Why would an Army fort on the Texas frontier be built without a wall? In episode 156 of Wise About Texas, recorded live at the Young County Museum of History and Culture in Graham, Texas, host Ken Wise talks with Jim Hammond, director of Fort Belknap near Newcastle, about the 1851 post that became a crossroads of North Texas on the Butterfield trail and the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Hammond describes a soldier’s life that was far more monotonous than the movies suggest—until it wasn’t. He then takes listeners through the Elm Creek Raid of October 1864, when Comanche and Kiowa warriors crossed the Red River into a Young County emptied of most of its men by the Civil War, and the story of Britt Johnson, the man he calls his “hero of the frontier.” Listen to the full episode to hear how one small fort shaped the Texas frontier.

Episode 155: Young County Museum of History and Culture, Graham, Texas
Ken Wise records live at the Young County Museum of History and Culture in Graham, Texas, during its first-anniversary celebration. Curator and board president Tony Widner and founder Shannon Potts explain how they turned a 1937 Piggly Wiggly into a museum, why Young County holds so much Texas history, and the stories behind their most prized artifacts, from a Marlow brothers pistol to a James Monroe peace medal from the Elm Creek Raid.
In This Episode
• [00:47] Meet Shannon Potts and Tony Widner
• [01:11] How the Warren Wagon Train Raid site and a retired police chief started a museum
• [03:31] Building a museum with no museum experience
• [05:04] The building's history: Piggly Wiggly, Goodyear and church storage
• [07:02] Choosing which Young County stories to tell
• [09:43] Why Young County is a center of Texas frontier history
• [11:16] The first artifacts: a cavalry spur from Cox Mountain and a Marlow brothers pistol
• [12:23] The Marlow brothers story, from horse-theft arrest to the U.S. Supreme Court
• [16:14] The 1817 James Monroe peace medal from the 1864 Elm Creek Raid
• [18:34] Oil and gas history and Shannon's father's petroleum collection
• [18:58] The oak tree where cattle raisers organized in 1877
• [20:53] Oral histories and Hispanic, Native American and immigrant stories
• [22:45] Becoming a hub for North Texas history museums
• [23:55] The research library of more than 2,000 books
• [25:30] The Satanta portrait and the museum's murals
• [28:14] Charles Goodnight and the chuck wagon in Young County
• [30:11] Artifacts the museum is seeking, and Young County's Apollo 11 connection
• [31:23] Location, hours and group tours
Guests
• Tony Widner, curator and board president, Young County Museum of History and Culture; retired Graham chief of police
• Shannon Potts, founder, Young County Museum of History and Culture
Mentioned in This Episode
• Fort Belknap and historian Jim Hammond
• Warren Wagon Train Raid (1871), Satanta and Satank
• Marlow brothers and Sheriff Marion Wallace
• Elm Creek Raid (1864) and Little Buffalo
• Cox Mountain
• Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association
• Charles Goodnight, Oliver Loving and Cynthia Ann Parker
• Wildcatter Ranch
• Frontier Texas! in Abilene and museums in Wichita Falls and Fort Worth
• Hexcel and the Apollo 11 lunar module
Visit the Museum
Young County Museum of History and Culture, 609 4th Street, Graham, TX 76450. Open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call ahead for group tours.
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In This Episode
• The origins of polo in sixth-century B.C. Persia — and why it was war training, not sport
• How the British found the game in India, and the first formal English rules in 1875
• James Gordon Bennett brings polo to America — and immediately sends to Texas for horses
• Vanderbilts and Belmonts buying Hill Country mustangs
• San Antonio as the polo pony capital of the United States by 1885
• The Texas breeders: O. W. Cardwell of Junction, “Doc” Weir of Georgetown, Jay Floyd of Midland
• What these horses actually were — Spanish mustang stock with Thoroughbred blood, long before the American Quarter Horse existed as a breed
• Captain Glynn Turquand, the Balcones Ranch, and the Texas Polo Club at Boerne in 1883
• The first public polo game in Texas at San Pedro Springs Park — and the collision that opened it
• The Cowboys Polo Club challenge and the “Texas Championship” of July 14, 1883
• Military polo at Fort Sam Houston, and why the usual 1896 Fort Riley date does not hold up
• The Broadmoor Cup trophy in Colorado that inspired this episode
• Playing polo in a western saddle, and the separate sport of cowboy polo
• The Polo Association in 1890, the first U.S. Open in 1904, and how handicaps work
• Cecil Smith’s Llano County childhood and his apprenticeship under horse trader George Miller
• Polo in Hollywood — Will Rogers, Walt Disney and Reginald Denny
• How the Chicago Blackhawks logo came from a polo club crest
• The 1933 East-West “World Series of Polo” against Tommy Hitchcock
• The knockout, the ambulance Smith waved off, and the comeback that made him famous
• The all-Texas team that swept England in 1938 and won the King’s Coronation Cup
• Smith’s horses in the Hall of Fame, and the groom who won polo’s lifetime achievement award
• Five U.S. Open titles, twenty-five straight years at ten goals, a last match at age 83
• Getting There: where to watch polo in Texas today
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Show Notes
The 1842 Mexican invasions of Texas and their aftermath, including the Mier expedition and the Black Bean Incident.
Sam Houston's use of privateer-style commissions, authorizing Charles Warfield and later Jacob Snively to raise private forces against Mexican trade on the Santa Fe Trail.
Warfield's failed raid near Mora, New Mexico, and his men's 200-mile walk back to Bent's Fort after losing their horses.
The unrelated robbery and murder of Santa Fe merchant Antonio José Chávez, and its effect on U.S.–Texas–Mexico relations.
Snively's Battalion of Invincibles, their march to the Arkansas River, and their lopsided victory over Governor Manuel Armijo's advance scouts.
Armijo's retreat to Santa Fe and the U.S. Army's intervention under Captain Philip St. George Cooke, including his disputed disarming of the Texans.
The diplomatic fallout: Santa Anna's closure of the Santa Fe Trail, Texas's formal protest, and the military court of inquiry into Cooke's conduct.
The shift from Lamar's aggressive New Mexico policy to Houston's peace-seeking approach, and how the boundary dispute was eventually settled in the Compromise of 1850.
The later lives of the expeditions' key figures, including Jacob Snively, Charles Warfield, and Captain Philip Cooke.

