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Texas Standard is celebrating its 10th birthday by looking back on 10 years of covering Texas. One way we’re going to do that is with top 10 lists. We started by counting down our top 10 Stories from Texas from commentator W.F. Strong.
The full transcript of this episode of Stories from Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Laura Rice [00:00:00] From history to law, the personal to the universal, or featuring the work of one of the most beloved contributors of our team today on the Texas Standard.
Announcer [00:00:16] Texas standard is a production of KUT Austin. KERA North Texas. Houston Public Media. And Texas Public Radio in San Antonio.
Laura Rice [00:00:25] I’m Laura Rice. And have you guessed yet? Today is all stories from Texas, some of them true? Yup. All this final day of 2024, we’re celebrating the work of Texas standard commentator W.F.Strong. We’ve combed through nearly a decade of his contributions to the show and picked out our favorites. Are yours on the list? Here are a couple of hints. Is at least two about family members. One about a long time Texas company to have ties to Hollywood and at least one wouldn’t be so popular with Texas as neighboring states. A special W.F. Strong edition of The Standard is just ahead. From the Red River to the Rio Grande and all places in between. It’s the Texas standard for this final day of 2024. I’m Laura Rice. And do you know what’s coming up tomorrow? Yes, 2025. But do you know what’s special about 2025? Well, it’s our 10th birthday and we decided that even though the day isn’t coming up until March, Texas Standard is going to celebrate all year long. We’ll be sharing birthday messages asking you to join in. We’ll be having birthday parties and special swag. More details on all of that to come. And we’ll be looking back on ten years of covering Texas. One way we’re going to do that is with top ten lists. And we’re going to start with our top ten stories from Texas. From commentator W.F. Strong, We put this list together very scientifically by asking some staffers about their faves and examining a few web stats. We’ll start at the bottom and make our way up. So here it is. Number ten, a story about three gifts to one institution that led to a fourth gift for all.
W.F. Strong [00:02:11] In 1926, a bachelor banker died in Paris, Texas. A rich bachelor banker that is in his will. The banker left 90% of his money to the University of Texas to buy a telescope and build an observatory. The maker’s name was William Johnson McDonald. Well, as you might expect, Mr. MacDonald’s relatives didn’t like him leaving all that money for a telescope. They believed that anyone who would do such a thing must be, by definition, a bit crazy. So they sued. Fortunately, Mr. MacDonald had shared his telescope dream with, of all people, his barber. He said that astronomy was a young science of great potential if it had the right funding, and he hoped that one day a telescope would be built that would allow astronomers to see the gold plated streets of heaven. He was also well known as an amateur scientist, so the jury had little trouble believing that his wish was the product of a sane mind. Upon appeal, his relatives got more than MacDonald had left them. But you ended up with about $800,000, which is still 11 million in today’s money. Once you had the money, they had to go shopping for a mountain to put the observatory on. That must have been fun. Lucky for you, they were located in a state that had West Texas in it with some of the finest stargazing potential in North America. They found what they were looking for out by Fort Davis. It had no official name, but the locals called it Flattop Mountain. President Henri Benedict of Utah wrote a letter to the owner of that mountain, Mrs. Violet MacGyver. He told her of MacDonald’s gift and of the university’s great need for a mountain to put the university on. Benedict wrote that her mountain was ideally suited for such an observatory that, quote, optical test already made showed that the Davis Mountains region was the best in Texas, perhaps the best in the United States for astronomical purposes. He asked her if she might consider giving her mountain to science. I think Violet surprised him when she did just that. She wrote back almost immediately and gave you to the entire top of the mountain. 200 acres. She also gave you to the land to build a road to the summit. The resulting highway spur A78 is, to this day, the highest highway in Texas. YouTube built the observatory named it for William Johnson McDonald. The mountain was officially named Mount Locke after Violet’s grandfather, G.S. Locke, from whom she had inherited it. Violet wrote to UT and said she was delighted to, quote, have her grandfather’s name perpetuated in the Davis Mountains. She said he would have been pleased to leave his name among the mountains, which he had known and loved so long as gifts inspired gifts. Only five months after Violet gave her mountain to UT, the estate of longtime Fort Davis, Judge Edwin H. Fox donated the adjoining mountain known as Little Flattop. The Fox estate donated a total of 200 acres, and that mountain was formally named Fox Mountain in his honor. Three gifts for Texas, an observatory and two mountains. These collectively gave us a fourth gift. One of the world’s leading centers of astronomical research, in fact. These gifts gave us the heavens themselves, as MacDonald predicted. I’m strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
Laura Rice [00:05:43] Texans are noted for a certain personal pride in being, well, Texan. It’s something we’ve strong has often explored in his commentaries, like this one from 2018. If you’ve been in Texas for any amount of time, you’ve likely seen the native Tex. Sent bumper sticker on more than a few vehicles, but more Texan than commentator W.F. Strong will. You might want to take that up with him directly.
