To read more and look inside an individual book just tap an image below

"In 1985 I had to wave graciously from the prow of a Buick at a Parker family reunion parade in Quanah, Texas . Hell's hinges can't compare with the hood of a Buick at noontime in August in Quanah , Texas . It's damned difficult to wave graciously when the tail end of your fuselage is  on fire ..." Read more Look inside

by Bill Neal

"About six o'clock on the evening of July 18, 1915, the entire Morris family went on a revenge crazed rampage and killed Garland Radford in the yard of their home in Quanah Texas. Winnie shot him with with a pistol. Ewell shot him with a pistol, and father Bob let him have it with a shotgun. They all kept firing until they ran out of bullets. Then Momma Morris, who didn't have a gun, ran to where the prostrate victim lay, shouting for a hatchet..." Read more Look inside

"The Welborn Griffiths moved to Quanah in 1909 with Web and his two little brothers, Phillip and Lawrence. There Welborn's brother Fuller---who went by F. O.---owned a grocery he'd bought out from and operated with two brother. Upon arriving in town, Welborn worked for F. O. For a year and then bought in as partner at F.O. Griffith & Co. Now in 1914, change was driving Web's world. Familiar smells of cattle, horse, and sheep manure were being overpowered by coal smoke, fueled by the arrival of hundred of settlers annually, enticed to Quanah by cheap railroad tickets and promotions for ranchland, principally promoted by the Quanah Tribune-Chief ..." Read more Look Inside

Robert Flynn has built a richly humorous, poignantly tragic novel around a cattle drive that forces cowboys to herd cattle on foot, to lower themselves to milk a wild longhorn, to tend a baby as well as a herd.... "Robert Flynn, born 12 April 1932 in Chillicothe, Texas, is an author and Professor Emeritus at Trinity University. Flynn's early fame came with the novel North to Yesterday, which was a national bestseller ..." Read more Look inside or browse more books by this Chillicothe Texas Native

"Jim and Myrtle married in Quanah, Texas, on January 12 , 1901. Their first child , Suetta Gafford , was born October 20, 1901. The next year , a son , Gordon , was born to the union , followed several years thereafter by a second daughter, Jim Lois Gafford ..." Read more Look inside

The names of the seven Mercury astronauts were announced in April 1959 amid a flurry of publicity and patriotism. This work provides biographical details of all thirty-two finalists for the seven coveted places as America's pioneering astronauts. ""Edward Galen Givens, Jr. was born on January 5, 1930 to Helen (Jarrell) and Edward (Bill) Galen Givens, who worked as a bookkeeper in the small farming town of Quanah in the bend of the Texas panhandle. He proved quite bright scholastically, and when he reached Quanah High School he took on extra courses in order to skip a year and graduate early. His ambition and passion from a very early age was to become a pilot..." Read more Look inside

by Charles Brashear

"The women and children stayed in the camp on the Pease River, near present-day Quanah, Texas, making hides and meat for the winter. On 18 December 1860, this little band was massacred by a party of Texas Rangers. Cynthia Ann and her daughter ..." Read more Look inside

"The captain's most famous gunfight took place on the streets of Quanah on December 09, 1893. While half the town watched in fascination, a classic western encounter and gunfight began as two sworn enemies---both prominent law officers---opened fire at arms length wile Sheriff Coffer stood between the..." Read more Look inside

"Lewis Franklin arrived back at the rooming house in Chillicothe, Texas, where he'd lived for the past several years. Accompanying him was Sam Hysmith, another resident of the house and a fellow fiddling contest competitor ..." Read more Look inside

Desperate to strike it rich during the Western Gold Rushes and eager for the free land afforded them through the Homestead Act, men went west alone and sacrificed many creature comforts. Only after they arrived at their destinations did some of them realize how much they missed female companionship. " Thirty-three year old Eva was living in Quanah, Texas, when she received a copy of the matrimonial publication. If Carroll had been less eager to marry, he might have noticed the immature tone Eva's letter possessed ..." Read more Look inside

"On December 9, 1893, Matthews and two companions came down to Quanah for a meeting with the Hardeman County sheriff. That evening at the train depot the Matthews party came face-to-face with McDonald. After a brief exchange of words, both men drew their pistols and started firing. Both went down, severely wounded. Two of McDonald's bullets hit Matthews above the heart but were stopped by a tobacco plug and a notebook. McDonald took bullets in the neck and shoulder and had his lung punctured and ribs shattered. In a puzzle never solved, the rounds that felled Matthews came in three different calibers from somewhere in his rear and ..." Read more Look inside

by James Glynn Jordan

"I was three years old when Dad gave up farming and we moved to Chillicothe, Texas. Dad worked at the oil mill there for a few months, then moved to Quanah, Texas. Dad took a job with C.B. Simpson Coal and Feed Company when I was about four years old. He traveled west Texas and southern Oklahoma to buy grain. Occasionally, Dad would take me to work with him when he was in town. I can still remember the first bottle of soda pop I drank. C. B. Simpson had a pop box in the front room of the feed store..." Read more

