The Land of Sand and Cotton: Texas, Workingmen, and Professional Baseball in 1888

The Texas League's first baseball season in 1888 took place during a turbulent political, economic, and cultural time in Texas. Amid the millions of acres of wild and rural Texas frontier boomed the cities of Galveston, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin, where the new state capitol building had just opened. The Texas economy was transitioning from its legendary cattle drives as those cities competed for diverse business. In this cauldron Texas cities used whatever means t...