WHERE TO DIG FOR	THE FIGHT AGAINST ABSURD	OUR 25 BEST
SHARK TEETH HAIR REGULATIONS NEW BBQ JOINTS
BY ROSE CAHALAN	BY DOYIN OYENIYI	BY DANIEL VAUGHN
TexasMonthly
WE’RE *1!
How Texas leads the nation in everything from
cattle ranching to clean energy. (And, alas, prison inmates
and kids without health insurance.)
PULLING TRAILERS.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES.
THE NEW 2024 SILVERADO HD.
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for live music with a view. Whatever your all is, you’ll find it here.
To plan your trip, go to VisitDallas.com
VISIT9ALLAS & find your all
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With stunning sights and daily activities, the Dallas
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beautiful blooms and evening concerts. Beginning
September 16, enjoy Autumn at the Arboretum, a
display of fall-blooming plants and 100,000 pumpkins,
gourds and squash in the acclaimed Pumpkin Village.
From the famous Fletcher’s corny dog to the Texas
Star Ferris wheel, the State Fair of Texas brings 24 days
of family fun and entertainment to Dallas every fall.
The fun begins Friday, September 29, and continues
through Sunday, October 22.
This free self-guided tour is a fun and fresh way
to explore the city’s best and brightest margaritas.
Download the Margarita Mile pass to check in at
participating restaurants, enjoy craft margaritas,
and earn cool swag along the way.
Break out your face paint and supersized foam cowboy
hats, football season’s back. Join the crowd as fans
fill AT&T Stadium and loud and lively sports bars and
patios in every neighborhood to watch America's Team
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LONE STAR ART AUCTION
HNEXT AUCTION-OCTOBER 2 8, 2 02 3-DALLAS, TEXAS
A Texas-Sized Auction Specializing in the Best American,
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OPPOSITE: HOWARD TERPNING, Proud Men, 2000, oil, 12"xl3"Est: $150,000-200,000 | G. HARVEY, Enough Till Spring, oil, 30”x 50" Est: $ 175,000-225,000 | OSCAR
BERNINGHAUS, A Camp in the Aspen Forest, 1926, oil, 20"x 16" Est: $150,000-200,000 | JOSEPH HENRY SHARP, Evening Council, oil, 25.25"x 30.25" Est: $150,000-200,000
TOM LOVELL, The Friendly Willows, 1988, oil, 22 x 38" Est: $140,000-190,000 | FREDERIC SACKRIDER REMINGTON, Fitzpatrick and the Wagon Train, 1890, ink,
165x1 1.5" Est: $30,000-50,000 | ABOVE: JULIAN ONDERDONK, bv/7/g/rf in the Hills, Blue-Bonnets, 1918, oil, 8"x 10" Est.: $80,000-120,000 | KYLE Ю LZ IN, Keeper of the Plains,
2020, oil, 31 x 26" Est: $100,000-150,000 | MARTIN GRELLE, Provider, 2006, oil, 40'x 30' Est: $60,000-90,000 | JOSEPH HENRY SHARP, CrowCampNcar Custer Battlefield,
Montana, oil on cedar, 55"x85" Est: $70,000-90,000
AUCTION REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
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WHERE THE ROAD INDS,
THE ADVENTURE BEGINSI

114
We’re Number One
But you knew that. It’s what Texas is
number one in, statistically speaking, that
might surprise you. by Will Bostwick,
David Courtney, Tom Foster, Russell
Gold, Michael Hall, Ricardo Nuila, Jeff
Salamon, Dan Solomon, and Katy Vine
150
The Apache, the Priest,
And a Forty-Year
Fight for Justice
James Reyos, convicted in a shocking
murder despite a solid alibi, has some
unlikely allies trying to clear his name,
by Michael Hall
158
The 25 Best New
(And Improved) Barbecue
Joints in Texas
Fuel up the car. From Edinburg to
Mabank, our small towns and suburbs
are reclaiming the spotlight.
by Daniel Vaughn
A spread from KG BBQ, in Austin.
TEXAS MONTHLY
PHOTOGRAPH BY MACKENZIE SMITH KELLEY
гм
09.25
THE BEST OF THE WEB	12
FROM THE EDITOR	16
ROAR OF THE CROWD.....18
IT HAPPENED HERE	26
THE STATE
59
Travel & Outdoors
GUIDEBOOK
Explore the cultural and culinary
treasures of the southern Mexican
state of Oaxaca, by Jose R. Ralat
EXCURSIONS
A popular spot to find shark teeth in
Texas lies hundreds of miles from the
coast, by Rose Cahalan
Style & Design
PROFILE
The latest legislative victory for natural
hair comes almost three decades after
Dallas braider Isis Brantley began
fighting for change, by Doyin Oyeniyi
61
Arts & Entertainment
LETTER FROM
Smithville is Hollywood’s favorite Texas
small town, but fame exacts a price.
by Sean O’Neal
PLUS: ONE TRACK MIND
//
News & Politics
DISPATCH
Developers of a pristine Hill Country
property promise to set a new standard
in land stewardship. Some locals worry
the project could forever damage a
fragile ecosystem, by Peter Holley
PLUS: MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS
87
MEDICINE
Texas Biomed aims to become the
nation’s top infectious disease institute.
But that involves pain and death for
its monkey subjects, by Will Bostwick
Being Texan
Food & Drink
DINING GUIDE
From a perfect seafood paella to a Trill
burger, here’s what to order right now.
by Courtney Bond and Patricia Sharpe
71
BOOKS
A biography of beloved Texas author
Larry McMurtry explores the affection
and disdain he felt toward his
home state, by Andrew R. Graybill
COUNTRY NOTES
Seventy-eight-year-old Mike Capron
knows horses and cattle and wide-
open spaces, and today he paints
what he knows, by Sterry Butcher
THETEXANIST
208
ON THE COVER: Illustration by Jason Allen Lee. Spine illustration by Marc Burckhardt.
1O TEXAS MONTHLY
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The Best of the Web
Meanwhile, Over on
TexasMonllily.com...
MOVE TO TEXAS,
GET RICH... INVEST
IN MAJOR LEAGUE
CRICKET?
A few miles west
of where Houston’s
highway sprawl fades
from a parade of su-
perstores into the low
countryside, a slight
rise in U.S. 290 in
Prairie View reveals a
surprise: six perfect
circles of close-
cropped grass clus-
tered like petals on
an enormous flower.
Texas Super Kings fans
at Grand Prairie Stadium
on MLC opening day,
July 13, 2023.
Here, spread across
86 acres, the nation’s
largest and most
advanced collection
of cricket grounds
attracts hundreds of
athletes every week
from around the
region and around
the country. Tom
Foster speaks to
the South Asian busi-
ness leaders who are
turning Texas into
the next hot spot for
the world’s second-
biggest sport.
MY SEARCH FOR
THE SNOW MONKEYS
OF SOUTH TEXAS
As a college student,
Sarah Bird had visited
a troop of macaques
that had been trans-
planted, in 1972, from
their sanctuary in
snowy, pine-shaded
peaks in Japan to a
sun-strobed ranch
near Laredo. After
rediscovering her
photographs of the
monkeys nearly fifty
years later, the author
sets out to detail the
wild tale of the troop
and its descendants.
VACATION RENTALS
THAT CAN HELP YOU
ESCAPE THE HEAT
There’s something
special about a cold,
spring-fed pool,
swimming hole, or
river on a brutally hot
day, when man-made
pools feel like they’re
filled with lukewarm
bathwater. Ana Davila
Chalita curates a list
of vacation rentals
across the state
located near chilly
bodies of water—and
yes, all the rentals
have air-conditioning.
MEOW WOLF OPENS
ITS MAXIMALIST,
MULTICOLORED
DOORSINGRAPEVINE
The interactive art
and entertainment
company’s newest lo-
cation, in Grapevine,
transforms a former
Bed Bath & Beyond
into a head-spinning
spectacle. Titled
“The Real Unreal,”
the exhibit features
a mesmerizing laby-
rinth of interlocking
rooms of bright art,
imaginative sculp-
tural creatures, and
fantastical storylines
crafted by a team
of more than 150
full-time artists and
an additional 40 or
so North Texas-area
muralists, painters,
and sculptors. Taylor
Prewitt visits the
large-scale immersive
art installation and
discovers “a realm of
nonstop maximalism,
a dimension where
no nook or cranny is
overlooked and no
silence is tolerated.”
WHY IS WILL HURD
RUNNING FOR
PRESIDENT?
The former U.S. con-
gressman from Texas
was once widely
viewed as the shining
example of the
Republican Party’s
future. Now, Hurd’s
odds of winning the
party’s primary elec-
tions for president
look extraordinari-
ly slim—one poll
released in July had
him registering just
one percent support.
Alexandra Samuels
speaks with Hurd
about artificial intel-
ligence, his zodiac
sign, his determina-
tion to beat Donald
Trump, and more.
WELCOME TO A
TEXAS DINNER PARTY
Looking for some
fresh cooking in-
spiration? In a new
video series, Texas
Monthly highlights
recipes that are
perfect for your
next seasonal menu.
Senior food and
drink editor Kimya
Kavehkar explains
how to make five
recipes for summer,
from a berry-based
cocktail and a crispy
salmon entree to
a crowd-pleasing,
three-ingredient
dessert.
12 TEXAS MONTHLY
PHOTOGRAPH BY BEN LOWY
5! AUSTIN • DALLAS • FORT WORTH • HOUSTON • PLANO • SAN ANTONIO • SOUTHLAKE !5


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TXSTlIT^iiTXSTRl^iiTXSTrn^iiTXSTRT^iiTXSTlzT^iiTXST
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TXST.EDU

From the Editor
Coming Потс
Texans, however much they love their native state, often set out to
conquer newworlds,whetherbydevelopingtheearlyoilfieldsin
Saudi Arabia, sellingkolaches to delighted Brooklynites,or serv-
ing as president of the United States. But whatever they might
achieve, many long to find their way back home. This magazine
has often tapped into that desire, luringback fine Texas-born journalists
such as Mimi Swartz, Peter Holley, Sandi Villarreal, and Lea Konczal, who
had decamped to publications in the East and Midwest.
I’m pleased to announce that we’ve thrown a rope over another star
Texpat, with the hiring of acclaimed editor and author Ross McCammon.
After eighteen years of working in senior positions at some of the best mag-
azines in New York, he has moved toAustin to become our deputy editor.
Ross was born in Houston and grewup in the historic OakCliff section of
Dallas, south of downtown, where his father, Dan, and his mother, Peg, had
deep roots. Ross recalls aletter written from a small settlement known as
Pleasant Point, in Johnson County, by one of his mother’s distant relatives
who had recently moved to Texas in search of higher wages. In the note,
dated October 30,1882, he wrote to a brother back in the Bluegrass State,
“Texas ain’t nothing extra,but itbeats Kentucky for me!”
Peg, a single mother who worked in hospital administration, was an
avid reader of everything from British history to Shakespeare to Texas
Monthly. “The magazine was on our coffee table,” Ross recalls, “and on
the tables of my friends’ parents and in their conversations.” His mom’s
curiosity and love of language rubbed off on Ross, who helped found his
high school newspaper, served as editor of the yearbook, and majored in
English literature at the University of North Texas in Denton.
His aunt and mentor Kathleen Reese worked for the nowdefunct Dallas
Times HeraZcZ and helped guide Ross tohis first job in journalism, at Spirit,
Deputy	the (also now defunct) in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines that in
editor Ross	subsequent years served as an early training ground for Texas Monthly
McCammon.	creative director Emily Kimbro and executive editor J. K. Nickell. Ross
was a fact-checker at the magazine during his
collegeyears andupon graduationjoinedSpzrz'Z
full-time, rising to become its editor in chief.
His workcaught the attention of arecruiter
for Esquire, then edited by the brilliant and
irascible David Granger. He invited Ross to
meet him in New York City and hired him on
the spot. Ross worked there for eleven years as
aneditor and occasional writer of cover stories
(often the really tough ones... on subjects such
as Mila Kunis and Rihanna). He later served
as an editor for GQ, Men’s Health, Popular
Mechanics, and Medium. He wrote freelance
stories for magazines ranging tromBloomberg
Businessweek to Cosmopolitan and Wired.
His book Works Well With Others examines
the relationship between workplace social
behavior and success and has been translated
into five languages.
We first enticed Ross to work
for Texas Monthly as the editor
of our January Bum Steers cover
package, a sprawling project that
involved more than a dozen staff-
ers. They said they enjoyed Ross’s
collegiality and sense of humor,
and the feeling was mutual. “I felt
like these were my people,” Ross
said. “Itfelt like cominghome.” He
worked with us on contract for the
next seven months,during which
he brought his family to visit Aus-
tin. “My daughter had plastered a
‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ bumper
sticker across her school-issued
laptop months before we moved.”
In addition to various other re-
sponsibilities, Ross will focus on
our print magazine, the flagship of
Texas Monthly’s eight journalistic
platforms. He will work especially
closely with our creative director,
Emily; Anna Walsh, the director
of editorial operations; and Sandi,
the magazine’s deputy editor for
digital storytelling. “Foryears, I’ve
admired all the ways Texas Monthly
tells the best stories about Texas,
from print to podcasts,” Ross said.
“It just keeps getting better.”
I hope you enjoy this issue and
the fresh approach that Ross is
bringing to it.
DAN GOODGAME
EDITOR IN CHIEF
roar@texasmonthly.com
16 TEXAS MONTHLY
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TEXAS ANGUS BEEF
BY NOLAN RYAN
Roar of the Crowd
“I read your article concerning the
Texas State Historical Association,
and I was disappointed by how
uncritically the story accepts many
of the claims of one side.”
A History Lessened
I re ad your article concerning the
Texas State Historical Associa-
tion [“Come and Rewrite It,” July
2023], and I was disappointed by
how uncrit ically the story accep ts
many of the claims of one side.
The author repeats the assertion
by TSHA “traditionalists” that
Mary Jo O’Rear’s appointment
to the board, which occasioned
J. P. Bryan’s lawsuit, shifted the
balance of board members to “ac-
ademics” even though decades of
TSHA precedent show her to be
an independent scholar.
The TSHA’s chief historian,
Walter Buenger, is a tradition-
al historian, and his statements
about the Alamo’s use as a symbol
of white supremacy are hardly
controversial among scholars
of modern Texas. Yet the story
describes him as “a progressive”
Email us at roar@texasmonthly.com.
Or send letters to Roar of the Crowd,
Texas Monthly, Box 1569, Austin,
Texas 78767-1569. Letters addressed
to Texas Monthly become the property
of the magazine, and It owns all rights
to their use. Letters may be edited for
clarity and length.
who “has drawn the ire of more-
traditional historians.”
The article never examines the
content of TSHApublications. The
April 2023 issue of the Southwest-
ern Historical Quarterly, forexam-
ple, features one article profiling an
Alamo defender who was an aboli-
tionist and another pushing back
against slavery’s importance to the
Texas Revolution. This is excellent
historical scholarship, something
that Bryan and his allies should be
celebrating instead of attacking.
BENJAMIN H. JOHNSON, CHICAGO
Rockport Overlooked Again
Your article remembering Hur-
ricane Harvey [“The Time It
Wouldn’t Stop Raining,” July
2023] was interesting, but I was
let down that there was no men-
tion of the storm’s landfall. Har-
vey hit Rockport head on, and we
were horrified when the media
shi fted focus to Houston and the
rain. There was a mile-long de-
bris field in Rockport that, as the
months went on, grew to a debris
mountain range. We lost busi-
nesses that have never returned.
Goingouttodinner? Forget it. The
more affordable restaurants are
texasmonthly.com
@ texasmonthly
П texas.monthly.
magazine
W texasmonthly
still only open until 2or 3p.m. Our
homes andbusinesses were flood-
ed too, but they were also literally
ripped apart.
CHERYL ROBINSON,ROCKPORT
Gwinter Wonderland
I enjoyed the Texanist’s column
on tall tales and “wholly invented
creatures” [July 2023]. Please let
him know that the “gwinter” likely
has a cousin in Scotland. It’s the
noble “wild haggis,” an admired
and celebrated creature in that
country. The haggis, like the gwin-
ter, has two legs on one side that
are shorter than its two on the oth-
er side. This “mutation” evolved
over thousands of years to allow
it to outrun any predators around
mountains and hillsides and never
lose its balance.
JOHN HOOPINGARNER, LAKEWAY
Editors’note: In the August2023
issue, the article “Wacowabunga!”
incorrectly stated the date ofa death
after an incident at the BSR SurfRe-
sort, in Waco. The incident occurred
in2019.Also, the article “We Don’t
Go to Mexico Anymore” misstated
the location of Nuevo Leon. It is to
the west of Tamaulipas. -V
18 TEXAS MONTHLY
THEY SAY WE
NEED В HOURS
OF SLEEP.
THE BRISKET
SAYS OTHERWISE

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Additionally, men with a family history
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risk. If prostate cancer is detected early
and before the cancer spreads, patients
have a nearly 100% chance of survival
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Treating Prostate Cancer with
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Treatment for prostate cancer varies
depending on the stage and grade of the
cancer and if it has spread to other body
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Tips for Screening of Prostate Cancer
Men should consider regular prostate
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mid-40’s if they have one or more first
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For patients with a new or recurrent prostate
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known as prostate-specific membrane
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For more information, visit WhatIsProtonTherapy.com.
