Texas Originals

Eugene C. Barker, in the words of his biographer, "did more than any other historian to show the influence that Texas exerted in shaping the destiny of the United States." As a scholar, Barker furthered the study of Texas and expanded the Texas State Historical Association. In 1925, he published the first biography of Stephen F. Austin. Through this and other works, Barker made narratives of the borderlands central to American history.

Known as "Miss Amarillo," Laura V. Hamner devoted much of her life to recording and sharing the history of the Texas Panhandle. She became known for "prowling" the region, interviewing ranchers, cowboys, and pioneers—and once boldly facing gunfire to meet with a former outlaw. Hamner’s books are now regarded as invaluable sources of Texas ranching history.

Writer and promoter Jane Cazneau helped shape Texas and American history in the mid-nineteenth century. Working as a journalist in the 1840s and 50s, she campaigned tirelessly for Texas independence. Her columns in periodicals such as the New York Sun helped sway public opinion in support of Texas statehood—and America's "manifest destiny" more generally.

Acclaimed singer and actress Etta Moten Barnett was born in Weimar, Texas, in 1901. By the age of ten, she was singing in the choir of her father’s church. Thirty-three years later, at the invitation of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, she became the first African American woman to sing at the White House. Barnett starred on Broadway, most notably as Bess in a revival of Porgy and Bess. She charmed audiences around the world singing in concerts with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. She was also deeply involved in civic affairs, women’s issues, and causes such as African independence.

Empresario Martín De León founded the city of Victoria and played a key role in settling the Texas Coastal Bend. De León oversaw the only empresario grant to attract large numbers of settlers from Mexico rather than the United States. As tensions rose between Anglo American colonists and the Mexican government, De León’s life illustrates how complicated loyalty was for Tejanos during the struggle for Texas independence.

Gail Borden Jr. was undaunted by failure. In the 1840s he built a wagon meant to travel on land and water but did neither successfully. His nutritional biscuits made from dehydrated meat and flour were unpalatable. Yet Borden kept at it. In the 1850s, he developed a way to condense milk—and this time, succeeded on a grand scale.

Texas became a two-party state in 1961, when conservative Republican John Tower was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was the first Republican senator from Texas since Reconstruction. During four senate terms, Tower was a master at moving legislation through Congress and a political mentor to many Texas Republicans, including future President George H. W. Bush.

In 1890, James Stephen Hogg became the state's first native-born governor. Six-foot-two and nearly three hundred pounds, "Big Jim," as he was known, vigorously fought for the interests of the common citizen. At the forefront of the Progressive reform movement in Texas, Hogg opposed abuses by insurance companies, railroad monopolies, and land corporations.

Born in Indiana in 1859, writer Andy Adams lived the cowboy life on the Texas plains. He later rendered those experiences in classic novels such as The Log of a Cowboy (1903) to set Americans straight about life in the West.

A self-described "student and jealous lover of Texas history," Adina De Zavala is best known for barricading herself for three days in the Alamo in 1908 to protest plans for its destruction.

Plácido Benavides is called the "Paul Revere of Texas" for his role in the Texas Revolution, as he was dispatched to Goliad to alert others of the Mexican army's approach. Although he had joined the Texians in opposing Mexican dictator Santa Anna, Benavides was fighting for Texas as part of a federalist Mexico, not for Texas independence.

Karle Wilson Baker was Texas's most celebrated poet in the first half of the twentieth century. Originally born in Arkansas, she fell under the spell of her adopted state, writing about the role of Texans in the American drama. Her collection of poems Dreamers on Horseback was nominated for the 1931 Pulitzer Prize.

After receiving a land grant from the Spanish government, Moses Austin planned to establish the first American colony in Spanish Texas. However, he died before his colonial dream became a reality. His son, Stephen F. Austin, succeeded him as leader of the Texas colony.

Texarkana's Scott Joplin is one the most popular songwriters in American history. At the turn of the twentieth century, he was known as the "King of Ragtime."

Lawyer and federal judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes is best known for administering the oath of office to Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One after John F. Kennedy's assassination. Over the course of her remarkable career, she championed equal rights and encouraged women to get involved in politics, illustrating her lifelong belief that "women can indeed be a force in history."

James Fannin led the Texas rebels massacred at Goliad in 1836. His defeat inspired the victory that secured Texas independence.

Librarian and historian Nettie Lee Benson rose from a bookish South Texas childhood to assemble one of the world’s leading archives for research on Latin America. Now, scholars from around the world visit the Austin library bearing her name.

Journalist, playwright, and raconteur Larry L. King spent most of his life in Washington, DC, but the vivid language and distinctive characters of his home state of Texas never ceased to inspire him. Texas, he once said, "provided me with the stuff of a career," and his work endures as a vibrant chronicle of the state's politics, culture, and personalities.

San Marcos native Cleto Rodríguez was born in 1923. By the age of nine, he had lost both his parents and was raised in San Antonio by relatives. Rodríguez began his military career in 1944 when he joined the Army. For his heroism in World War II, he received the nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor. Rodríguez was the fifth Mexican American ever to earn this honor—and one of fourteen Texans who earned it during World War II.

Cherokee leader Chief Bowl, also known as "Bowles" and "Duwali," was born in North Carolina around 1756 to a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother. In the early nineteenth century, Bowl led the first large Cherokee emigration west of the Mississippi River—to Missouri, then Arkansas, and finally to the Mexican province of Texas. There, in a settlement near Nacogdoches, Bowl headed an alliance of Cherokee villages and later perished in battle while fighting for Cherokee land rights..