This tale of scheming has its roots over a century before Jonathan is even born. Comanche Chief Peta Nocona, his son Quanah Parker, and the captivating area around Quanah, Texas are the setting for this fascinating story. Chief Peta Nocona’s Fifth-Son Vision and Prophecy while atop Medicine Mound, leads to adventure, intrigue and danger for young Jonathan Parker. Will he succeed? And if he doesn’t, who will take his place as the Fifth-Son? ... Read more Look inside

by Jerry McKee Bullock

"I was born in Ralls, Texas, while my dad was president of the Chamber of Commerce. Later we lived in Quanah where he had the same position. There was a short stay in Abilene and then back to Lubbock when he became a civil servant with the National Youth Administration. I was an only child and spent more time with professional adults than in playtime with children..." Read more Look inside

"In the eastern portion of the county the Belcher brothers of Gainsville had founded the R2 Ranch in the 1870s, with headquarters in a dugout on the Wanderers Creek, about three miles south of the present town of Chillicothe. Gotch's greatest achievement came at a roundup near where Chillicothe, Texas, now stands, where Julie, as Wagon boss, was trimming up a herd for the trail. In bring in a two-year-old heifer down alongside the herd in a run toward the ..." Read more Look inside

Ceil Cleveland and Larry McMurtry grew up as friends in the little Texas town of Archer City, fictionalized by McMurtry in The Last Picture Show, which later became a film by Peter Bogdanovich. Among the locals, Cleveland has long been assumed to be the principal model for the novel’s iconic character, Jacy Farrow—played in the movie by Cybill Shepherd. In this memoir, Cleveland recalls a girl’s life in small-town Texas. "I wrote him a letter requesting permission to stage the play in Chillicothe, Texas. Well , why not ? I still had some of that old Jacy hubris buried somewhere , despite being a boring wife and mom who had never set foot in Greenwich ..." Read more Look inside

This is an eclectic array of seventeen essays, all of which will evoke a direct and immediate response. Ranging from humorous to satirical, from persuasive to sarcastic, Flynn moves from preaching to the choir to preaching at the choir. "He was born and grew up in Chillicothe, Texas, on a farm that has been in the family for over 100 years . The place might be labeled " mighty plain," typical of scores of rural , hard - scrabble locations in West Texas..." Read more

This guidebook allows Texas natives and visitors to experience the Texas landscape as the Indians once knew it. "Medicine Mounds commands a long stretch of the Red River country. an excellent view of the mounds is had from the roadside park on U.S. 287 about six miles west of Chillicothe. Closer views are available by heading south from the highway on the grid of secondary roads ..." Read more Look inside

"The next move was a big one. The family, now consisting of Llerena, Papa, Mama, and baby brother Ben, left Dublin on the Texas Central, changed to the Denver at Fort Worth, and headed west to Chillicothe in Hardeman County. Chillicothe was at the junction of the Denver and Orient Railroads, a strategic location for a warehouse for the Waples-Platter Grocery Company, for which Llerena's father, Everest MacDonald Friend, was a traveling salesman. The family had no sooner settled n Chillicothe than Papa was off on his routes, leaving Mama and the children together but alone in a strange place. It was March and the weather was, well, Texas weather. The clouds were black and the hailstones were big, but the neighbors were kind and ..." Read more Look inside

Author J.C.R. Forehand used the names of his friends and neighbors in this intriguing book about a German soldier who avoided Sergeant York's capture. Real Names, Fictional Characters:

Johann Peter Jung, my wife's relative

Dr. Edgar A. Vestal, Quanah, Texas Hospital Head

Milton Koeniger, neighbor in Chillicothe, Texas

Charley Biggerstaff, farmer near Chillicothe, Texas

Ronald Lee Jones, ... Read More Look inside

"I didn't know it was possible to be from Chillicothe, Texas, and be a writer. In time, I became all three, sometimes at the same time. Chillicothe was the kind of place where it took a village to have an idea. For a good idea, ..." Read more Look Inside

"If you're from Chillicothe, Texas, sometimes you get the feeling it's not a real place. It's one of those hallucinations folks have. Like Albuquerque. People have heard of Albuquerque, although everyone knows it's not a real place. "Chillicothe," folks say. "Never heard of it."... Maybe the reason Chillicothe isn't real is because Chillicothe doesn't have much reason for existence. The only reason it's there is to give folks from Vernon and Quanah something to feel superior about ..." Read more Look inside

These are the chronicles of the trail drivers of Texas those rugged men and, sometimes, women who drove cattle and horses up the trails from Texas to northern markets in the late 1800s.

