VOICE OF THE MEXICAN BORDER. The Voice of the Mexican Border, a magazine of Big Bend history, published its first issue in September 1933 in Presidio County. The magazine was originally intended as a quarterly, but its failure to find readers and writers limited it to an annual. The magazine was sold by subscription and on newsstands. Alice Jack Dolan Shipman, a local historian and native West Texan, edited the publication. Her husband, O. L. Shipman, served as secretary-treasurer, and James H. Leaverton was assistant editor. Although advertising was sold to local and El Paso businesses, the magazine needed additional funding. Lucas C. Brite IIqv and his brother Eddie, Presidio County ranchers and philanthropists, financed the work. A Texas Centennialqv edition of the Voice offered in August 1936 featured a summary of J. E. Gregg's M.A. thesis, A History of Presidio County (University of Texas, 1933). The magazine sold at the Busy Bee, a business owned by the Shipmans, for one dollar. The 1938 issue carried an article on Santa Helena Canyon by Milton Hill, as well as articles on Presidio County history. The nine issues published through 1938 are now rare and command collectors' prices.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cecilia Thompson, History of Marfa and Presidio County, 1535-1946 (2 vols., Austin: Nortex, 1985).
Julia Cauble Smith
