Anecdotes about Maggie Smith abound, but Bill Wright's The Whole Damn Cheese is the first book devoted entirely to the woman whose life in Big Bend country has become the stuff of legend. For more than twenty years—from 1943 until her death in 1965—Maggie Smith served folks on both sides of the border as doctor, lawyer, midwife, herbalist, banker, self-appointed justice of the peace, and coroner. As she put it, she was “the whole damn cheese” in Hot Springs, Texas. She was also an accomplished smuggler with a touch of romance as well as larceny in her heart.Maggie's family history is virtually a history of the Texas frontier, and her story outlines the beginnings and early development of Big Bend National Park. Her travels between Boquillas, San Vicente, Alpine, and Hot Springs define Maggie's career and illustrate her unique relationships with the people of the border. Capturing the rough individualism and warm character of Maggie Smith, author Bill Wright demonstrates why this remarkable frontier woman has become an indelible figure in the history of Texas.

In 2006, Texas businessman, historian, and photographer Bill Wright was encouraged—though not officially invited—by the US Department of State to teach a class in digital photography to young Afghans in Kabul. The course was sponsored by an Afghan Non-Governmental Organization, ASCHIANA, which helps to support “working children and their families.” This book records Wright’s experiences and celebrates the creativity he saw flourish at the heart of a war zone.For thirty-five years Wright owned and managed a petroleum marketing company. After selling his company to his employees in 1987, he has devoted his time to writing, photography, and public service for a number of nonprofit organizations including the National Council for the Humanities, the Texas Council of the Humanities, and most recently as a commissioner on the Texas Commission for the Arts.

Celia Smith Hill’s journal provides a glimpse of hardscrabble life in far West Texas during the first half of the twentieth century. Hill’s family moved to Texas from Tennessee in the late 1800s. After her death, Bill Wright and Marianne Wood researched the history of the area and interviewed family and friends to provide context for Hill’s colorful tale of endurance in an unforgiving landscape. Hill’s family suffered lean times during the Depression before cinnabar—mercury ore—was discovered on her family’s property. During World War II, the Fresno Mines supplied one tenth of all the mercury produced in the United States. After graduating college, Celia began a peripatetic teaching career that lasted decades, marrying and losing two husbands along the way. Finally, living alone along the most remote western border of Texas, Celia spent her later years selling snacks to the occasional visitor. Bill Wright met Celia at her La Junta General Store in Ruidosa, where she told him about her unfinished journal. With this book Bill fulfills his promise to share her courageous and fascinating life with others.

Mimi: The Perilous Journey of a Free-Spirited Texas Woman tells the extraordinary true story of a Texas debutante who lived a life few could imagine. A niece of Texas Senator John Tower, Mimi’s journey takes her from tragedy and privilege to the dangerous heart of the Mexican drug trade.After losing her mother at a young age and surviving a horrific lake accident, Mimi pursued her studies in California before settling in Dallas with her first husband. She earned degrees in art history and ceramics from Southern Methodist University and later made her mark in Houston, organizing a groundbreaking sculpture exhibition that drew national acclaim in the 1970s.A 1976 trip to Big Bend with future governor Ann Richards deepened her love for Far West Texas and led her to purchase a ranch in Mexico near Lajitas, Texas. There, Mimi’s path took a darker turn. Her romances with drug dealers, including the notorious Pablo Acosta Villareal, pulled her into a dangerous world of smuggling and violence. When Acosta was killed in a dramatic shoot-out, Mimi’s own life was at risk. Reinventing herself once again, she fled to California, where she worked as a casting agent before eventually returning to her beloved Terlingua, where she now runs a coffee shop and hotel.A gripping story of reinvention, survival, and resilience, Mimi blends Texas history, border intrigue, and the complexities of a fearless woman’s life. It is both a cautionary tale and a celebration of strength in the face of peril.

