Osage Oil – Further Reading
One of the best resources I found for explaining exactly how the guardian system worked is actually a 40 page pamphlet available for free. Even more miraculously than it being free, it’s written quite clearly. I find a lot of sources from the time have an overwrought style that’s difficult to follow. Released in 1924 […]
Book Recommend – Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation
This was the first book I read about the Osage conspiracy, and it’s a very interesting one. It’s part personal and family memoir, part investigative journalism, and part history. The author decides to look into the mysterious suicide of his Osage grandmother, which happened in the 1920’s when his mother was just a toddler. He […]
The Case of the Ice Man Research Boards
Bonnie and Clyde – Blanche Barrow’s Story
It’s been a minute since I’ve read these, but when I was initially writing The Case of Bonnie and Clyde, I read as many firsthand accounts of the gang’s life as I could. The best by far was My Life with Bonnie & Clyde by Blanche Caldwell Barrow. She wrote most of the account during […]
Laurel’s Neighborhood – Greenland Hills
I got the chance to drive around the neighborhood Laurel and Tom lived in recently, and was pretty happy with what I saw. Their neighborhood has retained a lot of it’s original charming character, and the number of new giant homes was fairly low. They lived in a development called Greenland Hills, which was originally […]
Swiss Avenue – The Eymann House
Swiss Avenue was first planned in 1907, and was the first deed-restricted community in Texas. It was also the first in Dallas to require utilities to be sent to the back of the house, so the view of the homes wouldn’t be marred by an ugly utility pole. Deed restrictions included that the minimum cost […]
Ice Man – Ice houses and 7-11
The idea to make Gerald Eymann an ice mogul came from looking around at what would be an unusual way to make money now, that was fairly common place back in the time. I landed on ice manufacturing, which was a necessary part of keeping food edible at the time. (Here’s an exterior picture of […]
Book Recommend – Empire of the Summer Moon
The Empire of the Summer Moon was given to me by my husband’s boss’s wife (how’s that for a relationship tree). Her book club had read it and enjoyed it, which I was a bit surprised to hear given how violent most of the history presented in the book was, but it is an excellent […]
Dry Counties – What does that even mean?
I was re-reading the Lost Prohibition book earlier this week, and it jogged my memory talking about wet and dry counties, and how people got around them. Throughout Texas, each county made it’s own decision before Prohibition about what their stance on alcohol sales and consumption. Some counties chose to be dry, which meant all […]
Barrow Garage Today
A few weeks ago, I decided to shake up my normal writing routine, and go to West Dallas to have a coffee and just play the tourist. I also had half a mind to go by and check out the Barrow garage that I saw on a history tour a few years ago. (The one […]