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Impressive... Where the West Begins is an important book, one that is imminently capable of providing the spark that cultivates some meaningful and long-overdue dialogue about Texas.

Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Texas State Historical Association

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Wide-ranging and sparkling with keen insight, Glen Ely’s Where the West Begins should instantly take its place on the short list of indispensable works on Texan identity.

Gregg Cantrell, author of Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas, and co-editor of Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas

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One of the most original, clearly expressed, and compelling analyses of the differences between East Texas and Western Texas to appear in decades. His fresh account is backed by extensive research. A truly notable addition to the Plains Histories Series.

Howard R. Lamar, Yale University Sterling Professor of History Emeritus

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Glen Sample Ely has written an extraordinarily readable, realistic, and accurate history of the Butterfield Overland Mail route through Texas. His superb narration is enhanced by maps and photographs and bolstered by his exhaustive research in government, state, and museum archives.

Howard R. Lamar, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University

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The Texas Frontier and the Butterfield Overland Mail, 1858–1861 may well be the most fascinating and intelligently written book I have read in decades. Glen Sample Ely offers us an exhaustively researched, compelling story, sumptuously illustrated throughout. This is frontier history at its best.

Jerry D. Thompson, author of Cortina: Defending the Mexican Name in Texas and Henry Hopkins Sibley: Confederate General of the West