Bills Life story was his desire for his children and grandchildren to know him and even more than that, he wanted them to know Jesus as their personal savior. He studied the Bible and was very concerned about the liberal teachings coming from new translations and our governments lack of respect of Gods Word.Bill never knew his father because his father was killed, as he tells in his story, at the very young age of two. Although Bill was always around during the lives of his children, there was much of his younger days not spoken of. He loved reading of his heritage and had a desire to know his father and grandfathers. He wanted his children and grandchildren to know him and what his childhood was like. Maybe he was driven by his desire to know more about his own daddy or just wanted his loved ones to know where he came from. Whatever the reason, it was very important to Bill to be remembered. He wanted his grandchildren to know he was a singer and decided to record some CDs to be left behind. Wanting to be remembered and also wanting Jesus to be remembered, he named the gospel recording Remembering Him, and he recorded an old country classic, popular in our younger days, The w-RIGHT WORLD. As you read Bills MyLife, notice the time and datesit will tell you even more.If you read and listen closely, you will find a love story or maybe two or maybe even threeor is there more?Michael Carlton has a lot to say about needing the negative to know the positive. Pray for wisdom and understandingBill wrote an original story of his life, which included many more names and happenings or memories special to him. It was too much for a short book; therefore, Bill condensed this book. It has not been altered in any way. At one time, while Bill was writing, sitting at the head of our dining-room table, which served as his office, he called to me (I was in the kitchen next room), What about the time [Ill not say what], how or what should I say? After a quiet thought and a sincere prayer and a deep breath, I answered, What is, is. Its your book. Write what you want. I turned and walked away, thinking, Whats done is done and cant be undone. I cant change the past. Thank God for his forgiveness, praise His Holy Name Jesus Christ and His shed blood. I appreciate you so much, thank you, Lord! Bills wife for 51 years, Helen

The history of Fort Phantom Hill is an interesting saga of defense, a story of both political necessity and individual hubris, and a tale of human perseverance and shortsightedness. The story of the “Post on the Brazos River” has all the elements that characterize human activity with its triumphs and tragedies, victories and defeats.As time passed, circumstances dictated changing uses for the structures at Fort Phantom Hill, from military outpost to stage station to hunter’s outpost. Eventually, opportunities for adaptation ran their course and the stone structures fell into neglect. The frontier was occupied by new immigrants who possessed a more modern technology. The threat of Indians was replaced by the hard daily work of living in a semi-desert environment.In Fort Phantom Hill: The Mysterious Ruins on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, Bill Wright weaves the threads of this story into the larger warp and weft of western history and shows how this small fort was conceived, lived, and died as an important part of the “winning of the West.”

Anecdotes about Maggie Smith abound, but Bill Wright's The Whole Damn Cheese is the first book devoted entirely to the woman whose life in Big Bend country has become the stuff of legend. For more than twenty years—from 1943 until her death in 1965—Maggie Smith served folks on both sides of the border as doctor, lawyer, midwife, herbalist, banker, self-appointed justice of the peace, and coroner. As she put it, she was “the whole damn cheese” in Hot Springs, Texas. She was also an accomplished smuggler with a touch of romance as well as larceny in her heart.Maggie's family history is virtually a history of the Texas frontier, and her story outlines the beginnings and early development of Big Bend National Park. Her travels between Boquillas, San Vicente, Alpine, and Hot Springs define Maggie's career and illustrate her unique relationships with the people of the border. Capturing the rough individualism and warm character of Maggie Smith, author Bill Wright demonstrates why this remarkable frontier woman has become an indelible figure in the history of Texas.

In 2006, Texas businessman, historian, and photographer Bill Wright was encouraged—though not officially invited—by the US Department of State to teach a class in digital photography to young Afghans in Kabul. The course was sponsored by an Afghan Non-Governmental Organization, ASCHIANA, which helps to support “working children and their families.” This book records Wright’s experiences and celebrates the creativity he saw flourish at the heart of a war zone.For thirty-five years Wright owned and managed a petroleum marketing company. After selling his company to his employees in 1987, he has devoted his time to writing, photography, and public service for a number of nonprofit organizations including the National Council for the Humanities, the Texas Council of the Humanities, and most recently as a commissioner on the Texas Commission for the Arts.

Celia Smith Hill’s journal provides a glimpse of hardscrabble life in far West Texas during the first half of the twentieth century. Hill’s family moved to Texas from Tennessee in the late 1800s. After her death, Bill Wright and Marianne Wood researched the history of the area and interviewed family and friends to provide context for Hill’s colorful tale of endurance in an unforgiving landscape. Hill’s family suffered lean times during the Depression before cinnabar—mercury ore—was discovered on her family’s property. During World War II, the Fresno Mines supplied one tenth of all the mercury produced in the United States. After graduating college, Celia began a peripatetic teaching career that lasted decades, marrying and losing two husbands along the way. Finally, living alone along the most remote western border of Texas, Celia spent her later years selling snacks to the occasional visitor. Bill Wright met Celia at her La Junta General Store in Ruidosa, where she told him about her unfinished journal. With this book Bill fulfills his promise to share her courageous and fascinating life with others.

