Book Review: Off the Bookshelf

Ten Texas Feuds

University of New Mexico Press, 248 pp., $16.95 (paper)

When Charles Leland "Doc" Sonnichsen died in 1991 at the age of 89, he left a legacy of books about the Southwest and inherited the "Mr. Southwest" mantle that J. Frank Dobie wore for years. Doc's Southwestern ties were made rather than born; unlike Dobie, who was born and reared in the Southwest, Doc Sonnichsen was born in Iowa in 1901 and came to Texas in 1931 to teach at the Texas College of Mines in El Paso. With jobs scarce during the Depression, Doc stayed as the school changed to Texas Western College and then to the University of Texas at El Paso, devoted himself to seeking and telling the region's stories, and developed a strong interest in Texas feuds. He wrote a 700-page manuscript that he was forced to trim. He cut 10 stories and published the rest as I'll Die Before I Run in 1951. The 10 stories became Ten Texas Feuds, first published in 1957 and now republished with a new foreword by El Paso author Dale Walker. Included are the stories of the Regulators versus the Moderators in Shelby County, the El Paso Salt War, and the tale of Gentleman Jim Miller of Pecos, among others. Doc must have learned something from all this research; he served as the chair of the English department at UTEP for 27 years and still lived to a ripe old age.