Visitors Enjoy the Northeast Texas Trail
By Judy Peacock & P.A. Geddie Kelsey Crowther of Greenville walked across 132 miles of the Upper East Side of Texas recently with her dog, her mom, and her sister. “I enjoyed the whole trail and the experience of traveling that far across Texas. I look at a map...
Mount Vernon Music Belongs to All of Us
By Lisa Tang Mount Vernon Music Association (MVM) is one of the region’s little-known treasures, bringing refined music through concerts and outreach programs for 17 years. Founders Mark and Ute Miller are high-quality musicians who play regularly with symphonies in...
McConaughey Sails Through Greenlights
Longview native Matthew McConaughey recently released his book, Greenlights, based on a diary he kept for 35 years, including his years at Longview High School. Rather than doing a traditional memoir or advice book, McConaughey said Greenlights is based on adventures...
Mary Kate Hunter Fought For Women
By Lisa Tang Mary Kate Hunter, born November 8, 1866, at Brushy Creek, Texas, pursued many interests, including poetry, history, and music, yet she’s best remembered for leading efforts to found the Palestine Carnegie Library (1914) and helping women gain the right to...
Trailblazing With Cattle Baron John Chisum, Sweet Jensie, and Their Descendants
By P.A. Geddie Pioneer cattle baron John Simpson Chisum was born August 16, 1824, in Tennessee. His family moved to Red River County, Texas, when he was a boy. His father, Claiborne Chisum — a public-spirited and wealthy man — was probably the earliest settler in...
A Woman’s Voice
By Tracy Torma This summer marks the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. The women’s suffrage movement began in earnest in the decades before the Civil War. In 1848, a group of abolitionist activists of mostly women gathered in Seneca Falls, New...
Freedom Fund Honors Lulu White
Just a week before she died on July 6, 1957, Lulu Belle Madison White was honored with the establishment of the Lulu White Freedom Fund by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She made significant contributions to help balance equal...
Remnants of Freedom
By Pamela Edwards Some might find their great grandmothers’ quilts harbor more history than they know. What was once thought of as an innocent pastime for modest women might have actually been part of a paradigm-shifting movement. Through meticulous quilting patterns...
Jefferson Tours Give Visitors A Look Back in Time
By Judy Peacock There are many ways to tour historic Jefferson, Texas, a pre-Civil War town with scenic streets, charming restaurants, quaint bed and breakfasts, historic hotels, and picturesque landscapes. The town was founded in Marion County in the late 1830s to...
Get the Best Crowds to Your Next Event
By P.A. Geddie Planning and implementing events is a passion of mine that started as a child. My little brother and the other kids in my neighborhood were often the "crowd" for my productions of backyard carnivals, theatrical performances, bug clubs, and sing-a-longs....
Artist Captures Faces of Newgate
By P.A. Geddie When artist Anup Bhandari was growing up in Nepal, he saw how kind his father was to others, even to strangers. Those memories followed him to Texas as an adult and eventually collided with some people that inspired him to do the same. One winter about...
The Legacy of Tex Ritter
By P.A. Geddie This summer marks 20 years since the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in Carthage began holding an event to honor outstanding contributors to the industry. Among the six inductees that first year in 1998 was Panola County’s hometown hero and America’s...
Coming Summer 2025
County Line Magazine archives are going to The Portal to Texas History, a gateway to rare, historical, and primary source materials from or about Texas. Look for the County Line issues there soon.