West

Sancho

One of Texas folklorist J. Frank Dobie’s favorite stories was the story of Sancho, the tamale-loving Longhorn. He heard it from John Rigby of Beeville, Texas. Dobie said that he figured Rigby had dressed up the story a bit and also admitted that he himself had done some “constructive work” on it over the years. Texas Standard commentator WF Strong brings us his own version.

Texas Standard: August 16, 2021

A self inflicted wound? A former Ambassador to Afghanistan on the fall of Kabul and the end of what’s been called the longest war. Also, a tough year for the Texas governor. But going into an election year, many political writers say he seems unstoppable. We’ll talk with a top writer at Politico. And the redistricting battle in Texas and its repercussions way beyond the state border line. Also remembering a singer songwriter who left a little bit of small town Texas wherever her songs were heard. Those stories and much more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: February 11, 2021

The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is underway. So what have we learned and will any of it affect the chances of a conviction? We’ll explore. Also, the COVID-19 vaccine could put an end to this pandemic in the way we’ve been living it so far, but only if people get the vaccine. We’ll explore some challenges. And Mexico doesn’t get the credit it deserves when it comes to the way it’s shaped the global economy. That’s the premise behind a new book. What we could stand to learn about our neighbor to the south. And the growing backlog of unsolved murders in Texas and what it tells us about policing in the state. Plus we’ll take a break and nerd out a bit about gaming graphics. All that and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: April 17, 2018

The Commander is Chief wields a lot of power over U-S military action, but where do those powers begin and end? We’ll explore. Also, it’s been almost 10 years since Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston. But the city still hasn’t rebuilt much of the housing many depend on. And it’s been exactly 5 years since a fire and explosion at a Central Texas fertilizer plant killed 15 people and destroyed a large part of a small city. What’s been done to prevent another catastrophe like West, Texas? Also, Pulitzer prize-winning author Lawrence Wright’s new book hits shelves today. “God Save Texas” is all about the state he calls home, including what he describes as AM and FM Texas. Plus we’ll hear the argument for why it seems Texas lawmakers could have been drunk when writing the liquor laws. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: February 21, 2018

Some momentum behind tightened accountability for firearm background checks. The top Texas Republican who now seems to be at least partially on board. Also, early voting is underway. The first choice those heading to the polls will have to make is which party’s primary to vote in. Why crossover voting isn’t all that common. Plus, Texas coastal cities still cleaning up from Hurricane Harvey are also looking ahead to mitigating the damage of the next storm. Why folks in Corpus Christi are concerned. And it’s been 25 years since the siege at a Branch Davidian complex outside of Waco. What law enforcement learned from that deadly encounter. Plus a profile of a man known as “the Galveston Giant.” Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: August 22, 2017

Change in plans: the president does a 180 on Afghanistan. When will the US leave? We’ll explore why the commander in chief says that’s the wrong question. Also, the navy takes a knee after another ship in the pacific fleet collides with a commercial vessel. 10 navy crew members missing. Who’s on lookout and what’s going wrong? Plus popping the cork on a controversy between grape growers and their cotton pickin’ neighbors: are pesticides killing Texas wineries? And as kids go back to school, will there be enough teachers? That depends: you live in the city or the country? Those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: August 2, 2017

The Affirmative Action pendulum could swing yet again. What a new document suggests about plans inside the DOJ. It wasn’t long ago the Supreme Court sided with the University of Texas’ use of affirmative action. A new administration could bring back the debate. Plus, President Trump’s proposed Border Wall may be coming sooner than expected to Texas. And, Just when you thought fried food couldn’t get any crazier, Texas brings you: the tamale donut, and a crawfish lollipop. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: June 20, 2017

The Russians declare a de facto US no fly zone east of the euphrates. Are we seeing the Berlinization of Syria? We’ll explore. Also the US supreme court agrees to consider a Wisconsin case on redistricting. What’s that mean for Texas? Depending on the outcome, more than you might think. And SB4: with what detractors call the show me your papers provision doesn’t take effect till September. But reports say its already having an effect in the workplace. We’ll hear where and how much. And new numbers everywhere–but what do these polls really tell us about Texas attitudes on hot button issues? Are they accurate? Does that matter? Those stories and a lot more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: June 12, 2017

An election upset in one of the biggest cities in Texas. We’ll meet the newly elected mayor of San Antonio: Ron Nirenberg. Also, a major decision in a case involving the legality of detaining undocumented immigrants. And it comes from the judge who’ll be hearing a challenge to the so called show me your papers bill. We’ll have details. Also for the first time the FDA takes steps to remove an approved prescription drug from pharmacy shelves. We’ll hear what it is and why. And do you know the way to west Texas? Do you know where it officially begins? We’re goin on a road trip on today’s edition of the Texas Standard:

Quanah Parker: A Mother’s Day Story

Quanah Parker was the most feared of the Comanche chiefs on the Texas frontier. He was half white and half Comanche. He was taller and stronger and faster and more clever than any other chief of his time.

The fact that he never lost a battle to soldiers who relentlessly pursued him …

The fact that he was a ghost on the high plains and disappeared into thin air, even as he was chased in the bright Panhandle sun …

The fact that he was devastatingly handsome and could have graced the cover of one of those steamy Western romance novels …

The fact that he was the last Comanche chief to decide on his own, without being defeated militarily, to move to the reservation…

… is not the point of this commentary.

This is a love story, but not a love story for Valentine’s Day. This is a love story more appropriate for Mother’s Day.