W.F. Strong [00:06:08] About a month ago, my son went off to college with my jeep and I needed to get another vehicle. I had been truck lists for a few years, a rare condition in my life, and I decided I wanted to fix that right away. For a long time, I had wanted a King Ranch Edition Ford pickup with those fine leather seats carrying the classic brand of the ranch I hunted on as a boy. So now I had the chance. And the reason to buy one with two kids in college, It was no time to splurge on a new one, but I thought I might find a previously owned truck that would satisfy my longing. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I was able to search for just what I wanted. A one owner vehicle in near mint condition being sold by an owner who had elaborate maintenance records and a pristine Carfax report. I found what I was looking for in San Antonio, 300 miles from where I live in the valley. So I contacted the owner and we made a gentleman’s agreement as to price over the phone and I headed up to look at it. I loved it. Beautiful truck, dark brown with tan trim, meticulously maintained. I said, Let’s do it. So he pulled out the title to begin the paperwork, and I was surprised to see that his name was William B Travis. I said, I guess, you know, you’re kind of famous. He said, Yes, I do have a famous name and I have the whole name, too. I’m William Barret Travis, and I’m also a descendant. I was astounded by the coincidence. I thought, here I am, a specialist in Texas. Law and legend about to buy a King Ranch pickup from a descendant of the commander of the Alamo. And he still lives in San Antonio. How cool is that? In the favorite word of my teenage son. Awesome. We finished up the paperwork and payment, and he walked me out and gave me a detailed tour of the unique features of the truck and directions on how to get back to the expressway to head home. I could tell he was a little sad to let go of the pickup. They’d had many good years together. I said, I promise I’ll take good care of her. So I drove my new truck. New to me. Anyway, back to the valley. It was good to be riding high in the saddle once more. Driving into a blustery coastal wind without breaking a sweat. In fact, I drove my King Ranch Edition pickup with its Alamo lineage back through the actual King Ranch while eating a water burger and listening to Willie Nelson’s on the road again. I just have one thing to say about Texas Me that the only thing that would have made it better is if Southwest Airlines had done a flyby at 200ft and given me a wing salute. I’m strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
Laura Rice [00:09:10] After New Year’s. The next big holiday on the calendar is Valentine’s. I’ll be honest, it’s not my favorite, but love can come in many forms. In number eight on our top ten stories from Texas List. Commentator W.F. Strong explores one unexpected way Love entered his life.
W.F. Strong [00:09:29] At 60 years of age. I didn’t expect ever to fall in love again. I thought that sort of euphoric madness that comes with infatuation was all in the past reserved for younger people. But I was wrong when she came into my life. The world stopped and changed forever. I first saw and photographed. Someone showed me pictures, black and white, grainy photos. She was interesting, but the pictures didn’t do her justice. When I met her in person, I thought she was the most beautiful creature in the world. She was seven and a half pounds and 19in of perfection. At 60, she was my first little girl. Perhaps not a bona fide miracle, but for me, she was. We named her Scarlet and Paloma Maria after her two grandmothers. That very night, I began keeping a journal for her. I wrote. You were just a day old, though. You were my only girl. Which makes you precious beyond measure. I will keep this little journal of our first years together. I will tell you what amazed you and what delighted you. I will do all I can, as will your mama, to make sure that you are exposed to all the influences that will make you an extraordinary woman. Three years have passed. Now. People have started asking me how raising a girl, at least for me, is different from raising boys. I say don’t know much, but let me tell you what I didn’t know when she came along. Until I had a girl I didn’t know about. Spontaneous politeness and gratitude returning from the beach. She said.
Scarlet [00:11:06] Thank you taking me three to be.
Scarlet [00:11:08] Taken.
W.F. Strong [00:11:08] Until I had a girl. I didn’t have a child who thought I had superpowers. She handed me scissors and a paper and said, Can you make me a bicycle? I said, How about a rectangle? Until I had a girl, I sang the lullabies, but she’s not pleased with the way I sing them. So she often takes over.
W.F. Strong [00:11:27] Clean, girl. Clean.
W.F. Strong [00:11:29] Going to die. How I wonder.
W.F. Strong [00:11:34] What you.
W.F. Strong [00:11:35] Are. Until I had a girl, I wasn’t awakened this way.
Scarlet [00:11:38] Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Dad. Happy birthday to.
W.F. Strong [00:11:45] You. I couldn’t have been any more moved if it had actually been my birthday. Until I had a girl. I never got my nails painted. And then I forgot about it. And later that afternoon, I suddenly realized that I was likely the only guy at the gun show with Autumn missed nails until I had a girl. I never had a child so empathetic. She wants to know how I’m feeling, if I’m happy or sad, or if anything hurts, and if I might need a doctor. And lucky for me, she happens to be one. Until I had a girl, I didn’t have a child so self-aware. I asked her if she was mama’s girl or daddy’s girl, and she said, I’m Scarlett’s girl. You got to love that. Until I had a girl, I didn’t know that Valentine’s Day was so important. It’s her favorite holiday along with Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and July the 4th. But truly with her loving heart. Valentine’s was made for her.
