Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest
Series · 18
books · 1996-2015
Books in series
#1
Cacti of the Trans-Pecos and Adjacent Areas
2004
A Southwest Book of the Year \* 2005 Southwest Book Award “\[A\] monumental study.” —Review of Texas Books “A reliable and handy general reference for those with an interest in cacti inside and outside this region. Recommended.” —Choice “These authors have . . . provided the world with the much needed scientific clarification on this family of succulent plants that humans have loved and hated for thousands of years.” —Sida “Information: Wow! . . . For both lay readers and for researchers looking for lots of data about the cacti of this rich flora, this book offers fascinating details presented in a very readable fashion.” —Cactus and Succulents Journal "This will be the standard reference for decades to come."—Southwest Books of the Year Of the 132 species and varieties of cacti in Texas, about 104 of them occur in the fifteen counties of the Trans-Pecos region. This volume includes full descriptions of those many genera, species, and varieties of cacti, with sixty-four maps showing the distribution of each species in the region. The descriptions follow the latest findings of cactus researchers worldwide and include scientific names; common names; identifying characters based on vegetative habit, flowers, fruit, and seeds; identification of flowerless specimens; and phenology and biosystematics. The introduction—full of details about the biology and morphology of the family Cactaceae, the uses of cacti, and the horticulture and conservation of cacti—is an important reference for general readers. More than three hundred beautiful full-color photographs of the cacti in flower and in fruit, all cross-referenced to their description in the text, highlight the book. A glossary of cactus terms, an exhaustive list of literature, and a thorough index complete the book.
#3
Javelinas
Collared Peccaries of the Southwest
2006
A natural history of this pig-like animal—the only peccary species native to the United States—which is as much a part of the Southwestern landscape as the roadrunner, armadillo, and horned lizard The javelina, or collared peccary, is the only peccary species native to the United States and is as much a part of the Southwestern landscape as the roadrunner, armadillo, and horned lizard. Its name is likely derived from the Spanish word for javelin, referring to the animal’s sharp tusks. Javelinas are mentioned in documents dating back to the seventeenth century, when their range was somewhat larger. Very distantly related to the pig family, javelinas may be found in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, where they feast on one of their favorite foods, the prickly pear cactus. Living in herds numbering up to fifty animals, javelinas are generally said to be nearsighted and shy, although they are beginning to turn up as pests in some suburban areas. Due to a dorsal scent gland, you are likely to smell a javelina before you see it. With colorful and endearing illustrations of this misunderstood animal, Jane Manaster’s natural and cultural history of the javelina is a must for any fan of the little “pig” of the Southwest.
#4
Picturing a Different West
Vision, Illustration, and the Tradition of Cather and Austin
2007
Picturing a Different West addresses Willa Cather and Mary Austin as central figures in a women’s tradition of the pictured West. Both Cather and Austin moved west in their youth and spent much of their lives there. Cather lived on the Great Plains, while Austin resided in California and the Southwest. Cather’s travels repeatedly took her to the Southwest, and she wrote three novels with Southwestern settings.Starting with the masculine tradition of Western art that was prevalent when Austin and Cather launched their careers, Janis P. Stout shows how the authors challenged and revised that tradition. Rather than a West of adventure, violence, and conquest, open only to rugged and daring men, the authors envisioned a new West—not conventionally feminine so much as an androgynous space of freedom for women and men alike. Their vision of an alternative West and their alternative ways of thinking about and portraying gender are inseparable.Placing Cather and Austin alongside contemporaries Elsie Clews Parsons, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Laura Gilpin, Stout emphasizes the visual nature of Austin’s and Cather’s personal experiences of the West and Southwest, their awareness of the prevailing visual representations of the West, and the visual nature of their books about the West, with respect to both prose style and illustrations. In closing, Stout demonstrates the continuance of their tradition in illustrated western books by Leslie Marmon Silko and by Margaret Randall and Barbara Byers.