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Episode 152 — Introducing Wise About Golf
Golf reached Texas before the automobile did — back when men who remembered San Jacinto were still walking around. Ken introduces Wise About Golf, a new Texas golf history podcast, and makes the case that golf is not a break from Texas history but a way into it. Then episode two of the new show plays in full.
In this episode
● Eleven years of Wise About Texas
● Why there is now a second podcast — and why you are the reason
● The argument: golf as a way into Texas history
● Golf in Texas before Spindletop and before automobiles
● The 1887 clergyman who invented the modern Saint Bernard
● An army post, a port, a railroad, the 1900 Storm
● How the two shows will work together
● Wise About Golf episode 2, attached in full
● Coming next: Galveston Country Club
Find Wise About Golf
● Search "Wise About Golf" in your podcast app — own feed, own website
● Instagram and Facebook: Wise About Golf
● Twitter/X: @wiseaboutgolftx
● Ideas and interviews: [email protected]
● Wise About Texas, as always: [email protected]
One more thing
Eleven years, and this show has never been built on advertising — only on listeners telling other listeners. If you enjoyed it, pass it along.

We think and talk a lot about the Republic of Texas (I hope). But what are we talking about? Most of the early settlement in Mexican Texas was east of the Colorado River and extended up the river as far as La Grange. The battles of the Texas Revolution took place in San Antonio and ended at San Jacinto. So we have a Republic, but how big is it? What are its borders? Well, it depended on who you asked. Here’s a fun fact: If you go to Colorado this summer, as so many Texans do, you’re probably never leaving the old Republic of Texas. But a claim isn’t enough–you better control it. Find out if your summer vacation ever really involves leaving Texas in the latest episode of Wise About Texas.

250 years ago, the “American Experiment” began, with the result being the freest and most successful nation in the history of the world. The American Revolution, like the Texas Revolution, was the unlikeliest of victories. But a victory it was, and Texas played a significant role. This episode celebrates America’s birthday by looking at the role Texas played in one of the most transformative events in world history.

There is nothing prettier than a river flowing gently through the canyons of the Texas hill country. But traveling along the river can be treacherous. The canyon walls are steep and rocky. The path is narrow and the drop steep. Is the beauty worth the pain? The German settlers sure thought so. In this episode, we discuss just one of many “river roads” in Texas and the rich history that unfolds along the trail. Load up for a Texas road trip in this episode of Wise About Texas.

The podcast has a good problem. There are so many listeners and downloads I had to move the podcast to a new RSS feed. There should not be any interruption, but if you notice that you may not be getting all the new episodes, please go re-subscribe through your desired podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Wise About Texas!

Governor Richard Coke was sworn in at the point of several guns. His supporters protected his impromptu ceremony on the second floor of the Capitol from his defeated opponent’s supporters on the first floor. But once in office, he changed Texas for the better. Balanced budgets and Texas A&M, among other things. Learn more about this influential Texan in this interview with his descendant, Rosser Coke Newton, author of the new book “Richard Coke: Texan.”