Scarlet [00:12:44] You’ll be my Valentine, Dada.
W.F. Strong [00:12:46] Yes. Always and forever. And your mama’s too. After all, she did give me you. I’m going to be a strong. These are stories from Texans. Some of them are. Wonderfully true.
Laura Rice [00:13:05] We’re counting down our top ten stories from Texas. All your favorites make the cut. Stick around.
Announcer [00:13:12] Support for Texas Standard comes from the Texas April program, a tax advantaged savings program helping eligible Texans with disabilities save for the future. Learn more, including how the program works with certain public benefits at Texas abel.org.
Laura Rice [00:13:29] This is the Texas Standard. I’m Laura Rice. Already in the program, we’ve heard some stories from Texas that represent the classic style of commentator w f strong. Some stories are about his loved ones, others about what makes Texas unique and still others that explore his own particular sense of history, like this one that’ll have you looking at things differently on your next drive around some ranch land.
W.F. Strong [00:13:53] Historian J. Evans. Haley wrote that in its time, the old lakeside ranch up in the Texas Panhandle was probably the largest fenced range in the world. He recalled that its barbed wire enclosed over 3 million acres of land at the north end alone. The fence ran for 162 miles. The unique enclosure helped keep an enormous cattle herds kept out rustlers and also gave rise to the creative use of a new technology. The telephone. I’ll come back to the exciting in a moment, but first, consider the smattering of reports from that era. In 1897, the Electrical Review reported that on a ranch in California, telephone communication had been established between the various camps by means of barbed wire fences. The article says that the novel use of the phone was a great success and was being used in Texas as well. That same year, the New England Journal of Agriculture was impressed that two Kansas farmers living a mile apart had attached telephone instruments to the barbed wire fence that connects their places and established easy communication from the Butte Intermountain in 1902. We see this notice. Fort Benton’s latest development is a barbed wire telephone communication. The article points out that people of the range were not all that happy with barbed wire, which they thought was an evil that had arrived with the railroad. But they had decided to look at the practical side of its existence and use it to create a telephone exchange that would connect all the ranches to Fort Benton on the exit. Given that the ranch covered over 40 500mi², there was interest in creating a communication system that would be more efficient than sending out fast riders to distant camps. In the early 1900s, Haiti reported a great many telephones were placed upon the ranch, where possible. The top line to the fences was used as a telephone line. Though the service was atrocious. It did allow for quick communication concerning emergencies such as a grass fire that required all the cowboys immediately. There was even talk among technology geeks of the era that cowboys could carry phones wherever they went and clip on to the fence to report problems they encountered. Having said that, the old cowboys no doubt scoffed at the notion of carrying phones in their saddlebags to squawk about every escaped bull or rattlesnake bite they came across. The Cowboys, always ingenious when it came to invention, perfected the barbed wire phone systems by adding insulators. They’d use old broken whiskey bottles and soda pop bottles, particularly the necks of them to put under the wire, to lift it off the fence and improve conductivity. This made the signal go further and clarified. The voices that carried the rudimentary phone systems of the ranches led to more creative thinking about rural phone systems in general. Dr. Don Anderson, who has his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford and is a technological historian, told me that the barbed wire phone systems led to the and a logical conclusion that using whatever is already in place is smart planning. So when rural Texas wanted to extend phone service from town to town, the engineers came up with the idea that they could use the existing rural power lines already installed by the Rural Electrification Act and run the phone signal right through the electric lines just at a different frequency. That saved a lot of money and brought phone service along with electricity to rural areas. Still many ranches and like their barbed wire systems and kept them even though the voice quality wasn’t nearly as good. As late as the early 1970s, a dairy farmer I knew had a barbed wire phone running from his house a half a mile to the barn. He said it was good for talking to his wife about what time supper was. But most of all, he said, it’s free. I don’t have to pay my bill anything for that phone. And I enjoy thinking that it’s a burr in their saddle. Dr. Anderson told me that it’s quite fascinating to consider that what started as a fence system on the site evolved really into what is today Excite Communications, which serves that region today. Excite Communications provides phone service and high speed Internet to rural communities in the footprint of the original ranch and more. I’m w strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them. Our true.
Laura Rice [00:18:29] And you’re listening to The Texas Standard. When you’re working on a story about butter, there’s little margin for error, especially when that butter comes in a package labeled a Texas tradition since 1909. What you don’t know about this tradition? At number six in our top ten list, commentator w have strong helps spread this history around.
