black Jack' Ketchum, at six foot two inches tall with dark skin and black hair and described as having a 'wonderful physique,' never became one of those folklore desperados whose violent and lawless ways were burnished with an illusive romance. "Coleman, Texas, had been the scene of a successful train robbery in the spring of 1893. In the summer of 1899 it was claimed in a number of newspaper articles that the bandits got $30,000 in the 1898 Coleman robbery, but this must have..."  Read more Look inside

"Their Daddy arrived two weeks later, and he and Mrs. Wilson found a house to rent on Concho Street in Coleman, Texas. The Caseys lived nineteen miles down the road and Abilene was forty-eight miles. It was an ideal situation. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were charter members of the Trinity Methodist Church, so the children had a Sunday school to attend, and church was part and parcel of their social life. Gail had received a toy piano with several octaves for Christmas when she was three. She played it well, and since there was no dance in Coleman, she was allowed to take piano lessons..." Read more Look inside  . . . for more like this please see Christmas in Texas

The Ex-Texas Rangers Association met in Santa Anna, in Coleman County, in the summer 1941. Only seven old Rangers showed up. The youngest, S.O. Durst, was 59. Also attending were Jeff Wood, 92; Noah Armstrong, 89 of Coleman..." An important part of Texas history, these few good men were distinguished, unique even among themselves, and soon, even mythical. The myths and traditions surrounding the Rangers have endured and evolved. Today the Texas Rangers are among the most respected law enforcement agencies in the world . . . Read more Look inside

"One morning in November 1883, the small ranchers and farmers of Coleman, Texas, found an anonymous notice posted on the street: Down with monopolies, they can't exist in Texas, and especially in Coleman county; away with your foreign ...What should serve as money, who should control its creation and circulation, and according to what rules? For more than two hundred years, the “money question” shaped American social thought, becoming a central subject of political debate and class conflict."  Read more Look inside

"Lillie Ruth was born August 16, 1929, in Talpa, Texas. Lillie Ruth had just graduated from high school and Fritz was working at Goodfellow field when they met. She was visiting her sister Alene in San Angelo and they went to church at ..." Read more Look inside

"All these workers and hanger ons needed places to live, eat, and sleep, and almost overnight the town of Fry sprang up along the old road from Brownwood through Thrifty to Coleman. From a bare pasture in June 1926 it became an entire town in only six months..." Read more Look inside

"One site that fits this description is near Santa Anna, Texas (named after the Penatuhkah Comanche war chief  Santanna/Santa Anna, whose strong-hold was located there in the 1840s) This site was visited in the early 1990s by Comanche leaders who first asked, "It is obvious that here were Indians here, but how do we know there were Comanche people here?" They answered their own question when they discovered a stone feature they recognized as a Comanche ceremonial site..." Read more Look inside

"On January 28, 1859, a preacher named William "Choctaw Bill" Robinson stood ready to unite a Coleman County couple in holy matrimony. Bet before he could ask the traditional question of whether anyone knew a reason why the couple..." Read more Look inside

"Mabel Doss married William Henry Day in January 1879. After their wedding, the couple moved to Day's twenty-two-thousand-acre ranch in Coleman County, Texas. In 1879 Day used barbed wire to enclose pastures on his ranch and had plans to enclose the entire estate over time. Mabel spent her days beside her husband and observed his management of the land, cattle, and employees. William Day day died in June 1881 from injuries sustained two months earlier when he crushed his stomach on his saddle horn during a stampede..." Read more Look inside

by S.E. Spinks

"Ranger Frank Mills rode the Mexican border in the 1920s. He served as sheriff of Coleman County from 1928 until 1938 when he returned to the Ranger Service. I knew several of them (Rangers) from my hometown, " Hill explained. 'I admired Frank Mills very much when I was a boy. It gave me a desire to enter law enforcement as soon as I was able to'. A career in law enforcement, however, would have to wait. Hill graduated high school in 1930, less than a year after Black Tuesday. ..." Read more Look inside

by Larissa Petrillo

"Our first children were born in Coleman, Texas. We used to go to Coleman, Texas, a lot. We used to travel with Lupe's whole family. And I mean the whole family. All the cousins and uncles. And brothers and sisters. When I met Lupe, just the boys talk English. Not the girls. Lupe's mom, she's not going to talk to you in English. She's Mexican and she's going to be a Mexican and she's going to keep her language..." Read more Look inside

