Excerpt from Pioneer History of Bandera County: Seventy-Five Years of Intrepid History Of commerce and travel; their tender hands planted the first flowers on the graves of those whose bones first reposed under Texas soil. God bless you, our dear pioneer women. We treasure you as trophies fresh from the field of victory; may your declining years be rewarded with the gratitude and appreciation of all who enjoy the blessings and privileges of this great country; may your last days be as the calm eventide that comes at the end of a quiet summer day when the sun is dying out of the west. We beleive and admit it today that woman is heaven's ideal of all that is pure and ennobling and lovely here, her love is the light of the cabin home. It is the one thing in the world that is constant, the one peak that rises above the cloud, the one window in which the light burns forever, the one star that darkness can not quench - is woman's love. It rises to the great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ... EXPERIENCES OF J. P. HEINEN, SR. J. P. Heinen, Sr., a highly respected pioneer citizen of Bandera county, writes interestingly of his experiences here in the early days. His narrative will be read and appreciated by many of the old timers who have moved away, as well as by all who live here now and know him: During the war between the states I lived with my parents in Kendall county, near Comfort, I often passed through the town of Bandera hauling corn for the Confederate government to D'Hanis, driving a team of eight or ten yoke of oxen hitched to a heavy wagon, hauling three tons to the load. In 1866 I came over to Bandera with one of ray brothers and we engaged in the mercantile business, building a two-story stone building in the valley east of the Riverside Inn. This stone building was washed away in the big rise in the Medina river in 1900. In those days, after the war, there was very little money in circulation in this section and I sold my goods mostly on credit, for which I received shingles in payment, that being the only commodity the people had to pay with. To make my collections I made one or two trips every month on horseback to the very head of the Medina river, buying shingles and collecting them for debts due me, and having them hauled to San Antonio and sold for cash. At that time there was no Medina City. Mr. George Smith lived in a log cabin two miles above the present site of Medina, on what is now known as the Goodman place. I often spent the night with Mr. Smith on my trips up the river. He was unmarried at that time, lived alone, and always seemed delighted to have me come and stay with him. Like all frontiersmen, Mr. Smith was a fine old gentleman, and I treasured his friendship most highly. There were no houses...

Texas writer/historian Mike Cox explores the inception and rise of the famed Texas Rangers. Starting in 1821 with just a handful of men, the Rangers' first purpose was to keep settlers safe from the feared and gruesome Karankawa Indians, a cannibalistic tribe that wandered the Texas territory. As the influx of settlers grew, the attacks increased and it became clear that a much larger, better trained force was necessary. From their tumultuous beginning to their decades of fighting outlaws, Comanche, Mexican soldados and banditos, as well as Union soldiers, the Texas Rangers became one of the fiercest law enforcement groups in America. In a land as spread-out and sparsely populated as the west itself, the Rangers had unique law-enforcement responsibilities and challenges. The story of the Texas Rangers is as controversial as it is heroic. Often accused of vigilante-style racism and murder, they enforced the law with a heavy hand. But above all they were perhaps the defining force for the stabilization and the creation of Texas. From Stephen Austin in the early days through the Civil War, the first eighty years of the Texas Rangers is nothing less then phenomenal, and the efforts put forth in those days set the foundation for the Texas Rangers that keep Texas safe today. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.