We designed the Discover Texas History program to entice students to discover something that interests them and learn how to dig deeper, taking initiative for their own educational growth.
That’s why we’ve added dozens of new videos to the hundreds of carefully curated links kids can choose to browse as they Discover Texas!
While researching and writing the curriculum, I discovered quite a few new interests myself!
For example, cowboys.
I wasn’t a ranch kid, but I grew up surrounded by cattle and ranches, rodeos, famous Texas trails, and trail drives. Though ranching has always been a part of Texans’ heritage way back to the days of the Spanish vacqueros and caballeros, I didn’t realize that the era of trail drives was fairly short, comprising one phase when Texans supplied the California gold rush (1849-1859) and then again after the Civil War when Texans rounded up the cattle that had gone feral during the war and drove them to northern and eastern cities or to supply forts for the Westward Expansion (from 1865 until the railheads reached Texas).
But from those few years, an entire culture was born…and I was fascinated.
Check out this video playlist by real Cowboy Kent Rollins, but be sure to allow yourself plenty of time.
Here are just a few samples of the videos I enjoyed:
* What Cowboys Ate/Life During the 1800s Cattle Drives
* Chuckwagon Trail Stew/Cowboy Beef Stew
* How to Make Cowboy Coffee
* History of a Cowboy Cook/Day in the Life of a Chuck Wagon Cook
* Cowboy Cures/Natural Remedies and Immune Boosters
And when I got done with those, I enjoyed learning about Texan William “Bill” Pickett, the Black cowboy who invented bulldogging.
Did you know that by the mid-1870s about 25% of all cowboys were Black? Turns out the West was a land of opportunity for freedmen looking for a new start!
Oh, the things you can learn when you’re blazing trails of knowledge! 🙂