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J H TMEHATKMAlUAftAZWEOfTfXAS [fl fl	J 
lexasMonthly
editor in chief Dan Goodgame
creative director EmilyKimbro
deputy editor Ross McCammon
director of editorial operations Anna Walsh
deputy editor, digitai SandiVillarreal
executive producer: tv, film, podcasts MeganCreydt
video and events director Melissa Reese
EXECUTIVE EDITORS
Mimi Swartz (Senior Executive Editor),
Kathy Blackwell, Courtney Bond, Michael Hall,
SkipHollandsworth. J.K. Nickell.
Jeff Salamon, Patricia Sharpe, Katy Vine
SENIOR EDITORS
Josh Alvarez, RoseCahalan, David Courtney, Russell Gold,
Michael Hardy, Jason Heid, Peter Holley, Kimya Kavehkar,
Emily McCullar, Ben Rowen, Alexandra Samuels, Dan
Solomon, John Spong, Christian Wallace, Forrest Wilder
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Paul Knight, Sasha von Oldershauscn
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Arman Badrei, Amy Weaver Doming, LaKenya Finley, Lea
Konczal, Doyin Oyeniyi, Kristen Steenbeeke, Gianni Zorrilla
barbecue editor DanielVaughn
TACO EDITOR JoseRalat
design director Victoria Millner
associate art director Jenn Hair Tompkins
art producer Darice DeLane Chavira
assistant photo eoitor KaylaMiracle
CONTRIBUTING SENIOR DESIGNER KimThwaitS
ASSISTANT managing editor Alicia Maria Meier
copy chief Marilyn Bailey
SENIOR engagement editor Amanda O’Donnell
director of auoio Brian Standefer
podcast producer PatrickMichels
NEWSLETTER editor Taylor Prewitt
SOCIAL MEDIA editor LaurenCastro
EDITORIAL LEGAL counsel Julie Ford
editor-at-large BryanBurrough
WRITERS-AT-LARGE
Eric Benson. Sarah Bird, Nate Blakeslee, Jordan Breal, Sterry
Butcher, Oscar Casares, Jason Cohen, Robert Draper, Peter
Elkind, Michael Ennis, Paula Forbes, Tom Foster, S. C. Gwynne,
Stephen Harrigan, Sarah Hepola, Andy Langer,
Prudence Mackintosh, Karen Olsson, Sean O’Neal.
R. G. Ratcliffe. John Phillip Santos, SoniaSmith, Loren Steffy
contributing editors
Rafe Bartholomew, Leah Prinzivalli
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Darren Braun. Kenny Braun, James H. Evans, Randal Ford,
Jody Horton, Artie Limmer.O. Ruftis Lovett, Wyatt McSpadden,
LeAnn Mueller, Michael O’Brien, Platon, Adam Voorhcs,
Jeff Wilson, Sarah Wilson, Dan Winters, Peter Yang
TEXAS COL'NTRY REPORTER
cohosts Bob Phillips, Kelli Phillips
general manager MartinPerry senior producer Michael Snyder
producers Abigail Adams. Quintin Blackwell, Dan Stricklin
PRESIDENT Scott Brown
chief operating officer Carolyn DavisChavana
general manager Lorelei Calvert
chief revenue officer JalaaneLevi-Garza
CHIEF financial OFFICER Erin Beil
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL GROWTH СаШупРеГГу
VICE PRESIDENT, development DavidB.Dunham
vice president, research RobertHenry Vela Davila
senior vice president, broadcast and custom sales FrankLibrio
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Emily Allen
Texas sales director Sunday Leek
web development technical lead TimBiery
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Now, you look at a city this time
of morning and you wonder
What its like, who lives there
What made it take root and grow...
A SERIES PRODUCED FOR
WITH
TexasMonthly
To Texas,
With Love
SPEND LESS TIME HUNTING,
MORE TIME GATHERING WITH
HIGHER HARVEST BY H-E-B
w
hen customers
tell H-E-B they’re
having a hard time
finding a product
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Partners at H-E-B
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help Texans find the products they
need most—whatever their dietary
or lifestyle needs. Higher Harvest is
the latest proof of H-E-B’s dedication
to bringing the best products to its
customers, To Texas, With Love.
As we learn more about the effect
of diet on our everyday lives, many
folks have become more intentional
about what they eat. Perhaps they’re
avoiding gluten. Maybe dairy doesn’t
agree with them as much as it used
to. Perhaps they’re looking for more
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“Like all good ideas, it came from our
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native Texan, she’s been at H-E-B for
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now it’s easy to find exactly what
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“To me it’s all about making
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Higher Harvest by H-E-B sets out to make
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Celeste Schuehle and her team are passionate
about making food accessible to H-E-B customers.
“Like all good ideas,
it came from our
customers.”
Celeste Shnehle
ТТ-Е-П
Senior Director otOn n Brand Fix Ah
TO SEE MORE MADE FOR TEXAS TASTES HEB.COM TTWL
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RED RIDING HOOD PRODUCTIONS
It Happened Here
A MONTHLY LOOK AT THE EVE
The Fall (and Rise) of Enron
When the go-go Houston corporation collapsed in spectacular
fashion, it became a punch line across the nation. But some of the
bad guys had the last laugh, by mimi swartz
Enron
employees
walking past
the company’s
headquarters, in
Houston, on
November 29,
2001.
(have several persistent memories from my days covering the
Enron saga. I wrote about the company’s collapse for this mag-
azine in 2001 and cowrote a book with the whistleblower Sher-
ron Watkins two years later, and with the passage of time, what
remain in my mind aren’t the countless facts and figures in-
volved in all the financial misdeeds but a series of human moments that
together resemble a movie trailer for a classic film. You know—the one
about the empire that rises to the greatest of heights, inspiring the awe
and envy of all in its orbit, only to collapse spectacularly because of the
greed and ambition of its leaders. Я1 My first memory: the smokers. 11 was
the heyday of what was once called the world’s leading energy company
and then, simply, the world’s leading company. (Enron’s early history as
a stable but yawn-inducing pipeline firm was mentioned only as a basis
of comparison with its newer, far more glamorous incarnation.) In the
mid-nineties, on any given trip todowntown Houston, I would see a hand-
ful of employees gathered by the entrances to the Enron building—that is,
before there were two Enron buildings, then no Enron buildings. Those
workers—executives, clerks, assistants, whoever—were huffing and puff-
ing on cigarettes, seemingly taking no pleasure from the act, apparently
desperate to get back to work inside the smoke-free skyscraper. Enron
was all about being on the cutting edge, and smoking was so twentieth
century. This was, of course, well
before indoor smoking bans be-
came routine; Enron made clear
to everyone that it cared about the
health and well-being of its em-
ployees. Up to a point.
But it was also true that if you
were seen outside smoking, you
were regarded as a weak-willed
loser, and being a loser was the
worst thing possible at Enron.
People were leaving the best law
firms, the best trading firms, the
best fusty corporatebanks to work
there, because Enron represented
the Houston ethos on steroids, a
postmodern wildcatter’s dream.
It was, supposedly, a place where
you could try out just about any
idea—streaming video, betting
on weather futures, inventing a
new currency—and get really rich
while you were at it. All you had
to do was work impossible hours
and slit the throat of the person one
Aeron chair over. Metaphorically,
of course.
Next mental jump cut: Decem-
ber 2,2001. Enron had declared
bankruptcy—the largestbankrupt-
cy in U.S. history at that point, with
$63.4billion in assets vaporized.
Even before the collapse, 2001had
been rough for Houston; the com-
pany’s fall provided a grim punctu-
ation mark to an already darkyear.
Before the 9/11 attacks, Andrea
Yates had drowned her five chil-
dren in a Clear Lake bathtub and
Tropical Storm Allison had pro-
vided apreviewof the devastating
floods causedby Hurricane Harvey
sixteen years later. The TV cameras
recorded Enron’s fall for poster-
ity: thousands of people making
their exits with their belongings
in cardboard boxes, their savings
decimated, their designer office
chairs doubling as dollies. There
was a lot of weeping on earner a.	£
LatercameMay26,2006,when |
a jury found Enron CEOs Jeff |
Skilling and Ken Lay guilty of »
fraud and conspiracy. The various 1
26 TEXAS MONTHLY
MONUMENTAL
CLIMB
You’re in the final year of your undergraduate degree,
a double major with a place in a prestigious graduate
school already lined up. You’re working two and
sometimes three jobs, and time is at a premium.
FROM HERE,
IT’S POSSIBLE.'
So why would you take on a physically challenging,
time-consuming class that, in all actuality, wasn't a
requirement? For Lindsay Dube, the answer was simple.
Diagnosed with a degenerative disease, she didn’t know
how long her body would let her take these kinds of
chances. And she’s never been the type to shy away
from a challenge.
An epic bikepacking trip in New Mexico awaited, and
Dube wasn’t going to miss the adventure.
LEARN MORE AT TTU.EDU
HAPPENED HERE
ESCAPE
TOYOUR
NATURAL
STATE
к Bluff, Buffalo National Ri
trials—this one lasted 56 days—were
a mesmerizing high-stakes reality
show. I hadlingered in thecourtroom
afteralmosteveryoneelse had cleared
out,only to spy Lay andhis familyjust
in front of the defendants’ table. Ev-
eryone had gathered in a tight circle
around him, an occasional sob es-
caping from somewhere deep with-
in. When they finally pulled apart,
I caught a glimpse of Lay’s face; his
expression was that of a man who had
gambled it all away, a big-time loser.
II is complexion was a sickening, pale
gray pallor that presaged his death
just a few weeks later.
Lookingback, I see how easily this
story could be turned into a Netflix
limited series. The characters were
archetypal: You had a striving if
somewhat bumbling Midwesterner
(Lay), who brought in a messianic
McKinsey guru (Skilling), who el-
bowed out the rock-solid numbers
guy, Rich Kinder, while convert-
ing a company that actually made
something into a company that was
perpetually betting on the come
while posting made-up numbers
in the interim. There was a femme
fatale: Skilling’s golden-girl neme-
sis Rebecca Mark, whose efforts to
construct a massive power plant in
India never quite kept the lights on.
There was fast-talking Andy Fastow,
a CFO with a debatable interest in
accurately balancing the books. And
there was Watkins, the wide-eyed
whistleblower who, dismissed as a
naif by her peers, came out on top.
The characters in this drama were
larger than life in the Texas vein, but
they lacked the roguish charm of the
wildcatters of old, that quality that
could make you forgive all. Yes, there
were motorcycle races in the desert
and Porsche Carreras and River Oaks
McMansions, along with ill-advised
love affairs and stiletto-in-the-back
PLAN YOUR TRIP AT
ARKANSAS.COM
Arkansas.
THE NATURAL STATE
Editors’ note: As part of Texas
Monthly’s fiftieth anniversary year,
we’re offering, each month, a fresh
perspective on an important episode
from the past half century.
corporate intrigue. But in the end the
Enron villains weren’t that much fun.
They were just rich. And arrogant.
That Kinder emerged triumphant
from the flames and became the big-
gest player in Houston because he
never forgot the value of real assets—
well, that should have been the big
takeaway from the whole sordid
mess. But it wasn’t, of course. En-
ron’s worst miscreants got jail sen-
tences, and some, such as Skilling
and Fastow, even served time. But
the national financial catastrophes
that followed were built on similarly
vaporous business models and saw
fewjust deserts meted out The 2008
financial crisis, for instance, led to
only a handful of perp walks and far
fewer prosecutions.
What won out was the ethos of
the bad guys—the bullies who set
the tone at Enron and believed that
you needed nothing more than a
sexy, paradigm-shattering idea to
sell to the chumps whose money was
there for the taking. It’s not too hard
to draw a straight line from Enron’s
corporate culture to the fraudulent
blood-testing company Theranos,
or the collapse of the crypto darling
FTX, or the rise of a CEO who men-
daciously surfed his way through
multiple corporate bankruptcies to
land in the White House.
Finally, I remember Fastow’s
apology. After testifying against Lay
and Skilling and serving five years
in prison, he returned to Houston.
His religious faith required him to
atone, which he did, at the local Jew-
ish community center, in front of a
crowd of mostly older folks who lis-
tened raptly. By then, Fastow’s hair
had turned from black to gray, and
his boyish swagger seemed to be in
mothballs. In fact, Fastow started out
in a cold sweat, but like any good per-
former he rallied, winning over the
audience with a practiced humility.
By the end they rewarded him with
generous applause, as if everything
were forgiven, and forgotten.
And soon enough, it was. #
NEAR IT ALL,
but FAR away.
ESCAPE TO YOUR NATURAL STATE.
Play all day in 40,000 acres of clear, clean water surrounded by scenic
forest at Lake Ouachita. Then, head 25 minutes down the road to Hot Springs
for smoky pork ribs, tamales and handcut fries at the legendary McClard’s
Bar-B-Q. Your vacation goes farther in The Natural State, but you don’t
haveto.PlanyourtripatArkansas.com.	THE NATURAL STATE
Arkansas
Experience Jefferson Parish.'Where a unique blend of wetlands and coastal experiences
meets a metropolitan flare! From scenic bayou tours to historic districts, rustic venues,
and creole cuisine, your authentic experience awaits!
WWW.VISITJEFFERSONPARISH.COM
504.731.7083	| TOLL FREE 1.877.572.7474
MAKE A BREAK FOR
PHOTO CTpURTESY OF ST. TAMMANY PARISH'
THE BAYOU STATE
А В О V E | Take a walk along the beach at Fontainebleau State Park in
Mandeville.
Letthe good times roll in Louisiana.
Head over to Louisiana to experience good food, good people, and good times.
When visiting our next-door neighbor, experience rich bayou heritage, Cajun
gusto for food, and infectious song and dance. Whether you’re looking to raise
the stakes at one of the luxurious casinos, spend the day fishing at the scenic
Wetlands, or party it up at a fais do-do, Louisiana has something for everyone.
Come fall in love with the states colorful culture and leave your worries at the
state line. And let the good times roll!
STATE EXPLORER
ADVERTISEMENT
HOTEL MONTELEONE
For five generations. Hotel Monteleone
has been a family-owned New Orleans land-
mark. Hosting everyone from literary giants
like Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote,
and Eudora Welty to bng-standing family
traditions and events, the Hotel Monteleone
is known for its welcoming hospitality, historic
surroundings, and of course the famous
Carousel Bar! In 2023, the Hotel Monteleone
is launching the freshly renovated Iberville
Tower, a hotel within a hotel featuring
new rooms, suites and events spaces, and
exciting modem luxury. The Iberville Tower at
Hotel Monteleone will welcome guests with
serenely elegant d£cor, modern finishes, and
a historic vibe, all located in the heart of New
Orleans's French Quarter and just a short
elevator ride to the Carousel Bar and gor-
geous rooftop pool at the Hotel Monteleone.
Guests at the Iberville Tower will also expe-
rience enhanced amenities and services such
as twice-daily housekeeping service, dedicated
concierge, and an Iberville lower exclusive
welcome amenity. Rooms feature soothing and
serene upholstery, draperies and artwork, cus-
tom granite-top millwork elevating the desks,
dressers and vanities throughout the rooms and
suites, spacious marble bathrooms with Rain
Head shower heads and lighted mirrors, and 55-
inch televisions. Inquire about other amenities
and experiences with the Hotel Monteleone
reservations team or by visiting our website.
HotelMonteleone.com
JEFFERSON PARISH
Jefferson Parish offers adventure and
fun from pirates to museums. Mardi Gras,
and cultural experiences! An ideal des-
tination for groups to explore Louisiana,
Jefferson is a diverse destination surround-
ing New Orleans. We offer value-priced
hotels, attractions, events, and restaurants
for an adventure-filled experience!
From eco-educational tours aboard a
thrilling airboat and cultural and histor-
ic districts to festivals and events filled
with music, heritage, and great fare,
Jefferson Parish offers an array of ex-
periences that IS authentic Louisiana!
Located just minutes from Jefferson
up the Great River Road is the historic
Destrehan Plantation, the oldest document-
ed plantation home in the lower Mississippi
Valley. Here you will travel from the French
and Spanish Colonial periods, through the
antebellum grandeur, to the ravages of the
Civil War and the rebirth of reconstruction.
Just upriver is St. Joseph Plantation, one of
ABOVE CENTER | Airboat adventures in Jefferson Parish.
ABOVE |HotelMoteleone
the few fully intact sugar cane plantations in
the region. Tour the Manor Home, original
slave cabins, a detached kitchen, blacksmith's
shop, carpenter’s shed, and schoolhouse.
Hungry for more? Jefferson offers
an abundance of Louisiana fare, from
fresh Gulf seafood, an official Oyster
Trail featuring the delicacy prepared in a
variety of ways from charbroiled to fried,
and a plethora of international cuisines.
32 TEXAS MONTHLY
The Next Generation of luxury has arrived...
The newly-renovated Iberville Tower at the
Hotel Monteleone welcomes you to create new
traditions in the heart of the French Quarter.
Guests at the Iberville Tower enjoy a hotel
within a hotel, with seamless transitions from
160 superior guest rooms and 48 brand-new
suites to the famed Carousel Bar and Criollo
restaurant and rooftop pool with French Quarter
views. A serene getaway from the hustle and
bustle of New Orleans, the Iberville Tower at
Hotel Monteleone features modern amenities
while celebrating history and tradition.
For booking information please call
504-523-3341 or visit the newly refreshed
www.hotelmonteleone.com for more
information and 360° virtual room tours.