#5
From Texas to San Diego in 1851
The Overland Journal of Dr. S. W. Woodhouse, Surgeon-Naturalist of the Sitgreaves Expedition
2007
As Capt. Lorenzo Sitgreaves set out in 1851 to explore the southern portion of the Four Corners region (won in the recent war with Mexico), his party included Dr. Samuel Woodhouse, a thirty-year-old physician and naturalist who kept a journal of their travels from New York to California. Woodhouse recorded three weeks in San Antonio, made daily entries across the Trans-Pecos, and, after a hiatus in Santa Fe, resumed his journal on the march to Zuñi Pueblo. Midway into their three weeks at Zuñi, he nearly died from a rattlesnake bite and was scarcely recovered when the explorers again started west. The largest part of Woodhouse’s journal concerns Captain Sitgreaves’ reconnaissance for a wagon road westward from Zuñi to the Colorado River of the West. It also records a perilous, starving descent of that untamed river to the Yuma Crossing. The doctor’s entries grew with scientific curiosity and increasing concern for finding water and meetinghostile natives. His extensive notes on plants and animals were part of the first effort to describe and map what is now northern Arizona. His diaries also provide the first detailed description of the Walapai and Mohave peoples the explorers encountered. Sam Woodhouse’s private journal is published here for the first time. Although the basic facts of the Sitgreaves expedition have long been known, the journal adds much detail and great depth to the story, allowing the editors to draw credible conclusions about natural science and Southwestern exploration in the mid-nineteenth century. The color plates reproduce some of the earliest chromolithography done in the United States.
#7
Pecans
The Story in a Nutshell
2008
Travel just about anywhere in the southern United States, and you will find pecan trees. The “nut too hard to crack by hand”—the derivation of the pecan’s Algonquian name—is one of the most successful native agricultural crops of North America. So popular are pecans that Thomas Jefferson once wrote home from Paris for a supply, while many people today consider their holidays incomplete without a pecan pie. Jane Manaster’s Pecans, updated from its original 1994 publication, explores the natural history, cultivation, and uses of the pecan tree and nut. Her engaging account pieces together a fascinating mosaic of the peoples caught up in the pecan story—Native Americans, Spanish explorers, European immigrants and their American descendants, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Manaster also describes the life cycle of the pecan tree, the development of many cultivated species, and predators and diseases of the pecan. She chronicles the successes of commercial growers in extending the pecan’s original range eastward from the Mississippi basin to Florida and westward to California; and she charts the growth of the commercial pecan industry, especially in Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Not forgetting the pecan’s popularity in candy and baked goods, Manaster includes nearly two dozen traditional and modern recipes for such delights as pralines, candied and roasted pecans, pecan pie, and pecan logs. With such a wealth of information in so readable a format, Pecans will find a wide audience among pecan lovers and growers everywhere.
#8
Cacti of Texas
A Field Guide, with Emphasis on the Trans-Pecos Species
2008
One hundred thirty-two species, subspecies, and varieties of cacti may be found in Texas. About one hundred of them occur in the state’s Trans-Pecos region, one of the most cactus-rich areas of the United States, but at least one kind can be found in every county of the state. This volume is an identification guide to the genera, species, and varieties of Texas cacti, with maps showing the distribution of each. Based on the comprehensive reference Cacti of the Trans-Pecos and Adjacent Regions (2004), by A. Michael Powell and James F. Weedin, this field guide provides briefer, less detailed treatments of the entire state’s species for educated general readers. More than three hundred beautiful full-color photographs of the cacti in flower and in fruit, each placed with its description in the text, highlight the book. Readers may identify cacti using color photographs of the plants, keys, distribution maps, and descriptions of the vegetative characters, flowers, and fruits. The introduction―full of details about the biology and morphology of the family Cactaceae and the uses, horticulture, and conservation of cacti―is an important reference for general readers. A glossary of cactus terms, an exhaustive list of literature, and a thorough index complete the book. This guide was designed for use by naturalists and hobbyists as well as serious students. Visitors to the national parks, state parks, and other natural areas of Texas will find it essential to identifying the cacti.