W.F. Strong [00:18:53] Texas has a great number of Texas brands. Southwest Airlines, Texas Instruments, Lonestar Beer. Dell Computer, Imperial Sugar. The King Ranch. The King Ranch also helped launch another old Texas brand foul furious butter. It is a little circuitous, but this is how it all came about. Richard King’s partner, Mifflin Kennedy, sold 7000 cows to Ed Lasseter, which he used to create the dairy that launched fowl furious butter 35 years later. The King Ranch bought 108,000 acres from Lasseter, along with a great number of cattle, to create the Encino division of the King Ranch. But that’s not the story I’m here to tell. The furious butter was first made in Foul Furious, of course, in 1909. People have wondered whether the butter is named for the town or the town for the butter, but they were actually both named after Lasseter’s Ranch, which was named for a grove of trees called La Mort. They are furious. Lasseter said that that unique word for Furious came from the Le Pen Apache language and loosely translated meant Land of Hearts Delight. The Butter was certainly the town’s best known export in those early days and likely remain so today. Even the school mascot, the jerseys was named after the butter’s real creators. The Jersey Cows. Indeed, at one point, five Furious was home to the largest Jersey cattle herd in the world. And so that gave special meaning to the once popular bumper sticker there. Watch your step. You’re in Jersey country. I’m not sure the author of that intended the double meaning, but it certainly provided a good deal of local levity until it was recalled. For Furious Butter remains a popular niche brand of butter in Texas. It is sold at all the major grocery stores and some smaller ones too. It has been quite popular in northern Mexico for generations. A friend tells me that as a child in Saltillo, he remembers his mother bringing back the month. The kid will say they were furious as a special treat for the kids. Any time she traveled to Texas, a Texas Marine in World War two recalled that as he was wading ashore in the battle for Okinawa, a foul furious butter crate bumped up against his leg in the surf. He found it comforting and assurance from home that all would be well. And so it was for furious butter outgrew, for furious. It became so popular that it was eventually bought by the Dairy Farmers of America. But rest assured, it is still made in Texas. It is made by Keller’s creamery in Winnsboro, Texas, and has grown at a Texas sized pace of 40% over the last few years. That’s a lot of biscuits and baked potatoes, y’all. When you drive through Fowler furious today on State Highway 285, you can still see the vintage foul furious butter sign on the side of the old creamery building. The town newspaper Foul Furious Facts occupies the building today. In the interest of full disclosure and transparency. I have to reveal that I am also an export of how furious. And even though I know on which side my bread is buttered, so to speak, I assure you that it doesn’t affect the veracity of this commentary. IOW strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
Laura Rice [00:22:08] Our top ten list countdown continues. Still ahead on this special edition of The Texas Standard.
Alexandra Hart [00:22:29] From the Texas newsroom, I’m Alexandra Hart. As Texans prepare to ring in the new Year, the Texas Department of Transportation is continuing its drive sober. No regrets. Holiday Drunk driving prevention campaign. Ruby Martinez is Techstars traffic safety program manager. If you see that someone at a holiday gathering has been drinking, encourage them to find a sober right or to stay put until they sober up. Helping to prevent a potential crash is worth any temporarily awkward conversation. 1 in 4 traffic deaths in Texas were related to drunk driving last year, and that number increased to 28% over the holidays. More officers are on alert looking for drunk drivers on Texas roadways through New Year’s Day. DPS officers, that issue driver’s licenses are closed until at least Thursday. A computer outage forced the offices to shut down on Monday and the department is closed today and tomorrow for the New Year’s holiday. It’s unclear if the computer issues will be resolved by Thursday. Texas State parks are once again hosting a series of hikes on New Year’s Day. Texas Parks and Wildlife interpretive specialist Ben Horstman says about 80 parks are having organized events and there’s something for all skill levels.
Alexandra Hart [00:23:42] Some of them are more in nature oriented where you’ll learn a lot as you go, some of them are more exercise related where you’re let’s just get the miles in and get you get that heart pumping.
Alexandra Hart [00:23:55] You can find a full list of events on Texas Parks and Wildlife’s website. A new study from Utah Health San Antonio showed a smartphone app helped in reducing the use of opioids by patients when used along with their medications. Elise Marino is the director of research operations at its Bell Institute on Substance Use and Related Disorders and lead author on the study. She said patients who used the app reduced their opioid use by 35% compared to those who used medication only. They were using less opioids by the time they were leaving treatment. And so that that’s the length of stay in treatment is huge because we know that the longer patients stay in treatment, the more.
Announcer [00:24:38] Successful.
