Lone Star Lore uncovers the myths, truths, and untold stories of Texas—not to rewrite the past, but to widen the lens.

Hosted by filmmaker Matthew Thornton and written by historian Joleene Maddox Snider, the series pairs immersive narration and cinematic sound with expert guests who help us ask better questions:

• What happens when a place this vast and mythologized tries to agree on one story?
• Who owns Texas history?
• And how do the stories we inherit still shape who we are today?

Texas is both a place and an idea—a landscape of piney woods, plains, deserts, and coast, and a global symbol that means “out of control” to a Norwegian bus driver, Dallas to a kid in Turkey, and “home” to millions. Our episodes travel that terrain: from Comanche to cotton, oil to megacities, and borderlands to pop culture.

We start with the land, then layer on people, choices, and technology. Geography matters—but so do horses, corn, oil, and computers. As one guest says, “the frontier still lurks beneath the asphalt.”

We also confront the harder truths: slavery’s scale, racial violence, and how myth can both inspire pride and erase people. For us, “revisionist history” isn’t an insult—it’s the work itself. History evolves with new evidence so we can better understand the world we live in.

What you’ll hear

• Big stories made concrete—archives, lived experience, and plain talk

• Multiple perspectives from historians, writers, and artists

• Conversations that keep love of place without erasing truth

Episodes release monthly on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms. Follow the show to rediscover Texas—its contradictions, complexities, and continued influence on the American story.

We open with Texas as both place and idea: a state whose geography set the stage—then technology, migration, and culture rewrote the script.

Dr. Benjamin H. Johnson (environmental and borderlands historian, Loyola University Chicago) traces how size, soils, horses, cotton, oil, and cities shaped Texans—and how Texans, in turn, shaped America.

In this episode:

• How geography and “non-human actors” like horses, corn, and oil transformed destiny

• Migration and the U.S.–Mexico border as a living, two-way story

• Myth vs. reality—why the 19th-century rural myth endures

• Pride without erasure and why “revisionism” means honest history

• From ranching to tech: the frontier under the asphalt

• A 50-year hope for a more democratic, inclusive Texas

🔗 Texas: An American History — Yale University Press

Benjamin H. Johnson, Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago, specializes in environmental, borderlands, and Latino history.

His books include Revolution in Texas (2003), Bordertown (2008), Escaping the Dark, Gray City (2017), and his newest, Texas: An American History (2025), which re-examines how Texas’s myth, geography, and diversity have shaped both the nation and the modern world.