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Read MoreAbout Paul
I’ve been writing about the history of the American Southwest for a dozen years, specifically efforts to secure law, order, and justice along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands during times of economic dislocation, political corruption, and criminal violence. My first book, Salt Warriors: Insurgency on the Rio Grande, relates how the corruption of law and politics and the legal theft of economic resources in El Paso led Tejano citizen soldiers to take up arms against Texas Rangers, Buffalo Soldiers, and a posse of outlaws and mercenaries. Salt Warriors won the Robert A. Calvert Book Prize (2007) and was named a Southwest Book of the Year for 2008. While digging through the archives at the Arizona Historical Society, I came across newspaper accounts of an extraordinary crime, the kidnapping of June Robles of Tucson in 1934. That story led me to the wider history of the FBI’s War on Kidnapping, an element of FDR’s 1930s War on Crime, waged by the Justice Department’s Attorney General Homer S. Cummings and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. In Public Enemies, Bryan Burrough’s fast-paced masterpiece on the War on Crime, the author brings to life the early FBI’s 1930s war on the violent bank robbers and ransom kidnappers. He focuses on Hoover’s campaign to end the bloody careers of Dillinger, Nelson, Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, Kelly, and the Barker-Karpis gang. While Burrough touches on ransom kidnappings, he necessarily leaves out the wave of child kidnappings that took place in the 1930s. My current project focuses on the early FBI’s efforts to end ransom kidnappings, the dedication to duty of Hoover’s special agents in the field, the “G-men,” and the price of failure when a crime can’t be solved. The unsolved 1934 kidnapping of June Robles is the vehicle for telling that story. My first blog posts provided some background, dealing with major crimes that occurred before the so-called “Crime of the Century,” the Lindbergh baby kidnap/murder that led to federal legislation and FBI involvement. The book project is tentatively titled, The Girl in the Iron Box: Devotion to Duty & the Price of Failure in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. The website also contains some photos my father took of fellow flyers in the famous 19th Bombardment Group and an article on Wyatt Earp’s nemesis, Curly Bill Brocius. Enjoy. I look forward to your...
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Read MoreSalt Warriors
Winner of the 2007 Robert A. Calvert Book Prize Winner of a Southwest Book Award for 2008, Border Regional Library Association Honorable Mention, 2009 Tejano Book Prize, Tejano Genealogy Society of Austin Finalist for 2009 Wild West History Association Book Award Published by Texas A&M University Press, 2008 “The author elegantly navigates the shaky alliances, the deep enmities, the hubris of some and the courage of others in the struggle over control and use of the salt lakes near El Paso. The Salt War ranks with the Lincoln County War in its drama and complexity, and in its evidence of a troubled American past with issues that reverberate into the 21st century. This is an authoritative and important work by a gifted scholar.” —Paula Mitchell Marks, author of To Die in the West “No previous work on the Salt War has mined such a quarry of primary sources, explicated the political power plays (involving both Tejanos and Anglos) in the conflict with such clarity, interpreted the insurgency of those relying on the salt lakes so incisively, and chronicled the aftermath that the episode had on the common people of the El Paso Valley so skillfully. The book is destined to become the definitive treatment of the subject.” —Arnoldo De León, author of Mexican-Americans in Texas: A Brief History “… an exceptionally well researched piece of scholarship that goes way beyond what has previously been written. It is obvious from the first page that Cool has made great efforts to uncover every piece of evidence that might in any way shed any new facts on his dramatic but bloody event.” —Jerry Thompson, author of Cortina: Civil War to the Bloody End “The so-called El Paso Salt War of 1877 undoubtedly ranks among th least known conflicts of the late 19th century. Paul Cool’s account is a fascinating study of an insurgency, with a cast of characters including laborers, land barons, corrupt politicians, lawmen of questionable backgrounds, the national press, the Texas governor, the Texas Rangers, President Rutherford B. Hayes, and last but not least, the United States Army. Among the civilian participants in this tragic events were Anglos, Mexican-Americans, and Mexicans. Many of the soldiers were African Americans…. The author unravels the incredibly tangled web of villains, heroes, and the not-so-heroic…. Salt Warriors is a well-researched and competently written work, with photographs of many participants, maps, and an extensive and useful bibliography. —Lt. Col. G. Alan Knight, US Army (ret.), in the Journal of American’s Military Past...
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Read MoreCurrent Project: The Robles Kidnapping Investigation
At the height of the Depression-era War on Crime, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI G-men,Tucson and Pima County lawmen,and outraged citizens hunt the men who abducted a six-year-old child. The 1934 ransom kidnapping of June Robles created a nationwide sensation, rivaling the Lindbergh case in itstangled puzzle of mishandled evidence, disputed forensics, conflicting eyewitnesses, dodgy tipsters, large cast of suspicious characters, and media frenzy. When court records were sealed, the dramatic events were left to recycled newspaper articles, folk music, dramatic theater, and 75 years of rumor built upon rumor. Using newly discovered documents, Paul Cool will reveal the 3-year search for the truth behind a mysterious crime that once transfixed...
Most Recent Articles
The Books That (Part 3): The Hollywood History of the World
This would be a good place to acknowledge that Hollywood first turned me on to many of the historical persons and events that now fill some of my shelves. Certainly my books on frontier icons Davy Crockett, George Custer, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, and Jesse James owe their shelf-feet to productions starring Fess Parker, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Hugh O’Brian, Burt Lancaster, Clu Guluger, and Tyrone Power. My father did not talk much about his World War II...
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The Books That… Part 2: Growing Up With Books
For ten years until his retirement, my father was figuratively chained to the Minuteman missile. His evenings, apart from dinner with the family, were largely spent reading and writing technical memoranda and reports designed to help ensure that the United States’s strategic nuclear warhead missile remained a jump ahead of Russian defenses. For that reason, I rarely saw a book in his hand. My mother’s night stand supported the complete works of Jacqueline Susann, the novels of Harold Robbins,...
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The Books That… (Part 1)
I’m boxing my books in preparation for upgrading the basement, currently home to a very large desk, two file cabinets, and fifteen book cases, not counting the three DIY cheapies. My library has grown, or rather gotten out of control, since we moved in over a decade ago. For a while, I was a book aggregator. I didn’t collect books so much as amass them in vain efforts to be a “completist.” To be fair, I’m the guilty party. Karen reads virtually...
Read MoreThe Capture of John Kinney
I’ve written a magazine article on the 1883 pursuit and capture of New Mexico’s “rustler king,” John Kinney. It has been accepted for publication in 2014. The article includes a newly discovered map hand drawn by the US Treasury Special Agent instrumental in Kinney’s capture. More information...
Read More2013 Tombstone Territory Rendezvous
This year’s Tombstone Territory Rendezvous, will be held in Tombstone, Arizona, naturally, from October 30 to November 1. You’ll find the link to the schedule of events and registration form at the bottom of this post. I’ll be speaking at 7pm on Thursday, October 31 on “The Cow-Boys versus the World,” an inquiry into the number of homicides occurring in SE Arizona Territory and SW New Mexico Territory during the years 1880-1882 that can be linked to the rustlers, bandits,...
Read MoreGang Warfare – Arizona Cow-Boy Style (1880)
As Bob Martin discovered one dark night in New Mexico’s Peloncillo Mountains, the rustler’s lifestyle was no longer dangerous only for their innocent victims
Read MoreHome from the 2013 Arizona-New Mexico Joint History Conference
Had a great week in New Mexico, attending the 2013 Arizona-New Mexico Joint History Conference.
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