Mimi: The Perilous Journey of a Free-Spirited Texas Woman tells the extraordinary true story of a Texas debutante who lived a life few could imagine. A niece of Texas Senator John Tower, Mimi’s journey takes her from tragedy and privilege to the dangerous heart of the Mexican drug trade.After losing her mother at a young age and surviving a horrific lake accident, Mimi pursued her studies in California before settling in Dallas with her first husband. She earned degrees in art history and ceramics from Southern Methodist University and later made her mark in Houston, organizing a groundbreaking sculpture exhibition that drew national acclaim in the 1970s.A 1976 trip to Big Bend with future governor Ann Richards deepened her love for Far West Texas and led her to purchase a ranch in Mexico near Lajitas, Texas. There, Mimi’s path took a darker turn. Her romances with drug dealers, including the notorious Pablo Acosta Villareal, pulled her into a dangerous world of smuggling and violence. When Acosta was killed in a dramatic shoot-out, Mimi’s own life was at risk. Reinventing herself once again, she fled to California, where she worked as a casting agent before eventually returning to her beloved Terlingua, where she now runs a coffee shop and hotel.A gripping story of reinvention, survival, and resilience, Mimi blends Texas history, border intrigue, and the complexities of a fearless woman’s life. It is both a cautionary tale and a celebration of strength in the face of peril.

Bills Life story was his desire for his children and grandchildren to know him and even more than that, he wanted them to know Jesus as their personal savior. He studied the Bible and was very concerned about the liberal teachings coming from new translations and our governments lack of respect of Gods Word.Bill never knew his father because his father was killed, as he tells in his story, at the very young age of two. Although Bill was always around during the lives of his children, there was much of his younger days not spoken of. He loved reading of his heritage and had a desire to know his father and grandfathers. He wanted his children and grandchildren to know him and what his childhood was like. Maybe he was driven by his desire to know more about his own daddy or just wanted his loved ones to know where he came from. Whatever the reason, it was very important to Bill to be remembered. He wanted his grandchildren to know he was a singer and decided to record some CDs to be left behind. Wanting to be remembered and also wanting Jesus to be remembered, he named the gospel recording Remembering Him, and he recorded an old country classic, popular in our younger days, The w-RIGHT WORLD. As you read Bills MyLife, notice the time and datesit will tell you even more.If you read and listen closely, you will find a love story or maybe two or maybe even threeor is there more?Michael Carlton has a lot to say about needing the negative to know the positive. Pray for wisdom and understandingBill wrote an original story of his life, which included many more names and happenings or memories special to him. It was too much for a short book; therefore, Bill condensed this book. It has not been altered in any way. At one time, while Bill was writing, sitting at the head of our dining-room table, which served as his office, he called to me (I was in the kitchen next room), What about the time [Ill not say what], how or what should I say? After a quiet thought and a sincere prayer and a deep breath, I answered, What is, is. Its your book. Write what you want. I turned and walked away, thinking, Whats done is done and cant be undone. I cant change the past. Thank God for his forgiveness, praise His Holy Name Jesus Christ and His shed blood. I appreciate you so much, thank you, Lord! Bills wife for 51 years, Helen

The history of Fort Phantom Hill is an interesting saga of defense, a story of both political necessity and individual hubris, and a tale of human perseverance and shortsightedness. The story of the “Post on the Brazos River” has all the elements that characterize human activity with its triumphs and tragedies, victories and defeats.As time passed, circumstances dictated changing uses for the structures at Fort Phantom Hill, from military outpost to stage station to hunter’s outpost. Eventually, opportunities for adaptation ran their course and the stone structures fell into neglect. The frontier was occupied by new immigrants who possessed a more modern technology. The threat of Indians was replaced by the hard daily work of living in a semi-desert environment.In Fort Phantom Hill: The Mysterious Ruins on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, Bill Wright weaves the threads of this story into the larger warp and weft of western history and shows how this small fort was conceived, lived, and died as an important part of the “winning of the West.”