History Ahead: Stories Beyond the Texas Roadside Markers

More than 13,000 historical markers line the roadsides of Texas, giving drivers a way to sample the stories of the past. But these markers tell only part of the story.

In History Ahead, Dan K. Utley and Cynthia J. Beeman introduce readers to the rich, colorful, and sometimes action-packed and humorous history behind the famous (Charles Lindbergh, Will Rogers, The Big Bopper, and jazz great Charlie Christian) and the not-so-famous (Elmer "Lumpy" Kleb, Don Pedro Jaramillo, and Carl Morene, the "music man of Schulenburg") who have left their marks on the history of Texas. They visit cotton gins, abandoned airfields, forgotten cemeteries, and former World War II alien detention camps to dig up the little-known and unsuspected narratives behind the text emblazoned on these markers.

Written in an anecdotal style that presents the cultural uniqueness and rich diversity of Texas history, History Ahead includes nineteen main stories, dozens of complementary sidebars, and many never-before-published historical and contemporary photographs.

History Ahead offers a rich array of local stories that interweave with the broader regional and national context, touching on themes of culture, art, music, technology, the environment, oil, aviation, and folklore, among other topics. Utley and Beeman have located these forgotten gems, polished them up to a high shine, and offered them along with convenient maps and directions to the marker sites.

UTLEY, former chief historian of the Texas Historical Commission, has served as the president of the East Texas Historical Association and is a fellow of the Texas State Historical Association. A resident of Pflugerville, he now teaches at Texas State University-San Marcos. BEEMAN, of Austin, retired in 2007 as director of the Texas Historical Commission’s History Programs Division. She is a board member of the Ruthe Winegarten Memorial Foundation for Texas Women’s History and current president of the East Texas Historical Association. Both Utley and Beeman serve on the Texas Oral History Association board.