IBERVILLE TOWER
--------ешэ------
Hotel Monteleone • 214 Royal Street • New Orleans, LA 70130
STATE EXPLORER
ADVERTISEMENT
MCILHENNY'S TABAS-
CO®-AVERY ISLAND
Avery Island, nestled in the heart of
Louisiana, beckons culinary enthusiasts
with its unique flavors and rich heritage.
Renowned for TABASCO® Sauce, this
captivating destination blends Cajun and
Creole influences into smoky and savory
delights that will ignite your taste buds.
Begin your culinary journey with a pil-
grimage to the iconic TABASCO® Factory.
Step into the world of peppers and witness
the meticulous process behind crafting the
legendary sauce that has delighted palates
worldwide for generations. Embark on a
self-guided tour to unravel the secrets and
rich history of this culinary masterpiece.
After exploring the TABASCO®
Factory, immerse yourself in the captivating
170-acre Jungle Gardens. Lose yourself
amidst the lush greenery, exotic flora, and
TABASCO*
Visit the historic home of TABASCO1 Sauce
on Avery Island, Louisiana and:
Experience the TABASCO’ Sauce Factory
Tour the TABASCO Museum
Shop at the TABASCO’ Country Store
Eat Cajun and Creole dishes at
1868 Restaurant
Explore the local flora and fauna in
170-acres of Jungle Gardens
VISIT US: Hwy 329, Avery Island, LA 70513 | CONTACT US: (337) 373-6139 | FOLLOW US: ©TABASCO
tranquil landscapes. The natural beauty of
this enchanting botanical wonderland will
transport you to a place of serenity and
rejuvenation. Explore the centuries-old
oak trees adorned with Spanish moss.
Avery Island’s premier dining establish-
ment is a haven for food enthusiasts. Indulge
with a symphony of spices and flavors.
As culinary enthusiasts yearn for an
extraordinary adventure, Avery Island
extends a warm welcome. Plan your
visit today and let the magic of its fla-
vors envelop your senses and create
memories that will last a lifetime.
THE NORTHSHORE
The Northshore is a relaxed and
refreshing destination. There’s no pres-
sure to overdo anything, to check all the
boxes. Instead, its a place that gives much
and takes little. You can find yourself on a
whim or with a plan. It’s an opportunity to
escape from the grind, unplug from the
hustle, and leave your cares at home.
St. Tammany Parish s central loca-
tion makes it easy and accessible. You
can fly in or drive out. Choose from
three area airports and arrive on The
Northshore within an hour or less.
The Northshore delivers world-class
culinary flavors, thriving downtowns, aspi-
rational adventures, and plenty of outdoor
recreation to enjoy. There are opportuni-
ties to venture out or reasons stay in. The
Northshore is all about getting away—your
way. And everyone is welcome here.
Visit The Northshore and find your-
self in a place that is easy to discover,
hard to leave, created for moments,
and seasoned for memories.
VuitTheNorthshorexom
SHREVEPORT-BOSSIER
We live every day like it’s a festival. It
often is. Especially in the fall, the streets of
Shreveport-Bossier are alive with energy.
On September 16, come out and party
in the park at the Highland Jazz & Blues
Festival. Two stages feature funky perfor-
mances all day in historical Columbia Park.
The celebration boasts the best local food
and artwork and is free for everyone.
The Red River Revel Arts Festival
takes good times to the next level. With
nine days of excitement from September
30 to October 8, the fun doesn’t stop at
Festival Plaza. More than 100 artists and
makers, multiple stages of live music, and
a kids center make this a must-visit event.
This film fest, recently recognized by
MovieMaker as one of “The Best Short
Film Festivals in the World,” has grown
into an incredible competition across
five creative disciplines—film, food,
music, fashion, and comedy—with more
than $100,000 in cash prizes. It’s Prize
Fest, and it’s coming October 13-21.
And don’t miss the Louisiana State
Fair coming to Shreveport-Bossier from
October 26 to November 12. Get your fill
of unique fair foods, live music, carnival
rides, free shows, and other attractions.
34 TEXAS MONTHLY
VISIT
THE NORTHSHORE
LOUISIANA’S
ESCAPE
VisitTheNorthshore.com
visit The Northshore, where the
sunshine dances, the music twinkles,
boats float, memories are made and
easy escapes are shore to be had.
ADVERTISEMENT
CLOCKWISE:
1) Caldwell County
Courthouse in down-
town Lockhart.
2) Mill Scale Metal
Works creates barbe-
cue smokers out of old
propane tanks.
3) A full plate from
Chisholm Trail
Barbecue.
Lockhart
HISTORY AND BEYOND
WHEN LOCKHART IS MENTIONED,
MOUTHS ALL ACROSS TEXAS
BEGIN TO WATER.
The city’s contribution to Texas ‘cue
was recognized officially by the Texas
Legislature in 2003 when lawmakers
designated Lockhart as the “Barbecue
Capital of Texas.” The history of barbecue
in Lockhart goes as far back as we can trace
the history of barbecue anywhere in Texas,
and the legacies of the fine joints in Lockhart continue
to this day.
Combine the years of operation of Kreuz Market,
Original Black’s Barbecue, Smitty’s Market, and
Chisholm Trail Barbecue and you get a history of
over 300 years of’cue. These joints also serve a
mindboggling 250,000 people a year. That’s quite a
boon to the Lockhart economy, but recent economic
developments are ushering in an exciting new future
for the city, ensuring that Lockhart will soon be as
closely associated with business and culture as it is
with barbecue.
Mill Scale Metal Works, a maker of fine crafted
smokers, brings new jobs to the city by building a
new manufacturing facility and retail storefront. The
Ziegenfelder Company, the nation’s largest producer of
Twin Pops, Monster Pops, and other seasonal popsicles,
expands to Lockhart through its upcoming 100,000 sq.
ft. manufacturing facility in the new SH 130 Industrial
Park, along with creating over 90 well-paying jobs.
McCoy’s Building Supply, one of the nation’s largest
privately held building supply retailers, establishes its
presence in Lockhart through its newest store.
New industry brings new residents. Lockhart is
experiencing unprecedented growth as folks have
begun to flock to the charming city.
Lockhart will always be the Barbecue Capital
of Texas. After all, the Texas Legislature officially
proclaimed its status as such—but Lockhart is rapidly
becoming known for even more. Just as great food
brings people together, so does a bustling cultural scene
and an economy with an eye towards the future. Come
for the historic BBQ, stay for the bright new future!
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBERT GOMEZ
Produced by
Texas Monthly Studio
in partnership with
Lockhart
The B8O Capital of Texas
For more information, visit
TexasMonthly.com/Lockhart-
Barbecue-and- Beyond

The State
LAND SHARKS OF NORTH TEXAS. MCMURTRY, REMEMBERED. SPRINGS UNSPRUNG?
TRAVEL & OLTDOORS
39
SEP
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRYAN SCHUTMAAT
TEXAS MONTHLY 37
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WARRANTY, TRANSPARENCY S DELIVERY
TRAVEL &
OUTDOORS
GUIDEBOOK
by Jose R. Ralat • photographs by Enrique Leyva
Mezcal,Mole,and More
Here’s how to weave your way through magical Oaxaca.
group of tourists watches Maria Gutierrez as she gingerly passes raw
wool between two wood-handled carders, cleaning and stretching
it between the large combs in a back-and-forth motion. The weaver
smiles at her audience, flexes her left arm, pats her arched bicep, and
laughs while her husband narrates her demonstration in English at
their workshop, named after him: Taller Eduardo Gutierrez Martinez.
Maria, who prefers to speak in her native Zapotec, one of sixteen
Indigenous languages of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, has
been making colorful rugs and other woolen items for most of her
life, in Teotitlan del Valle, about twenty miles east of Oaxaca’s epon-
ymous capital. The village is one of many options for a day trip, via a
guided tour, from the metropolis of about 260,000 residents, which bustles with trendy
restaurants and must-see cul tural institutions. Eat your way through the city, but plan at
least one or two excursions while you’re here.
The Xochimilco
neighborhood,
in Oaxaca,
Mexico, on
July 10.
TEXAS MONTHLY 39
GUIDEBOOK
DINE ♦ DRINK
Start the day with
coffee and conchas
in downtown Oaxaca,
known as the Centro,
at Pan con Madre. Try
lunch or dinner at
Origen, where we
were wowed by the
wild-greens salad
with seasoned agave
worms and a pungent
pesto made with
hoja santa (Mexi-
can pepperleaf). At
Levadura de Olla (1),
dishes such as the
guava mole with
shrimp are inspired
by chef Thalia Barrios
Garcia’s upbringing
in a remote moun-
tain village. Try to
snag one of the six
seats at Crudo, a
Japanese-Oaxacan
restaurant from chef
Ricardo Arellano. In
the Reforma neigh-
borhood, tlayuda
toppings include
chapulines (grass-
hoppers) and squash
blossoms at Tlayudas
Dona Flavia. Or eat
and drink like a local
at Casa Embajador, a
restaurant and mezcal
distillery. Back in the
Centro, grab a late-
night taco filled with
juicy suckling pig at El
Lechoncito de Oro.
SEE ♦ DO
The 2.3-acre Jardin
Etnobotanico de
Oaxaca (2) offers a
verdant overview of
the natural history
of the state, con-
sidered the most
biodiverse in Mexico.
The Museo Textil de
Oaxaca shows off
the area’s artisanal
clothing as well as
modern exhibits from
international artists.
At the Museo Belber
Jimenez, gawk at
the jewelry collec-
tion, which includes
pre-Columbian
pieces. For a guid-
ed tour outside the
city, options include
exploring the state’s
culinary scene—
especially its moles
and mezcals—or
visiting the archeo-
logical ruins at Monte
Alban and Mitla.
SHOP
The work of Oaxacan
artisans, from rugs
to wall hangings, can
be found in many
villages. Our favor-
ites include Cocijo
Artesania Textil (3),
in San Pablo Villa de
Mitla, and Natural
Hecho a Mano, in
Teotitlan del Valle. In
the city you can find
higher-end crafts
from across the state
at Tienda Q and La
Casa de las Arte-
sanias de Oaxaca,
both in the Centro.
STAY
Located just a few
minutes’ walk from
the Zocalo (4), the
city’s main plaza, the
Hotel Oaxaca Real
(5) features a court-
yard pool and atten-
tive staff. For some-
thing a little quieter,
La Casa Cariota is a
five-room boutique
bed-and-breakfast in
the hilltop Xochimilco
neighborhood. ¥
40 TEXAS MONTHLY
FIGHTING BRAIN CANCER
BY GIVING IT A COLD.
THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
PRACTICING MEDICINE AND LEADING IT.
At Houston Methodist, we’re turning malignant brain tumors into
treatable conditions by infecting them with the common cold. The cold
virus changes the DNA of the cancer cells, allowing us to eliminate
them with conventional medication. We’re giving cancer a weakness,
A SERIES PRODUCED FOR
TexasAlonthly WITH
We Will Not Be Tamed
Texas is defined by iconic landscapes, from Big Bend to the Piney Woods. It is the
land that defines us as Texans, ten distinct ecoregions as diverse as its people.
Jesse Griffiths is acutely aware of the character and subtleties of the Texas
regions-as a chef he has committed his culinary vision to responsible use of the
local gifts and resources of Texas.
“Culturally, experiencing the outdoors is
very important to Texans. Incorporating
that into our food makes a lot of sense.”
Jesse Griffiths grew up in North
Texas, where he spent a lot of time
enjoying the outdoors andfishing in
the lakes there. He is chef and co-
owner of celebrated Austin eatery, Dai
Due, where the menu is dedicated to
showcasing Texas ingredients. Also
passionate abou t educating the public
about seasonal and game meats,
Griffiths teaches hunting andfishing
cooking classes and is the author of
two books. His latest, The Hog Book,
won the James Beard award in 2022.
“I grew up fishing around Denton. A
real formative part of my childhood
was fishing on Ray Roberts. I was
there when they inundated the lake,
so I saw it transform from farmland. I
moved to Austin in ’98 and worked in
a bunch of restaurants until starting
Dai Due in 2006.
“When I started off working
in restaurants, any time of year,
you could make a phone call and
have asparagus or strawberries,
or whatever you wanted. Then
I did some travelling, to Europe
and to Mexico, and I saw different
perspectives on food cultures, based
on what was available. Their food
culture was rooted in what they had
available to them locally. I became
really interested in that concept.
“I also decided it was something I
wanted to do from the standpoint of
what was equitable and right. You
support your community first, the
fisherman and the farmers around
you. It was an exciting challenge at
first. I could find a lot of okra four
months of the year, but finding
something like olive oil was a lot
harder. Over the years we’ve seen a
massive proliferation of these smaller,
local producers. It’s been really
exciting to see everything grow with
us. Not because of us, but with us. It’s
fun to know who’s producing your
food by their first name.
“Two hours to the west of Austin
you’re in this arid Hill Country, and
it’s rich in wild game. Go to the north
and you’ve got these rolling Blackland
prairies where there’s so much good
dairy coming out of it. You go to the
east and hit the coast and you have
just incredible seafood options. Go
south and it’s the breadbasket. The
Rio Grande Valley grows anything
from cabbage to citrus. Culturally,
experiencing the outdoors is very
important to Texans. Incorporating
that into our food makes a lot of sense.
CHEF JESSE GRIFFITHS IN
THE KITCHEN AT DAI DUE, HIS
RESTAURANT DEDICATED TO
SHOWCASING TEXAS INGREDIENTS
“Food can be part of the
solution. With feral hogs, we’ve
got this destructive and invasive
problem. But they’re delicious,
and you can hunt them year-
round. Every pound of wild pig
you consume, you’re pulling one
pound out of that system. I don’t
know if we’re going to save the
world, but it’s the little steps.
“In Texas we have a long history
of being outside. It’s a beautiful
state. It’s a rugged state. There’s
a lot of land. We have great state
parks. Traveling around Texas we
have such diverse environments.
Drive a couple hours and you’re
in a different world. We have such
incredible beauty here. I think
Texans like to get out and enjoy
their state. They’re proud of their
state as they should be.
Texans are some of the wildest, most rugged,
independent, and freedom-loving people on
Earth. So is our land and the life on it. Find out
how you can join Jesse and others who are
standing together for the wild places that have
given us so much and have made us who we are.
WEWILLNOTBETAMED.ORG
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF WILSON
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TRAVEL &
OUTDOORS
EXCURSIONS
by Rose Cahalan • photographs by Trevor Paulhus
In Sherman, Il’s Always Shark Week
This small North Texas city, far from the coast, is a fossil hunter’s paradise.
Fossil hunters
in Sherman on
July 24.
One of the most popular places in Texas to find shark teeth is
nearly four hundred miles from the sea. An hour’s drive north
of Dallas is where Post Oak Creek lies just off an unremark-
able stretch of road, south of downtown Sherman. A Google
Maps pin labeled only “Shark Teeth” led me to the spot: the
two-lane South Travis Street bridge, a few hundred yards east of U.S.
Highway 75. Next to the bridge, an overgrown field beside an auto shop
served as a makeshift parking lot. The place was strewn with trash.
Styrofoam Whataburger cups and plastic grocery bags drifted in the
breeze next to larger junk—twisted rebar, an old wooden pallet—and
a row of broken-down cars. “Are you sure this is it?” my husband,
Chris, asked as we loaded our one-year-old son into his carrier and
then picked our way through the litter to the creek. The path down to
the water was steep and rocky, so I was glad I’d worn hiking sandals. I
concentrated closely on my steps, trying not to slip, until we arrived
at the water’s edge. When I did
finally look up, I’d been trans-
ported to another world. A lush,
green canopy of trees obscured
the road overhead, and the sound
of water burbling over the pebbly
bottom drowned out any traffic.
The stream was cool and clear,
with no trash in sight.
On this unseasonably chilly
Saturday morning in May, a few
other families were already here.
We were all looking for shark
teeth from about a hundred
million years ago, when most of
TEXAS MONTHLY 45
EXCURSIONS
Texas was covered by a shallow
sea. “I got one!” a little girl ex-
claimed, splashing through the
knee-deep water to show off a
shiny discovery.
I’d found this under-the-radar
location via Google, which led me
to several parenting blogs. One
writercheerfullydescribedatrip
to Post Oak Creek as “probably
our most random adventure to
date!” I was impressed by the
photos of ancient fangs—some
as long as a couple of inches—in
shades of shiny brown, gray, and
black. Another blogger bragged
of finding 85 fossils in two and a
half hours.
Word is starting to get out about
this special place, and the city of
Sherman’s plans to turn it into a
public park will likely raise its pro-
file further. About half a mile east
of where we accessed the creek, a
paved parking lot and safer steps
leading down to the water are
planned. The project is still in the
design phase, with no timeline for
construction.
One family we met said they’d
heard about it from their kid’s
A shark tooth
found in Post
Oak Creek; using
a sieve to sift
pebbles and
fossils.
elementary school science teach-
er, and another had driven out on
the recommendation of a friend.
Everyone was drawn by the high
probability of taking home a
handful of treasures. That’s not
always the case with fossil hunt-
ing—or rockhounding, as it’s
sometimes called—which is a lot
like fishing: both depend heavily
on luck.
Ready to try ours, we sat cross-
legged on the bank and unpacked
the homemade sieve Chris had
built earlier that week. It was a
simple ten-by-ten-inch grid, with
wire mesh nailed to four pieces
of wood. Tutorials are available
online, but a flour sifter or kitch-
en colander would suffice as well.
Then we got to work, using a gar-
den spade to scoop pebbles into
the sieve, which we shook to make
the water, mud, and smaller debris
fall away.
