Several months ago I got a call from Allen Rich, the publisher, editor, writer, reporter, photographer, etc. of the North Texas e-News in Bonham. The e-News is an electronic daily newspaper and a worthy lineal successor to the late lamented Bonham Daily Favorite.

In the summer of 1923, a man named Will H. Evans of Bonham gave a party for the citizens of Fannin County -- all 60,000 of them. And what a swell party it was. 1918 American La France pumper truck in Bonham parade, Will Evans' party for Fannin County, July 10-12, 1923 - Image Courtesy of Amon Carter Museum of American Art © Erwin E. Smith Foundation

Barbed wire brought the end of the open range to cattle country, but it also ushered in a new era of scientific animal husbandry that changed the industry forever. Still, for many old timers, the wire would always be "Devil's rope."

Before barbed wire made its appearance in the United States, another product of North Texas and the Red River Valley was the fencing material of choice for farmers all over the country--the tree called the Osage Orange or Bois d'Arc.

Texas governor Ross Sterling supported by Texas Rangers faced off against Oklahoma governor "Alfalfa Bill" Murray and and the Oklahoma National Guard the Red River Bridge War of 1931.

Though born in Grayson County, Texas, William "Alfalfa Bill" Murray loomed large in the early history of Oklahoma.

Centenial commemorative stamp.

Until 1858, transportation between Texas and the rest of the United States was haphazard at best. That changed for the better when the Butterfield's Overland Mail started regular service and brought passengers and mail over the Red River and through Sherman for the first time.

Cavalry on the Plains - Remington

In the story of the struggle for dominance on the Southern Plains and its place in the history of the Southwest, there remains one principal chapter. It is the saga of the Red River War of 1874-75, and the final wresting of the area by the U.S. Army from the Comanche, Southern Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho who had dominated the region two centuries.

In the fall of 1874, three soldiers and two civilian scouts made a legendary defense against 125 mounted warriors in what became known as the Fight at Buffalo Wallow.

The evolutionary clash of competing cultures was not new to the Great Plains in the 1870s. It was but another cycle in the struggles for domination of the plains that had been going on for more than two hundred years, but it was the last chapter in that long and violent story.

For most of the Civil War, the Red River was a backwater to bigger events happening east of the Mississippi, but in the spring of 1864 that changed when Federal gunboats appeared on the river.

His name was just too much for the Texans under his command, so they called him "Prince Polecat," a nickname that delighted the general. In a Confederate army officered by men of all manner of backgrounds, Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac was still one of a kind.

Now long gone and almost forgotten, the Great Red River Raft was once a primary obstacle to settlement and transportation along the Red River in Texas and Oklahoma.

Following the early Spanish and French forays to the Red River, it would be more than six decades before the arrival of a new group of explorers and pioneers, the Americans.

As Fannin County residents await a series of formal discussions regarding possible restoration of the historic 1888 courthouse, a look back at the series of courthouses used by the county offers a glimpse into the fascinating history of a county that, according to Handbook of Texas, once encompassed 22 modern-day Texas counties. all images courtesy of Fannin County Museum of History

It seems appropriate for a project called the Red River Scrapbook, that early on we explore, at least briefly, some of the history of the river and the events that have taken place on its waters and along its banks. So that we intend to do.

North Texas can lay claim to many famous men and women, but one of the most famous was also the most infamous. In a three-part series, the Red River Scrapbook looks at the life and mean times of Texas' World Champion Desperado, John Wesley Hardin.

John Wesley Hardin's violent career finds new opportunities for mayhem as he takes part in the Taylor-Sutton Feud in DeWitt County and then is tracked down and captured by the Texas Rangers. It's "Texas, by God!"

After sixteen years in prison, John Wesley Hardin gets a second chance, but is soon back to the dangerous ways that will end his life in an El Paso saloon while shooting dice with "...Four Sixes to Beat."

For most of the country, the Civil War ended with the surrender of Confederate forces across the South in the spring of 1865, but in Northeast Texas, these events only presaged the beginning of an informal struggle between rival factions that paid out in blood and death for another half dozen years. Starting today, the Red River Scrapbook takes two-part look at the infamous Lee-Peacock Feud. photo by David Womack

The wounding of Bob Lee and the assassination of Dr. W.H. Pierce in late winter of 1867 ending nothing as Lee and Lewis Peacock and their supporters played revenge for revenge and the Lee-Peacock Feud continued.

Here is the text of Robert Lee's letter to The Bonham News. It has been edited and punctuated somewhat for clarity.

We invite you to join North Texas e-News in a new project - a scrapbook of the Red River Valley and of the people, places, and events that have made a mark on this part of Texas and Oklahoma for two hundred years and more. At e-News we often have thought that an import function of a small town newspaper is to act as a repository of the everyday things that tie one day to the next, one year to the next, one generation to those who have come before and will come after.

It was one thing for the Congress to declare independence from Great Britain; it was another thing to achieve it. As the word of the decisions reached in Philadelphia spread throughout the colonies, those in favor of the move, if they were not under the baleful eye of King George's soldiers, generally celebrated with gusto, but it would take six years of war and before the idea became a reality for many.

For more than one hundred years, the heart and soul of Trenton, Texas, current population about 700, have been embodied by the town's two oldest businesses, The First National Bank of Trenton and The Trenton Tribune, and the three generations of the two families behind those enterprises, the Donagheys and the Holmeses. (L-R) Tom Mc Holmes and Lewis Donaghey