Come and Take It

To many people, Texas is cowboys and cattle drives. The image of tough, independent men driving a massive herd of longhorns across desolate country while facing impossible odds is universally iconic. But cattle drives werenʼt just a bunch of cowboys getting together and aiming a herd of cows north. They were highly profitable and well organized business ventures that followed carefully crafted and scouted trails. One of the most famous of these was the Goodnight-Loving trail, named after two classic Texas characters: Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight, who forged an epic friendship that has become as legendary as their trail.

This week we return to the early part of the 20th century to the city of Galveston. In the years after the hurricanes of 1900 and 1915 devastated the town, the island worked hard to revive itself as a port and a tourist destination The acceptance of alcohol and other vices played a major part of the recovery of the city, and had an indellible affect on Galveston and Texas history. Today we talk about the Free State of Galveston, on Come and Take It!

It is that time of year again, when our minds turn to the strange, bewildering, and sometimes downright creepy parts of history. There is no shortage of ghost stories in Texas, and—perhaps strangely, perhaps conveniently—many of them revolve around places that are trying to attract people to spend their money. Today we are talking about Haunted Texas hotels.

In 1859, tensions between longtime Tejanos and newcomer Americans in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas exploded into a conflict that became known as the Cortina Troubles. These revolved around a Tejano named Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, the so called Red Robber of the Rio Grande. Unlike many of the conflicts in the Rio Grande Valley, the motivation behind the Cortina Troubles was not one of territory or borders but social equality and a clash of cultures still felt today.

Defeat at the hands of Texas rebels on the field of San Jacinto has left Mexican leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna disgraced and discredited, and his country mired in political and economic chaos. But he would rise from the ashes many times before his ambition finally overreached his usefulness.

No man dominated the political life of the first decades of Mexico's existence like Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. But from his earliest days as a Spanish soldier to the field of San Jacinto, Santa Anna's glory was tied to Texas as much as it was to Mexico. Today we look at the early life and rise to power of the infamous Santa Anna, the Napoleon of the West.

Today, Jefferson is a quiet little vacation community in the forests of East Texas. But not so long ago, it was the sort of rowdy saloon and riverboat town where Mark Twain would feel right at home. Cotton was king and this city—hundreds of miles from the coast—gained a reputation as a miniature New Orleans. This lasted until the Army Corps of Engineers opened up the Red River and turned what was once a thriving port city into just another out-of-the-way town. A classic boomtown, Jefferson went from nothing to a thriving metropolis to a near ghost town in less than 40 years.

The Texas Revolution was only one of many rebellions that caught fire during independent Mexico’s first turbulent decades. Even before 1835—and certainly after—there were different efforts within Texas itself to create separate republics. This week, we talk about two of those: the Republic of Fredonia and the Republic of the Rio Grande. These republics were both a cause to, and a result of, the Texas Revolution in some very surprising ways.

A little over one year ago, the first episode of Come and Take It was released to the world. Now, with 52 weekly episodes under our belt, we talk about the show's origins, how we got where we are today, and a little about where we want to go in the future.

One hundred fourteen years ago today, the Hurricane of 1900—sometimes known as Isaacs Storm or just the Galveston Hurricane—was and remains the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. A fifth of the population of the barrier island at the southern end of Galveston Bay was lost, and the true cost of this deadly storm is nearly impossible to measure. Why was it so deadly, and how did it become intrinsically linked with the name Isaac Cline?