Playing with dirt and rocks is
second nature to a toddler, so
our son quickly set to “helping,”
picking up pebbles one by one
and dropping them into the
sieve. (We did have to be vigilant
to make sure none went in his
mouth.) The routine was calm-
ing, even meditative: scoop
pebbles in, shake the sieve, sift
through by hand, dump it all
out, repeat. After about twenty
minutes of this, without seeing a
single fossil, we decided to walk a
few hundred feet upstream and
try a different location.
We were in luck. You know a
shark tooth when you see it, and
I was delighted to notice one
that was about an inch and a
half long, dark gray with finely
serrated edges, lying out in the
open on the riverbank. The finds
came quickly after that, tumbling
into our palms: teeth in various
shades of gray and black, from
tiny centimeter-long specimens
to fearsome chompers, plus oth-
er fossils that looked like clams,
oysters, and pieces of prehistoric
coral. After an hour and a half,
we left with a baggie filled with
twenty or so finds.
Texas law generally allows
fossil collecting in public creeks
and streams, but some digs re-
quire permits, and laws prohibit
46 TEXAS MONTHLY
FREDERICKSBURG, TEXAS
EXCURSIONS
collecting certain artifacts such as
arrowheads and stone tools from
public streams. Rock hounds
should also note that you can-
not take fossils from state and
national parks.
Back at home, we laid out our
trophies on the kitchen table and
marveled at them. We’d sifted for
shark teeth once before, on vaca-
tion in Florida, but somehow it
felt cooler to have collected them
in our home state, far from any
ocean. It’s mind-boggling to hold
in your hand a tooth from around
one hundred million years ago and
imagine a world that looked utter-
ly different.
During the Cretaceous period,
most of Texas was submerged by
a warm, shallow sea called the
Western Interior Seaway. Ptero-
saurs swooped overhead, menac-
ingcrocodilianspaddled through
the mud, and fierce sharks with
Pokemon-like names (Galagadon,
Squalicorax) sent schools of fish
fleeing in terror. The vastness
of the sharks’ territory is hard
to grasp. “The seaway went up
through Texas and connected at
some point to the Arctic Circle,”
says Dale Winkler, research pro-
fessor and director of the Shuler
Museum of Paleontology, at South-
ern Methodist University. “Most
of this area was flooded for at least
forty million years.” These teeth
survived for tens of millions of
years for a few reasons, he explains.
One is that sharks grow and shed
a staggering number of teeth—in
some cases, more than twenty
thousand in a lifetime. Another is
that “teeth are durable, and they’re
small enough that they don’t get
broken up easily.”
North Texas is known by hob-
byists as a fossil hunter’s paradise.
This stretch of Post Oak Creek isn’t
geologically unique; rock hounds
can turn up sharkfossils in numer-
ous nearby waterways. Did more
ancient sharks swim across this
region than elsewhere, I wanted to
know, or do the geology and access
Other Fossil Hot Spots
WHERE TO FIND SEA LILIES, AMMONITES, AND MORE.
Crystal Beach
Bolivar Peninsula
Should you prefer
to combine your
fossil hunting with
a seaside vacation,
this 27-mile-long
peninsula east
of Galveston is a
phenomenal choice.
Folks seem to
have the best luck
on Crystal Beach
(pictured). You can
drive right on the
sand, though you’ll
have to buy a $10
permit. As with any
type of beachcomb-
ing, the best time to
go is after a storm,
when big waves will
have churned up all
kinds of treasures.
Mineral Wells
Fossil Park
Palo Pinto County
Flowerlike sea lilies,
spiky urchins, and
oblong trilobites are
a few of the marvel-
ous finds you might
come across at
Mineral Wells Fossil
Park, an eroded pit
about an hour west
of Fort Worth that
now welcomes rock
hounds. Admission
is free, and you can
take home whatever
here just make their remains more
visible? Is it possible that back
here, in Austin, I’m alsosittingon
top of thousands of prehistoric
shark teeth?
“You definitely are,” Winkler
says. “There are sharks’ teeth all
around the Cretaceous of Texas”—
a wide band that runs across a
you uncover. There’s
very little shade
here, so bring sun-
screen, a hat, and
lots of water.
North Sulphur
River
near Ladonia
Spiral ammonites
the size of cinnamon
buns are among the
prized finds at this
spot, about eighty
miles northeast of
Dallas. Or you might
see a “devil’s toe-
nail” oyster, which,
yes, resembles a
nasty, gnarled, over-
grown nail.
sizable portion ofthe state, includ- |
ingmostofNorthandCentralTex- 5
as,plus swaths ofthe southern and |
western reaches. In other words, 3
these gems from the past are ev- |
erywhere. You just have to know I
where to look. #
48 TEXAS MONTHLY

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FOODS
DRINK
DINING GUIDE
Edited by Patricia Sharpe and Courtney Bond
Where to Eat Now
Here’s our take on the state’s new restaurants, along with
a few updates to longtime favorites.
An assortment
of meat and
banchan at
Hongdae 33.
HONGDAE 33, HOUSTON
1ЛИЛ Korean | This rollicking hot spot on the second floor of the vast,
double-decker Dun Huang Plaza, in Chinatown, is brought to us by Grace
and Leo Xia, of Duck N Bao. It’s an all-you-can-eat concept, and the “33”
refers to the reasonable $33 fixed price per person. After we ordered the
recommended beef, the usual variety of small condiment plates were set
before us, including pickled daikon, bean sprouts, cucumber, and kimchi
(the best we’ve had). As the meat arrived and we began to grill our brisket,
Wagyu beef belly, flatiron steak, and galbi, we agreed we had ascended to
carnivore heaven. The japchae—stir-fried glass noodles—are worth
sampling as well. Hongdae doesn’t take reservations, and there are lines,
so get there early. Also, they set a ninety-minute limit on each seating, do
not provide doggie bags, and charge $8 per head for food left on the plate—
so eat up! 9889Bellaire Blvd: 346-980-8105; L&D 7 days. $$
Austin
EZOV ★★★
i'l УД Israeli | From the folks behind Emmer
& Rye comes a highly original eatery inspired by
Israeli street food. The lively, high-ceilinged
room is tricked out with paper lanterns painted
to mimic graffiti, and the sound of happy cus-
tomers caroms off the walls. The smashed cu-
cumber salad flecked with black nigella seeds
was a sensation, the fresh tomato salad made
the best of summer’s harvest, and the lamb-
and-beef kofta with roasted eggplant was
something we hope to be eating year-round.
Just one caution: the kitchen loves assertive
bitter and sour flavors, and more than a few
elements (like the amba, a pickled mango sauce
that comes with the falafel) reflect that prefer-
ence. A thoughtful wine list heavy on Greek
whites, such as Limnio and Assyrtiko, adds to
the experience. 2708E. Cesar Chavez; 512-305-
1118; 07 days. $$
GRACIA ★★★
ЕПЛ Mediterranean | The tall white room,
with its colorful pillows and basket-style light
shades, was filled with folks from the west-side
Rosedale neighborhood, who looked quite
happy with the well-priced Mediterranean
menu from chef Jason Tallent, formerly of
Clarksville’s Cipollina. A salad of leafy greens
and lightly cooked carrots came rounded out by
crumbles of feta in a fine sesame-and-pepper
dressing. Salmon tartare with pine nuts,
boosted by spicy harissa, was a delight, as were
three baby lamb chops seasoned with salmori-
glio, Italy's herby, lemony “light brine." For side
dishes, we chose chunky pan-crisped potatoes
with aioli and a humongous baked eggplant with
Aleppo chile oil and za'atar seasoning. Some-
how, we made room for rustic orange-almond
cake with a dab of yogurt and a bit of honey.
4800 Burnet Rd; 512-649-4844; 0 7 days. $$$
Bryan
FRITTELLA ITALIAN CAFE*W
Italian | On a fateful day in June
2022, there was much sorrow in Aggieland.
Word had spread that the owner of FritteIla was
retiring and closing the treasured Bryan
restaurant. What a difference a year makes.
Investors have purchased the building and
rehired longtime kitchen staff. During a recent
visit we were greeted by a line at the counter,
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOMANDO CRUZ
TEXAS MONTHLY 51
DINING GUIDE
everyone eager to order beloved dishes such as
beef cannelloni and chicken Parmesan. Our
first nibble of the simple bread sticks con-
firmed that they were the same crunchy-on-
the-outside, soft-on-the-inside treats of yore.
Our entrees were similarly scrumptious, espe-
cially the hearty spaghetti covered in a meaty,
slightly sweet sauce. With a new bar, a few
additional menu items, and a team of eager-to-
please servers, Frittella is as good as ever. 3901
S. Texas Ave; 979-260-6666; L&D7 days. $$
Dallas
BOBBIE’S AIRWAY GRILL ★★★
uu Modern American | With its
mid-century vibe, this handsome, clubby
restaurant is a Preston Hollow hot spot. The
sprawling space includes a bustling front room
with a huge oval bar, a carpeted dining room
with cozy booths, and an inviting covered patio.
The menu sticks to upscale takes on comfort-
ing classics such as salads, grilled meats, sea-
food, and sandwiches. Plump fried oysters
were delicately breaded and presented in the
THE FRESH AMERICAN, LUBBOCK
j-'i v.'i American | Smart and contemporary, this spacious new restaurant distin-
guishes itself with an energetic open kitchen, a reservations-only chef’s table, and
servers decked out in newsboy caps and full-length aprons. The menu delighted us
with a blood orange margarita (above), a salad of beets and goat cheese, and a flat-
bread called the Marilyn Monroe: mushrooms, mozzarella, feta, olives, pesto, and
sweet peppers. Shrimp scampi arrived with angel hair pasta and just the right
amount of white wine-lemon broth, while our hand-cut filet came with a red wine
bordelaise. (The most impressive cut is the caveman-size Tomahawk ribeye, which
could easily feed a whole table.) 3715114th; 806-438-1322; L&D Tue-Sun. $$$
shell atop a delicious duo of aioli and red chile
vinaigrette. The crab cake-a main course—
was excellent if pricey ($44); crispy-crusted,
with loads of briny jumbo lump crabmeat, it
came with a lovely lemon-dill-caper sauce and
a side of thin fries. The Italian beef sandwich
held shaved roasted tri-tip, giardiniera, provo-
lone, and broccolini; alongside was a savory jus
for dipping. Service is warm, but the kitchen
can be slow. 5959 Royal Ln; 214-272-8754; L
&D7days.$$$
LEELA’S WINE BAR ★★
Ш1 iltA Wine Bar | The third location of this
casual spot has opened in a pedestrian-friendly
corner of central Dallas’s Uptown area. (The
other two are in Greenville and Trophy Club.)
The thin-crust pizzas, sixteen wines on tap,
sparkling cocktails, and pulsing sound track
draw a young crowd. Salads and boards-laden
with charcuterie or smoked salmon (your
choice), cheese, dips, crackers, and vegeta-
bles-are also on the menu, but the pizzas are
the big deal. Ultra-thin, with cracker-crisp
crusts, they're still sturdy enough for multiple
Visit texasmonthly.com/dining-guide for our wide-ranging collection of frequently
updated restaurant reviews, which feature the new spots, the classics, and
everything in between. Our reviews are written by anonymous critics who live in the
areas they cover, and the magazine pays all expenses.
toppings; they’re also sold in half and whole
sizes. All three versions we tried were delicious:
a prosciutto-topped white pizza with bechamel
and arugula; the Butcher, topped with marinara
sauce, pepperoni, and Italian sausage; and an
excellent Margherita. Tossed green salads are
large enough to share. 2355 Olive; 469-505-
2103;L&D7days.$$
Fort Worth
LE MARGOT ★★★
LUJ French | The delicate balance found
in the Lyonnaise salad sold us on the new
partnership between chefs Felipe Armenta and
Graham Elliot. Crowned by an expertly poached
egg over a buttery brioche cube, the frilly frisee
(teased with nubby bacon vinaigrette) was
glorious simplicity. Perfect onion soup came in
a miniature tureen topped with Gruyere toast.
Cognac-laced peppercorn cream glistened atop
a supple filet au poivre, nesting on a fluffy
potato puree pillow. Scallops just seared at the
edges lined up across a pool of pureed
cauliflower, with plump raisins and salty capers
as a garnish. On each day, a regular special hits
the spot, such as sole almondine on Tuesday,
coq au vin on Thursday, and bouillabaisse on
Sunday. Whatever the day, a puckery lemon
tart is the proper finish. For a cocktail as sassy
and sweet as the eye-popping decor, try the
Ooh La La, with orange-infused vodka,
Cointreau, and strawberry syrup, topped with
a cotton candy cloud. 3150 S. Hulen; 817-720-
9060; D 7 days. $$$$
RATING
SYSTEM
STARS
★ ★★★★
Superlative
★ ★★★
Excellent
★ ★★
Very good
Good
Hit or miss
Houston
ALBI ★★★
ЕШ Mediterranean | Expect a dramatic
interior with scarlet-shaded lights, plush ban-
quettes, and glossy tables and floors. Dine
early (before 8:30) if you’re seeking a quiet
dinner. Late-evening entertainment means a
DJ and, on weekends, belly dancers. Designed
for sharing, portions are hefty as well as beau-
tifully presented. We started with fabulous
feta dumplings, small, browned rectangles
filled with creamy cheese, spiked with citrus
labneh, and sprinkled with bright green pea
PRICE SCALE
Prices represent a
typical meal for one,
not including alcohol,
tax, and tip.
$ Less than $15
$$ $15-$30
$$$ $31-$60
$$$$ More than $60
52 TEXAS MONTHLY
BWft
BASIL
HAYDEN
KENTUCKY STRAIGHT
BOURBON
WHISKEY
PROUD PARTNER OF THE DALLAS COWBOYS
to Saving! *
DINING GUIDE
shoots. Hummus, served with hot, puffy pita,
was delightfully creamy and adorned with
crunchy chickpeas and paprika. The luscious
roulade-style Jidori chicken featured a breast
rolled around chicken sausage, wrapped with
crisped chicken skin, and sliced into rounds;
it came with kabsa (long-grained rice spiced
with cardamom, saffron, cinnamon, and a bit
of lime). Our grilled grouper also satisfied: a
thick, pure-white filet surrounded by farro and
sweet carrots. 1947 W. Gray; 832-464-2524;
DTue-Sat.$$$
PASSERELLA ★★
СШ1 Italian | From the moment we were
handed a complimentary glass of prosecco to
the presentation, an hour later, of a beautiful
HOLA, SAN ANTONIO ★★★
rm Tapas | This Southtown place is so popu-
lar that we resorted to a 5:00 reservation after
several weeks of trying to get a table. Hello, in-
deed. Paella (on the menu every Sunday) was a
pure taste ofValencia, with perfectly cooked rice,
well-seasoned seafood, and tiny bites of smoky,
spicy chorizo. Tapas had the same authentic
flavors and reminded us that tiny doesn’t mean
boring. Checking all the right boxes were beef-
and-chorizo meatballs, charred cauliflower with
a Parmesan mayo, and baked goat cheese with
piloncillo jam. Other notables: simple dining
rooms, a cozy bar, local artwork on the wall, and
a pleasant street-corner patio. 603 S. Alamo;
210-236-5688: L) Mon-Sat. $$
slice of spumoni, Passerella's service was
simply flawless. The younger sibling of the
original restaurant, in Cypress, the Washing-
ton Avenue edition has a slightly smaller
menu but the same Italian flair. Meatballs
pomodoro nestled on polenta were large,
dense, and delicious. Burrata (with a beguiling
hit of basil pesto), garlicky crostini, and sweet
baby tomatoes could easily do for a light lunch
(portions are generous). And a stunning
stuffed flounder—the filet wrapped around
blue lump crabmeat assembled like a pisca-
torial cathedral with two shrimp perched on
its "spire”-was divine. That old standard
fettuccine Alfredo got a lift with plump
shrimp, shaved brocollini, and small blistered
tomatoes. 6011 Washington Ave; 713-242-8151;
D Tue-Sun. $$
PASTORE ★★
IL1A21 Italian | The menu at this new entry
from Houston’s Underbelly Hospitality focuses
primarily on seafood. The restaurant’s interior,
with its soft lighting and plush blue ban-
quettes, reflects the ocean theme, with hand-
some cutlery and white tablecloths adding to
the charm. Both our starters exceeded expec-
tations. The first was a beautifully crafted
display of lightly cured snapper with olives,
bits of fennel, and tiny lemon wedges. Next
came a colorful salad of juicy tomato, peach,
and gremolata resting on creamy burrata (de-
signed to be loaded onto crisp toast). Our
main dishes had a couple of issues, however.
The small chunks of swordfish amatriciana
were all but lost amid the spicy tomato-based
sauce. And while we quite liked the chicken
milanese, with a lovely crust, the thinner end
of the meat was dry. We had no complaints at
all, however, with an interesting side dish,
panissa ligure, essentially rectangular chick-
pea fritters served with tomato sauce for dip-
ping. The finish could hardly have been better:
a slice of chocolate tart, with a surprise touch
of thyme in the crust, surrounded by whipped
cream and drops of olive oil. 1180 Dunlavy;
346-867-1905; D 7 days. $$$
TRILL BURGERS ★★
uu Burgers | Pack your patience-and
perhaps a lawn chair and bottled water—if
you join the frenzied line at rapper (and Hous-
ton favorite son) Bun B's smashburger joint,
which finally opened mid-June. Once inside,
order at the counter (the drive-through is
supposed to be up and running soon). On the
menu, the OG Burger is made with 44 Farms
beef and cooked on high heat to create de-
lightfully crispy edges. The thin patty is then
loaded with caramelized onions, pickles,
American cheese, and a secret sauce on a soft
potato roll for a flavor that echoes Thousand
Island dressing. The vegan version is even
sweeter. Expect rap music, video screens, and
the occasional Bun В sighting. Trill Burgers
has signed a six-month lease and may relo-
cate around December. The eatery is cashless,
so come prepared. 3607S. Shepherd Dr; 713-
364-2284; L & D 7 days. $
McAllen
ACE'S BBQ ★★★
Barbecue | The dreamy brisket
botana (a bountiful helping of sliced beef, rice,
and beans) always comes to mind when we
think abo ut this Mission-born barbecue joint.
