Adventurers, outlaws, settlers, cowboys, ranchers, and entrepreneurs from the United States, Europe, and Mexico all came to the coastal bend of Texas, struggling against nature and their fellow man to make their homes and livelihoods. Corpus Christi nearly disappeared during two wars, but grew and prospered in another. In this account, the tales of its growth are combined with the stories of its residents to reveal its intriguing history.

Recollections Of Other Days is a compilation of memoirs of early settlers of Corpus Christi and the Nueces Valley of South Texas. The great value of their accounts, both written down and told-to, lies in the fact that they lived through the times they recalled. Some had first-hand knowledge of Corpus Christi in the 1850s when it was a struggling frontier outpost. Robert and William Adams tended their flocks in the early years of the great sheep industry of South Texas. Anna Moore Schwien, daughter of a slave, Andrew Anderson, son of a bay pilot, and Eli Merriman, a doctor's son, shed light on "what it was like" during the dark times of the Civil War. Thomas Noakes wrote about the famous Noakes Raid of 1875 while he retained a vivid memory of the sight of his burning store. E. H. Caldwell, W. S. Rankin, Annie Marie Kelly, Mrs. Delmas Givens, and Roy Terrell provide unique accounts of Corpus Christi at the end of the 19th Century and early years of the 20th Century. Ruth Dodson and J. Frank Dobie offer fascinating pictures of their own ranch lives in the valley watered by the Nueces River. Louis Rawalt describes the long white island where he came to die but found a new life. They bore the heat and burden and violence of the frontier. They endured hard times. Their legacy is the Texas we know today. Their stories are part of our history. And part of ourselves.

In 1887 a Boston physician came to Texas for some bird hunting for ornithological purposes. He found the perfect guide in John M. Priour, a true hair-on-hide Texan, full of good natured abuse. Priour led his Yankee friend on a 400 mile trek through bramble, bog, forest, mud and more mud. When he returned to Boston, Dr. Peirce wrote a book about his misadventures in Texas. Exceedingly well written, poignant and humorous, this is the book Mark Twain would have written had he ever embarked on a hunting trip in South Texas. Now you can tag along as they fight off skunks and marauding pigs. You will be there as they brave every fashion of Texas weather in a tent made of quilts and calico. You'll watch their dealings with former slaves living in the river bottoms. You'll hear tales of love powders, ghosts and even a pterodactyl. And through it all you'll enjoy the company of Absalom, the most useless hunting dog ever to draw breath in Texas. This animal, while greatly loved by Priour, brought them misery at every turn. Of course, you'll read some well written and detailed accounts of the bird hunting they did too. The journey takes you from Nueces county, across the Coastal Bend to Brazoria, up to Columbus and back to Corpus Christi through Victoria and Refugio.