Wonderous Springs of Balmorhea

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1937 for Catalyst for Regulation and FDA
A01=Gretchen McCullough
American Medical Association and regulation of qualifications for doctors
Anti-quackery crusades
Author_Gretchen McCullough
Camp Commanders and World War I veterans
Category=FFH
Category=FV
Category=FXS
Civilian Conservation Corps
Desert Oasis near the Davis Mountains
Development of Texas State Parks
Dust Bowl and failure of farms
Enrollees and Military-Style Discipline
eq_bestseller
eq_crime
eq_fiction
eq_historical-fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
Flimflammers and Fakes and Morris Fisbein
Foe of Four-Flushers
Fort Davis and Marfa
forthcoming
Goat Gland Doctor and Dr. John Brinkley
Local Experienced Men or LEM's
Male rejuvenation
Medical Charlatans
Medical Elixirs vs. Medicine
Minnie Brinkley and the Medical Question Box
Miracle Cures for Impotence
Near Alpine
not the Dole
Recovery & Reform
Relief
Roosevelt's Tree Army
San Soloman Springs
Segregation and Subjugation of African American and Mexican Americans in CCC camps
Send $25 Home
Soil Soldiers
The Brinkley Act of 1934 and Border Blaster and XER
The Great Depression
Three Hots A Day
Work
World War I and facial reconstruction
World's Largest Spring-Fed Swimming Pool

Product details

  • ISBN 9780875659848
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 10 Nov 2026
  • Publisher: Texas Christian University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
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The Wondrous Springs of Balmorhea focuses on the secrets at Balmorhea Civilian Conservation Corps camp in remote West Texas, part of Roosevelt’s New Deal program in 1935. It is now 1976 and Sam McCabe, a lawyer who lives in South Texas, has just had his arm and shoulder amputated. In the twilight of his life, he remembers those pivotal years. He has strange, disturbing dreams about Darlene, the sultry nurse at the camp.

The boys at Balmorhea pine for Darlene, but she is really Minnie, who assisted her husband, Dr. John Brinkley. Brinkley who promised greater male virility with goat testicle operations was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of men. Sam McCabe, company clerk to Commander Captain Bell, is privy to most of the intrigue at the camp. Captain Bell, a World War I veteran, an amputee with a disfigured face, cleverly sidesteps federal dictates about segregation to protect the African American cook, Devilfish, and his band, blues musicians from Deep Ellum. Sam’s sidekick, E.O., the pious bookkeeper is running a gambling ring to fund his wedding plans while Jack, Sam’s best friend from Sul Ross College, a Casanova, is having a torrid affair with Darlene. Meanwhile, Sam befriends Chueco, a Mexican American boy who has escaped a life of slavery at the mercury mine at Terlingua. Close to the big inauguration day for the pool, though, tragedy strikes.

Originally from Harlingen, Texas, Gretchen McCullough has lived abroad most of her adult life. On the faculty at the American University in Cairo, she currently lives in Cairo and has published four books of fiction and one translation. Her essays and reviews have been published in: World Literature Today, the LA Review of Books, The Literary Review, The Common, The Millions, the Barcelona Review and Guernica. 

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