Since its founding in 1854, Rockwall has been home to dedicated public servants, pioneer personalities, hometown heroes, successful business owners, devoted educators, and hardworking farmers. Containing more than 100 profiles of Rockwall's interesting and influential citizens, Legendary Locals of Rockwall includes the stories of Confederate veteran John Summerfield Griffith, who rode on horseback to Austin to gain the original charter for Rockwall County; long-tenured office holders such as Lannie Stimpson, who served 53 years in office, and Derwood Wimpee, who served 35 years; a long list of educators, including Maurine Cain, Dorothy Smith Pullen, Ouida Springer, and Doris Cullins, who influenced generations of Rockwall students; and business professionals such as newspaper publishers P.J. and Jane Bounds, local developer and philanthropist Raymond Cameron, and Texas's first formally trained female dentist, Dr. Jessie Castle LaMoreaux. In addition, Rockwall has long honored its agricultural heritage by naming roads after farming families who influenced the region. The names Bourn, Rochell, Cornelius, Clem, and Smirl, among others, will be familiar to those who travel the roads of Rockwall County.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. This is the unforgettable story of how Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die. "It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order." —Entertainment Weekly McCandess had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Not long after, he was dead. Into the Wild is the mesmerizing, heartbreaking tale of an enigmatic young man who goes missing in the wild and whose story captured the world’s attention. Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild. Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless. When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding—and not an ounce of sentimentality. Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.

Willa Muir can’t remember her fourth year of life. An early, undefined childhood trauma blacks her memory behind what feels like an impenetrable wall. And with her parents in the hereafter, she can’t ask them to clarify what happened. She can’t see the invisible, so she researches to obsession, aching to know the truth. Leaving the burnt-to-the-ground house that held all her notes, she ventures back to her hometown of Rockwall, Texas, haunted by a simple sentence spoken over her and a gold ring that promises love. Can she uncover the mystery of her early tragedy within the four walls of her childhood home and find the courage she needs to embrace the man who loves her

Was Gasoline, Texas, named in honor of a gas station? Nope, but the name does honor the town’s original claim to fame: a gasoline-powered cotton gin. Is Paris, Texas, a reference to Paris, France? Yes: Thomas Poteet, who donated land for the town site, thought it would be an improvement over “Pin Hook,” the original name of the Lamar County seat. Ding Dong’s story has a nice ring to it, derived from two store owners named Bell, who lived in Bell County, of course. Tracing the turning points, fascinating characters, and cultural crossroads that shaped Texas history, Texas Place Names provides the colorful stories behind these and more than three thousand other county, city, and community names. Drawing on in-depth research to present the facts behind the folklore, linguist Edward Callary also clarifies pronunciations (it’s NAY-chis for Neches, referring to a Caddoan people whose name was attached to the Neches River during a Spanish expedition). A great resource for road trippers and historians alike, Texas Place Names alphabetically charts centuries of humanity through the enduring words (and, occasionally, the fateful spelling gaffes) left behind by men and women from all walks of life.

From the ancient world to the present women have been critical to the progress of science, yet their importance is overlooked, their stories lost, distorted, or actively suppressed. Forces of Nature sets the record straight and charts the fascinating history of women’s discoveries in science. In the ancient and medieval world, women served as royal physicians and nurses, taught mathematics, studied the stars, and practiced midwifery. As natural philosophers, physicists, anatomists, and botanists, they were central to the great intellectual flourishing of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. More recently women have been crucially involved in the Manhattan Project, pioneering space missions and much more. Despite their record of illustrious achievements, even today very few women win Nobel Prizes in science. In this thoroughly researched, authoritative work, you will discover how women have navigated a male-dominated scientific culture – showing themselves to be pioneers and trailblazers, often without any recognition at all. Included in the book are the stories of: Hypatia of Alexandria, one of the earliest recorded female mathematicians Maria Cunitz who corrected errors in Kepler’s work Emmy Noether who discovered fundamental laws of physics Vera Rubin one of the most influential astronomers of the twentieth century Jocelyn Bell Burnell who helped discover pulsars

Since its earliest days, Oak Cliff, a rolling, tree-covered section of Dallas, has generated outstanding personalities in all fields of American society and business and continues to do so today. In a high school history class, future US Speaker of the House Jim Wright caught his political vision; two years later, future Olympic champion and LPGA founder Babe Didrikson began her training at Lake Cliff Park. The legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan, along with contemporaries Michael Martin Murphy and Ray Wylie Hubbard, began his music career in Oak Cliff, while sports legends like Jerry Rhome and Harvey Martin paid their dues on local fields of play. Hollywood successes Belita Moreno and Stephen Tobolowsky first trained in their high school drama classes, decades after pioneer Oak Cliff girl Sarah Horton Cockrell became Dallas's first millionaire. Although a presidential assassin once lived in the community, two of America's largest mega-churches now call Oak Cliff home, as did the "Father of the Texas Sesquicentennial."