About the Collection

The columns presented on this website are part of a larger collection of original full page tear sheets from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which contain more than 1100 "Birds and Watchers" columns written by Jessie Maye Smith and published between 1953 and 1975. Mrs. Smith's nephew, Charles Cooke, digitized the columns from their original full page tear sheets to Library of Congress specifications. These scans, accompanied by a database containing column dates and titles, have become the basis of this digitization project. The estate of Jessie Maye Smith donated her accumulated Star-Telegram tear sheets to The University of Texas at Arlington Library Special Collections in the fall of 2005.

Photo Courtesy Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, The University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections, Arlington, Texas