The Texas Center at Schreiner University recently released a 250-video series entitled E Pluribus, Texas. Each of these five-minute videos adds into a telling of the story of Texas from the beginning of time to the present day. Join the creator of this series, Dr. Don Frazier, and learn about the origins of this project and its uses across Texas and its role in telling the larger story of the American West.
Meet Donald Frazier, Ph.D.
Dr. Donald S. Frazier is the director of The Texas Center at Schreiner University in Kerrville and is the author of six books on Texas, the Civil War, and the complicated relationship between Mexico and the United States in the early nineteenth century.
Frazier has taught in college classrooms at Texas Christian University, McMurry University, and Schreiner University. In addition to his classroom teaching, Frazier has been very involved in public history, working on Civil War and frontier heritage trails in Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana, and work on historical projects in Europe and Mexico. He wrote and narrated a 250-video series on the history of Texas entitled E Pluribus Texas. He also penned Come and Take It, a full length play that follows the life story of Susannah Dickinson.
As head of The Texas Center at Schreiner University, Frazier leads an educational adventure enterprise, Texas Center Tours, as well as a publishing operation, State House Press.
This presentation will cover an investigation conducted by the West Texas Archeological Society in early 2025, which actually began in 2016 with the discovery of metal cavalry epaulets and other metal trash from the 1850s. To add to the unusual discovery was the location – 250 feet halfway up a very steep mesa overlooking Independence Creek in the Lower Pecos River region. What the investigation revealed was a secret Indian lookout and hideout, as well as the probable fight from which the epaulets originated – the famous 1857 Hood's Devil River Fight.
Meet Tom Ashmore
Tom spent 22 years in the Air Force as a special intelligence analyst. After retiring from active duty, he taught special intelligence skills for another five years worldwide and then 15 years at the Air Force Intelligence School at Goodfellow AFB, Texas. He completed a book in 2019, updated in 2024, on his Butterfield Trail investigations, entitled The Butterfield Trail through the Concho Valley and West Texas. He completed a second book in 2025 on the 3-year study on Camp Meyers Spring, Texas. He is currently the president of the West Texas Archeological Society and a board member of the Southwest Federation of Archeological Societies.
In September 2021, the City of Grapevine dedicated the Peace Circle, a work of public art on its Main Street, commemorating a meeting in August 1843 that included Republic of Texas President Sam Houston and the leaders of ten American Indian nations. Sallie Andrews will share the history of the gathering and the history of the public art project that touches millions of visitors in Grapevine each year.
Meet Sallie Cotter Andrews
Sallie Andrews is a resident of Decatur, Texas and a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma who has lived in Texas since 1977. She and her husband Rick moved to Decatur 20 years ago, own the Lazy Horse Ranch, and have one son and two grandsons.
Sallie was hired by the City of Grapevine in 1991 and now works part time for the City in Historic Preservation as Historic Preservation Manager. Among her many duties in historic preservation, she was a researcher and coordinator on the "Peace Circle" public art project. Peace Circle was installed at Peace Plaza on the corner of Main Street and Dallas Road and dedicated during the 38th Annual GrapeFest® in September 2021. She is considered by many to be one of Grapevine's historians and is a Lifetime Member of the Grapevine Historical Society. Sallie developed the Settlement to City Museum, the Donald Schoolhouse Museum and the Grapevine Cotton Ginners Museum, and served on the team that helped reconfigure the Grapevine Historical Museum in 2014. She has written numerous historical markers for Grapevine and is a regular contributor to the newsletters for the Grapevine Historical Society and the Wise County Historical Society. She is the author of a children's book entitled Grapevine Tales Through Time and has served on the editing teams for three Grapevine books.
Sallie has received many honors for her work, including the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Historic Preservation Medal and the Susie Pritchett Lifetime Achievement Award in Preservation from the Tarrant County Historical Commission. She is a board member of the Texas Trail of Fame, Inc., in Fort Worth, where she has served for three years. Sallie served on the Historical and Cultural Committee of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma for 25 years and is a seated faithkeeper in the longhouse, which is a lifetime commitment.