Kenneth B. Ragsdale's Books

Austin, Cleared for Takeoff

Aviators, Businessmen, and the Growth of an American City

By: Kenneth B. Ragsdale

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Austin, Cleared for Takeoff

Aviators, Businessmen, and the Growth of an American City

By: Kenneth B. Ragsdale

Austin, Texas, entered the aviation age on October 29, 1911, when Calbraith Perry Rodgers landed his Wright EX Flyer in a vacant field near the present-day intersection of Duval and 45th Streets. Some 3,000 excited people rushed out to see the pilot and his plane, much like the hundreds of thousands who mobbed Charles A. Lindbergh and The Spirit of St. Louis in Paris sixteen years later. Though no one that day in Austin could foresee all the changes that would result from manned flight, people here—as in cities and towns across the United States—realized that a new era was opening, and they greeted it with all-out enthusiasm. This popularly written history tells the story of aviation in Austin from 1911 to the opening of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in 1999. Kenneth Ragsdale covers all the significant developments, beginning with military aviation activities during World War I and continuing through the barnstorming era of the 1920s, the inauguration of airmail service in 1928 and airline service in 1929, and the dedication of the first municipal airport in 1930. He also looks at the University of Texas's role in training pilots during World War II, the growth of commercial and military aviation in the postwar period, and the struggle over airport expansion that occupied the last decades of the twentieth century. Throughout, he shows how aviation and the city grew together and supported each other, which makes the Austin aviation experience a case study of the impact of aviation on urban communities nationwide.

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Page Count

310

Publisher

University of Texas Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0292774354

ISBN 13

9780292774353

Quicksilver

Terlingua and the Chisos Mining Company

By: Kenneth Baxter Ragsdale

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Quicksilver

Terlingua and the Chisos Mining Company

By: Kenneth Baxter Ragsdale

Before Terlingua achieved some notoriety as the site of the annual World Championship Chili Cookoff, the ghost town was the bustling center of the mercury mining industry in the United States. Quicksilver tells the story of the company town and its feudal lord, Chicago industrialist Howard E. Perry, who built a hilltop mansion overlooking the dry domain. Based on many primary sources, this solidly researched and historically sound book tells of profit, power, and loss; of U.S. Army protection from the effects of revolution south of the border; of Depression-era maneuverings and labor unrest; and of a region that holds growing fascination for thousands of visitors each year. Color and authenticity come from the author's interviews with such individuals as Robert Cartledge, who for nearly three decades worked as store clerk, purchasing agent, and finally general manager of the Chisos Mining Company in Terlingua.

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Page Count

368

Publisher

Texas A&M University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0890961883

ISBN 13

9780890961889

Big Bend Country

Land of the Unexpected

By: Kenneth Baxter Ragsdale

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Big Bend Country

Land of the Unexpected

By: Kenneth Baxter Ragsdale

Having first visited the Big Bend in 1928, Kenneth B. Ragsdale has been digging around in and writing about the region for decades. In Big Bend Country: Land of the Unexpected, he takes a nostalgic retrospective journey through the times and places of this increasingly popular corner of West Texas to say goodbye to those who made the history, created the myths, and lived the legends.?Building his stories around themes of compassion, conflict, and compromise, he profiles both famous and relatively unknown figures. He tells stories of curanderas (healers), charity workers, a woman who practiced medicine without a license, and another who started a private lending library in her store to encourage rural, poor children to read. In contrast to these stories, he chronicles blood feuds, shootouts, and the violence bred in wild, relatively lawless spaces.?Ragsdale?s stories cover a half-century, roughtly 1900 to 1955, from wagon trains to the filming of an epic movie, a time in which the face of the Big Bend changed: the quicksilver mines closed, a national park was established, isolation and cattle gave way to vacation ranchettes and tourists. ?Big Bend Country is a well-done and useful work and should be welcomed by all lovers of that wonderful country.? ?Dallas Morning News ?If you?ve never been to Big Bend, Ken Ragsdale?s new book will make you want to go there.??Austin American-Statesman.

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Page Count

316

Publisher

Texas A&M University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

089096811X

ISBN 13

9780890968116

Wings over the Mexican Border

Pioneer Military Aviation in the Big Bend

By: Kenneth B. Ragsdale

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Wings over the Mexican Border

Pioneer Military Aviation in the Big Bend

By: Kenneth B. Ragsdale

A Texas historian reveals how a borderland ranch became the proving ground for American combat aviation and a flashpoint for US-Mexico relations. Against a backdrop of revolution, border banditry, freewheeling aerial dramatics, and World War II, Kenneth B. Ragsdale tells the story of Elmo Johnson’s Big Bend ranch in southwestern Texas. This remote airfield is where hundreds of young Army Air Corps pilots demonstrated the US military’s reconnaissance and emergency response capabilities and, in so doing, dramatized the changing role of the airplane as an instrument of war and peace. Ragsdale vividly portrays the development of the US aerial strike force; the men who would go on to become combat leaders; and especially Elmo Johnson himself, the Big Bend rancher, trader, and rural sage who emerges as the dominant figure at one of the most unusual facilities in the annals of the Air Corps. Ragsdale also examines how these aerial escapades effected border tensions. He provides a reflective look at US–Mexican relations from the 1920s through the 1940s, paying special attention to the tense days during and after the Escobar Rebellion of 1929. Wings over the Mexican Border tells a stirring story of the American frontier juxtaposed with the new age of aerial technology.

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Page Count

433

Publisher

University of Texas Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0292787812

ISBN 13

9780292787810

Big Bend Country

Land of the Unexpected

By: Kenneth Baxter Ragsdale

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Big Bend Country

Land of the Unexpected

By: Kenneth Baxter Ragsdale

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Page Count

316

Publisher

Texas A&M University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

089096811X

ISBN 13

9780890968116

Wings over the Mexican Border

Pioneer Military Aviation in the Big Bend

By: Kenneth B. Ragsdale

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Wings over the Mexican Border

Pioneer Military Aviation in the Big Bend

By: Kenneth B. Ragsdale

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Page Count

433

Publisher

Univ of TX + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

029275759X

ISBN 13

9780292757592

Book's by Kenneth B. Ragsdale

Austin, Cleared for Takeoff

Austin, Cleared for Takeoff

Quicksilver

Quicksilver

Big Bend Country

Big Bend Country

Wings over the Mexican Border

Wings over the Mexican Border

Big Bend Country

Big Bend Country

Wings over the Mexican Border

Wings over the Mexican Border

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