Though the new location serves the same ac-
claimed South Texas barbecue as the original,
this time we fell in love with the Mexican Plate:
cheese enchiladas accompanied by rice,
beans, and sliced oak-smoked brisket with an
exemplary bark. Sometimes we order healthy,
though: brisket or pulled pork mounded atop
a fresh garden salad. 111E. Nolana Ave; 956-
627-4648; L & D 7 days. 33
San Antonio
FIG TREE ★★★
iijj.mh French | This storied place al-
ways had good food, but before its new owner
came along (Samuel Panchevre, of Sam’s
Burger Joint fame), it was a bit stuffy and
outlandishly expensive. With executive chef
Luis Colon now at the helm, a brighter, more
modern, and less pricey menu shines with
French-inspired recipes and locally sourced
ingredients. Butcher steak, a duo of little
meaty towers, was one delight, served with
miso-accented potato and grilled onion. An-
other, agnolotti, brought tender, cheese-
filled pillows of pasta with a sauce featuring
creamed corn, pork belly, and Gruyere. The
kitchen and interior have been updated, but
the 1853 building is as charmingas ever, and
the terraced balconies under the cypress
trees still provide the best tables to be had
on the River Walk. 515 Villita;210-224-1976;
D Mon-Sat. В Sun. $$$
54 TEXAS MONTHLY

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STYLES
DESIGN
PROFILE
by Doyin Oyeniyi • photographs by Jasmine Archie
Iler Crowning Glory
As the rights surrounding Black natural hair expand in Texas, braider
and activist Isis Brantley examines her hard-fought legacy.
Isis Brantley
in Dallas on
July 11.
In the summer of 2019, Rhetta Andrews Bowers, a Democratic state
representative for Dallas County, was approached by a member of
the newly formed CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World
for Natural Hair) Coalition. The national grouphad been founded
by Blackwomenwhowerefightingdiscriminationagainst natural
hair and styles such as braids, twists, and dreadlocks. They wanted Bowers
to take up their cause in Texas.
Bowers quickly learned thatmanyBlackTexansfeltthattheywere being
discriminated against at school and at work because of their hair, though
some were hesitant to speak up. But a few cases had made national head-
lines, including those of two high school students near Houston who were
suspended in 2020 for refusing to
cut their Iocs and Dakari Davis, a
Dallas transit police officer who
was suspended that same year for
wearing cornrows.
Then there was Isis Brantley.
The 64-year-old Dallasbraider has
been fighting some of the state’s
regulations on natural hair styling
for three decades—she was arrest-
ed, in 1997, for braiding hair with-
out alicense. In large part because
of her advocacy and legal battles,
the state has changed its laws.
With the support of a bipartisan
coalition of state House reps and
members of the Texas Legislative
Black Caucus, Bowers agreed to
author the Texas version of the
CROWN Act, which easily passed
both chambers this session. The
bill, which goes into effect Sep-
tember 1,prohibits discrimination
based on hair texture or protec-
tive hairstyles in workplaces and
schools and overrides dress code
policies that single ou t natural hair.
Texas is the twenty-second state to
enact such legislation.
Bowers considers it a historic
victory, one directly connected to
Brantley’s legacy. “I stand on her
shoulders,” she says of Brantley,
whose activism “really speaks to
how long we’ve been fighting and
advocating for natural hair.”
Brantley was born in Dallas, in
1958, andgrewup in Bonton, a his-
torically Black neighborhood on
the city’s south side. As a child she
learned hair braiding from watch-
ing her mother and community
elders. She studied drama at what
is now the University of North
Texas, in Denton, dropping out
in the late seventies tohelp start a
theater company. Inspired further
by the celebration of Black beauty
and hairstyles she would see each
week on Soul Train, she began to
braid hair out of her home while
performing around Dallas.
In 1981, she opened her own
TEXAS MONTHLY 57
PROFILE
salon, African Braiding Studio,
across the street from Lincoln
High School. Brantley, who uses
methods that are gentle on scalps,
also invented a lacing technique
to camouflage thinning areas. In
1989 she introduced her own line
of hair products made from nat-
ural ingredients, called Sisters of
Isis. She became known as “Queen
Isis,” and word spread of her prac-
tice. Women began traveling from
Austin and Houston for a chance
tosit in herchair,but the majority
came from her community. Singer
Erykah Badu started coming when
she was around nine years old and
has remained a client for dec ades.
Brantley moved her business
to a cultural center in 1994. There
she continued serving clients and
began teaching her craft, charging
as much as $325 for courses. Her
business thrived,but for Brantley,
hairbraidinghas never been just
a job; it’s a spiritual and cultural
practice that connects her to her
African religious roots. She be-
lieves it can be a tool to help dis-
mantle what she considers to be
centuries of damage that Western
beauty standards and laws have
done to the hair and minds of
Black people. Teaching braiding
was a chance to do what she calls
“healing through the hair.”
Mannequin
heads used to
teach students;
Sisters of Isis
hair products
created by Isis
Brantley; inside
her Naturally
Isis salon.
“We talk about the history of
the hair so that people can under-
stand that you didn’t just come
out of your mother’s womb hating
yourself,” says Brantley, who car-
ries herselfwith an earthy glamour.
“That this hair that you’re trying
to get to know, or you’re having a
hard time getting to know, wasen-
slaved in this country. Sowhen we
say, ‘Heal through the hair,’we have
to heal all those past traumas that
we have connected to the beauty of
our curls and our spirals.”
For all her success, Brantley,
without knowing it, was braiding
and teaching illegally. To braid hair
in Texas, she needed a cosmetology
license, which at the time required
1,500hoursof cosmetology lessons
on everything from hair coloring
to nail care. Such training would
have meant at least nine months of
school for a full-time student and
cost thousands of dollars.
In 1995, a Texas Cosmetology
Commission inspector visited the
salon and informed her that she
would need a license to continue
braiding. She received several ci-
tations and appeared in court with
herlawyer,ThelmaSandersClardy.
Though Brantley argued that hair
braiding is an African ancestral
practice dating back to precolo-
nial civilizations and shouldn’t be
regulated by state laws, she was
found guilty of braiding hair and
operating a salon without a license
and was ordered to pay a $600 fine.
Brantley, who was told that state
officials had waived the fine, con-
tinued practicing. Two years later
she was arrested on charges related
to not paying the fine and operating
illegally.
“It was these white cops that
came in there and two Black cops
that were undercover,” Brantley
tells me, describing the sting oper-
ation at her salon. The undercover
officers asked for an appointment,
then the other cops rushed in,
handcuffed her in front of shocked
clients, and hauled her off to jail.
Brantley was in disbelief. All this
over braiding?
Brantley paid the fine, but she
still insisted on her right to braid
without a license. In the following
years, she braided out of her home
whilecontinuingto fight forchang-
es to the regulations. She argued
that a cosmetology license didn’t
make sense for natural hair braid-
ers, whodon’t cut hair or use chem-
icals or dyes. The skills relevant
to braiding weren’t even taught in
Texas cosmetology schools. “This is
my religion,” Brantley told theAus-
tinAmerican-Statesman, in 1997. “I
don’t know that there’s such a thing
58 TEXAS MONTHLY
as regulating culture and religion.”
In 2007, following the dissolution
of theCosmetology Commission and
the transfer of its duties to the Texas
Department of Licensing and Regu-
lation (TDLR), the state reduced the
required training for hair braiders to
35 hours. Brantley was grandfathered
in and received her license to braid.
But she still couldn’t legally teach in
her salon. The new rules reclassified
braiding as an act of barbering, so to
continue teaching, Brantley would
need to complete hundreds of hours
ofbarber trainingand movehersalon
to a new location that met the physi-
cal requirements for abarber school.
For years Brantley lobbied against
these rules. Finally, in 2013 she, along
with the Institute for Justice, a non-
profit law firm, filed a lawsuit against
TDLR In January2015 afederal court
found that the state’s requirements
were irrational and thereby unconsti-
tutional. Thatsameyear, Brantley and
the I nstitu te for Justice worked with
members of the Texas Legislature on
House Bill 2717, which deregulated
hair braiding in Texas. When Gover-
nor Greg Abbott signed the bill into
law, Brantley was there. Her two de-
cades of legal battles had come to an
end. She had won the ability to braid
and teach not just for herself but for
every practitioner in the state.
Today, thanks to social media, hair
braiders are having their day in the
sun. Gone are the days when Black
women had to quietly braid hair in
their homes to avoid getting caught
and fined. Now you can search a
hashtag such as #houstonbraider
on Instagram and pull up more than
658,000posts. The good news? Near-
ly anyone can become a hair braid-
er! The bad news? Nearly anyone
can become a hair braider. Among
those thousands of posters are tal-
ented braiders showing off satisfied
clients with waist-length box braids
or flowy faux Iocs. But there are also
memes on TikTok in which clients
complain about the shoddy work-
manship of an inexperienced, over-
confident braider.
When I asked Brantley whether
she’s concerned that deregulation
in Texas has empowered too many
subpar braiders,her rebuffwas gen-
tle but firm. To her, the freedom out-
weighs any downsides. “No, I don’t
worry about this,” Brantley says.
“We have to start from somewhere.
Someone wants to braid hair, that’s
beautiful. Economics has been stolen
from [Black people] over and over
and over again. This is an opportunity
for us to have the power back in our
own hands.”
She has more complicated feel-
ings about her own losses and gains.
She spent two decades of her “prime
days,” she says, traveling between
Austin and Dallas, missing out on time
with her five children, all togive more
freedoms to Texas braiders. Brantley
worries that she’s beingforgotten and
left behind as the industry explodes.
In April, just before the Texas
House passed the CROWN Act, I
visited Brantley in her Naturally
Isis salon, a small room that’s part
of the S alon 972, a collection of Black
hair-care businesses in North Dallas.
Brantley, bubbly and regal, towered
over her two studen ts for the day. She
wore silver platform heels and two
shimmery yellow head wraps tied
around waves of her thin brown Isis
Loes—her own take on micro Iocs.
Brantley explained that she used
to teach about a dozen students at
a time and had many clients, but
fewer customers come to her now
that anybody can braid hair. So she
goes with the flow, practicing gentle
braiding techniques, teaching, and
spreading her love of natural hair
with events such as the Naturally
Isis Hair Parade and Festival. She is
active on Instagram and TikTok, with
a combined 96,000 followers, and in
2021 she produced a short film about
her story. “This is where we are, and
we can’t hide it,” Brantley says. “Lit-
tle by little, bit by bit.”
Texas braiders who practice with-
out a license have Brantley to thank,
whether they know her name or not.
Of course, Brantleywouldpreferthat
they do.#
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"I GIVE FULL MARKS TC
* TEXAS ENTERPRISE &
VTEXAS VISION S
в[,TEX AS пЦ
feOUdtNESS*
SENATOR JOHN F. KENNEDY
SEPTEMBER 12, 1960 I HOUSTON, TX
Senators John F. Кеппе sty ami Lyndon В Johnson
campaign in Fort Worth. Texas. September 13. 1960
The Dallas Morning News Collection / The Sorth Flow Museum at Dealey Plaza
Donated by The Dallas Morning News in the interest of preserving history
Sixty years after the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy, discover his life,
death and legacy at The Sixth Floor Museum
at Dealey Plaza, located in the Dallas West
End within the former Texas School Book
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LETTER FROM
by Sean O’Neal • illustration by Kaitlin Brito
ARTS»
ENTERTAINMENT
The Best Lillie Film Town in Texas
Texas’s quadrupling of annual film incentives to $200 million will likely supercharge
productions across the state. Hollywood’s favorite Texas small town, Smithville, shows the
opportunities—and hazards—ahead for other communities aspiring for stardom.
The Smithville film tour takes maybe twenty, thirty minutes tops,
depending on how badly you want to see the road on which Mi-
randa Lambert wrecks her car in the “Vice” music video. Many
major locations are right on top of one another: the house where
Sandra Bullock’s character lives in Hope Floats sits just a couple
blocks from Brad Pitt’s fictional home in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.
On the official Smithville Film Map, every production is represented by a
colored dot, and most of them are massed in a rainbow clot choking Main
Street, where several projects includingPem/e and, more recently, Max’s
Love & Death were shot. 4 I’m driven along the route by Smithville Film
Commission chairman M ike Shell, an amiable, if slightly taciturn, 76-year-
old screenwriter whose credits include 2O15’s Wild Horses, with Robert
Duvall (Shell calls him Bobby), and Kelly Holt, who sells antiques in the
Texas Trails store downtown andhelps Shell liaise between the commission
and local business owners. The two are used to giving this tour to location
scouts, and they rattle off passing landmarks with ease. Holt shows me the
corneron which HarryConnick Jr.hoists Bullockat theendofHopeFloats,
near a warehouse that was used i n the TV series Fear the Walking Dead.
As we crawl past Dennis Quaid’s
home in Beneath the Darkness, Shell
points out a stop sign that Pierce
Brosnan plowed into during a scene
in the drama series The Son. (He
was really nice about it, Shell says.)
I t’s plain what filmmakers see in
Smithville. Despite the changing
times, Smithville looks every bit
the small town that it often plays
on-screen—still the sleepy idyll of
nostalgic imagination, with a pop-
ulation hovering just around four
thousand and nary a condo or big-
box store in sight Pick a decade and
you can find a neighborhood here
to match it. The buildings on Main
Street all dateback to the late 1800s.
TEXAS MONTHLY 61
LETTER FROM
Cover the paveme nt with dirt, and
the town even makes a convincing
Wild West backdrop. Smithville
is also a logistical dream, so small
that a production team could push
equipment from setup to setup by
hand if needed. Texas Highway 71
is close enough that Austin-based
crews can zip back to the city eve ry
night, saving thousands in lodg-
ing, yet distant enough that micro-
phones won’t pick up traffic noise.
When I visit, downtown is eerily
quiet. It’s easy to imagine that I’m
standing not in a real town at all but
on a studio back lot.
Inside Smithville City Hall, the
usual plaques and public notices
vie for wall space with posters from
the many projects that have filmed
in town—107 movies, TV shows,
music videos, and commercials in
the past fifteen years alone, accord-
ing to a spreadsheet maintained by
city manager Robert Tamble. In
2017 Tamble applied for a Guinness
World Record, one to accompany
the town’s 2008 record for World’s
Biggest Gingerbread Man, that
would recognize Smithville as the
smallest American city to host the
largest number of film productions.
Hisbid was rejected. That category
doesn’t exist, Guinness said. Still,
Tamble plans to try again. After
all, the movies just keep coming.
In June the Texas Legislature
boosted the state’s film-incentives
budget from $45 million to $200
million over two years—making it
the largest it’s ever been and put-
ting it on par, for the time being,
with Louisiana ($150 million a
year) and New Mexico ($120 mil-
lion ayear). Texas is finally getting
serious about its film industry.
The revamped budget will provide
media productions with more-
competitive tax rebates. Forplaces
such as Smithville—which became
the Texas Film Commission’s first
officially designated “film friendly
community” in 2008—this could
mean a dramatic increase in movie
productions passing through. The
hope is that some of those crews
Sandra Bullock
and Harry
Connick Jr. in
1998’s Hope
Floats, which
filmed through-
out Smithville.
might even stick around perma-
nently, helpingto transform Texas,
at long last, into a major player in
the entertainment business.
Still, not everyone in Smithville
is in love with the limelight, and the
F austian bargain of fame applies to
towns just as much as to any hum-
ble, homegrown talent who’s gone
Hollywood: Can Smithville—or
any other community in Texas—
play the quintessential small town
without losing the qualities that
made it a star?
Smithville has a reputation as a
place that gets filmmakers what-
ever they need—fast. Adena Lew-
is, director of tourism for Bastrop
County and former president of
Smithville’s chamber of commerce,
likes to illustrate this with a story
about the tree—the eponymous
oak of The Tree of Life, which di-
rector Malick handpicked from
a property several miles outside
of town. It weighed an estimated
65,000 pounds, with a canopy that
arced a majestic thirty-plus feet,
and it had to be lifted via helicopter
onto a trailer so it could be moved,
very slowly, down Highway 71 to
be replanted behind the house
where Pitt’s character lived. But
when Malick’s team got it on the
truck, they realized it wouldn’t
clear the utility lines. So the next
morning, Smithville dispatched
two crews to lift every cable along
the tree’s path, over atwo-dayjour-
ney, while the volunteer fire de-
partment sprayed it with water to
keep it alive. “That wouldn’t have
happened that quickly anywhere
else on the planet,” Lewis says.
That eagerness has helped make
Smithville so sought-after, and it’s
one of the main reasons that Bastrop
County is the sixth-most-filmed re-
gionin Texas, a cultural imprintthat
stands wildly disproportionate to
Smithville’s four-square-mile size.
