Texas Originals

Rabbi Henry Cohen once said, “Other men play golf for recreation. My hobby is helping people.” Cohen is perhaps best known for his role in the Galveston Movement, which brought Jewish immigrants into the Port of Galveston to settle throughout Texas and the Midwest. Cohen met immigrants at the dock and provided advice and assistance, sometimes purchasing clothing and supplies for them with his own money.

Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca first set foot on land that would become Texas in 1528, when his crude raft ran aground near Galveston Island. Cabeza de Vaca then embarked upon what one scholar described as "the most remarkable [journey] in the record of American exploration."

Connecticut-born Frederick Law Olmsted is best known for his design of New York's Central Park. But his book A Journey through Texas (1857) remains one of the most thorough and engaging nineteenth-century travel accounts of the state.

Physician and pioneering activist Héctor P. García was once described as "a man who in the space of one week delivers twenty babies, twenty speeches, and twenty thousand votes." A proud member of the Greatest Generation, García sought the inclusion of Mexican Americans into mainstream America.

Charles Goodnight liked to point out he was born in 1836, the year the Republic of Texas was founded, and moved here in 1845, the year Texas joined the United States. A legendary rancher and trailblazer, Goodnight became known as the "father of the Texas Panhandle.

Over the course of her life, Jane Y. McCallum compiled a remarkable record of public service. She was a leader in Texas women's fight for suffrage. She helped the Texas League of Women Voters fight for education, health care, and child labor laws. She served as executive secretary of the Women's Joint Legislative Council. She also served as Texas Secretary of State under two different governors.

Tejano leader José Antonio Navarro lived under five the six flags of Texas. Born in 1795 to a prominent family in San Antonio, Navarro grew up along with his city. In the 1820s, he championed Stephen F. Austin's colonization efforts. When trouble arose between the Texans and Mexico's government, Navarro was one of two Tejanos to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836.

Born in 1904 on her grandparents' ranch in Roma, Texas, pioneering folklorist and educator Jovita González felt a deep commitment to the people and culture of South Texas. She traveled throughout Cameron, Starr, and Zapata counties, interviewing residents of the borderlands. González captured the voices of ordinary Mexican Americans seeking to preserve their cultural traditions during a period of tumultuous change.

In 1683, Franciscan priest Damián Massanet left Barcelona to serve as a missionary in the New World. Massanet spent several years building missions in Mexico. Then, in 1690, he accompanied General Alonso De León, governor of the state of Coahuila, to establish a Spanish presence in Texas. Massanet's Tejas mission lasted for only three years, but it marked the first step in Spain's efforts to bring the lands of Texas under the Spanish flag

In the 1920s, writer Winifred Sanford's stories of the Texas oil boom captured the anxieties of a state on the verge of modernization.