"In April 1918, a few months after the Chamberses relocated to Galveston County, the Howards moved from Cross Cut to Burkett, Texas, possibly because Dr. Chambers had left Cross Cut. Or they may simply have been on the move once again because of Dr. Howard's proclivity for wandering. Whatever the reason, Dr. Howard was able to continue practicing medicine in Cross Cut when needed because Burkett was only eight miles southwest of Cross Cut ..." Read more Look inside

"John Good first became known as a big, bullying ruffian who ran a ranch, stocked with stolen beef, in the hill country west of Austin Texas. After a cattle drive to Newton he was present when Cad Pierce was killed by Ed Crawford. Involved in a shooting in 1877, Good moved to Coleman Texas and opened a hotel, but he soon became unpopular, and by 1880 he had moved again, this time to a ranch fifty miles northwest of Colorado City ..." Read more

"Forming an early collective voice along the borderlands, Alida Martínez and other women from Burkett, Texas, founded Prismas Anarquistas in 1913 using anarchist language that underscored their ideas about motherhood within the ..." Read more Look inside

"As he was boarding the transport, Hays glanced into the cockpit. One of the pilots looked familiar. He had a flashy grin and movie-star good looks. Hays did a double take. Hell, the guy was a movie star. Their pilot was none other than Tyrone Power, now an aviator and first lieutenant in the Marine Corps. Wes Hays had to shake his head. It was just another bizarre scene in what seemed like an endlessly weir movie. The folks back in Novice, Texas, weren't going to believe this one..." Read more Look inside

"Since that day in the small town of Talpa, Texas, Roxy has made his presence known many times. People have seen his spirit roaming around the Indian burial grounds in Santa Ana, Texas, and up in Montana at the Indian burial sites up ..." Read more

"Railroad in Runnels/Coleman County created the town of Talpa, Texas for railroad stop which helped his business. Additional land was purchased later. Andrew Herring was mostly a land man rather than a livestock man as he would buy land, ..." "The Talpa School was small and everyone knew everyone. With seven classmates and three of them were cousins, we always made sure we defended our relatives. Basketball was my favorite sport and I did win several awards in the district..."Opal was raised in Talpa and graduated from Talpa High School at the age of 19. She would quilt for hours with her Mother using cotton cords to bind their quilts. She married Charles Bouldin and would sew for the public to supplement" . . . Read more Look inside

The S. P. Hale Building housed Perry Hale's drugstore but was later converted for use as Talpa's City Hall. Wool production became the area's most important commodity by 1920, leading the citizens of Talpa and the surrounding area to..." Read more Look inside

by Melissa E. Farr

"Coleman City was its name in the past so long ago A town where there is no shame To plant our roots and watch them grow. Coleman, Texas is my heart's home Although I lived there for only a year My dreams and spirit are free to roam With ..." Read more Look inside

"Like many pecan men, H. A. Halbert was something of a character. He was the author of an almanac that provided weather forecasts inspired by the heart of an oak. tree. Despite the source of Halbert's prognostications, many people depended on his almanac for guidance in the planting and growing of crops. When his health began to fail, Halbert moved his family to the West Texas town of Coleman in 1886. He eventually purchased a 350-acre farm near Coleman on which grew many pecan trees. One of these, bearing a thin shell and of good quality, Halbert christened the Halbert pecan, which he set about to promote and propagate with his top-working technique..." Read more Look inside

"He attended the public school in Coleman and was graduated from Coleman High School. Upon completing his schooling, he engaged in the Title Abstract business from 1915 until 1918 in Coleman County Texas. In 1918, during World War I, ..." "Following the marriage Ernest and his Uncle John Moffatt returned to the US and traveled to Texas where three months later, on 16 March 1891, Ernest married his cousin, Esther Georgina, in Coleman Texas" . . . Read more Look inside

"In 1876 the citizens of Coleman County voted ot move the seat of government ten miles south to donated land at Hord's Creek. There they laid out the new town and nmed it Coleman. The first order of business was to build a jail, which was done in 1879. That jail was made of stone and consited of two stories..." Read more

During the 1800's, the area along and between the East and West Navidad Rivers in Texas was known as the Navidad Country. "The brothers, John and J. B. Mayes together with several other men and their cowhands, started with a herd of about 1,000 cattle for Coleman County, where they hoped to find desirable open..." Read more Look inside