Alexandra Hart [00:24:38] They are in recovery. The treatment aims to reach patients anywhere, and those who participate can track their goals, meet with providers through telehealth, and get medication sent directly to them. The House Ethics Committee has dropped its investigation of two Texas congressman, Republicans. Wesley Hunt of Houston and Ronny Jackson of Amarillo were accused of violating campaign finance laws for allegedly spending money on personal use. The Ethics Committee says both lawmakers didn’t fully comply with reporting standards, but there is no evidence money was intentionally misspent. I’m Alexandra Hart from the Texas Newsroom.
Announcer [00:25:13] You’re listening to statewide news from public radio stations across Texas. This coverage is only possible because of support from listeners like you. You can help sustain and grow Texas news coverage by donating to your local public radio station today.
Laura Rice [00:25:29] 33 minutes past the hour. Texas Standard Time. I’m Laura Rice. We’ve made it to the midpoint of our top ten countdown of our favorite stories from Texas. It’s one way we’re kicking off ten years of the Texas Standard. Since our show began, the anti California rhetoric may only have increased. But as Texas standard commentator Jeff Strong points out, some of the finest Texans we’ve ever had have been Californians, at least on film.
W.F. Strong [00:25:58] I’m making no effort to be comprehensive here, but I’d like to highlight five Californians who made great Texans in the movies. The big daddy of them all was, of course, John Wayne. I delved the Alamo film along with Wayne’s celebrated depiction of Davy Crockett would ever have been made without his unequaled Hollywood clout and his money. The movie was a financial disaster, and Wayne lost a disturbing amount of money on the film. Stephen Harrigan wrote in 2015 for Texas Monthly that Wayne’s appeal as a Texan was that he had this habitual on screen character meshed with our fun Texas dream of ourselves. In almost every carefully curated role Wayne played. He was a big, friendly, open handed presence, but there was also a concealed carry component to his personality. For all as many films in which he played Texans, Wayne was made an honorary Texan by the Texas legislature in 2015. Clint Eastwood played a Texas Ranger in a perfect World. Eastwood directed the film in which he pursues escaped convict Butch Haynes. Kevin Costner, who kidnaped a young boy to aid his life on the run a good deal earlier. Clint Eastwood played the most wanted man in Texas in Outlaw Josey Wales. Though Wills was not a Texan in the film, after seeing his family killed and his fellow Confederate soldiers massacred by a union false surrender ambush, he exacted revenge and headed for Texas to start anew. He represented the lethal self-reliance of the men who populated Texas in those years. It was also an extension of the man with no name persona that he cultivated in the spaghetti Westerns, one of which was for a few dollars more, which took place in El Paso and the surrounding region. Robert Duvall, a Californian for the first 17 years of his life, depicted the most memorable Texas ranger of all when he played the loveable and lethal captain Gus McCrae in the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove. He won a Best Actor award for a TV movie for the role Duvall animated in McCrae. The self-reliance, adaptability, love of justice, loyalty to friends and fearlessness in battle that all Texans admire. When he was dying in Montana, he made his friend call promise to bury him in an orchard near San Antonio. He knew Karl was like him. A promise had to be honored no matter how dangerous the enterprise. Robert Duvall was also made an honorary Texas Ranger along with Tommy Lee Jones, for his role as Captain W of Coal. Tommy Lee Jones, though, is a native Texan, and it showed wonderfully in his authentic and coached accent. Robert Duvall was also superb in Tender Mercies for that role. He traveled thousands of miles around Texas studying the accents to get it right in the film, which served him well in Lonesome Dove and later in Secondhand Lions. Kevin Costner, pretty much a lifelong Californian, played Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in The Highwaymen, along with Woody Harrelson. In their pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde. I personally loved watching Jeff Bridges role in Hell or High Water. Jeff plays an aging Texas Ranger, Marcus Hamilton, one week from retirement. He is on the trail of West Texas bank robbers. Jeff got help with his Ranger persona from Pernell McNamara, the then 70 year old sheriff of McLennan County. Though close to retirement, Ranger Hamilton does not take it easy or shirk away from his dangerous task even after retirement. His good Texas character can’t let go. The job is not done until it’s done, at least to his satisfaction. And if you want the finest example of an unadulterated West Texas accent, you’ll hear it from the waitress in the cafe who says so lyrically, what don’t you want? That was Margaret Beaumont and she was from Texas. Since we have talked about all these Californians playing Texas Rangers, it’s rather cool, I think, to recognize that our real life most famous Texas Ranger of all time, Jack Coffee Hayes, left Texas in 1849 and became the first elected sheriff of San Francisco, California, in 1850. We can’t make this stuff up. I’m w a strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of.
Laura Rice [00:30:35] Our special stories from Texas. Edition of Texas Standard continues right after the break. With the top four on our list. Stay with us.
Announcer [00:30:49] Support for Texas Standard comes from Texas Oncology. Right here with cancer care at more than 280 locations around Texas, allowing patients to remain close to family, friends and caregivers while they fight against cancer. More at Texas Oncology Take home. Support for Texas standard comes from Raise your Hand Texas. Working to strengthen public education for all students and helping Texans understand education issues. Coming up during the 89th legislative session at Raise Your Hand, Texas Talk.