"We drove our herd across the plains to Quanah, where we were quarantined for several weeks on account of Texas fever. While we were here holding our cattle it came up a severe rainstorm one night and we had another stampede ..." Read more Look inside

Clara's husband freighted goods from Quanah, Texas, with a four- horse team for the munificent sum of a dollar a day. She recalled, “This was considered good wages. The roads were awfully bad and it usually took him four days to make the ... Read more Look inside

Quanah, Texas in 1872. The Kwahadas' primary economic resource was stolen Texas cattle, hardly the basis of a traditional Numunu lifestyle. Thomas Kavanagh's exhaustive sifting of the documentary record pertaining to Comanche ... Read more Look inside

A crack shot, expert skinner and tanner, seamstress, sculptor, and later writer—a list that only hints at her intelligence and abilities—Ella Elgar Bird Dumont was one of those remarkable women who helped tame the Texas frontier. "Quanah, Texas, was established in Hardeman County in 1884, just across the Red River from the southwestern portion of the Indian reservation of the town's namesake—Quanah Parker. Southeast of the town are conical, flat topped hills ... Read more Look inside

The speech that he gave at Quanah, Texas was quoted by the Quanah Tribune - Chief as follows : It is well , you have done a good thing in honor of a man who has tried to do right both to the people of his tribe and to his pale - faced friends. May the God of the white man bless the town of Quanah, May the sun shine and rain fall upon the fields and the granaries be filled. " ... Read more Look inside

by John Labban

Phillip Dexter and his family moved to the pristine city of Quanah, Texas in the summer of 1988 seeking the American Dream. Ronald Dexter left Edmonton, Alberta to work for the powerful oil giant Tricon Enterprise. Life was great until the horrifying accident one summer night in 1991 changed all their lives. With a greedy and reckless Ceo, Tricon Enterprise works to shield the real truth behind the tragedy. Phillip's desire to seek revenge for his father's death pits him against the powerful oil giant, Tricon Enterprise, the legendary Ceo Frank Beasley, and his son Mark Beasley. Phillip's quest for revenge is at a standstill ... Read more Look inside

Before boundaries were drawn and states were born, there lived a man named Quanah Parker. He was half white and half Comanche but, in his heart, he was one hundred percent Comanche. "n 1884, the town of Quanah, Texas was named in his honor. On the same land where his father before him hunted buffalo, Quanah Parker invested in his own railroad... " Read more Look inside

The fierce Texas sun was incinerating its way toward another 101-degree day on a Saturday morning in early June as the procession began its solemn trek through the half-abandoned downtown of Quanah, Texas, population 2,437. A muscular young man named Ronnie McSwain led the way, dressed in a bright yellow vest and pants with white fringe and moccasins and a bristling array of eagle feathers ..." Read more Look inside

"While stationed at Quanah, Texas, I was notified one evening by Col. Rush that Dock James, alias Dock Mayes, a noted horse thief, was camping near Quanah, and that he was stealing cattle and throughout that part of the country. Col. Rush had just arrived in Quanah on the train from Colorado City. He told me that he had two herds of cattle, near Quanah, that had been driven from Colorado City by his hands. As Mayes was wanted in seven counties, I thought I had better make good work of him; so I took Frank Hofer, a ranger, and Bob Collier, a deputy sheriff, and started after this cattle thief ..." Read more

"In 1911, the year of Quanah's death, Medicine Mound ( a small town named after the mounds) was founded just east of its namesakes. In it heyday, the community was home to twenty-two businesses and five hundred citizens. In 1933, a fire burned the town of Medicine Mound to the ground, and it never recovered. Though it's still shown on Texas maps, the last business closed in 1966, and the population is officially zero. Medicine Mounds and the benevolent spirit that that reportedly inhabits them ..." Read more Look inside

"Not many people will have heard of Quanah, Texas. When Harry Koch arrived in Quanah in 1888, the post office had been opened only two years before his arrival, and the first two churches, a Baptist church and a Methodist church, were also established in that year. It was the time of the railroads, and Quanah at one time was served by three railroads ..." Read more Look inside

"Twain married 2) Edith Maureen Merritt on 9 Aug 1952 in Quanah, Texas. Edith was born on 7 Feb 1914 in Texas and died on 4 May 2005 in Quanah, Texas. Twain, Esther, and Edith were buried in Quanah Memorial Park, Quanah, Hardeman, Texas ... " Read more Look inside

by William T. Hagan

The son of white captive Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah Parker rose from able warrior to tribal leader on the Comanche reservation. Between 1875 and his death in 1911 ... "This particular story had been datelined Quanah, Texas, the railroad town in North Texas named in honor of Cynthia Ann's son, and had been reprinted in the New York Times ..." Read more Look inside

