Texas Originals

Plácido Benavides is called the "Paul Revere of Texas" for his role in the Texas Revolution, as he was dispatched to Goliad to alert others of the Mexican army's approach. Although he had joined the Texians in opposing Mexican dictator Santa Anna, Benavides was fighting for Texas as part of a federalist Mexico, not for Texas independence.

Karle Wilson Baker was Texas's most celebrated poet in the first half of the twentieth century. Originally born in Arkansas, she fell under the spell of her adopted state, writing about the role of Texans in the American drama. Her collection of poems Dreamers on Horseback was nominated for the 1931 Pulitzer Prize.

After receiving a land grant from the Spanish government, Moses Austin planned to establish the first American colony in Spanish Texas. However, he died before his colonial dream became a reality. His son, Stephen F. Austin, succeeded him as leader of the Texas colony.

Texarkana's Scott Joplin is one the most popular songwriters in American history. At the turn of the twentieth century, he was known as the "King of Ragtime."

Lawyer and federal judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes is best known for administering the oath of office to Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One after John F. Kennedy's assassination. Over the course of her remarkable career, she championed equal rights and encouraged women to get involved in politics, illustrating her lifelong belief that "women can indeed be a force in history."

James Fannin led the Texas rebels massacred at Goliad in 1836. His defeat inspired the victory that secured Texas independence.

Librarian and historian Nettie Lee Benson rose from a bookish South Texas childhood to assemble one of the world’s leading archives for research on Latin America. Now, scholars from around the world visit the Austin library bearing her name.

Journalist, playwright, and raconteur Larry L. King spent most of his life in Washington, DC, but the vivid language and distinctive characters of his home state of Texas never ceased to inspire him. Texas, he once said, "provided me with the stuff of a career," and his work endures as a vibrant chronicle of the state's politics, culture, and personalities.

San Marcos native Cleto Rodríguez was born in 1923. By the age of nine, he had lost both his parents and was raised in San Antonio by relatives. Rodríguez began his military career in 1944 when he joined the Army. For his heroism in World War II, he received the nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor. Rodríguez was the fifth Mexican American ever to earn this honor—and one of fourteen Texans who earned it during World War II.

Cherokee leader Chief Bowl, also known as "Bowles" and "Duwali," was born in North Carolina around 1756 to a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother. In the early nineteenth century, Bowl led the first large Cherokee emigration west of the Mississippi River—to Missouri, then Arkansas, and finally to the Mexican province of Texas. There, in a settlement near Nacogdoches, Bowl headed an alliance of Cherokee villages and later perished in battle while fighting for Cherokee land rights..