"John Simpson Chisum began to move cattle from his ranch in Denton County southwest to another ranch in Coleman County. While Jesse Chisholm was conducting business between his trading posts in the northern part of Indian Territory and ... to Trickham in Coleman County in 1863..." Read more Look inside

"James Eugene was born in East Texas, n Cherokee County, but lived his teenage years in Coleman County Texas, where he ranched with his father and learned to farm the land. He and Martha Ann were married in 1871 in Coleman County. They began their family right away. Larkin Eugene was their fifth child..." Read more

"About one month later, in the light of the moon, while another party of rangers, under Lieutenant Chandler, were guarding one of the passes at Santa Ann mountain, in Coleman county, through which the Indians always passed with their stolen horses in going out of Coryell and Lampasas counties, four Indians were discovered with a large cuballada of horses while attempting to pass through the gap. The ranger charged the Indians, who at once attempted to save themselves by flight..." Read more Look inside

David Rutherford, forty-eight, was serving hard time at the Ramsey State Farm fo r murdering Coleman County Deputy Sheriff Joseph Henry "Joe" Griffith, Sixty-four, at Santa Anna. Somehow for some reason "Just like anybody's grandmother..." Read more Look inside

"Me and Joe and Colt just sat in the wagon seat and looked. Beside him was the same tired sorrel he rode to our camp in Coleman County. Then Reagan and Poco and Clendenning came out of the store, siding in alongside the wagon. Shorty's ..." Read more Look inside

The Society had its beginnings at the A&M-Texas football game in 1909. The announced purpose of the society was to collect and make known to the public songs and ballads, superstitions, signs and omens, cures and peculiar customs, legends, dialects, games, plays, and dances, and riddles and proverbs. Found Inside: Lover's Leap at Santa Anna --- Austin Callan

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Found inside: "Indians, probably Comanches, had attacked settlers in Coleman County in West Texas and stolen a baby. Now the raiders were headed for the Red River and sanctuary on their reservation in the Territory. Rangers trailed the Indians westward through Runnels and Coke counties, and into Nolan County before making a grim discovery. About eight miles south of present-day Sweetwater, the rangers reined in their horses when they came up on a blanket hanging from a tree . . .  Read more Look inside

"The town of Santa Anna was settled in the early 1870s under the name "The Gap" because it sat between twin mesas in central Coleman County. The mountainous range became known as the home of the Comanche war Chief Santanna..." Read more

"The frontier had been calling to me ever since my first visit there, and I now took advantage of my father's absence to slip out to Coleman County, at that time on the frontier of Texas. Monroe Cooksey and Jack Clayton had bought a ..." Read more Look inside

Jim Jackson accompanied Col. Ranald Mackenzie into unsettled Kent County in 1875. He climbed a mountain at Polar to witness a sea of tall grass and a good stream of water. This was good news for Jackson's friends and relatives in Coleman County. Many chose to leave the crowded range and move their cattle herds west. Those who answered the call of the wild were Elkins, Mann, Brown, Overall, Sharp, Wallace..." Read more Look inside

"In 1914, he hung up his spurs, so to speak, and took "an easy job" as sheriff in Coleman county. By this time, there were fewer lawless people along the Rio Grande, so more people attended churches than before the padres came. People like Bannister tried to help people live by the Ten Commandments that the padres preached...." Read more Look inside . . . for more like this please see Texas Church History

In the first half of the twentieth century, rural Texas was a strange, often violent, and complicated place. "When young Leona Bannister carried food upstairs to feed prisoners in the Coleman County jail about 1917, she knew she would once again confront the insane man who refused to wear clothing, squatted continuously on the floor of his cell, and periodically screamed at the top of his lungs. Outside the Bannister family's jail apartment, Leona followed a normal round ..." Read more Look inside

"Maybe they're getting sign to the Talpa Mountains or to the little Coleman County peaks, telling somebody there to be on the lookout." Lets swing wide of those hills, " Joe said. " we can see the first Indians if they come down..." Read more Look inside

West Texas History & Memories (Face Book Group)

Early Life in Texas County by County

Books about Texas People and Places

Famous People from Texas County by County

Texas History in the 19th Century (Amazon)

Texas History by Category and Event