Laura Rice [00:31:29] This is the Texas Standard. I’m Laura Rice. And today we’re counting down our favorite WFP strong segments. This next one represents one of his specialties unique and underappreciated bits of Texas history, like how Texas became nearly 1000mi² bigger.
W.F. Strong [00:31:47] You can never underestimate the value of good friendship forged early in life. If not for such a friendship, Texas would be nearly 1000mi² smaller. Before I get to the friendship, come with me, if you will, up to the northwest corner of the Panhandle, where Texas meets Oklahoma and New Mexico. The border between Oklahoma and New Mexico doesn’t meet up exactly with the border between Texas and New Mexico. The line makes a jog to the left. It goes 2.3 miles left before heading south. That jog is the result of a survey error that some have called the worst survey error in U.S. history. But it isn’t just a two mile error. The error gets bigger as it continues south, 310 miles to the bottom of the Texas New Mexico corner. The mistake amounts to a 942 square mile error a landmass bigger than Houston. In truth, that land should have gone to New Mexico. The border between Texas and New Mexico territory was to be exactly along the 103rd meridian. When the official survey was undertaken, almost ten years after the fact, there was a problem with water. Indian stars, algebra and math, which all contributed to the error. That ended up a blessing for Texas. Naturally, there’s quite a good long story behind the mistake. But it’s far too complex for these few minutes, so I will give you the cut to the Chase version. A man named John H. Clark was hired to do the survey and plant the monuments along the 103rd meridian. He started from the south and surveyed northward until he ran out of access to water. So he stopped and he said, Well, I’ll just go up to the north end of Texas and I’ll come down. Clark started again, northwest of present day Dalhart and headed south until the Native Americans frightened him off. Though he was about 70 miles from connecting his two lines, he figured it was good enough and he turned in his work. His two lines would have never met. The problem was his northern starting point was about 2.3 miles west of where it should have been, and his southern corner was nearly 3.8 miles west to where it should have been. Consequently, that border slides imperceptibly, one and a half miles ever so gently southwest, over a distance of 310 miles. You pull up a Google map on your phone and align the southeastern corner of New Mexico with your left, straight edge phone border. You will see that the border slants off to the right of at the top. That’s the error. It amounts to 603,348 acres. Well, nobody knew it was wrong. And so the bad survey, based on poor calculations, was certified by the U.S. in 1891, and it became the legal boundary. Well, by the time New Mexico was about to get statehood with the enabling act of 1910. It had become aware of Clark’s error and it slipped into the statehood law, a clause saying that the eastern border would be the true 103rd meridian. New Mexico would get its land back. All was going well, and nobody was paying attention to the land grab except for John Farwell, who was an original investor in the Excite Ranch. Those were the same investors who essentially built our state capitol in Austin. Well, he realized that the city would lose hundreds of thousands of acres and mineral rights. If the New Mexico plan went through as it was, but he couldn’t get any legislators to listen. And so he did what we all do in times of trouble, he said. Who do I know? Well, it just so happened that he knew President William Howard Taft. They had been good friends during their college years at Yale. So he went to see his old buddy Howard, and he explained the predicament. And Taft immediately summoned powerful men to his office and told them that the Clark border would be the legal border when New Mexico was made a state or it wouldn’t be made one. He said that since the boundary had existed for more than 50 years and had been certified 20 years before, it had to be grandfathered in. Otherwise, people who believe they were Texans would suddenly be in New Mexico and litigation over land titles would never end. And that is how a survey error and an old friendship ended up making Texas almost 1000mi² bigger than it was supposed to be. And once again, it’s all about who you know. I’m w strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
Laura Rice [00:36:21] Some of commentator W.F. Strong’s most endearing stories from Texas have been personal. This next one was actually one of the. First he ever put together for Texas Standard way back in May of 2015. It’s not baseball season, but it’s the time of year for reflection. So W Strong looks back on his days on the diamond.
