From Outlaw Haven to Ghost Town

A new book tells the story of how Tascosa flourished and faded.

Written by Sally Logue Post

In the mid-1800s, Tascosa, Texas, was a boom town dominated by big cattle ranchers and bigger-than-life outlaws. Today, one has to look hard to find any trace of the cow town.

But its history is alive and well in a new book “Tascosa Its Life and Gaudy Times” by Frederick Nolan. In the book, published by Texas Tech University Press, Nolan turns his exhaustive historical research into a readable story of one of the most colorful and violent towns of the Old West.

Nolan traces the history of Tascosa from its rise from the vast, virtually uninhabited Texas Panhandle, to sleepy cow town, to booming cowboy capital of the Texas Panhandle to ghost town.

The stories of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett are here as is the war between the big cattle companies and the rustlers. There are dozens of pictures of key players and locations, including one from the author’s collection that is believed to be the only authentic picture of Billy the Kid. The book closes with the death of Elizabeth “Frenchy” McCormick, legendary saloon-girl and the last resident of Tascosa in 1941.

More than 50 pages of notes and bibliography provide research resources for readers looking for more historical information.

Nolan has had a long-time love of the Old West, beginning research at age 21 that has made him a leading authority on the American West. He is the co-founder of the English Westerners’ Society. He is the author of “The West of Billy the Kid,” “The Wild West: History, Myth and the Making of America,” and many other works of fiction and nonfiction written under his own name and the pen names Christine McGuire and Frederick H. Christian.

He is a well-known lecturer on the American West and has appeared as an expert on the subject in numerous television documentaries in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

For more information or to purchase the book, visit the Texas Tech University Press Web site.

Related

Texas Tech University Press publishes books in a variety of areas including the American West, especially biography, history, memoir and travel. The Press has published a catalogue of titles focusing on Texas and the West. The books include a wide variety of subject from Texas Dance Halls, to a history of the City of Amarillo, to a look at notorious killings and celebrated Texas trials.