Polo is called the sport of kings — but in America, it ran on Texas cow ponies. In this episode of Wise About Texas, host Ken Wise traces the interesting but often ignored history of Texas polo, beginning with cavalry drills in sixth-century B.C. Persia and ending on a ranch in Kendall County. The game…
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In the early 1840s, a broke Republic of Texas could barely afford an army, so President Sam Houston tried something else: he deputized private citizens to raid Mexican trade on the Santa Fe Trail and split the spoils with the government. What followed was one of the strangest near-wars in Texas history, one that pulled…
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I have started a second podcast. It is called Wise About Golf, it is a Texas golf history podcast, and the first episodes are up now. Here is why. Golf is not a break from Texas history. It is a way into it. The game reached Texas in the 1880s — before Spindletop, before automobiles…
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