Bowman featured speaker at Troup genealogy meeting

Bob Bowman

When members of the Troup Genealogical and History Society gather on Saturday, Nov. 11 at the Troup library, they are likely to discover more about East Texas than they suspected.

Author Bob Bowman of Lufkin will speak on "things you might not know about East Texas if you didn't come to this meeting." The meeting begins at 2 p.m.

Bowman's speech includes these little-known events in East Texas:

The hamburger was invented by Fletcher Davis, who ran a small cafe in Athens. Davis introduced his burger at a world's fair in St. Louis.

East Texas once had its own Israel, a religious colony founded in Polk County by a sect claiming to be one of the lost tribes of Israel.

 A Pittsburg minister invented and flew an airplane in C a m p County a year before Orville and Wilbur sailed into history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The Marx Brothers created their unique brand of insult humor while performing on a theater stage in Nacogdoches.

General George Armstrong Custer and his army once marched through Newton County, stealing eleven pair of socks hanging on a clothes line.

The Boogie Woogie was invented

in East Texas' turpentine

camps by wandering black piano players. Bowman's book, "Bob Bowman's East Texas," deals with 124 unique events that became a part of East Texas history.

The author of more than 30 books on history and folklore, Bowman is also the author, with Dr. Archie McDonald, of a weekly newspaper column appearing in about 70 newspapers.

Bowman is a member of the Texas Historical Commission, the administrative trustee of the Pineywoods Foundation of Lufkin, and owns one of East Texas' oldest public relations and marketing companies.

TGHS meetings are open to the public and everyone is invited to attend.