"I have seen quite a few of the Comanche Indians at Quanah, Texas when we lived there. Have seen the chief of the Comanche tribe, Quanah Parker, many times. He was a friend of my father, S. A. Neely. The customs of the Comanche Indians, of which is the only tribe I know much about, was all rode horseback, the men wore long hair, with a hat of feathers, also lots of beads. The men carried bow and arrows. The women wore blankets and carried their babies strapped on their back. They ate raw meat, when they came to the fair at Quanah. They would kill a beef, hang it on a line, and at night they would have a war dance. One of their ..." Read more Look inside

The Iron Horse forever changed the American West, from a wild frontier to a network of scattered settlements tied together by steel rails. Behind the romantic image of the galloping Iron Horse, however, lies a rich history of American business activity. Railway giants have dominated this history, but small companies such as the Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railway Company (QA&P), a short line that operated in four counties of northwestern Texas from near the turn of the century into the 1980s, had just as great an impact in their areas of operation as the giants did on the national scene . . . Read more

by J. Frank Dobie

"This legend was contributed by a University of Texas student named W. A. Darter, from Hardeman County, a number of years ago. He says that though some of the details are "made up" the main incidents are based on legendary material current in the country of the Mounds. The Medicine Mounds, as they are called today, are located about nine miles southeast of Quanah ..." Read more Look inside

"...About a group of men n Hardeman County, Texas, she wrote a fifteen-paragraph caption, which included a number of quotations from them. All seven were on relief and told the usual story of eviction, but Lange elicited more information from them: "None of us vote. It costs us $3.50 poll tax for a married man and wife to vote in Texas." "We used to go to church when we had better clothes." The big landowners are on the WPA Committee, and they want us cut off so we can work for them for a few days at $1.50 a day harvesting their wheat..." Read more Look inside

"According to the insurance forms, she was born Judias Anna Lou Welty in Quanah, Hardeman County, Texas, just below the Panhandle, not too far south of the Oklahoma border, on April 4, 1943. Her father was Zia Jesse Otto Welty, an itinerant farm worker. Her mother, Judias Mary Lou Northam, was a full-blooded Apache. Judias claimed the Apache chief Geronimo was her great-great-granddaddy ..." Read more Look inside

"Before 1890 the small community of Margaret served as the county seat of Hardeman County, Texas But residents of Quanah wanted to have the county seat subsequently found a unique law that worked in their favor. Margaret, at that time, was larger than Quanah and had more males of voting age. Thus the citizens of Margaret thought they could easily outvote the citizens of Quanah if ever the question of moving the county seat should appear on a ballot. But Quanah found a way to add to its list of voters..." Read more Look inside

"Recall that John Shumate and Bert Sexton had been indicted by the Hardeman County, Texas, district court for committing perjury in the George Isaacs trial. Years Later, Charles Cary recalled that the Sextons (George and Bert) and the Shumate brothers Will and John  were hand in glove with the outlaws ..." Read more Look inside

Discovering the Past: The Story of Quanah, Texas Volume 1, takes you back to the early days of Quanah. Quanah was a frontier, railroad town filled with interesting tales. In Volume 1, you will find the story of Texas Ranger Captain William J. McDonald hunting down a Quanah banker on the run to Mexico. Captain McDonald’s personal banker embezzled from one of Quanah’s first banks, and once his story unraveled, he took the first train towards Mexico. In 1891, Quanah was nearly wiped off the map by the Great Flood of 1891... Read more Look inside

The second in the series of Discovering the Past: Stories of Quanah, Texas, picks up right where the first book left off. Volume 2 tells the story of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald’s gunfight at the train depot with the Childress County Sheriff. Multiple fires sweep through downtown Quanah in 1891. Quanah’s residents fight to save downtown. In the early 1910s, Quanah was growing and expanding quickly ... Read more Look inside

A compilation of articles, biographies, and stories on the history of Hardeman County, Texas, including its towns and communities as well as the early-day families and the establishment of its schools, churches, clubs and businesses ... Read more Look inside

Sergeant Ellis White had the Yankee colonel in the crosshairs of the Amadon telescopic sight on the J.F. Brown sniper rifle and knew his index finger just had to squeeze the trigger, but he paused. He hadn’t wanted to be the regimental sniper in the first place because he thought it was a cowardly way of fighting. Ellis had been fighting in this war since the beginning and was tired of it. He just wanted to go back to his ranch in Hardeman County ... Read more Look inside

The extremely varied geography of Texas, ranging from lush piney woods to arid, mountainous deserts, has played a major role in the settlement and development of the state. To gain full perspective on the influence of the land on the people of Texas, you really have to take to the air―and the authors of Historic Texas from the Air have done just that. "Archaeological and Documentary Research at Medicine Mounds Ranch, Hardeman County, Texas... 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