EP 140: A DECADE of Texas history
Wise About Texas
Ken Wise
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ten years ago this week, I launched Wise About Texas. I had no idea what it would become. In this episode, I recap a little about where the podcast has been and where it’s going. But most of all, THANK YOU to my wonderful listeners. Hear about the past and the future in this special 10-year anniversary episode of Wise About Texas.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, a very special episode of the Texas |
| 0:12.9 | This episode is being recorded and released in the first week of November 2025, and it is the 10th anniversary of Wise About Texas. |
| 0:24.1 | I cannot believe it has been a decade of doing this Texas history podcast. |
| 0:29.9 | So I want today to just talk a little bit about the podcast, where it's been, and maybe a |
| 0:35.6 | little bit about where it's going and the effect that it certainly |
| 0:39.0 | had on my life and I know the lives of the countless Texans and maybe want to be Texans |
| 0:46.6 | who have listened to this podcast. A lot of people asked me how this podcast got started, |
| 0:52.8 | so I'm going to tell that story I had gotten involved |
| 0:55.9 | in court record preservation specifically in Harris County Texas where the court records go back |
| 1:03.2 | to before the republic days and those records were being stored in an unair condition warehouseconditioned warehouse. So a fellow district judge and history lover named Mark Davidson got with the then district clerk, Charles Bakerees, and started a project to preserve those court records. |
| 1:21.6 | Well, of course, I wasn't going to pass that up because the stories of a community are contained largely in their court records. |
| 1:28.9 | And so I started helping Judge Davidson with that. |
| 1:32.1 | I would go out and give talks to various civic groups about the importance of court record preservation. |
| 1:37.9 | There was a nonprofit set up to preserve those court records. |
| 1:40.6 | That all led to my involvement with the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society. Now, |
| 1:45.5 | this organization based in Austin, Texas, preserves the judicial and legal history of the state |
| 1:51.8 | of Texas. So I got involved on the board of trustees in my very first meeting was in Austin. |
| 1:57.5 | Speaking at the meeting was Professor H.W. Bill Brands from the University of Texas, one of my |
| 2:03.5 | favorite authors and historians. He's a wonderful writer. He's a prolific writer. He's a |
| 2:08.6 | great speaker, and he's got an excellent historical mind. Also on the board at that time |
| 2:14.0 | was James Haley. Ditto for James Haley. Great author, prolific author, |
| 2:22.1 | great historical mind, wonderful speaker. And now I'm proud to say a good friend of mine. |
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