Summer Plans

Image above is of Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the United States and the birthplace of the Red River. It is located near Amarillo, Texas. Hah, and you thought the Texas panhandle was flat!

This is turning out to be an exciting summer. I can’t wait to tell the very, very few people who stumble upon my site about all the planning that is going on here in Red River Historian-ville!

First, I bought a Volkswagon Jetta TDI (diesel), and I have begun putting biodiesel B100 in my tank. I now have ca. 80% less emissions than a gas car, and I also get about 40 mpg. Not too shabby! I found a great place for biodiesel in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area, http://www.dfwbiodieselinc.com . The station is located along Long Avenue next to 35 W in Fort Worth.  The Sun Travel Plaza in Denton also sells B20, and if you happen to own (or are considering purchasing) a diesel car/truck, you can find out where you can purchase biodiesel in your neck of the woods at http://e85.whipnet.net/alt.fuel/biodiesel.stations.html (this link lists Texas only, but you can snoop around and find your own state).

Summer is going to be busy, too. In June, I’ll be attending a workshop in Michigan on the history of the Ford company’s dealings with labor issues. This workshop is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (http://www.hfcc.edu/landmarks/). I’ve got a ton of reading to get done by the time of the workshop, which will last a week. Hmm, maybe I should be reading instead of blogging…?

I also have two, possibly three trips planned, in addition to teaching a summer class. I will be making my final Bonnie and Clyde (see: http://www.redriverhistorian.com/clydeart.html ) trip in June, where I’ll be visiting sites in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. Then, I’m taking the annual pilgrimmage to Galveston to enjoy sun and surf at the Red Neck Riveria. Towards the end of summer, I’m hoping to take a week and a half to travel out west: I want to visit the Petrified Forest National Park (http://www.nps.gov/pefo), Grand Canyon National Park (http://www.nps.gov/grca) , the Bonnie and Clyde Death Car Exhibit at Primm Valley Casino in Nevada (http://www.vegas.com/attractions/outside_lasvegas/getawaycar.html) , Zion National Park (http://www.nps.gov/zion), Durango, Colorado (http://www.durango.org/), and Boise City, Oklahoma, where travelers and cattle drivers left their names on autograph rock along the Santa Fe Trail (http://www.nps.gov/archive/safe/fnl-sft/photos/okpages/phook.htm). I’ve planned the trip so that I can drive through Monument Valley (http://www.monumentvalley.com/), too. Man, I’m hoping that all works out schedule-wise and I’ll be able to do that.

Anyway… my books are coming along quite nicely, too. I should have them ready to go by the end of summer, hopefully.

Hope that whoever is out there (you are welcome to comment, I won’t bite!) will also have a great, safe, and not-too-hot summer!

Peace!

Additions to My Site = More to Explore!

This old plantation store between Shreveport and Natchitoches, Louisiana, is where sharecroppers, who were paid with scrip, would buy what they needed from the plantation owner.

I’ve always meant to add information on Lousiana and Arkansas to my site, but time constraints have never allowed me sufficient time to explore those areas as much as I wanted. Which is funny, because most of my family lives in eastern Texas and Louisiana.

I decided that this year, I will include Louisiana and Arkansas into the “fold” - after all, my site is called Red River Historian. And the river certainly runs through those states, too! The Red River has a real presence in Louisiana’s history, and althogh my focus has been on western history, I’ve made the committment (and it wasn’t hard to committ, anyway) to learn and discover more about southern history.

It’s strange how until recently, the history of the US South has not been a big interest of mine. I think it stems from the proliferation of histories that deal with the South. The South is arguably the most-studied region in US history, especially the antebellum and Civil War periods, and somtimes it’s hard to wrap my head around it. I’m not a big Civil War fan, so I will continue to “gloss over” the war except when necessary, but I am interested in the periods of Americanization after the Louisiana Purchase.  So this is good news… it means I have a lot more exciting things to discover!

 

Driving and discovering

I took a couple of roadtrips this past weekend. My road trips are usually local - I don’t drive very far because I like to know where I am. I want to see the locations behind the history. Since I’m learning so much about the history of the Red River Valley, I guess that’s why I continue to explore that region.

My class had told me about a ghost town named Dexter in Cooke County, Texas. Dexter used to be close to Gainesville, TX in size, but it was slowly abandoned after the ferry stopped running and the railroad decided not to lay its tracks around Dexter (the topography is not really suitable for tracks, as just 15 miles south the terrain is much flatter). Ergo, Dexter is a town no longer.

I found the remains of the old downtown hidden behind trees, including a vault that stands amid the foundation of what used to be the bank. Its iron shutter doors, a form of fire saftey at the turn of the century, remain intact, though the vault itself is crumbling. In a few years’ time, the entire structure will cave in on itself (maybe with the help of a few people who desire some of the loose bricks).

Besides the vault, a church, and two cemeteries, an old store (?) school (?) is the only builidng left standing in this once busy town that hugged the Red River.

As usual, I started to contemplate the fragility of the human story in the American West. Far from being unique, ghost towns litter the landscape around here, testament to the many failures of the capitalistic experiment the West was to settlers, immigrants, and industry. Withits few ruins, Dexter symbolizes the tenuous hold that people had in this region, and the rapidity of development and progress - founded in 1873 (Post Office opening), the city of Dexter had outlived its purpose by1900.

I love to read these ruins, because I feel that when I do, I allow the story to continue.

Bad History

A crowd strains its collective neck to watch the last public hanging at the jail in Denton, Texas (the jail is no longer there, having succumbed to a parking lot). 

I’m giving a class about “Bad History” right now. No, not “bad” as in “many errors and too much traditionalist interpretations,” but “bad” as in: seedy stuff, women who took the wrong paths, outlaws, and so forth. It’s a broad topic and very interesting. I learned quite a bit about the seedy side of Dallas and Fort Worth. Talk about your “bad” towns!