John Marvin Hunter was an author, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, and printer

Printer (publisher)

In publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. With the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, printing—and printers—proliferated throughout Europe.Today, printers are found...

 who founded the Frontier Times Museum

Frontier Times Museum

Frontier Times Museum is a museum of the American West located in Bandera in the Texas Hill Country. The facility was opened to the public in 1933 by the author, historian, and printer John Marvin Hunter .-Museum exhibits:...

 in Bandera

Bandera, Texas

Bandera is the county seat of Bandera County, Texas, United States,in the Texas Hill Country, which is part of the Edwards Plateau. The population was 957 at the 2000 census, and according to a 2009 estimate, the population had jumped up to 1,216 people...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. The museum, which contains about 40,000 artifacts of the American West, opened in 1933, It is named for Hunter's Frontier Times magazine, which was first published in 1923.

Biography

Hunter was born to John Warren Hunter and the former Mary Ann Calhoun in Loyal Valley

Loyal Valley, Texas

Loyal Valley is an unincorporated farming and ranching community, established in 1858, and is north of Cherry Spring in the southeastern corner of Mason County, in the U.S. state of Texas. The community is located near Cold Spring Creek, which runs east for to its mouth on Marschall Creek in...

 in Mason County

Mason County, Texas

Mason County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2010, its population was 4, 012. Its county seat is Mason...

, Texas, and was raised in the communities of San Saba

San Saba, Texas

San Saba is a town located in Central Texas. It was settled in 1854 and named for its location on the San Saba River. The population was at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of San Saba County...

, Menard

Menard, Texas

Menard is a city in and the county seat of Menard County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,653 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...

, and Mason

Mason, Texas

Mason is the seat of Mason County, Texas, United States. The town is an agricultural community on Comanche Creek southwest of Mason Mountain, on the Edwards Plateau and part of the Llano Uplift. The population was 2,114 at the 2010 census.-History:...

. He left school to work for his father’s newspaper, the Mason Herald. He later worked for newspapers called The Times in both Llano

Llano, Texas

-History:Llano County was established in compliance with a February 1, 1856, state legislative act. The Llano River location was chosen in an election held on June 14, 1856, under a live oak on the south bank of the river, near the present site of Roy Inks Bridge in Llano...

 and Comfort

Comfort, Texas

Comfort is a census-designated place in Kendall County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,363 at the 2010 census. It is part of the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...

, Texas, the latter publication which he had founded but soon abandoned. In 1899, he plunged into the tasks of Two Republics, a bilingual daily in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

. After the Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 suppressed the paper, Hunter returned to the United States.

After working for other newspapers and trying his hand as a rancher in Kimble County

Kimble County, Texas

Kimble County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2000, its population was 4,468. Its county seat is Junction. Kimble is named for George C. Kimble, who died at the Battle of the Alamo.-Geography:...

, Hunter settled permanently in Bandera in the Texas Hill Country

Texas Hill Country

The Texas Hill Country is a vernacular term applied to a region of Central Texas featuring tall rugged hills consisting of thin layers of soil atop limestone or granite. It also includes the Llano Uplift and the second largest granite monadnock in the United States, Enchanted Rock, which is located...

, where he published the Bandera New Era from 1921–1935 and the Bandera Bulletin from 1945 until his death twelve years later. Hunter published 16 papers, many of which were four-page weeklies set by hand. He also wrote western history books and printed brochures and other publications on a contract basis. Besides Frontier Times, he published the defunct Hunter’s Magazine and Hunter’s Frontier Magazine.

In 1925, Hunter posthumously published the autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 of outlaw

Outlaw

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...

 John Wesley Hardin

John Wesley Hardin

John Wesley Hardin was an American outlaw, gunfighter, and controversial folk hero of the Old West. He was born in Bonham, Texas. Hardin found himself in trouble with the law at an early age, and spent the majority of his life being pursued by both local lawmen and federal troops of the...

. His books include Pioneer History of Bandera County: Seventy-five Years of Intrepid History (1922), The Bloody Trail in Texas (1931), Old Camp Verde

Old Camp Verde

Camp Verde was a United States Army facility established on July 8, 1856 in Kerr County, Texas along the road from San Antonio to El Paso.The camp was the headquarters for U.S. Camel Corps, which experimented with using dromedaries as pack animals in the southwestern United States...

, the Home of the Camels (1939), a reference to Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...

's 1850s camel experiment in the Southwest, Cooking Recipes of the Pioneers (1948), and Peregrinations of a Pioneer Printer (1954). His own autobiography and The Story of Lottie Deno: Her Life and Times (1959) appeared after his passing. He also edited The Trail Drivers of Texas (1920 and 1923) and co-authored Album of Gunfighters (1951).

In June 1940, Frontier Times published "The Old Chisholm Trail" by the journalist Elmo Scott Watson

Elmo Scott Watson

Elmo Scott Watson was an American journalist and college professor, whose longest educational stint was at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois...

, who earlier had discovered the old-time cowboy Frank H. Maynard

Frank H. Maynard

Francis Henry Maynard, known as Frank H. Maynard , was an old-time cowboy of the American West who claimed authorship of the revised version of the well-known ballad, "The Streets of Laredo". After a decade of roaming the West, Maynard settled down with his wife, the former Flora V...

 working as a nightwatchman at the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo

Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo

Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo is a Colorado rodeo sanctioned by the PRCA .The rodeo is a long standing Colorado tradition dating back to 1937...

 in Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. Colorado Springs is located in South-Central Colorado, in the southern portion of the state. It is situated on Fountain Creek and is located south of the Colorado...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

.

Hunter envisioned the museum as a sales vehicle for his books and other materials. After Hunter’s death, the Doan Foundation, named for Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 industrialist F.B. Doan, acquired the museum. In 1972, the foundation bequeathed the facility to the museum's board of trustees. As an oral historian

Oral history

Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...

, Hunter was fortunate in that many of the frontier settlers, cattlemen, and pioneers were still living at the time he did the majority of his research and writing.

In July 2009, the Frontier Times Museum posthumously inducted Hunter along with folklorist J. Frank Dobie

J. Frank Dobie

James Frank Dobie was an American folklorist, writer, and newspaper columnist best known for many books depicting the richness and traditions of life in rural Texas during the days of the open range...

 and marksman

Marksman

A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision, or a sharpshooter shooting, using projectile weapons, such as with a rifle but most commonly with a sniper rifle, to shoot at long range targets...

 Joe Bowman

Joe Bowman (marksman)

Joe Bowman, born Joseph Lee Bowman , was a Houston bootmaker and marksman called "The Straight Shooter", considered to have been a guardian of Texas and western frontier culture. Shortly after his death, Bowman was inducted posthumously into the Texas Heroes Hall of Honor at the Frontier Times...

 into its newly-established Texas Heroes Hall of Honor.

Personal life

Hunter was a member of the Church of Christ

Church of Christ

Churches of Christ are autonomous Christian congregations associated with one another through common beliefs and practices. They seek to base doctrine and practice on the Bible alone, and seek to be New Testament congregations as originally established by the authority of Christ. Historically,...

. His first wife, the former Hattie Westerman, died soon after their marriage. In December 1903, he wed the former Susie Rogers (June 25, 1884 – December 1984) in December 1903. The couple had four children, all of whom Hunter trained as printers. Hunter died in Kerrville

Kerrville, Texas

Kerrville is a city in Kerr County, Texas, United States. The population was 20,425 at the 2000 census. In 2009, the population was 22,826...

north of Bandera at the age of seventy-seven.