On the whole, the movies havebeen
good for Smithville. Filmmakingis
still only a minor revenue source for
the city government, with shoot-
ing permits starting at just $150.
But the work has been steady, and
productions tend to linger. Casts
and crews are taken in by the com-
munity’s hospitality; Tamble, who
reads the script for every produc-
tion looking to shoot here, like
he’s Smithville’s own studio boss,
is known for throwing wrap par-
ties at his home, smoking stacks of
ribs while celebrities play with his
dog. They often repay that gener-
osityin kind. When Quaid shotRe-
neath the Darkness here, in 2010,
his band threw a benefit concert
for the police department’s Blue
Santa program. In 2020 the Am-
azon series Panic dropped nearly
$1 million here, Tamble estimates,
including paying $35,000to repave
Main Street.
“You may not get a paycheck, but
the money flows all over town,” says
Sallie Blalock, who from 1994 to
2014 managed the Katy House Bed
& Breakfast. Blalockwas initially
unimpressed with Hope Floats,
cringing at the scene in which Bull-
ock’s daughter (Mae Whitman) re-
coilsat Smithville’s “funny” odor. “I
62 TEXAS MONTHLY
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ONE TRACK MIND
An oak tree handpicked by director
Terrence Malick for his 2011 film The
Tree of Life had to be moved into
Smithville, prompting municipal crews
to lift utility lines along the way.
was like, 'People are going to think
our town smells like cow poop!’”
she says. But she definitely enjoyed
having its crew members rent
out rooms at the Katy for sever-
al months, then recommend it to
othersback in Los Angeles.
Troy Streuer, the owner of Pock-
et’s Grille, puts it even morebluntly.
“I don’t think I would be here with-
out Hope Floats” he says. Streuer
opened the original, downtown
location of Pocket’s in September
1996, and he would have closed by
spring were it not for the extra busi-
ness Hope Floats brought in. And
when Streuer moved Pocket’s to
its current spot, off Loop 230, The
Tree of Life kept it afloat through
months of renovations. He paid
tribute by turning the restaurant
into Smithville’s unofficial film mu-
seum, where signs from the store-
fronts in Hope Floats adorn the
ceiling and a “DDT” placard from
The Tree of Life’s mosquito-fogging
truck hangs by the soda machine.
The novelty of living in the
film-friendliestlittle town inTexas
has worn off for other Smithville
residents. Since taking the job in
2014, Tamble says, he has turned
downjust two filmingpermits: one
was forastonercomedy that want-
ed to film inside Smithville High
School; the other involved aliens
and the porn star Ron Jeremy.
And of the 65 productions Tamble
has approved, he says he’s had real
problems on maybe 5 of them—
such as the slasher movie that left
behind pools of blood and some
razor blades a woman found while
walking her dog. Or when a resi-
dent got so fed up with the filming
of the Betty Buckley coming-of-age
drama 5 Time Champion that he
started shooting off a mortar in
the woods, until Tamble had to ask
him to stop. Mostly Tamble hears
gripes about parking and street
closures, but as productions have
gotten bigger and more frequent,
so have the complaints.
“Every time a movie comes to
town, I lose money,” Holt tells me.
Holt—who says she’s “39 again”—
has a slightly mischievous sense of
humor and an ingratiating candor
(about most things). Like others
in Smithville, she has her own his-
tory with film, in her case having
worked in live TV and earned a de-
gree in Radio-Television-Film at
the University of Texas at Austin.
Holt moved to Smithville in 2011,
“Nudista
Mundial’89”
A DEEP DIVE INTO THE SONG
BY ALAN PALOMO, OF NEON
INDIAN, FROM HIS NEW ALBUM,
WORLD OF HASSLE
The University of North Texas
(formerly North Texas State) has
a history of attracting musical
prodigies: Pat Boone, Roy Orbison,
Don Henley, and Norah Jones were
all students. In the late aughts,
another seemingly world-changing
UNT artist emerged in Alan Palo-
mo, whose electro-pop project,
Neon Indian, helped define what
came to be called chillwave (think
cheesy synth-pop made weird
and murky by VHS tape hash).
But after a hot streak including
the 2011 hit “Polish Girl,” Palomo
pretty much disappeared. The
Mexican-born artist returns with
his first album in eight years, this
time singing primarily in Spanish
and performing under his own
name. “Despite Spanish being my
first language, I had never tried
writing a song in it,” Palomo says.
“It was something I'd been want-
ing to do since my third album but
didn’t want it to be just a gim-
mick.” On the earworm "Nudista
Mundial ’89,” Palomo’s ductile
voice floats on a synthy tune as
bubbly as a dropped beer can. If
you don’t know enough Spanish to
sing along, you can at least imitate
guest vocalist Mac DeMarco’s
croaked hook: “Dos cervezas, por
favor.” -ANDY BETA
64 TEXAS MONTHLY
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slightly aware that it was a major town
for movie productions, and joined the
film commission in hopes of staying
involved in the industry. As a local ven-
dor, Holt noticed conflicts between
business owners and the filmproduc-
tions and brainstormed with Shell
different ways to ease them.
At Texas Trails, one of several an-
tiques stores on Main Street, Holt’s
clientele skews older, she says. If they
must walk more than the length of
a parking space, they simply won’t
come. Although productions shoot-
ing on Main Street will usually pay
the affected stores an inconvenience
fee—somewhere around $150 aday—it
doesn’t make up for all the lost busi-
ness. Filming also can drag on for
longer than expected. In 2022, after
weather delays onLove & Death (Texas
Monthly was an executive producer
on the series) forced one of the Main
Street boutiques to cancel its long-
planned galentine’s event—twice—
Holt says some ofthe downtown mer-
chants were ready to revolt, herself
included. (The production compen-
sated the affected merchants.)
Eventually, Holt says, she got so
tired of losing money that she started
to push the film commission toward
resolving some of these issues. She be-
gan working with Shell and Tamble on
howto better advocate for residents,
beginningwithenforcingthe require-
ment that each film production get
signed pel-mission from every busi-
ness that would be affected by street
closures or loss of pedestrian traffic.
Holt also has started hanging around
sets and intervening when necessary.
When members of one crew want-
ed to shoot outside the popular Olde
World Bakery, it was Holt who asked
them to wait until the afternoon, when
the bakery would be closed. It was a
simple request, and they complied.
Things can get even more com-
plicated in the residential neigh-
borhoods, Holt says. Homeowners
often don’t know what to expect
when they agree to allow filming or
what’s in the contracts they’re sign-
ing. When the Trousdales surren-
dered their house to Hope Floats,
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in 1997, the filming displaced them
for nearly four months, they say. In
lieu of payment, they asked that the
production crew renovate the house
afterward, a process that dragged
on for several more weeks. Tylene
Trousdale tells me they would be
open to having their home used as
a filming location again, but they’d
be more mindful about the terms.
“There was so much that we didn’t
know about the process, because who
do you ask?” Trousdale says.
Holt acknowledges that some
Smithville homeowners have been
taken advantage of because they
don’t know any better. They don’t re-
alize that most location agreements
carry an “in perpetuity” clause, for
example, allowing productions to
come backfor reshoots months, even
years later. Most of the homeowners
don’t even know their legal rights
when it comes to film contracts. On
one recent shoot, she says, a produc-
tion assistant trespassed on a neigh-
boringproperty to shut off a noisy air
conditioner j umping a locked fence
and breaking it in the process. The
homeowners weren’t aware they
could file a claim on the production’s
insurance, so they didn’t.
For now, Holt says she’s happy to
be the point person—the one locals
know they can grab out on Main
Street whenever they need help or
just want to complain. Still, she wor-
ries about how residents might greet
her and Shell when another major
production ties up the streets for
weeks on end. “We may get run out
of town,” she laughs.
Holt and Shell say they’d like to see
more locals get involved with thepro-
ductions here—to see Smithville be-
come not just a place where movies
get made but a place that actively
helps make them. Lately Holt has
been assemblingalist of skilled work-
ers— technicians, painters, lighting
designers—who could be included
in the packet Tamble hands to film-
makers, with the suggestion that they
hire at least part of their workforce
locally. That alone could help to ease
any lingering frictions and ensure
that even more of aproduction’s bud-
get is being funneled directly into
Smithville’s economy.
Unfortunately, she knows that
most productions arrive with their
budgets and crews locked. Austin
puts Smithville at a further disad-
vantage. The lodging in Smithville
is comparatively scant; none of the
restaurants have the capacity to han-
dle catering. Smithville just isn’t big
enough to become the kind of film
hub Holt and Shell envision. But then,
getting bigger means putting at risk
the small-town feel that makes it so
desirable to live here—and to film
here. “It’s a tightrope,” Holt admits.
Nevertheless, some urbanization
seems inevitable. In 2016 Austin
restaurateurs Amy and Steve Sim-
mons purchased the vacant building
that the Hope Floats crewtumed into
Honey’s Diner, keeping the movie’s
faux-vintagesignageand reopeningit
as Honey’s Pizza. Other prospectors
quickly followed: a gin tasting room,
a couple of boho boutiques, a craft-
barbecuejoint. By 2017 Texas High-
ways magazine was declaring Smith-
ville “the next Marfa,” a sobriquet that
makes the West Texas native Holt roll
her eyes. “This will never be that,” she
says,before quietly adding, “I hope.”
But if Smithville isn’t yet the new
Marfa, it’s not quite the old Smithville
either. Though several of those arti-
sanal interlopers were felled by the
pandemic, Honey’s Pizza remains,
as does its fellow Austin transplant
Your Mom’s, which recently launched
a neighboring ice cream shop named,
appropriately, Hope Floats. Undoubt-
edly, some starry-eyed entrepreneur
is bound to try again—particularly
if film production picks up and the
crews and celebrity-stalkers that fol-
lowinevitably attract more business-
es that are looking to cater to them.
Smithville seems to be entering Act
II, that pivotal moment in the plot in
which the town faces rising action and
higher stakes, and its true character is
tested. And all of Texas is watching.
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ENTERTAINMENT
BOOKS
by Andrew R. Graybill • illustration by Jason Holley
Terms of Estrangement
The Larry McMurtry we meet in this biography has a love-hate
relationship with his home state. Which may have been the secret
to his brilliance as a writer.
Larry McMurtry boasted impeccable Texas bona tides: his pa-
ternal grandparents had arrived in the state in the 1870s and
entered the cattle business during its open-range heyday. But
despite these bloodlines, McMurtry showed neither aptitude
nor affection for the hard work of r anching. When he was three,
his father, known as Jeff Mac, gave him his first pony, which, Tracy
Daugherty writes in Larry McMurtry: A Life (St. Martin’s Press, Sep-
tember 12), “he promptly rode into a swarm of yellow jackets in a mes-
quite thicket, gettingstung twelve
times.” He didn’t fare much better
on his inaugural cattle drive the
next year. What’s more, he was
skinny, his eyesight was poor, and
his manner was excessively mild.
As Daugherty notes, “It was clear
to Jeff Mac and all of McMurtry’s
uncles that the boy was not going
to be a cowpoke.” Instead, the
most famous son of tiny, desolate
Archer City grew up to be a self-
described “word herder” who
wrote, collected, and sold books.
If McMurtry was ill-suited to
the world of the hypermasculine
Great Plains cowhand, it likely
didn’t bother him all that much.
As Daugherty explains, McMurtry
found most men predictable, even
boring. Women, on the other hand,
fascinated him from an early age,
initially as objects of desire (first
stirred by the magazines and pa-
perbacks he encountered at Ar-
cher City’s five-and-dime) but far
more meaningfully as friends. As
McMurtry wrote years later in a
letter to the novelist Ken Kesey, “I
have a long string of female con-
fidants, stretching back to high
school, in each of whom I have
invested a great deal emotional-
ly, and from each of whom I have
taken some self-discovery.”
But most poignantly, as Daugh-
erty insists, McMurtry was out of
step with the geography and to-
pography of far North Texas itself.
Whereas many have embraced
the majesty of its yawning blue
horizon and sea of undulating
green grass, McMurtry saw only
a dun-colored bleakness, under-
scored by the region’s economic
and cultural impoverishment.
Daugherty cites a formative epi-
sode from the novelist’s boyhood
when McMurtry was traveling
with Jeff Mac across the Great
Plains on Route 66. “I thought my
father was driving us into the sky,”
he later wrote. “The image always
haunted him,” Daugherty writes,
TEXAS MONTHLY 71
BOOKS
Larry McMurtry on his family’s ranch,
in North Texas.
“a vision of escaping emptiness
by heading into an even greater
blank, as clean as a piece of paper.”
Nomadism became McMurtry’s
way ofpapering over the void: con-
trary to the pithy bumper sticker,
he may have been born in Texas,
but he got away as fast—and as
often—as he could, spendingmuch
of his life in Arizona, California,
and the Washington, D.C., area.
Little of this is news to anyone
who followed McMurtry’s career
with even moderate attention; his
skepticism about his home state
is a staple of his interviews and
essays. But seeing all of the evi-
dence gathered between the cov-
ers of one book, over the course
of more than five hundred pages,
brings this aspect of McMurtry’s
persona into higher relief. It might
have been easy, prior to Daugh-
erty’s biography, to regard Mc-
Murtry’s carping about Texas
as something less than a convic-
tion—not invented, exactly, but
exaggerated as a form of person-
al branding. Perhaps he thought
such an offering to the East Coast
literary establishment would help
him gain access to their world. But
such suspicions fade away as one
reads these pages, prompting one
to wonder: If McMurtry disliked
Texas so much, why did he keep
returning to it again and again, as
both a subject of his work and a
place to call home?
The main achievement of
Daugherty’s book is to make clear
that McMurtry’s deep knowledge
of and frequent disdain for the
state was a combustible mixture
that fueled his writing. This plays
out most famously in his best-
loved work, Lonesome Dove. Mc-
Murtry was hardly immune to the
romance of the ranching life; he
spent countless hours as a child
mesmerized by family stories and
dime-store pulp fiction.
But having seen firsthand the
difficulties and privations of this
existence, he knew that the iconic
figure of the cowboy was an avatar
not of independence but rather
of a wage laborer on horseback.
McMurtry once went so far as
to declare—hyperbolically, of
course—that ranching was “a form
of slavery.” And he intended Lone-
some Dove as a corrective to those
myths. Yet somehow, through an
alchemy he never managed to fully
explain, he wound up resurrecting
those legends for a new genera-
tion of readers who were willing
to accept a pinch—but no more—of
revisionist history with theirTales
ofthe Old West.
McMurtry’s cynicism about
Texan manhood offered him one
further insight, which is perhaps
less celebrated than it should be.
Long before academic histori-
ans had given the subject much
thought, he weighed the costs
borne by women on the Texas
frontier. As he once explained in
an interview: “I think that wom-
en had a terrible time in the early
West.... It was a masculine cul-
ture and to some extent crude, to
some extent fascistic, certainly
Remembering
McMurtry
MORE THAN THREE DOZEN
WRITERS CONTEMPLATE THE
LEGACY OF TEXAS’S MOST
BELOVED AUTHOR.
Not long after Larry McMurtry
died, a symposium was held in
his honor in Archer City’s Royal
Theater, the venue made famous
by The Last Picture Show. A
dozen writers spoke about the
man widely regarded as Texas’s
greatest novelist. This gathering,
in October 2021, was the seed
of Pastures of the Empty Page:
Fellow Writers on the Life and
Legacy of Larry McMurtry
(University of Texas Press,
September 5), a collection of
38 essays edited and curated
by George Getschow, one of the
event's organizers.
There are some big-name
authors here, such as Geoff
Dyer, Paulette Jiles, and Diana
Ossana, as well as plenty of
current and former Texas
Monthly writers, including Sarah
Bird, William Broyles, Oscar
Casares, Stephen Harrigan. Skip
Hollandsworth, Katy Vine, and
Lawrence Wright.
But perhaps the most moving
tribute comes from the Native
American novelist Stephen
Graham Jones, who at 23 was
awed by the sight of McMurtry
when he paid a visit to Booked
Up, McMurtry’s legendary
Archer City bookstore. “I’m still
in your bookstore," Graham
writes, 26 years later. “All of
us listed in the table of contents,
we’re bunched down at the end
of that aisle, and we don't really $
want to leave. Even after you
nod once, push your book
dolly back into the shadows,
we’re still looking into the space °
you just filled.” -ANDREW R.
GRAYBILL
72 TEXAS MONTHLY
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BOOKS
not welcoming to women.” He
recalled from his childhood how
his father “found it difficult to for-
give women the ease of modem ar-
rangements—something as simple
as tap water,” given how hard his
own mother had worked. Although
many of his most enduring char-
acters are testosterone-sweating
men, Terms of Endearment's
Aurora Greenway and Leaving
Cheyenne’s Molly Taylor are just
as vividly drawn as, say, Hud from
Horseman, Pass By or Sonny and
Duane in The Last Picture Show.
McMurtry’s last editor, Robert
Weil, gushed that “he and Tolstoy
are the two great [male] novelists
who can depict women.”
But as Daugherty makes clear,
it wasn’t just old, rural Texas that
McMurtry regarded with mixed
feelings. He was also uneasy about
thestate’s intense modernization
over the course of his lifetime.
Yes, he once described Houston
as “my Alexandria, my Paris, my
Oxford”—a series of analogies
surely newr made before or since.
But he fretted that an increasing-
ly urbanized and suburbanized
Texas was becomingmore like any
other place—and recognized that
something important was lost in
that transformation.