#11
Plants of Central Texas Wetlands
2009
Along the San Marcos River, in and surrounding Palmetto State Park in south central Texas, lie more than five square kilometers of relict ecosystem known as the Ottine Wetlands. This rich and fascinating area of swamps, marshes, and ponds is situated on the biogeographical divide separating the eastern plants and animals of the United States from their western counterparts, and also along a similar ecological boundary separating subtropical species from their more northern, temperate counterparts. Catalogued are more than 500 species, ranging from mosses and liverworts to flowering plants. Photographs and detailed descriptions aid in field recognition of more than 275 species; checklists are provided for those not treated in the text. An introductory chapter covers the region’s geology and soils, climate, postglacial history, plant communities, and biogeography and also serves as a guide to Palmetto State Park and its easily accessible nature trails. Scientific researchers and nature enthusiasts alike will appreciate this expert guide to one of the nation’s most distinctive ecosystems.
#12
Lone Star Wildflowers
A Guide to Texas Flowering Plants
2009
Each spring throughout the celebrated Hill Country and well beyond, locals and visitors revel in the palettes and variety of Texas wildflowers. From the Panhandle canyonlands to the islands of South Texas, from the eastern Pineywoods to the farthest reaches of the arid Trans-Pecos, some 5,000 species dot Texas’s 268,820 square miles. Now Lone Star Wildflowers offers easy identification through color grouping and a wealth of insight from the origin of scientific and common names to growth cycles, uses, history, and native lore. Nieland and Finley have made countless forays with camera and notebook and have broadened their approach through years of research. In language accessible to every enthusiast, they offer wildflower lovers unparalleled enrichment. In the field, by the roadside, or in the classroom, Lone Star Wildflowers reveals the science, ecology, and rich lore of Texas flowers with these helpful features: • Nearly 500 full-color flower photographs, grouped according to the color spectrum and further arranged by family • An “Exploring Further” section in each color category, showing details of seedpods, leaves, buds, and fruits • Current and historical uses of each flower, including applications for landscaping, water conservation, traditional medicine, pharmaceuticals, and food • Information about plant toxins and range management practices affecting livestock and wildlife • Coverage of growth cycles throughout the seasons, depicting young plants, buds, mature seed heads, and fruits as well as flowers
#13
Grasses of South Texas
A Guide to Identification and Value
2011
The vast rangelands of south Texas―that portion of the state lying south of San Antonio and extending west and south to the Rio Grande and east to the Gulf of Mexico―are home to many species of grasses, some beneficial and some noxious. Careful identification is important for ranch and farm management, conservation, and scientific study. This field guide catalogs 250 taxa, representing 9 subfamilies, 15 tribes, and 88 genera. Detailed descriptions, accompanied by color photographs, cover 175 native species and 75 that were introduced―exotic invaders that took hold as agricultural practices, urban development, road construction, and other perturbations eliminated extensive areas of native vegetation. High-resolution photographic scans of pressed field samples show detailed characteristics necessary for identification. Included for each species are common and scientific names and their importance to livestock, wildlife, and man. Detailed keys are provided for the genera and species covered. Although the guide covers grasses that occur in a 31-county area, the extensive ranges of many represented species also make Grasses of South Texas a useful reference for other areas of the state, the American Southwest and the Great Plains, and northern Mexico.
#14
Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850
Boundary Dispute & Sectional Crisis
1996
Writing from the vantage point of the Texas-New Mexico boundary issue, Mark Stegmaier provides a comprehensive analysis of the dispute, the compromise, and the overall implications for the Civil War. He meticulously examines the crisis through a close reading of Texan and New Mexican documents, U.S. government records, maps, newspapers - particularly the reports of Washington correspondents - and collections of personal letters. In addition, he introduces a revisionist analysis of roll call voting in the U.S. Congress and the Texas legislature.
Stegmaier recounts how, with the support of Southern radicals, Texas attempted to extend its jurisdiction despite opposition from New Mexicans and U.S. political leaders. Threatened by military occupation, New Mexicans countered by seeking free state status, while Presidents Taylor and Fillmore committed U.S. forces to defend the territory against a Texan attack. The resolution of this issue allowed the passage of the Compromise of 1850, the last great accord on the sectional issues between North and South.
Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850 deserves the term "definitive." It will appeal to all students of the Civil War era.
