New Book Featured in the Images of America Series from Arcadia Publishing.

       Live Oak County by regional authors Richard Hudson and Janis Hudson boasts more than 200 vintage images with unusual stories about a unique South Texas county whose history includes fascinating and important contributions to the state and the rest of the nation.

      In 1856, Live Oak County was chartered by frontiersmen under the spreading limbs of a great live oak tree near the Nueces River. As far back as 12,000 years, hunter-gatherer Paleo-Indians subsisted on berries, roots, and cactus tuna in this timeless frontier. Cabeza de Vaca, prisoner of Coahuiltecans in 1535, provided the first European description of the area. The Spanish then explored and unsuccessfully attempted to colonize the region, and when Spanish troops withdrew from Texas in 1813, the primary Spanish colonizers in the area, the Ramirez brothers, were run off by Indians. Shiploads of Irish immigrants next arrived between 1828 and 1834. Following the Civil War, herds of wild Longhorns driven north turned drovers like George West into wealthy cattle barons. The early-1900’s arrival of the railroad created new towns, causing others to die. Today’s Live Oak County citizens draw on their indomitable pioneering spirit to meet new 21^st-century challenges.

      Historians Richard Hudson, Master of Arts in History from the University of North Texas, and Janis Hudson, Master of Science in Education from the University of Texas, serve as marker co-chairs for the Live Oak County Historical Commission. The Hudson's interviewed countless descendants of early pioneering families for the images and stories in this collection. The University of North Texas Libraries provide custodial care for the Richard and Janis Hudson Private Collection of Texas History.

       Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States.

A young man of 19 creates and colonizes a small South Texas town.

Fifth generation Texan, Charles R. Tips graduated from the University of Texas in Austin at 19. His ancestors came from Germany through Indianola to settle in Gonzales County. Aspiring to be like the empresarios under Spanish and Mexican rule, Tips set about fulfilling his dream in 1913 by founding and colonizing Three Rivers in the South Texas Brush Country at the confluence of three rivers – Nueces, Frio, and Atascosa. For the next thirty-six years, Three Rivers’ growth was indebted to his leadership and the families he drew to the area. The town’s fiftieth anniversary in 1963 prompted Tips’ memoir, which was lost and only rediscovered near the end of 2012. After a successful career of land development, Tips was laid to rest in Mission Memorial Park, San Antonio, Texas, March 11, 1976.