Quanah’s mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was abducted by Comanche raiders on the Texas frontier when she was 9. She was raised as a Comanche and married Chief Nocona. She had three children, the oldest of whom was Quanah. Cynthia Ann was eventually “discovered” by white men who traded with the Comanches. Her family, having searched for her for years, quickly organized a ransom offer. The Comanches would not sell her. No matter how much they WERE offered, tribal elders would not sell her. This was because Cynthia Ann did not want to go. Though born white, she was now culturally Comanche, the wife of a chief, with three children she loved.

Many years later, her camp along a tributary of the Pease River was attacked by Texas Rangers. Her husband was killed but her boys escaped. Cynthia Ann was finally freed from captivity, but she saw it as being abducted again. She was now 34. While being escorted to Tarrant County after the battle, she was photographed in Fort Worth with her daughter, Prairie Flower, at her chest and her hair cut short – a Comanche sign of mourning.

She never readjusted to white culture and tried many times to escape and return to her tribe. She begged to go back to her people. As S.C. Gwynne reported in his masterpiece, “Empire of the Summer Moon,” Cynthia Ann knew Spanish better than English. She told a translator: “Mi corazón llorando todo el tiempo por mi dos hijos.” “My heart cries all the time for my two boys” – Quanah and Pecos. But they wouldn’t give her her wish. Her relatives believed she would readjust in time. In truth, she was being held captive a second time.

She never gave up her Comanche ways. She often sat outside with a small fire and worshiped the Great Spirit according to the customs she knew. Sadly, Prairie Flower died of the flu a few years after they were returned to white society. And Cynthia herself died SEVEN years after that, relatively young, essentially of a broken heart.

Gwynne eulogized her this way: “She was a white woman by birth, yes, but also a relic of the Comancheria, the fading empire of high grass and fat summer moons and buffalo herds that blackened the horizon. She had seen all of that death and glory. She had been a chief’s wife. She had lived free on the high infinite plains as her adopted race had in the very last place in the North American Continent where anyone would ever live or run free. She had died in the deep pine woods where there was no horizon…”

Quanah lost his mother when he was just 12 and longed for her all his life. When he surrendered to life on the reservation he searched for her and was sad to learn that she had died and was buried far away in Texas. All he had of her was a photograph someone gave him, which he kept over his bed always.

He jumped through elaborate legal hoops for many years to get her body moved and buried on Comanche soil. When he was successful, he felt his mother was finally home. When Quanah died, he was buried next to her. He believed that though separated for so long in life, they would certainly be together forever with the Great Spirit in the Sky.

Texas Standard: May 12, 2016

It was a deadly explosion that rocked a sense of security…3 years later, another jolt shaking the town of west Texas. We’ll explore. Texas is home to one of the largest squads of mosquito fighters in the country, but are they big enough to tackle the new threat of Zika… Also, a tempest in a taco bowl? Why a week after cinco de mayo, one incendiary tweet among many constitutes to reverberate. And learning to grow legally…how cannabis farmers are navigating the narrows of Texas law to get licenses. Those stories and lots more today on the Texas Standard:

The Story of James Dean and the Shamrock Hotel

James Dean – in the movie “Giant” – tells Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor that he has struck oil. And not only that, it’s payback time.

James Dean was playing Jett Rink, a hard drinkin’, brawlin’, tough-talkin’ uncultured Texas wildcatter who struck it rich. But everybody in Texas knew that he was really playing Glen McCarthy, a Houston wildcatter, who struck it rich – cover of TIME rich. The fictional Jett Rink spent millions of dollars building the Emperador, the biggest hotel in Texas. The real life McCarthy did the same. But he called it, The Shamrock Hotel.

The Shamrock, nicknamed the Houston Riviera, was the grandest hotel in Texas when it was built, the largest outside of New York or L.A. It was 20 stories tall counting the two-story emerald SHAMROCK HOTEL sign on top. It cost $22 million in ’47. Today it would be $250 million. It had the biggest swimming pool on the planet, so large that people water-skied in it. It had 1,100 rooms, all air-conditioned, each with a TV and radio.

In 1949, McCarthy wanted to have a grand opening for his monolithic hotel. He wanted Hollywood stars. He was told that the only way Hollywood would come was if there was a movie opening to attend. But no big studio would launch a film in Texas. So he decided to fund his own Hollywood movie. In this way, he had the movie debut and hotel grand opening at the same time. And Hollywood came. Howard Hughes even gave him a good deal on one of his planes so he could fly stars to Houston. McCarthy chartered a Santa Fe party train that brought in hundreds of stars for the St. Patrick’s Day opening.

The evening was regarded as the most prestigious event in Houston social history. And it likely remains so. Everyone who was anyone was there. Ginger Rogers was there. So was Errol Flynn. It was broadcast live on national radio by NBC and hosted by the WWII pin-up Dorothy Lamour.

Frank Lloyd Wright wasn’t impressed with the Shamrock’s 63 shades of Irish green. He was called it “architectural venereal disease.” But many loved the Shamrock for its sheer size and art deco style, the Emerald Nightclub where Sinatra sang, The Cork Club up top overlooking Houston, and the hotel’s grand devotion to the Irish theme.

It was sold to Conrad Hilton in 1955 and was known as the Shamrock Hilton until it was demolished in 1987. Today Texas A&M Health Sciences Center sits on the site. I think McCarthy would like that. He was, after all, an Aggie.

Green Room: Texas City Disaster Revisited

We’ve all heard of the 2013 fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas–a tragedy that shook a city and garnered national attention. But the worst industrial disaster in history–also in Texas–claimed untold hundreds of lives, and is almost forgotten. Veteran journalist and author Bill Minutaglio takes us on a trip back in time, to the post war explosion in Texas City: the lessons unlearned -and why America wanted to forget.