Kirjahaku

This readable and thoroughly documented volume relates the fascinating story of the French Legation in Austin. The oldest house in the city, it was built in 1840-1841 as the residence of the French charge d'affaires to the fledgling Republic of Texas. Alphonse Dubois, the self-styled "Count de Saligny," dazzled frontier Texans with elegant parties until he was recalled after less than a year in Austin.

Built in the winter of 1839-1840, this house, and the Texas pioneer who inhabited it, are the central focus of this thoroughly researched and well-written study of Galveston's merchant elite--Gail Borden, Michel Menard, Thomas McKinney, and others--a generation of leaders who did much to shape their city and Texas itself.

Women played a vital and, until recently, frequently overlooked role in the settlement of the American West. They were not only mothers, schoolteachers, and nurses, but also cowgirls, outlaws, and ranchers. Mary Rak's career as a ranchwoman, and eventually an author, began in 1919, when she and her husband Charles Lukeman Rak purchased a 22,000-acre spread fifty miles north of Douglas, Arizona. She went on to recount her struggle to learn the cattle business and cope with the numerous problems of life on an isolated ranch.The new introduction to this rangeland classic was written by the late Sandra L. Myres. Her research into the lives and writings of ranchwomen provides an excellent background for understanding Mary Rak and her work.