#17
In the Shadow of the Carmens
Afield with a Naturalist in the Northern Mexican Mountains
2012
Just across the Rio Grande from West Texas in the state of Coahuila, Mexico, the mountain ranges of the Maderas del Carmen rise majestically. Often called magical or mystical, they have stirred imagination for centuries. Stories of bandits, Indians, ghosts, incredible flora and fauna, cool forests, waterfalls, and vast woodlands filter across the Rio Grande. Many people have dreamed of exploring this vast ecosystem, but few have made the trip. Bonnie McKinney is among the fortunate. In 2001 McKinney and her husband, Billy Pat McKinney, moved to the Carmens to manage the large conservation project spearheaded by CEMEX, the Monterrey-based cement and building materials conglomerate. Like those before her, she had been enthralled by the massive mountains with their cliffs of purple and gold in the sunset, and by horizon views of high forests. She, too, wondered what treasures the mountains held. Now she knows―and happily has reached out to share. Having lived and worked in the Carmens for more than a decade, McKinney has never been disappointed by these mountains, which never fail to surprise her. In intimate photographs and loving words McKinney takes readers on a fascinating armchair journey, introducing them to the incredible biodiversity of this jewel of northern Mexico. Also 04 Activeable in e-book formats, ISBN 978-0-89672-765-6
#18
Land of Enchantment Wildflowers
A Guide to the Plants of New Mexico
2013
New Mexico is home to about 4,000 species of plants that inhabit the varied ecosystems found at the intersection of the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, and the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts. Willa Finley and LaShara Nieland, authors of a previous field guide of Texas plants, Lone Star Wildflowers, traveled throughout New Mexico and photographed approximately 200 commonly encountered plants in all stages of growth from spring through fall. They also visited with Native Americans to learn the extensive practical ways in which they and their ancestors have used the flora. The research is presented in a colorful, well-organized format, using easily understood language appealing to wildflower enthusiasts of all levels of experience. Land of Enchantment Wildflowers features •Easy-to-use format with plants grouped according to flower color, indicated by color bars along the page edges. •456 full-color photos, all taken by the authors, including flowers, leaves and seedpods. •Origins of common and scientific names. •Historical and modern uses of plants for food, medicine, and other applications, along with archaeological findings. •Information about toxins and commercially valuable chemical compounds. •Interactions with wildlife and livestock, both positive and negative. •Landscaping uses, noting growth requirements, as well as deer resistance. •Over 100 butterfly and moth species identified, with description of their interaction with specific plants.
#21
Kit Carson and the First Battle of Adobe Walls
A Tale of Two Journeys
2014
On a late November morning in 1864, Col. Kit Carson and his US troops, under orders from the commander of the New Mexico Military Department, attacked Kiowa Chief Dohasan’s winter village in the Texas Panhandle. Warriors retaliated with stiff resistance as their women and children escaped. Fighting proceeded down the Canadian River to the abandoned trading post of Adobe Walls as hundreds more Kiowas and Comanches joined the battle. Nearing sunset, Carson’s troops burned Dohasan’s village, and although remarkably few lives were lost in the battle itself, the enduring consequences were hardly insignificant. Well known as an explorer, guide, and frontiersman, Carson’s involvement at the First Battle of Adobe Walls has been overlooked. Beginning his research in the 1990s, Alvin Lynn set out to fill that void when he located and walked the 200-mile-long wagon road from Fort Bascom to Adobe Walls and collected 1,800 metal artifacts from 15 historic camps, including the burned Kiowa village. Among the recovered artifacts were fired friction primers verifying the placement of howitzers at the battle site. With nearly eighty battle site and artifact photographs taken by renowned photographer Wyman Meinzer, Kit Carson and the First Battle of Adobe Walls documents Carson’s military expedition from Fort Bascom to Adobe Walls and Lynn’s own journey more than a century later to discover what really happened.
