Articles

Writer John Graves was born in Fort Worth in 1920 and grew up hunting and fishing on the Trinity River. In 1957, Graves was still relatively unknown as a writer when he took a three-week canoe trip down the Brazos River, whose waters were threatened by a plan to construct flood-control dams along its length. Graves chronicled his journey in the book Goodbye to a River, which gracefully commingles history, nature, folklore, and philosophic reflection. Since its appearance in 1960, the book has never been out of print and is now considered a Texas classic. Graves used his earnings to buy land near Glen Rose, which he developed into a working ranch dubbed "Hard Scrabble." Between fence-mending and cow-chasing, he wrote about the land and people of Texas. "In a way," he once said, "I was trying to explain Texas to myself." More»