Bejar Dispatch

If you are firmly in camp Smokey Bear, this article might not be for you, cause people this go around are handing out wildfires like Oprah. Our topic this time is fire starting techniques and methods documented in Republic era Texas and closely adjacent areas. Some are seen just about everywhere and some I’ve never seen before necessarily anywhere, or at least in an Anglo context. It’s a curious thing to note that even the mundane and items as commonplace fire lighting get en

Sometimes I think some people get more out of deciding what to camp with than camping itself, either as glampers or going Spartan. It’s the elephant in the room that the majority of people or personas that we wish to emulate in the woods were mounted or had some kind of boat. Reconciling that to stationary camps for a weekend is easy enough, you just stuff the back of your trunk full of three pack animals worth of things, lay it all out at camp for some glamping, and scoop it

It’s opening day pretty soon for a new hunting season and across the country deer season and muzzleloader season are on many people’s...

Back in 2021, I posted what would become the most popular post for the blog to date so far. In it we went through a very basic summary of...

Two posts in less than a week, what gives? This one really is a gimme; I compiled most of it several years ago and never got around to...

This go around at the dispatch we’ll be looking at a topic that’s been covered several other places so right off the bat I’m going to...

Efficiency, it seems to be a buzzword everyone uses for nearly every task and advertisement it seems. Efficient lights, appliances,...

Let's first start with the cardinal rule, dogs are better than cats... but here's one area where cats do have the advantage. Today we're...

This post gets more into the philosophy of living history and reenacting so buckle up and if I don’t lose you by the end then thanks for...

Last night while scrolling the interwebs I got a bit excited. Frontier images are always fun to find, not as uncommon as most people...

Some six miles farther on our march, I observed "Three-legged Willie" galloping up to General Houston dressed in buckskin and with a...

A knife! He's got a knife!!! Of course he has a knife. He's always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183 and we're barbarians. How...

Nineteenth century Texas was unquestionably shaped by horse and rider. Be it vaquero, cowboy, ranger, or your everyday character just...

There’s generally something to be said when a particular fashion remains in use over the span of many decades and across the greater part...

Boots being an unknown quantity, some wore shoes and some moccasins. Here a broad brimmed sombrero overshadowed the military cap at its...

(Written by Jonathan Woodward) "Brown Bess" “An outspoken, flinty-lipped, brazen faced jade, With a habit of looking men straight in the...

Texas and cattle, there are few words that have achieved such a close association with each other. But what are the origins behind this...

Well howdy there, I suppose this is the part of the program where I say what all this is even about. If you're like me, you like history,...