#22
My Wild Life
A Memoir of Adventures within America’s National Parks
2014
Few people have the opportunity to live and work in America's magnificent national parks, let alone in a wide diversity of those great parks. For thirty-two years, beginning when he was hired as a seasonal ranger until he retired in 1989, Roland H. Wauer's career took him to eight national parks, a regional office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and to Washington, DC, as Chief of the Division of Natural Resources. In an "inside-out" look at his career, Wauer takes the reader on a wildlife adventure through a number of those parks, documenting his experiences with the birds and other animals in each one. An avid birder, he made significant contributions to what was known about bird populations and avian habitats, and he has worked on a number of research projects involving mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, fishes, invertebrates, and other wildlife species. Follow along with Wauer as he recalls flying squirrels, great gray owls, and Clark's nutcrakers at Crater Lake; Nelson's bighorns, prairie falcons, LeConte's thrashers, and sidewinders at Death Valley; flammulated and spotted owls at Zion; and mountain lions, javelinas, peregrine falcons, cave swallows, and Colima warblers at Big Bend.
#23
Dancin’ in Anson
A History of the Texas Cowboys’ Christmas Ball
2014
In the 1880s, there wasn't much in Anson, Texas, in the way of entertainment for the area’s cowhands. But Star Hotel operator M. G. Rhodes changed that when he hosted a Grand Ball the weekend before Christmas. A restless traveling salesman, rancher, and poet from New York named William Lawrence Chittenden, a guest at the Star Hotel, was so impressed with the soiree that he penned his observances in the poem “The Cowboys’ Christmas Ball.”
Reenacted annually since 1934 based on Chittenden’s poem, the contemporary dances attract people from coast to coast, from Canada, and from across Europe and elsewhere. Since 1993 Grammy Award-winning musical artist Michael Martin Murphey has played at the popular event.
Paul Carlson defines the many people and events mentioned in Chittenden’s poem and explains the Jones County landscape laid out in the celebrated work. The book covers the evolution of cowboy poetry and places Chittenden and his poem chronologically within the ever-changing western genre. Far more than a history of the Jones County dance, Dancin’ in A History of the Texas Cowboys' Christmas Ball is a novel but refreshing look at a cowboy poet, his poem, and a joyous Christmas-time family event that traces its roots back nearly 130 years.
#24
Finding the Great Western Trail
2015
The Great Western Trail (GWT) is a nineteenth-century cattle trail that originated in Northern Mexico, ran west parallel to the Chisholm Trail, traversed the United States for some two thousand miles, and terminated after crossing the Canadian border. Yet through time, misinformation, and the perpetuation of error, the historic path of this once-crucial cattle trail has been lost. Finding the Great Western Trail documents the first multi-community effort made to recover evidence and verify the route of the Great Western Trail. The GWT had long been celebrated in two neighboring Vernon, Texas, and Altus, Oklahoma. Separated by the Red River, a natural border that cattle trail drovers forded with their herds, both Vernon and Altus maintained a living trail history with exhibits at local museums, annual trail-related events, ongoing narratives from local descendants of drovers, and historical monuments and structures. So when Western Trail Historical Society members in Altus challenged the Vernon Rotary Club to mark the trail across Texas every six miles, the effort soon spread along the trail, in part through Rotary networks, from Mexico, across nine US states, and into Saskatchewan, Canada. This book is the story of finding and marking the trail, and it stands as a record of each community’s efforts to uncover their own local history. What began as bravado transformed into a grassroots project that, one hopes, will bring the previously obscured history of the Great Western Trail to light.
#27
The Wineslinger Chronicles
Texas on the Vine
2001
In his pursuit of Texas terroir, the sense of place manifest in Texas wine country’s sun-baked soils, variable climate, and human intervention, Russell Kane has traveled the state tasting wine, interviewing the major players in Texas wine culture, and reflecting on the state’s extraordinary history and enterprising peoples. Here is the total immersion experience. Texas Wineslinger, the moniker now synonymous with Kane, sprouted from a blog of an Australian wine writer after Kane compared the big red wines that originate from the red sand and porous limestone common to both the Texas High Plains and Australia’s Coonawarra wine region. Kane’s reflections include explorations of Spanish missionary life and the sacramental wine made from Texas’s first vineyard as well as the love for grapes and wine brought subsequently by German and Italian immigrants from their homelands. Kane also relates stories of the modern-day growers and entrepreneurs who overcame the lingering effects of temperance and prohibition―forces that failed to eradicate Texas’s destiny as an emerging wine-producing region. A postscript, “A Winegrower’s Prayer,” serves as a poignant reminder of the challenges that weigh heavy on those still defining the terroir of Texas’s wine frontier. Also 04 Activeable as e-book, 978-0-89672-744-1, $19.95.
