J. Marvin Hunter
Published: 2019-02-20
Total Pages: 708
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"Absolutely the best source there is on the cattle trail." Walter Prescott Webb J. Marvin Hunter's The Trail Drivers of Texas is a brilliant collection of first hand accounts of men and women who lived on the trail and range in the Old West. In total there are over two hundred different accounts from Texans in the nineteenth century. From the humorous to the deadly, the thrilling to the everyday, each of these stories are remarkably individual, depicting a Texas before the advent of the railroad. Hunter explained that "These pages sparkle with the lustre of deeds well done by a passing generation, and it is our purpose to keep bright that lustre, that it may not pale with the fleeting years." Many of the major events and figures of Texan history are covered within this monumental work, from members of the Texas Rangers to old cowboys, from the gun slinging towns to travelling the Chisholm Trail. "For 60 years, The Trail Drivers of Texas has been considered the most monumental single source on the old-time Texas trail drives north to Kansas and beyond ... Because of its vast volume of raw material, expressed in the words of those who lived the life and rode the long miles, students of cattle industry history regard it with high respect, even awe." Elmer Kelton, Dallas Morning News J. Marvin Hunter was an author, historian, journalist, and printer who founded the Frontier Times Museum in Bandera, Texas. His books include Pioneer History of Bandera County: Seventy-five Years of Intrepid History, The Bloody Trail in Texas, Old Camp Verde, the Home of the Camels, a reference to Jefferson Davis's 1850s camel experiment in the Southwest, Cooking Recipes of the Pioneers, and Peregrinations of a Pioneer Printer. He edited and compiled The Trail Drivers of Texas which was published in 1920. He died in 1957.