by Ruby A. Wooldridge, Robert B. Vezzetti

From Karankawa, Indians and Spanish explorers to the big time ranchers and Fortune 500 companies of today, a fascinating and varied history. In Brownsville: A Pictorial History, this heritage is beautifully portrayed in more than 350 carefully selected, captioned pictures, many of them rare, previously unpublished views.

The authors remind us that "history has flowed as a river through Brownsville for a period of more than 300 years." To this once remotes place came men and women under five national banners. Among them for Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Porfirio Diaz, Manuel Gonzalez, Robert E. Lee, and many others who left their mark on our nation and the world. "Here came William C. Gorgas to conquer yellow fever, providing the key to the building of the Panama Canal… Lieutenant Abner Doubleday, who would one day give us baseball… and Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, and Les Mauldin during the birth of air transportation." In Brownsville, revolutions have been planned and supplied. Forty-niners have passed through on their way to the gold rush, and men of vision like Robert King and Mifflin Kenedy have stayed to find fame and fortune. All in all, an exciting history is artfully re-created by Ruby Wooldridge and Robert Vezzetti in this pictorial album.

The people of Brownsville, from simple soldiers to grand generals, from poor dirt farmers to the wealthiest of ranchers, are all represented in this book, captured by the camera for one brief moment in time, and hinting at their stories for the magic picture boxes of our imagination.