Not only could wild horses not keep Philip Nolan away from Texas in the 1790s, they were the reason he kept coming back and the reason he died here. Other more nefarious motives have been suggested as the real reasons for his Texas expeditions, but we believe now that Philip Nolan was here for the horses.

Someone once described Juan Seguin as the Forrest Gump of Texas history. That wasn't meant to imply that Seguin was a simpleton, only that he showed up at iconic moments in the state's history. How many Texians could say they were at the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto? Juan Seguin could. Or how many Texian veterans of those battles would soon after the war be branded a traitor?

Shawn Bishop is following in some big footsteps. He is a direct descendant of frontier Texas naturalist Gideon Lincecum, who first observed and wrote about Texas flora and fauna in the early 1800s. Lincecum corresponded with Charles Darwin about the agricultural ant (more commonly known today as the harvester ant or red ant) and recorded the Choctaw tribe’s language and traditions in the Choctaw’s own language.

The move from the Dallas suburbs to Kountze in Southeast Texas was not that far in terms of actual mileage but a world away all the same for Shannon Pankow and her family. The Pankows found themselves four miles from the nearest small town and 20 miles from the nearest big town.