This book, which was first published in 1952, first began as a history of San Angelo and the adjacent region drained by the Conchos rivers. It grew, in writing, into a history of West Texas. It embodies author J. Evetts Haley's unequaled knowledge of the country from the Rio Grande to the Canadian, from San Antonio and Austin to the border of New Mexico. It could have been written only by a man familiar by personal acquaintance with the location of every water hole and spring, the exploration of every trail from Coronado's to the Overland Mail, the great cattle drives of the seventies and eighties, the establishment of every military post, and the shifting Indian policies of the United States from the annexation of Texas to the final retirement of the Comanches to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Haley has an intimate knowledge of hundreds of salty characters who played their picturesque roles in transforming the land from nature to civilization. Haley possesses all this equipment—gained from intensive study, personal experience, and thoughtful reflection—for writing a vivid story. Five previous books and unnumbered articles on phases of the region contribute to the facility with which he tells this stirring tale and account of its comprehensiveness. It is no less than a history of West Texas in its heroic age.