Local author to lecture, sign books at Bell County Museum

May 29, 2025

By David Stone

The Belton Journal

Renowned author and Bell County native Bryan Burrough will present a lecture on his newest book, The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild, at the Bell County Museum on June 13 from 6-8 p.m.

Copies of the book, published by Penguin Random House and releasing on June 3, will be available for purchase. Burrough will sign books following the lecture.

Admission to the lecture is free, but registration is required. Visit bellcountymuseum.org/events to register for free seats.

The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild explores the impact of Texas gunfighters in the 1800s and their cultural impact across the western United States.

“Bryan Burrough is a longtime Friend of the Bell County Museum. Born and raised in Temple, we are proud to welcome him home and celebrate this latest accomplishment,” said Executive Director Coleman Hampton.

Bryan Burrough is the author or co-author of eight books, four of them New York Times bestsellers, including the Wall Street classic Barbarians at the Gate and The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Families. He was a longtime correspondent at Vanity Fair and is now editor-at-large for Texas Monthly.

As a young man, Burrough’s direction in life was crystal clear, even in high school — he was going to be a newspaper man. He was successful in that endeavor, but found even great success as an author.

“I was editor of the Temple High School newspaper for three years,” Burrough said. “My goal back then was to write for the Dallas Morning News. That was my thing.”

Even in his days directing The Rambler’s staff at Temple High, he always looked at the big picture. And, that image involved the University of Missouri and its famed college of journalism.

“It was and still is the best journalism school out there,” he said. “I wanted to learn from the best so that’s where I was going.”

While in Columbia, Mo., he accepted an internship with the Wall Street Journal. That led to a full-time position and he was assigned the coveted “mergers and acquisitions” beat.

It was on that beat that Burrough covered the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, one of the most sensational business stories of all time. After the smoke had cleared, he and Atlanta reporter John Helyar got to talking and decided to write a book about the ordeal.

“Barbarians at the Gate was my first book, and it was well received” he said. “It was a best-seller, and it was made into a (HBO) movie.”

Burrough had found a new career, and seven more books would follow.

“My writing career has definitely had its ups and downs,” he said. “I have made the New York Times best-seller list three times, and I’ve written a couple books I think were read by 17 people total.”

One of Burrough’s most popular books was The Demon Next Door. The story — a personal project that was released by Audible in February 2019 — focuses on local serial killer Danny Corwin who was executed after being convicted of three murders. Corwin was identified by a Temple High School classmate who he raped and stabbed in the heart. Miraculously, the woman survived.

“The Corwin case received very little attention from Central Texas media,” Burrough said. “Local publishers back then took a Chamber of Commerce approach to reporting the news. They didn’t want to shine a light in Temple’s dark corners, and as a result, very little was reported.”

“I grew up in Temple, and I never knew this story until much later,” he said. “Come to find out, a lot of people weren’t aware of this at all. It was a secret that wasn’t talked about very much.”