W.F. Strong [00:36:42] Uncle Dale was the first grown up to come home in the afternoon. He wasn’t our real uncle. We just called him that. Back then, it was considered rude for a child to call an adult only by their first name. So we had lots of aunts and uncles. Uncle Dale got up when it was still dark and he walked a mile to work where he put in hard days at the Halliburton yard. At 330 in the afternoon, he would, as the poet Appleman put it, follow his shadow home to grass. And there he would sit in his lawn chair under the gauzy shade of a mosquito tree and watch over us as we played baseball in the street. It was a colleague who rode hard in dusty and dry times and it turned to cake like mud when it rained. Home plate and second base were in the middle of the street. First base was in the Garcia’s yard and third base was in Uncle Deal’s yard. Uncle Dale was our umpire. He would sit there drinking coffee from a big white mug, smoking one cigar after another. We could smell the sweet tobacco drifting through the infield. Even now, I can smell it as it drifts across the years to where I sit. Uncle Dale ruled on close calls from the comfort of his place in the shade. That was a foul, he’d say. Or he would coach two hands while learning RJ. He also served as traffic cop. You boys get out of the road for that truck runs over you. I can only remember his getting out of his chair one time. We were having our own little baseball draft the way we always did. Hand over. Hand up the bat. You remember? Well, Mrs. Anderson came over and suggested we draw numbers out of a hat, making one team out of the evil numbers and the other out of the odd numbers to spare the feelings of those often chosen last. Uncle Dale would not stand for these progressive ideas. He was a purist. He got up and he waved her off. He said, If a boy is struggling, he needs to know it early so he can do something about it. One day we came home from school and we saw Uncle Dale on a huge Halliburton bulldozer in the brush down the road. We went down there to watch him because, like all boys, we were fascinated with anything that could topple trees and reform the earth. After about 30 minutes, he shut down the dozer. He hopped off and he said, There’s your new baseball field, boys. You’re off the streets. Well, don’t just stand there. He said, Get your gloves. Let’s break her in. Never again. Was the crack of a bat muffled by a car horn wanting to drive through our infield. Uncle Dale’s baseball field cost him a few phone calls and three hours of his expert labor. But it gave us and the boys that followed us years of immeasurable joy. It was the greatest gift we ever got, really. The gift of a beautiful boyhood and the lifelong memory of it. I’m strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
Laura Rice [00:39:48] We’ve almost made it to the top of our list of favorite WF. Strong commentaries. Still waiting for yours? There’s more just ahead.
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Laura Rice [00:40:28] This is a special stories from Texas edition of The Texas Standard. I’m Laura Rice. We’re counting down our favorite commentaries from W.F. Strong. And we’ve made it to number two. This one from 2017 was inspired by the attention on the border and immigration from the first Trump administration.
W.F. Strong [00:40:46] This was the situation the new immigrants to Texas were becoming quite a problem. They were coming across the river in droves. Some were legal. Some were undocumented. Some were living on land they had illegally acquired, and some were squatters living on land that belonged to others. The legal immigrants were being followed by family members who were arriving without proper papers. The government was frustrated and trying desperately to come up with a solution. Many were good people, hard workers. But as a group, they would mostly keep to themselves. They wouldn’t assimilate. They wouldn’t acculturate. They refused to learn the language. Most were of a different religion from that which was most common in their new country. There was talk of posting the military all along the river. The borders and immigration laws needed to be enforced. The government passed a law prohibiting all new immigration to Texas from the neighboring republic. The military was in fact sent to ports of entry to turn back those without proper documents. And though the trend slowed, illegal immigration continued at a worrisome pace. Sound familiar? These issues were being discussed in Texas almost 200 years ago. The years I’m talking about here were the 1820s and the early 1830s before the Battle of the Alamo, before the Battle of San Jacinto. The immigrants were not Mexican, but rather Anglo-Americans coming in from Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and other southern states. The river the immigrants were crossing was not the Rio Grande, but the Sabine. The border between Texas and Louisiana. The concerned government was not in Austin, but in Mexico City. Texas, of course, belonged to Mexico at the time. The military they wanted to put on the eastern border was the Mexican army. The language the immigrants wouldn’t learn was Spanish. That was part of the deal. If they got cheap land, they agreed to become Mexican citizens and learn Spanish. Most did not. The religion that they would not embrace was Catholicism, even though that was part of the deal, too. As Mexican citizens, they were supposed to become Catholic. It is surprising to see how trends in some ways have reversed themselves over a couple of centuries. I’m not interested in getting into the high weeds of politics here. I’ll leave the cautionary tale to others, but I do find this a good illustration of a historical adage coined by Mark Twain and affirmed by Winston Churchill. History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. I’m a strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
Laura Rice [00:43:33] We’ve made it to number one. And to be honest, there was no competition. It’s been clear since 2015 that commentator W. F. strong hit on something special when he put together this story from Texas. This story consistently shows up as one of the most popular on our website, despite its age. It was first done to celebrate 30 years since Augustus McRae and Woodrow Call sprung from the mind of author Larry McMurtry and two words of warning. There may be a little grown up language here. And if you’ve been under a rock and Ogallala for the last four decades, there might be a spoiler or two.
W.F. Strong [00:44:13] Since I am, like many Texans, an amateur expert on Lonesome Dove. People often ask me when I figure the most love quotes from the mini series. Now, if I were wise, I would just say any of 100 quotes could be someone’s number one and leave it at that. But I have never let lack of wisdom stop me. I cannot resist the challenge of making a list. I do have data on my side based on feedback from a popular Facebook page devoted to Lonesome Dove. I have 12, which we will do Letterman style. Number 12 comes at the end of the mini series. Woodrow has just buried Gus and puts up the grave marker made from the famous Hat Creek cattle company sign. Woodrow says, I guess this will teach me to be more.