Which may explain why, even
as he fled from the loneliness of
small-town Texas, he orbited Ar-
cher City like a satellite through-
out his life. 11 was there, in a refur-
bished mansion, that he lived on
and off, without air conditioning,
during the last years of his life, and
where he died, in 2021.
Daugherty, a Midland native
who has penned biographies of
Joan Didion, Joseph Heller, and
his fellow Texas writers Donald
Barthelme and Billy Lee Bram-
mer, is a steady guide through Mc-
Murtry’s world, though perhaps
a bit unimaginative. He draws on
and quotes so heavily from Mc-
Murtry’s work that at times the
reader might feel as if they’ve been
McMurtry,
bookseller, in
the seventies.
handed a headset and offered an
audio tour narrated by McMurtry
himself.
That said, this book, which was
not authorized by McMurtry or
his estate, is not a hagiography.
Daugherty’s McMurtry occasion-
ally comes off as cantankerous and
vain, even pretentious. After all,
who titles abook “Walter Benjamin
at the Dairy Queen” and then, in an
interviewwith the New York Times,
cites it as one of the three best
books ever written about Texas?
Takingback the proverbial mi-
crophone would have required
Daugherty to engage in more of the
sort of labor one expects from full-
scale biographies. Though he con-
sulted some archival material—
McMurtry’s papers, housed at sev-
eral Texas repositories, as well as
those of figures including Kesey
and Susan Sontag—this compo-
nent of his research feels thin.
Nor are there all that many fresh
interviews. Daugherty’s notes and
acknowledgments indicate that
he interviewed perhaps a couple
of dozen people (several of them
associated with this magazine,
which has covered McMurtry
extensively).
But given the length of McMur-
try’s career, the variety of media he
worked in, and the many different
places he lived, it’s easy to compile
an extensive list of the writers, edi-
tors, agents, scholars,bibliophiles,
booksellers, book critics, actors,
directors, and family and friends
whose thoughts and memories
could have made for a more vivid,
insightful, and, one might hope,
surprising book.
Among the most pressing ques-
tions left unanswered by Daugh-
erty’s biography is howto account
for the maddeninglyuneven qual-
ity of McMurtry’s work. Especial-
ly in his later years, McMurtry
chipped away at his own legacy
by producing multiple clunkers,
including sequels and prequels
to some of his finest novels, which
had the unmistakable effect of cor-
rupting the originals, much like
the metastasizing Star Wars fran-
chise. Daugherty notes this unfor-
tunate trend but leaves the heavy
lifting to unsparingbook review-
ers. If, as McMurtry confessed,
he often wrote for money, should
this change the way we view his
writing? It would have been in-
teresting to hear Daugherty’s take
on this uncomfortable question.
McMurtry’s next biographer—
it seems inevitable that there will
be one, perhaps several—might
consider the failed cowpoke’s
lifelong fascination with the leg-
endarycattleman Charles Good-
night as a helpful point of entry. A
fictionalized version of Goodnight
74 TEXAS MONTHLY
appears in several McMurtry books,
and he served as the inspiration for
Lonesome Dove’s Woodrow Call.
It would be difficult to summon a
figure less like McMurtry than his
beau ideal, who is the archetype of
Texas masculinity. It was Goodnight
who, as a member of a Texas Rangers
squad, recaptured Cynthia Ann Park-
er from the Comanches. He helped
blaze an eponymous cattle trail to
Colorado in 1866 and remembered
years later that the happiest days of
his life had been spent herding live-
stock. He was strikingly handsome,
with dark eyes, black hair, and a thick
black beard. And by establishing an
enormous ranch on the floor of Palo
Duro Canyon in 1876, he opened the
region for white settlement, earning
the sobriquet “Father of the Texas
Panhandle.”
Perhaps McMurtry admired
Goodnight, in spite of himself, for
those attributes that the dreamy
word herder could never hope to
embody. But maybe something else
was at play. While much of McMur-
try’s work is an ambivalent requiem
for a fading way of life, Goodnight
had felt a similar discomfort much
earlier, as suggested by a silent film
he made in 1916. Old Texas depicts
the Panhandle as it had been when
Goodnight arrived, in the mid-1870s:
empty and beckoning, rich with pos-
sibility. But the толпе leaves little
doubt that this moment has passed.
Goodnight drives home the point by
staging a last bison hunt, allowing
some of his Kiowa neighbors to chase
down one of his buffalo, killing and
butchering it in a traditional way.
The tone is unmistakably elegiac.
Long before Larry McMurtry came
along, Mr. Texas himself had already
turned off the lights and closed down
the frontier. -V
ANDREW R. GRAYBILL IS A PROFESSOR OF
HISTORY AND THE D1RECTOROFTHE WIL-
LIAM P. CLEMENTS CENTER FOR SOUTH-
WEST STUDIES ATSOUTHERN METHODIST
UNIVERSITY.
THE CARTER PRESENTS
PARTY
ON THE
PORCH
ART | FOOD | MUSIC | FREE
PROMOTION
NEWS&
POLITICS
DISPATCH
by Peter Holley • photographs by Nick Simonite
Not in My Backcountry
A Dallas billionaire says his new luxury resort in a near-pristine
parcel west of Austin is a model of sustainability. The caretaker
of the nature reserve next door isn’t buying it.
ot long after Steve Winn purchased a 1,400-acre
property in the Hill Country, his new next-door
neighbor Lew Adams took him on a tour. Adams, a
78-year-old environmentalist, is a fierce custodian
of a Central Texas treasure you’ve probably never
heard of—and for good reason. Since his parents
purchased this land in Roy Creek Canyon, in the for-
ties, the family has gone to great lengths to keep the
nature reserve, located thirty miles west of Central
Austin, a secret to all but a select few. Those lucky
enough to descend into the lush, two-hundred-foot-
Lew Adams
at Roy Creek
Canyon, on
July 11.
deep gorge, following a rugged path that snakes through j agged limestone
boulders and native flora sprinkled with wild turkey feathers, have done
soonly by invitation from the Adams family. The reason for this rigorous
gatekeeping becomes clear to vis-
itors when they reach the bottom
and see a crystalline pool of spring-
fed water—usually seventeen feet
deep and cold to the touch, even in
summer—shimmering beneath
a dense canopy of centuries-old
cypresses that block the outside
world from view.
On this particular spring day,
in 2019, Winn (not to be confused
with the Las Vegas developer Steve
Wynn) andhis wife, Melinda, were
the guests of honor. Looking awe-
struck as he stood beneath the
towering trees, Winn, who made
his fortune in technology and real
estate, surprised Adams by com-
paring the landscape to a cathe-
dral. When the two men parted
ways later that day, Adams was
hopeful that Winn’s immersion
in the space had opened his eyes
to the importance of protecting
the land he’d bought next door and
the springs around it.
Home to a newly discovered
species of salamander, a rare spe-
cies of freshwater arthropod, and
hundreds of plant species, Roy
Creek Canyon serves as one of
the best remaining examples of
the biodiversity that once reigned
across Central Texas. If the arrow-
heads littering the area are any
indication, the springs were fre-
quented by Indigenous peoples
for hundreds of years. But for the
past eight decades, swims in the
creek’s pristine waters have been
reserved for the Adams family and
i ts network of close friends, whose
ranks have included birdwatch-
ers, naturalists, and a who’s who
of left-leaning Texas writers and
politicians.
On a warm summer evening
some decades ago, a visitor to Roy
Creek might have encountered
Governor Ann Richards and the
journalist Molly Ivins holding
court on a boulder beside the wa-
ter. “Molly would come up here
TEXAS MONTHLY 77
and tell some of the raunchiest
jokes you’ve ever heard in your
life,” Adams recalls. “And Ann
could tell some too!”
“Mymomanddadkeptthisplace
so quiet because they didn’t want
people to change it,” Adams told me
last October while we sat at apicnic
table near the creek. “It’s both good
and bad. Roy Creek has been pro-
tected, but if they’d brought more
people into the fold, there would
be thousands of people screaming
aboutwhat’s happening right now.”
What’s happening is that in the
coming months, the rollinghillsof
dense cedar and grassland that al-
most entirely surround Roy Creek
Canyon will be developed into
Mirasol Springs, a luxury resort
and housingdevelopment financed
by Winn’s company that could rad-
ically transform this largely un-
touched land.
Like most battles about a rela-
tively small piece of property, the
fight over Roy Creek is part of a
much larger struggle.
On one side are the Lew Adamses
of the world: e nvironmen tai purists
committed to the notion that the
most beautiful and biodiverse parts
of the Texas Hill Country should
not only remain undeveloped but
habitats should be restored to the
shape they were in before heavy
The spring-
fed pool at
the bottom
of Roy Creek
Canyon; tap
water from the
springs, at the
Adams’ family
residence; a No
Trespassing
sign on the
property.
land use whenever possible. On
the other side are developers, who
are taking advantage of booming
population growth in and around
Austin and San Antonio—as well as
the fact that only about 5 percent
of the region has been set aside for
conservation—to bulldoze some of
the Hill Country.
M irasol Springs is pitching it-
self as a third option, a model for
sustainable growth. “Advocates
for conservation and development
should be able to coexist and em-
brace important elements of each
side,” Jim Truitt, the director of real
estate at Mirasol Capital, the Dal-
las-based investment firm behind
the proj ect, told me during a recent
tour of the site. (Winn declined to
be interviewed by Texas Monthly?)
“Regional development is coming,
and it needs to be cooperative.”
Though the final plans are still
being amended, Mirasol Springs
is set to include a seventy-room
hotel, 39 residential lots, and an-
other thirty cottages managed by
the hotel. Guests will have access
to a spa, walking trails, an organic
farm, and the nearby Pedernales
River for fishing, canoeing, and
kayaking.
Compared with thatof other Hill
Country resorts, the proposed ca-
pacity is modest. The Omni Barton
Creek Resort & Spa, for instance,
about ten miles west of downtown
Austin, sits on four thousand acres
and has about five hundred rooms.
E^’en more unusual, more than two
thirdsof Mirasol Springs—around
one thousand acres in total—will be
turned into a conservation ease-
ment, a move that guarantees that
this portion ofWinn’s land will re-
main undeveloped for generations
to come. The site also will include
a University of Texas-run field
station that will be used for con-
ducting biodiversity research.
Still, Adams is convinced that
it’s only a matter of time before
Roy Creek Canyon is severely
damaged by Mirasol Springs. He
and some other locals believe the
project represents a philosophi-
cal shift in a part of Central Tex-
as that boasts a high density of
conservation easements—which
preserve sensitive natural areas
and limit building—in the state.
That’s partly because of an ex-
traordinary grouping of natural
wonders within a few miles of one
another, such as Hamilton Pool,
Westcave Outdoor Discovery
Center, and Roy Creek Canyon.
The area is exceptionally fragile,
even more so because the Trin-
ity Aquifer, from which Mirasol
plans to draw water, is already in
decline and the Pedernales River,
which the resort would also rely on
78 TEXAS MONTHLY
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MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS
for water, stopped flowing amid
extreme drought conditions this
summer and last.
“The alarms went off when peo-
ple in this area first heard about
Mirasol Springs,” said Christy
Muse, cofounder and former ex-
ecutive director of the Hill Country
Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to
protecting Hill Country habitats.
“Totheircredit,the Mirasol people
paused and wanted to hear what
locals had to say. They thought
theyweredoingsomethingreally
great right off the bat and quickly
learned that a lot of people around
here don’t feel the same way.”
Developers held numerous
meetings with local residents and
faced a slew of media attention in
2022. Ultimately, they reduced the
number of homes they planned to
build, barred residents from dig-
ging wells, and added even more
land to the property’s original con-
servation easement, ensuring that
the vast majority of Mirasol’s land
will never be built upon.
For Adams and others, though,
the entire process has been trou-
bling. As they’ve learned, when
landowners such as Mirasol de-
cide to develop their property,
there’s little neighbors can do to
stop them.
In recent years the drought in
Central Texas, combined with the
explosive development brought on
by the growth of Austin and San
Antonio, has caused water levels
to plummet in parts of the Trin-
ity Aquifer, a ribbon of limestone
that runs from south-central Texas
north to Oklahoma and provides
much of the drinking water for the
Hill Country. This summer the
beloved swimming hole Jacob’s
Well stopped flowing for only the
sixth time in recorded history.
Last summer, in New Braunfels,
Comal Springs, whose water comes
from the Edwards Aquifer, also
ceased flowing, as did portions of
the Llano and Pedernales Rivers
(the Pedernales reached zero flow

In El Paso, a hazardous-waste team
was deployed when 100 gallons of...
... hot sauce leaked from a semitruck on Interstate 10, backing up
traffic for miles. The U.S. Postal Service suspended mail delivery to
nearly two dozen Travis County homes because a hawk nesting in the
area was attacking humans. A Montgomery County grandmother
posted photos of herself baking bread in a brick mailbox amid 100
degree temperatures and then, after the images went viral, admitted
that they were staged. Scientists in West Texas discovered the
remains of a marine reptile called a plesiosaur, the first Jurassic-
era vertebrate fossils discovered in Texas. The FBI offered $5,000
for information to help catch the “Sticky Note Bandit,” a man who,
dressed as a woman, has robbed or attempted to rob four Houston
banks in less than two weeks, handing tellers threatening sticky
notes. Texas game wardens relocated a nearly eight-foot alligator to
a zoo in New Braunfels twenty years after a zoo volunteer illegally
took home an egg, hatched it, and raised it as a pet. Governor Greg
Abbott tweeted out a fictitious article from a parody website, the
Dunning-Kruger Times, that stated that country singer Garth Brooks,
who has recently drawn the ire of conservative activists, had gotten
booed off the stage at a music festival. An Austin nonprofit hired
about 150 goats to eat poison ivy and other undesirable flora along
the city’s hike-and-bike trails. An Arlington Army veteran who
was struggling to promote his supernatural-themed young adult
novel saw it shoot to the top of the Amazon best-seller list after a
stranger posted a TikTok video of the author being ignored during a
book signing at a Kroger store.-ARM an BADREI
again this summer), which stopped
feeding water into the Highland
Lakes that Austinites rely on for
drinking water.
There’s a strong chance that
Central Texas springs will be-
я
come a relic of the past, according
to Doug Wierman, a hydrogeol-
ogist and a fellow at Texas State
University’s Meadows Center for
Water and the Environment who
has served on the Hays Trinity
80 TEXAS MONTHLY
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GroundwaterConservationBoard.
“As development moves west from
the 1-35 corridor, one by one we
are losing these iconic preserves,”
Wierman said.
Mirasol developers argue that
there’s enough groundwater for
the project to use during periods
of drought without impacting local
springs. They say that less than 5
percent of the development will
include impervious cover, which
keeps rainfall from being absorbed
into the ground. “Unlike some de-
velopments, we’re not trying to see
how many homes we can squeeze
onto this property,” said one M ira-
sol planner.
To help offsettheuse of precious
groundwater, Mirasol plans to use
reclaimed wastewater and harvest-
ed rainwater. “Every rooftopon the
entire property will be required
to collect rainwater,” Truitt said,
noting that deed restrictions will
prohibit herbicides and pesticides,
nonnative plants, and septic sys-
tems and private wells. “The goal
is to redefine what responsible de-
velopment across the Hill Country
can look like.”
In order to preserve the ground-
water that feeds the creek’s springs,
An aerial view
of the land
that will soon
be home to
both Roy Creek
Canyon and the
Mirasol Springs
development.
the development has acquired a
Lower Colorado River Authority
contract that allows for pumping
surface water from the nearby
Pedernales River—the same one
that stopped flowing this summer
and last Truitt said it would oper-
ate groundwater pumps only if the
LCRAcurtails its original contract,
atwhich point the development, as
a utility district, would be required
by state law to provide guests and
residents with a consistent and
reliable water source. At no point,
developers say, will groundwater
be used for landscape irrigation.
There’s no easy way to quantify
how much water Mirasol will use
once the resort opens to the public.
Though developers expect to use
less, Mirasol’s contract with the
LCRA allows it to pump around
100,000 gallons of water from the
Pedernales each day, except under
certain drought conditions. Based
on water availability studies, the
developers estimate the contract
will provide about 80 percent of
the project’s water. They say the
region’s aquifer holds enough to
supply the other 20 percent.
But there’s little doubt that the
Highland Lakes, which supply
water to about 1.5 million Central
Texans, are nearing a crisis point
because of long-term drought.
Fears of a decades-long mega-
drought have prompted some ex-
perts to call for the LCRA to begin
implementing more conservation
efforts. If the LCRA were to curtail
itscontract,Truitt said, thesitealso
plans to build storage tanks that
will fill up when water is plentiful.
Storage tanks won’t last forever,
but the developers are confident
their water supply system will be
sufficient to meet demand. Tru-
itt notes that developers have a
shared interest in ensuring that
the creek continues to flow. Had
someone else purchased the land
Mirasol is building on, things could
be worse. Anotherdevelopercould
have packed the site with homes
without setting aside land for con-
servation.
That offers little comfort to Ad-
ams, who said, “What Mirasol is
currently proposing is sort of like
the canyon dying a slow death as
opposed to a fast one.”
This was, to say the least, disap-
pointing to Adams, who thought he
hadswayedWinntohis sidewhen
he had given him that tour back in
2019. Two years later, when Adams
had achance to ask Winn why he’d
decided to turn that same land into
a development, the businessman,
he said, sounded more like a hard-
nosed investor than someone com-
mitted to conservation. “He said,
‘Lew, anytimel invest in something
I need to see a ten percent return on
my investment,’ ” Adams recalled.
