With funding provided by the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, the Historic Sites Division of the Texas Historical Commission published historic site guidebooks for several of its 34 historic properties.
About the Guidebooks
These full-color soft-bound books follow the format of the very successful and award-winning Fulton Mansion guidebook published by the agency in early 2012. Each 6” x 9” book of approximately 10,000 words presents historic background information about the real stories of the sites, their development, the people who lived and worked at them, photographs important to each site, and contemporary color images of the structures and current interpretation.
The State Historic Sites for which book funding was achieved includes:
- The Starr Family Home in Marshall, Texas
- The Magoffin Home in El Paso, Texas
- The Varner-Hogg Plantation in West Columbia, Texas
- The Caddo Mounds, in Alto, Texas
- The West Texas frontier fort sites—Fort Griffin, Fort McKavett, and Fort Lancaster
Educating the Public
In addition to being available for public sale at each site, copies of the books are distributed free to libraries, schools, and higher education institutions in the regions appropriate to each site. The material developed for these books is also used to create educational resources for teachers and students online.