W.F. Strong [00:44:55] Careful about what I promise.
W.F. Strong [00:44:58] In the future. Number 11 is Gus McCrae. 101 When the boys seem a little shocked by his, shall we say, manly appetites. He says.
W.F. Strong [00:45:09] What’s good for me, necessarily good for the weak man.
W.F. Strong [00:45:12] Number ten occurs right after Gus has cut the cards with Laurie, and she accuses him of cheating. He says.
W.F. Strong [00:45:19] Well, I wouldn’t say I did. I wouldn’t say I did. But I will say there’s a man who wouldn’t cheat for a Polk. Don’t want one bad enough. Come on.
W.F. Strong [00:45:26] Darling. Nine Not long before Gus goes guns blazing into blue ducks camp to save Laurie. He says.
W.F. Strong [00:45:34] I don’t know if it the wrath of the Lord, but Stand on comes on down.
W.F. Strong [00:45:38] Number eight is said the following morning. Gus finds July Johnson bearing his son and Jenny and Roscoe. Gus says.
W.F. Strong [00:45:47] Yesterday gone. We can’t get it back.
W.F. Strong [00:45:51] Number seven comes when Gus gets exasperated with Woodrow because Woodrow to Gus, his way of thinking is just being dead.
W.F. Strong [00:45:59] God, Woodrow, you just don’t ever get the point. It ain’t Diane I’m talking about. It’s living.
W.F. Strong [00:46:05] The sixth most popular quote punctuates the scene when Jake’s spoon must be hanged along with the murdering horse thieves he is thrown in with. Jake pleads his case, but Gus has little sympathy.
W.F. Strong [00:46:16] He says how it works. Jake, you ride with an outlaw, you die within a mile.
W.F. Strong [00:46:21] Number five occurs in a San Antonio bar scene that has several great lines together. So I decided to count them as one quote, the bartender upon insulting Gus and call gets his nose broken when Gus slams his face into the Oak bar, Gus explains.
W.F. Strong [00:46:37] Besides, a whiskey, I think will require a little respect. If you care to turn around, you can see how we look. Who’s younger. And the people around here wanted to make of senators. And the thing we didn’t put up with then was doubling service. And as you can see, we still don’t put up with it.
W.F. Strong [00:46:55] As they rode away, Woodrow tells Gus he’s lucky he didn’t get thrown in jail. And Gus is.
W.F. Strong [00:47:01] Very much of a crime. Black And certainly bartender.
W.F. Strong [00:47:05] Number four is a touching line uttered by Gus as he lay dying. He says to.
W.F. Strong [00:47:09] Woodrow, It’s been quite a bar.
W.F. Strong [00:47:14] Number three is a tie so close I couldn’t separate them. The first comes at the first of the movie Back and Lonesome Dove. When Ball infers that Gus may be too old for romance anymore. And Gus sets him straight. He says they.
W.F. Strong [00:47:27] All are the violent sweet of the music.
W.F. Strong [00:47:29] Following. Soon after that scene comes Call’s advice to Newt. All hands in his first pistol. And he says, here.
W.F. Strong [00:47:38] Better to have had it not made it. Then it is needed. Correct?
W.F. Strong [00:47:43] Number two, Gus lays out a prescription for Lori’s future happiness. She is obsessed with going to San Francisco, and he wants her to understand that that dream is likely a misguided one.
W.F. Strong [00:47:55] You see life in San Francisco still just.
W.F. Strong [00:47:58] And number one, though, Gus gets a great number of the best lines Woodrow gets, without question, the most powerful, most quoted line of all in the entire mini series. After Carl beat the Army Scout to a pulp. He says.
W.F. Strong [00:48:11] I hate road behavior and man. I won’t tolerate it.
W.F. Strong [00:48:16] There you go. That’s the top 12 according to the data. Now, when you write to me to tell me that the list is wrong or that I left out this or that, I ask only that you remember. Captain calls admonition, no rude behavior. I’m strong. These are stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
Laura Rice [00:48:36] WF Strong is a professor of culture and communication at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, and he’s been a beloved contributor to the Texas Standard Team for nearly all of our ten years. We’re celebrating our 10th birthday for the entire year of 2025, and we kicked it off just a smidge early with our top ten stories from Texas. You can learn more and celebrate with us at Texas. Standard.org/birthday. I’m Laura Rice and on behalf of the entire Texas standard team, we wish you a happy 2025.
Announcer [00:49:13] Philanthropic support for Texas. Casey and Scott are here, the Winkler Family Foundation. Lynn Dobson and Greg Wooldridge, Adrian Killen and the George Huntington family.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
