Celia Smith Hill's journal provides a glimpse of hardscrabble life in far West Texas during the first half of the twentieth century. Hill's family moved to Texas from Tennessee in the late 1800s. After her death, Bill Wright and Marianne Wood researched the history of the area and interviewed family and friends to provide context for Hill's colorful tale of endurance in an unforgiving landscape. Hill's family suffered lean times during the Depression before cinnabar-mercury ore-was discovered on her family's property. During World War II, the Fresno Mines supplied one tenth of all the mercury produced in the United States. After graduating college, Celia began a peripatetic teaching career that lasted decades, marrying and losing two husbands along the way. Finally, living alone along the most remote western border of Texas, Celia spent her later years selling snacks to the occasional visitor. Bill Wright met Celia at her La Junta General Store in Ruidosa, where she told him about her unfinished journal. With this book Bill fulfills his promise to share her courageous and fascinating life with others.

In 2006, Texas businessman, historian, and photographer Bill Wright was encouraged-though not officially invited-by the US Department of State to teach a class in digital photography to young Afghans in Kabul. The course was sponsored by an Afghan Non-Governmental Organization, ASCHIANA, which helps to support "working children and their families." This book records Wright's experiences and celebrates the creativity he saw flourish at the heart of a war zone.For thirty-five years Wright owned and managed a petroleum marketing company. After selling his company to his employees in 1987, he has devoted his time to writing, photography, and public service for a number of nonprofit organizations including the National Council for the Humanities, the Texas Council of the Humanities, and most recently as a commissioner on the Texas Commission for the Arts.

The history of Fort Phantom Hill is an interesting saga of defense, a story of both political necessity and individual hubris, and a tale of human perseverance and shortsightedness. The story of the "Post on the Brazos River" has all the elements that characterize human activity with its triumphs and tragedies, victories and defeats.
As time passed, circumstances dictated changing uses for the structures at Fort Phantom Hill, from military outpost to stage station to hunter's outpost. Eventually, opportunities for adaptation ran their course and the stone structures fell into neglect. The frontier was occupied by new immigrants who possessed a more modern technology. The threat of Indians was replaced by the hard daily work of living in a semi-desert environment.
In "Fort Phantom Hill: The Mysterious Ruins on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River," Bill Wright weaves the threads of this story into the larger warp and weft of western history and shows how this small fort was conceived, lived, and died as an important part of the "winning of the West."

Eli and Curly Bill are back for an all-new adventure After nearly escaping an angry tribe of Indians, the boys return to Dustbowl only to discover that the bandit Horseshoe has been captured and One Arm Jack and Rattlesnake are holding them responsible. To enact their revenge, the bandits have sent a telegram out to their long-lost brother Scorpion, a seven-foot, three-hundred-pound giant of a man, who is more than happy to take the challenge. Meanwhile, Eli and Curly Bill follow the gold rush out to California, where they build a supply cabin. Things come to a head on a stormy night in the mountains, when a mysterious stranger arrives at their cabin, with a wooden casket on his dogsled It gets more complicated as the bandit brothers show up for the night, and it becomes obvious that someone within the cabin is taking the others out, one by one. Join Eli and Curly Bill, the outrageous Miner Mike and his mule Sal, in an edge-of-your-seat thriller sure to keep you guessing until the very end.

It is pleasant to stray in the Big Bend and Davis Mountains country of Far West Texas. The vast spaces, rugged terrain, and sparse settlement invite straying--and tale spinning. In Stray Tales of the Big Bend master folklorist Elton Miles continues to intrigue and enchant with stories of the region and its culture. Readers will find in this volume new tales of Terlingua Desert mystery bells, spirit-guarded treasure, and the mock-sacrificial San Vicente rain dance with its pre-Christian vestiges. Travelers will enjoy learning the lore of the rugged land they visit. Historians will discover the most complete account of the Glenn Springs-Boquillas raid of 1916, as well as stories of the spirit-world-inspired "Old Orient" railroad, which ran from Kansas through the Big Bend to the Gulf of Baja California. Here too is a story, with new information, about the controversial Big Bend tablet, discovered at Hot Springs and said to prove that Europeans were present there about A.D. 300. Miles recounts the recollections of cowboy preachers, camp meetings, and the reticent yet sometimes uninhibited religious attitudes of the cowboy, both open-range and modern.

Anecdotes about Maggie Smith abound, but Bill Wright's The Whole Damn Cheese is the first book devoted entirely to the woman whose life in Big Bend country has become the stuff of legend. For more than twenty years-from 1943 until her death in 1965-Maggie Smith served folks on both sides of the border as doctor, lawyer, midwife, herbalist, banker, self-appointed justice of the peace, and coroner. As she put it, she was "the whole damn cheese" in Hot Springs, Texas. She was also an accomplished smuggler with a touch of romance as well as larceny in her heart. Maggie's family history is virtually a history of the Texas frontier, and her story outlines the beginnings and early development of Big Bend National Park. Her travels between Boquillas, San Vicente, Alpine, and Hot Springs define Maggie's career and illustrate her unique relationships with the people of the border. Capturing the rough individualism and warm character of Maggie Smith, author Bill Wright demonstrates why this remarkable frontier woman has become an indelible figure in the history of Texas.