Tascosa: Its Life and Gaudy Times by Frederick Nolan (review)

play that rivaled the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, two men and at least four horses were killed. This tirelessly researched book is a must read for history aficionados and neophytes alike. Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Volume 2, accomplishes its task of filling the empty saddles of the long overlooked “grassroots” shooters who were just as formative in the shaping the Old West’s reputation as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Belle Starr. Katy, Texas Dan Anderson Tascosa: Its Life and Gaudy Times. By Frederick Nolan. (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2007. Pp. 384. Illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-89672-604-8. $39.95, cloth.) Today, Tascosa, Texas, is probably best known as the home of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch, a Christian organization supporting family and youth. However, in its heyday during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Tascosa was anything but Christian. Frederick Nolan’s Tascosa: Its Life and Gaudy Times vividly chronicles why this former Oldham County seat was once one of the most notorious Old West cattle towns in Texas. Tascosa’s cast of characters reads like a Who’s Who of the Old West: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Jim Courtright, Jesse and Lon Jenkins, John Selman, and Bill Gatlin, to name but a few. Life in Tascosa was punctuated by drinking, gambling, whoring, double-crossing, and gunplay. Tascosa is brimming over with outlaws, rustlers, card sharks, soiled doves, and swindlers; indeed, it is often hard to find a redeeming person among the bunch. Nolan clearly relishes telling these stories, and he does so with ease, often employing Old West dialect and salty language in the recounting. Perhaps most important, however, are the book’s authoritative sections on ranching in the Texas Panhandle and the West. Nolan’s discussion of the cattle industry, the growth of corporate ranching, free range, and fencing of that range is both detailed and informative. While the railroad’s bypassing of Tascosa certainly hastened the town’s eventual demise, it was the fencing of the range that killed it. Tascosa is not the first study of this famous Panhandle Old West town. In 1946 the University of Oklahoma Press published John L. McCarty’s Maverick Town: The Story of Old Tascosa to favorable reviews. Readers familiar with this previous work will naturally be curious as to why Nolan decided to write a new book on Tascosa now, especially since many of the same issues and people he discusses are also in McCarty’s book. Nolan omits any mention of Maverick Town in his introduction and narrative, yet cites this work frequently in his footnotes and also lists it in his bibliography. He also makes use of McCarty’s extensive original research from archives in Amarillo and at Texas Tech. It is clear from its bibliography and footnotes that Tascosa does indeed break considerable new ground on the subject and contains a wealth of fresh primary research. A brief discussion of the previ330 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 330 ous historiography by Nolan, therefore, would help the reader understand the relationship between his work and McCarty’s. On another matter, the author on page 95 uses a photograph of a stagecoach from his own collection and identifies it as Cape Willingham’s Mobeetie and Las Vegas Mail Line. Actually, this is a February 1879 picture of Eli Bates and F. C. Taylor aboard a San Antonio and El Paso Mail Line Celerity coach at Concho Mail Station in Benficklin, Texas. This photograph has been previously published in a number of books, including those by Wayne Austerman and the Tom Green County Historical Preservation League. These two points aside, Tascosa is a lively, entertaining study that makes an important contribution to our understanding of Texas’s nineteenth-century ranching and Old West history. Texas Tech University Press has produced a handsome book. The sophisticated, mood-setting cover design is eye-catching. Tascosa is also blessed with numerous photographs, many of them from the Haley Library in Midland, that help the reader get an authentic period feel for the people , the town, and the surrounding Panhandle...