#32
Brujerías
Stories of Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the American Southwest and Beyond
2007
“He got as close as he could to observe the spectacle; his eyes could hardly believe what he saw. Circled around the huge bonfire were many witches dancing and making all kinds of gestures amidst laughs, screams, and bursts of laughter as they sang all together.” Recounted in Spanish and in English translation, these tales of sorcerers, fiendish witches, La Llorona, the vanishing hitchhiker, ghostly apparitions, and balls of fire will fascinate and spook readers of all ages and backgrounds. The sixty-four narrators in Brujerías range in age from seventeen to ninety-eight years old. Their stories come from a variety of Southwestern states as well as Latin America and demonstrate how the magical world of witchcraft and the supernatural connects Spain to Latin America and Latin America to North America. This rich tradition of supernatural tales illuminates an unexplored aspect of the American Southwest’s Hispanic heritage. Included are biographical information about the narrators and a glossary highlighting the regional Spanish dialect of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.
Authors
Christopher Little
Author · 2 books
* Author of Shooting the Breeze: Memories of a Photojournalist, November, 2024. Available on Amazon. * Author of Ever So Silent: An Emma Thorne Mystery, Honeysuckle Publishing, May, 2019. * Freelance Photojournalist. Little’s photographs have been published in most major magazines and newspapers including People, Life, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, Men’s Journal, Esquire, GQ, Forbes, Money, Business Week, Self, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, Progressive Architecture, House Beautiful, House & Garden, TV Guide, Family Circle, Cosmopolitan, McCalls, Town & Country, The New York Times Magazine, Cruising World, National Geographic World, Stern, Bunte, Paris Match. * Photographer of over 300 magazine and book covers. * Selected Books: * Photographer of Fallingwater. Rizzoli Classics, 2016. Edited by Lynda Waggoner. From Bookcritics.com: “I must comment specifically on the photography. Christopher Little’s photographs capture this work in views that it would take us many many visits to accumulate and he provides perspectives and details not previously shown, (or at least not shown so beautifully) views that invite us to see more deeply ... Brilliant! Masterful!” * Photographer of Atlantic High, a sailing book, with William F. Buckley, Jr. Doubleday, Fall, 1982. The New York Times Book Review Section called the book ‘‘stunning to look at.’’ It was on the Times’ bestseller list for seventeen weeks. * Photographer of Elegant New York: The Builders and The Buildings, 1885-1915, an architecture book with John Tauranac. Abbeville Press, Fall, 1985. * Principal photographer of Fallingwater with Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.—an architecture book celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Frank Lloyd Wright house. Abbeville Press, Fall, 1986. The Boston Globe called the book ‘‘the loveliest picture book in years.’’ The Wall Street Journal called the photographs ‘‘superb.’’ Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic of the New York Times, wrote this in the Book Review Section: "The book contains the finest photographs I have seen of this much-photographed Pennsylvania house . . . The expansive views by Christopher Little alone are sufficient to thrust Mr. Little into the front rank of contemporary architectural photographers." * Author and photographer of The Rockbound Coast—Travels in Maine, a travel memoir about a summer spent cruising the coast of Maine. W.W. Norton, July, 1994. * Education: Yale, B.A. in Psychology, 1971, The Hotchkiss School, 1967, The Buckley School, 1963. * Personal: Born 24 March 1949. Married to Elizabeth Colt Kittredge. Father of Eliza, grandfather of Charlotte.
Paul H. Carlson
Author · 6 books
Dr. Paul Howard Carlson is a historian, former professor, and former assistant chairman of the Department of History at Texas Tech University. He was also editor of the West Texas Historical Association Year Book (now West Texas Historical Review) for a number of years.
