Related Collections

Dr. Josiah Cox Russell Collection
Collection of publications by Dr. Josiah Cox Russell, a professor of history at Texas A&I University in the 1970s. In 1971 Dr. Russell had been awarded the Prestigious Piper Professor Award from the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation. His work was primarily on medieval demography.

Walter W. Meek, Jr. Collection
Walter Wilson Meek was born in 1849 to Sarah Poole Wilson Meek and Jeremiah Lee Meek of Richmond, IN. Walter, like his father who went to California to seek his fortune during the gold rush, went west to seek his fortune at an early age. Also like his father, he returned to Indiana when he found not great fortune. But, unlike his father the wild west lured him back again and he ultimately settled in San Diego (Duval County) Texas where he grew to be a prosperous rancher, merchant and banker. Walter, Jr. grew up to be an engineer and later Duval County Auditor. As auditor of the controversial county where George Parr was labeled the Duke and had a political empire made notorious by the controversial election that sent Lyndon Johnson to the Congress, both Meeks managed to stay out of jail when the political boss’ kingdom failed. Each of the Meeks was well educated and exceedingly literate so that correspondence is vivid and brings to life a long past era in a county that many study.