Description: First in a series of books about historic towns of Texas. It covers two capitals of the Republic, the first major seaport, an important steamboat terminal, an outlaw haven, a significant crossroads settlement, and the ghost of intended Houston. Only one of them survives as a major city today, but they were all important in their glory days.
Brief description: Joe Tom Davis is a fifth-generation Texan: his maternal great-great-grandfather, George Lord, was a survivor of the Mier Expedition and the "Lottery of Death." He attended public schools at Edna, Texas, where his interest in and love of Texas history was whetted by hearing Jackson County tales about the "Wild Man of the Navidad" and the ghost town of Texana, the Allen brothers' first choice for the site of the city of Houston. Davis is a Navy veteran and holds both B.S. and M.Ed. degrees from Sam Houston State University where he was elected to Alpha Chi, Who's Who, and received the James Ellison Kirkley Prize as outstanding social science student. After teaching at Sam Houston for two years, he joined the faculty of Wharton County Junior College in 1965 as an instructor of American and Texas history.