History along the Way: Stories beyond the Texas Roadside Markers by Dan K. Utley and Cynthia J. Beeman (review)

Note regarding changes to the book reviews section: The publishing world is undergoing a revolution in product delivery that no longer restricts the choice in book form to cloth or paperback. Electronic and print editions in various formats each require a separate ISBN, prices vary on a frequent basis, and there are increasing opportunities for self-publication that defy traditional bibliographical organization. Consequently, with this issue the editorial board of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly has decided to streamline the headers that introduce book reviews by removing ISBN, format, and pricing information. The rest of the publication data will be provided based on the print copies from which reviews are done, and in those cases where a book appears in electronic format, the publisher’s listing will be employed. We hope the change does not produce too much inconvenience.

Most of us have driven across Texas and stopped occasionally to read the roadside markers placed by the Official Texas Historical Marker Program. The program started in 1953 as a part of the Texas State Historical Survey and began to erect historical markers in the early 1960s. Counties nominated markers and provided funding; the Texas Historical Commission in Austin gave oversight, review, and inscription writing. The result of this county-state program was some 15,000 official markers scattered across the state. They made up what Rupert N. Richardson of Abilene called “the people’s history.” Authors Dan K. Utley and Cynthia J. Beeman were longtime employees of the Austin commission.

As travelers know, the markers offer a few paragraphs of information, such as a cattle trail here or an old schoolhouse there, and a sense of place for a historical event. From the random markers of the stop-and-go, people’s history, however, the speeding traveler will extract but little of the unity of Texas. Narrative histories are necessary for that. Interestingly, the authors inherited the random nature of the markers and reflect it in their organization, Consequently, the book has no chronology or regional continuity between chapters as one story abruptly ends and another begins.

Utley and Beeman write well and some of their chapters amount to brief biographies supported by interviews, archival materials, secondary resources, and sidebars. The color photographs, maps, seventy-seven marker locations, endnotes, and text are printed on a tough, slick paper obviously meant for rough transport on the floor of an automobile. Their work thus surpasses the earlier book on historical markers by Myra Hargrave McIlvain, Shadows on the Land: An Anthology of Texas Historical Marker Stories (Austin: Texas Historical Commission, 1984) that contains, incidentally, an introduction by Utley.

History along the Way: Stories beyond the Texas Roadside Markers follows History Ahead [sic]: Stories beyond the Texas Roadside Markers (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010). The titles are confusing and the authors have indicated more books about historical markers will be forthcoming. That is to be celebrated, but it would be helpful for the reader and for a future composite index to include a volume number in the title.