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This is a selection of letters written by Aileen Kilgore Henderson to her family while she was a young teacher working at Panther Junction within the Big Bend National Park.

Galveston--a small, flat island off the Texas Gulf coast--has seen some of the state's most amazing history and fascinating people. First settled by the Karankawa Indians, long suspected of cannibalism, it was where the stranded Cabeza de Vaca came ashore in the 16th century. Pirate Jean Lafitte used it as a hideout in the early 1800s and both General Sam Houston and General James Long (with his wife, Jane, the "Mother of Texas") stayed on its shores. More modern notable names on the island include Robert Kleberg and the Moody, Sealy and Kempner families who dominated commerce and society well into the twentieth century. Captured by both sides during the Civil War and the scene of a devastating sea battle, the city flourished during Reconstruction and became a leading port, an exporter of grain and cotton, a terminal for two major railroads, and site of fabulous Victorian buildings--homes, hotels, the Grand Opera House, the Galveston Pavilion (first building in Texas to have electric lights). It was, writes Cartwright, "the largest, bawdiest, and most important city between New Orleans and San Francisco." This country's worst natural disaster--the Galveston hurricane of 1900--left the city in shambles, with one sixth of its population dead. But Galveston recovered. During Prohibition rum-running and bootlegging flourished; after the repeal, a variety of shady activities earned the city the nickname "The Free State of Galveston." In recent years Galveston has focused on civic reform and restoration of its valuable architectural and cultural heritage. Over 500 buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and an annual "Dickens on the Strand" festival brings thousands of tourists to the island city each December. Yet Galveston still witnesses colorful incidents and tells stories of descendants of the ruling families, as Cartwright demonstrates with wry humor in a new epilogue written specially for this edition of Galveston. First published in 1991 by Atheneum.

For a child growing up in the 1920s, El Paso seemed to be full of off-beat characters and warm personalities: from a diverse group of servicemen and their families stationed at Fort Bliss to tuberculosis patients attracted by the dry desert climate. Mary Rodge's father, a dye man in the cotton-mill industry, moved the family to El Paso in 1924 when he was offered a job there. Rodge's memoir begins with her family's hazardous road trip across the desert from Redlands, California, to Texas. In the following pages, she explores the lives of its citizens and narrates her experiences over the next eight years. She reminisces about the family's attempt to raise pigeons to market to the Harvey House restaurant, picnics at Hueco Tanks, and parties at Elephant Butte Dam. As she and her friends become older and deal with the difficulties of adolescence, Rodge realizes the influence of her hometown on her life. While she takes a nostalgic look at her childhood, Rodge also examines timeless social issues--terminal illness, suicide, sex, and abortion. Her remarkably frank attention to these sensitive subjects and their role in middle-class, urban life of the 1920s and 1930s makes her tale vivid and fascinating. Looking back, Rodge discovers that adolescence was more than a point of time in her life--it was a place. Each episode in her memoir mixes optimism, humor, and honesty.