New Book Releases

From its beginning as one of the most ambitious construction projects west of the Mississippi, the imposing red granite Lone Star statehouse loomed large in Texas lore. The iconic landmark rests on a foundation of election rigging, an unsolved murder, land swaps and pre-dedication blackmail. It bore witness to the first meeting between LBJ and Lady Bird, as well as a bizarre resolution honoring the Boston Strangler. Mike Cox digs up a quarry's worth of the capitol's untold history, cataloguing everything from its ghost stories to its public art and collectible tourist kitsch.

Along Galveston's Gulf Coast runs a seventeen-foot-high, ten-mile-long protective barrier--a response to the nation's all-time deadliest natural disaster. The seawall remains a stoic protector more than a century later, shielding the island from much more than physical destruction. As the foundation of Seawall Boulevard, this structure created an entirely new tourism industry that buoyed the city's economy through war, the Great Depression and hurricanes. Adapting to the cultural trends and political movements that defined the past century, the seawall represents the unbreakable spirit of Galveston's resilient population and provides a fascinating glimpse into bygone times.

The Santa Fe Line and the famous Fred Harvey restaurants forever changed New Mexico and the Southwest, bringing commerce, culture and opportunity to a desolate frontier. The first Harvey Girls ever hired staffed the Raton location. In a departure from the ubiquitous black and white uniform immortalized by Judy Garland in 1946's Harvey Girls, many of New Mexico's Harvey Girls wore colorful dresses reflective of local culture. In Albuquerque, the Harvey-managed Alvarado Hotel doubled as a museum for carefully curated native art. Join author Rosa Walston Latimer and discover New Mexico's unique history of hospitality the "Fred Harvey way."

This book was a finalist for the New Mexico Book Co-Op History Book of the Year. Most people think of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War when Lincoln County, New Mexico is mentioned. Yet, the county has a rich history besides that chapter of lawlessness and violence. In writing this book I wanted to tell the story of the miners and forest rangers and the Civilian Conservation Corps and early settlers. The Jornada Mogollon culture was here over a thousand years ago but had left before Christopher Columbus arrived in the new world. They have left pieces of their lifestyle in the form of pueblos and pottery. A railroad was built in the basin below the Mesa, but the water there was full of alkaline and chemicals. The Mesa had pristine mountain water and an engineering miracle was built in the form of a pipeline to get the water from the Mesa to the railroad. A western religious revival in the form of the Ranchman's Camp continues this summer for the 71st year.