Todayhewonderswhether Winn’s
“cathedral” comment was part of
an elaborate ruse.
He’s particularly rankled about
the field station that UT will be
operating. Adams said that before
Winn bought the land,he pitched to
school officials the idea of turning
Roy Creek Canyon into a univer-
sity-managed property dedicated
to research and education. Their
enthusiasm for this idea is docu-
mented in correspondence that
82 TEXAS MONTHLY
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TEXAS^bNCOLOGY
More breakthroughs. More victories:
Adamsprovidedto Texas Monthly.But
Adams said the project never materi-
alized, and in the meantime plans for
the field station on the Marisol prop-
erty were proposed and approved.
The UT officials Adams had been
speaking to declined interview re-
quests, and a UT spokesperson de-
clined tosay how the partnership with
Marisolemergedandhowmuchmon-
ey Winn had donated to the school.
The university is “thrilled to partner
with the Winn Family Foundation”
on the field station, the spokesperson
said. “This research by our faculty
and students relates directly to con-
servation and protecting land and
water resources in the Hill Country.”
Adams believes that the field sta-
tion represents greenwashing, mean-
ing cashing in on consumers’ interest
in environmentally conscious prod-
uctsby makingcosmetic adjustments.
To service much of Mirasol Springs,
he notes, the developers will need
to build electric and water lines and
roads, along with miles of sewage
pipes that will run over the property.
Relatively untouched land will soon
be home to pedestrians and limited
vehicular traffic, along with any run-
off created by their presence and by
construction. The developers said
they will have extensive runoff pre-
vention measures in place, and they
have water monitoring systems in
the creek. Guests won’t be allowed on
his family’s property, but Adams still
worries about hikers venturing into
the canyon, destroying habitats and
leaving refuse. “You’re talking about
tens of thousands of people visiting
Mirasol each year,” Adams said. “How
are you going to possibly keep an eye
on that many people?”
In 1990 Austinites packed city hall
on the day that council members vot-
ed on whether to allow a developer
and oilman named James “Jim Bob”
Moffett to build thousands of homes,
multiple golf courses, and millions
of square feet of shopping and office
space atop the watershed that feeds
the legendary swimming hole at Bar-
ton Springs. Outside, locals bearing
signs packed the sidewalk. For hours,
a seemingly endless stream of local
speakers approached the lectern to
rail against the proposed develop-
ment. Some read poetry and sang,
while others cited legal texts or found
novel ways to profess their spiritual
connection to Barton Springs, turn-
ing the meeting into a communal
“love-in” straight out of the sixties,
as this magazine’s Paul Burka wrote
at the time.
Somewhere in the crowd that day
stood Adams’s parents, Red and Mar-
jorie Adams. Ifhis mother took a turn
at the lectern (and Adams thinks she
did), the council members would’ve
likely known herby name. For years
her weekly birding and conservation
column, “Bird World,” had run in the
Austin American-Statesman, among
other Texas newspapers, giving her
a forum to remind readers what was
being lost as the region tilted toward a
growth-first mentality. “I can remem-
ber the things that ‘used to be’ such
as a Shoal Creek that had clear pools
deep enough for kids to swim in, but
which today is only a drainage ditch,”
she wrote in 1993. “I can remember
when Pease Park had enough natural
areas left that roadrunners nested
there... its wild plum thickets gave
replenishment and shelter to migrat-
ingwarblers.”
The night Moffett was defeated,
Adams believes his parents were
convinced they’d prevailed in a his-
toric struggle for Austin’s soul. Three
decades later, he said, it’s clear they
hadn’t won a war, just an early battle.
“Here we are fighting the same
battle over another threatened Hill
Countryjewel,” Adams said, shaking
his head. “Maybe if we’d publicized
Roy Creeklike Barton Springs, there’d
be more people rushing to save it.”
As aboy, Adams treated Roy Creek
Canyonlike asecondhome. Nowclos-
ing in on eighty, his bright red hair
turned solid white, he cautiously
descends the steep path into his be-
loved canyon with reverence for a
land worth fighting for. -V
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MEDICINE
by Will Bostwick • illustration by Ibrahim Rayintakath
The Monkeys Who
Died lo Fight COVID
Texas Biomedical Research Institute helped subdue
the coronavirus and has big plans for combating
future disease threats—with controversial help from
its thousands of research primates.
Beyond a security checkpoint and down a two-lane blacktop road
that curves along the edge of a two-hundred-acre campus on San
Antonio’s West Side, scientists cultivate and study some of the
most virulent pathogens in the world. As the pandemic’s fright-
eningearlydays ticked by, in spring2020, researchers in full-body
protective suits, working in one of the facility’s six Biosafety Level 3 labs,
carefully loaded a syringe-like device with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus
that causes COVID -19. Then they deliberately infected a rhesus macaque by
compressing the end of the device
to atomize the virus—dispersing it
into tiny airborne particles directed
up the monkey’s nose.
Weighing about seventeen
pounds, rhesus macaques are
brown-gray primates with expres-
sive pink faces and are native to
much of southern Asia. Because of
their genetic similarity to humans,
they often act as our stand-ins in
biomedical research. Hundreds
of rhesus macaques live here at
the Texas Biomedical Research
Institute, one of a handful of feder-
ally designated national primate-
research centers in the U.S. and
the only one in the state.
The infected macaque was
among the first creatures in the
world to be immunized against
COVID-19. Several weeks before
arriving at Texas Biomed, it had
been 1 of 6 injected with a Pfizer-
BioNTech vaccine candidate, while
another 6 received a slightly differ-
ent formulation. Nine other ma-
caques—the experiment’s control
group—were injected with saline.
Thescientists in San Antonio were
tasked with infecting all 21 of the
monkeyswith the coronavirus and
tracking the results.
By July 2020 researchers had
determined that Pfizer’s candi-
date vaccines were working—less
viral RNA was found in the immu-
nized macaques than in the con-
trol group. After human trials, the
vaccine was approved under an
emergency-use authorization in
mid-December of that year, en-
ablingmillionsofat-riskAmericans
to be protected against the deadly
disease. A development process
that would ordinarily have taken
years had been completed in just
nine months, thanks in part towhat
Texas Biomed calls its “animal he-
roes,” those macaques—all ofwhom
were euthanized, as is standard for
this sort of vaccine study.
Traditionally the institutions
that conduct primate research
TEXAS MONTHLY 87
MEDICINE
haven’t sought to draw attention.
The useof animal subjectshas long
attracted fierce opponents, who
argue that the practice is unethi-
cal and the science derived from it
unreliable. But having played a sig-
nificant role in the rapid develop-
mentoflifesavingCOVI D -19 treat-
ments, Texas Biomed wouldn’t
mind a little recognition.
The institute is raising funds to
construct a $120 million Global
Centerfor Bioscience that it hopes
will function as a more welcom-
ing “front door” for visitors to
what has been a largely closed-off
campus. The proposed building’s
offices, labs, and meeting spaces
are part of a planned roughly $300
million expansion that involves
adding multiple facilities, vastly
increasing the size of its research
animal population, and doubling
the institute’s personnel.
Yet these ambitions come as
emerging technologies could
spell an end to the need for bio-
medical research on nonhuman
primates—raising new questions
about the tricky ethics involved in
saving human lives by sacrificing
other creatures.
Thomas Slick Jr., an eccentric
26-year-old heir to an oil fortune,
founded what became Texas
Biomed on a working cattle ranch
eight miles west of downtown San
Antonio, in 1941. Much of its ear-
ly work was devoted to livestock
breeding, including the creation
of a popular Brangus hybrid that
combined the virtues of Brahman
and Angus cattle. Slick later be-
came a world traveler who led ex-
peditions in search of the yeti in
the Himalayas and Sasquatch in
the Pacific Northwest.
In the fifties, the institute turned
its attention to biomedical re-
search and began importing ba-
boons from Africa. By the eighties,
it was testing early treatments for
HIV and hepatitis C. In 1999 it es-
tablished the Southwest National
Primate Research Center, one of
BABOONS HAVE BEEN ESPECIALLY
VALUABLE FOR CARDIOVASCULAR
AND NEONATAL RESEARCH.
MARMOSETS ARE FREQUENTLY USED
IN NEUROSCIENCE. MACAQUES HELP IN
STUDYING TUBERCULOSIS AND HIV.
only seven such facilities in the
country funded by the National
Institutesof Health (NIH) and the
only one not associated with a uni-
versity. Today it’s home to roughly
five hundred marmosets, one thou-
sand baboons (the world’s largest
colony), and 1,500 macaques.
When the COVID -19 pandemic
began, China, the United States’
top source for nonhuman pri-
mates, decided to begin keeping its
supply to itself. This led to abottle-
neck in animal-research projects
elsewhere in the world. Cambo-
dia, the next top supplier, partial-
ly filled the gap, but in November
2022 it, too, halted exports, out of
concerns that it was contributing
to the poaching of endangered wild
macaques. Experts say the primate
shortage has compromised critical
biomedical research in the U.S., and
Texas Biomed’s leaders have de-
termined that the institute should
help bolster the domestic supply.
Macaques are byfar the primates
ingreatestdemand—inpartbecause
their size makes them more man-
ageable than larger primates, such as
baboons. But each species has “real-
ly unique characteristics andunique
targets for research,” says Corinna
Ross, acting director of the South-
west National Primate Research
Center. Baboons have been espe-
cially valuable for cardiovascular
and neonatal research. Marmosets
are frequently used in neuroscience
and were test subjects for a Zika vi-
rus vaccine. Macaques have been
used to study tuberculosis andHIV,
as well as in COVID -19 research.
In a sleek second-floor confer-
ence room, Texas Biomed CEO
Larry Schlesinger, who’s also a
physician, explained that some ex-
perts predict infectious diseases
will, by2050, su rpass heart disease
and cancer as the world’s leading
causes of death. “This is a big deal
from abusiness perspective as well
as a science perspective,” he says. It’s
a challenge thathe says the institute
is uniquely equipped to confront
because the other NIH-funded
primate-research centers are affili-
ated with universities, where com-
mercializing innovations isn’t the
primary objective. Texas Biomed,
by contrast, is focused on helping
to bring biomedical products to
market, and it has plentiful land
on which to expand. The institute’s
plans include the construction—
already underway—of a $20 million
complex for as many as sixhundred
more macaques, as well as a large
veterinary clinic and pathology lab.
Additional phases could allow the
macaque colony to increase to about
five thousand and the marmosets to
about eight hundred.
Much as Houston’s MD Ander-
son is known as the premier cancer
center in the U.S., Texas Biomed as-
pires to be the premier infectious
disease institute. “In Texas we’re
not known enough,” Schlesinger
says. “I don’t think people appre-
ciatejusthowmuchpowerwehave
in science.” In addition to its work
on Pfizer’s COVID -19 vaccine, Tex-
as Biomed was involved in develop-
ing Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’
monoclonal antibody therapy,
as well as in major advances for
hepatitis C patients that led to a
2020 Nobel Prize for some of its
collaborators. Ebola therapies
and vaccines tested in the insti-
tute’s Biosafety Level 4 lab have
88 TEXAS MONTHLY
It's a common refrain:Texas schools aren't keeping pace with preparing young people for in-demand STEM careers.
Educators want to equip students with knowledge and skills to gather data and evaluate evidence, but it's difficult making
connections in the classroom that apply to real-world scenarios.
Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) aims to change that, with the help of a $1.25 million science education
grant designed to impact up to 8,500 students in local middle and high schools over the next five years.The project, with
funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), supplements teaching practices and promotes scientific literacy,
thereby strengthening the STEM careers pipeline.
The goal ofthe NIH grant, known as the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA), is to facilitate relationships among
biomedical researchers, teachers and schools in order to provide opportunities for students from underserved communities
to consider careers in basic or clinical research.
The Texas Biomed SEPA program is built around paid, professional development for teachers that occurs year-round. This
intensive teacher training takes place in the summers with biomedical education specialists and scientists at the Institute's
northwest San Antonio campus. The SEPA grant is one part of Texas Biomed's Discovery & Learning Initiative, which
encourages scientific skillsand knowledge through education and mentoring programs for area K-12 students, as well as
undergraduate internships and graduate education and training. To learn more about Texas Biomed's Discovery & Learning
Initiative visit txbiomed.org.

Texas biomedical
RESEARCH INSTITUTE
HEALTH STARTS Wl TH SCIENCE
SCAN TO LEARN MORE
MEDICINE
also shown promise. Andlast year
the NIH selected the institute as
a training center for tuberculosis
researchers.
None of this would be possible
without its nonhuman primates,
Schlesinger insists. “Animals are
a required commodity to improve
human health,” he says. Yet a
future in which research animals
could be replaced with high-tech
alternatives such as computer-
modelingtechniques and “organs
on chips”—key chain-size micro-
chips that can mimic how a given
human organ will be affected by a
drug—may arrive relatively soon.
Proponents argue that these new
options are more accurate than ani-
mal testing as well as more humane.
The Environmental Protection
Agency has pledged to end its own
testing on mammals by2035, and
late last year Congress abolished a
1938 rule that required that phar-
maceutical products be tested on
animals before being used in hu-
mantrials. The measure “will avoid
the needless suffering of countless
animals, now that experimental
drugtesting can be done with mod-
ern non-animal alternatives that
are more scientifically relevant,”
said Senator Cory Booker, a New
Jersey Democrat and the bill’s co-
author with Senator Rand Paul, a
Kentucky Republican.
A rhesus
macaque; a
Texas Biomed
staffer looks
out over the
institute’s six-
acre baboon
corral.
“We’re at the cutting edge of sci-
ence that will enable us to replace
monkeys someday,” Schlesinger
agrees. “We want that more than
anyone. Animals are very expen-
si ve, labor i n tensive, and require a
lot of care.” But Schlesinger pushes
back against those who say animal
testing should be supplanted im-
mediately by the new options. “The
reality is it’s not ready for prime
time,” hesays oftheemerging tech-
nology. “ What are you going to do,
just sit around and say, ‘I want an
organ on a chip?’ The FDA is going
to laugh. It’s not realistic.”
Though the Food and Drug Ad-
ministration has signaled that it
will accept alternatives to animal
testing in some cases, acongressio-
nally mandated report published
this year by the National Acad-
emies of Science, Engineering,
and Medicine found that none of
the alternatives can fully replace
nonhuman-primate testing—at
least not yet
Tucked away in a back corner of
Texas Biomed’s campus, behind
the six-acre, open-air baboon
corral, sit three square buildings,
each surrounded by four geomet-
ric domes known onsite as prima-
domes. These house the institute’s
thirty“retired”chimpan zees, some
of them more than fifty years old.
In 2013 the NIH reduced the
number of chimpanzees used in
research at the facilities that it
funds to just fifty. “Their likeness
to humans has m ade them unique-
ly valuable for certain types of re-
search, but also demands great-
er justification for their use,” Dr.
Francis Collins, then director of
the NIH, said at the time. Two
years later, the agency announced
it would no longer support any bio-
medical research on chimps, and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
reclassified all chimps, including
those in captivity, as endangered.
Those policy changes effective-
ly ended invasive biomedical re-
search on chimpanzees in the U.S.,
including at Texas Biomed.
Some animal rights advocates
would like to see this clemency
extended to other species. Lisa
Jones-Engel, a former primate re-
searcher who now serves as a senior
science adviser for the nonprofit
People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals, cites some of the na-
tion’s top medical scientists who
recognize that data gathered from
chimpanzee studies often don’t re-
sult in improved human health. If
it doesn’t work with chimps, which
along with bonobos are our nearest
genetic relatives, sharing nearly 99
percent of our DNA, she says, “it’s
not going to work with macaques,
90 TEXAS MONTHLY
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words attest that the truth had been plain
for years, if only someone had listened.
Now, with a voice from beyond the grave,
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who we haven’t shared a common an-
cestor with for twenty-four million
years, or marmosets, who we haven’t
shared a common ancestor with for
thirty-five or forty million years.”
It’s true that research conducted on
animals doesn’t always translate into
effective treatments for humans. For
instance, a 2020 study at M D Ander-
son found that animal models were
poor predictors of how cancer drugs
would affect humans. “There is an
urgent need to assess more novel ap-
proaches,” the researchers concluded.
Indeed,roughlynineoutoftenhuman
drug trials fail because the drugs don’t
work in humans, or their side effects
are too severe. If the animal trials
aren’t weeding out bad or ineffective
drugs, animal rights advocates ask,
why do we need them? Even so, some
maladies, such as Ebola, are so severe
that federal rules prohibit infecting
humans with apathogen to testa treat-
ment—in cases such as this, the broad
consensus in the medical community
is that animal research can and does
provide invaluable, lifesaving data.
The trustworthiness of Texas
Biomed’s research was opened to crit-
icism lastyear when Deepak Kaushal,
then director of the Southwest Na-
tional Primate Research Center, who
was central to the Pfizervaccine test-
ing, admitted to falsifyingdata in work
he’d completed at another institution.
Texas Biomed replaced him as direc-
tor, and his federally funded research
was subjected to additional scrutiny
by outside experts for one year,but he
remains on its researchfaculty. Critics
also point to the institute’s fourteen
U.S. Department of Agriculture cita-
tions related to primates in its care,
dating back to 2013—an average
number among the seven national
primate research centers, according
to an analysis of USDA documents by
Jones-Engel. Texas Biomed’s infrac-
tions ranged from peelingpaint in
animal enclosures to allowing an adult
baboon to access another enclosure,
where it killed an infant baboon.
Nevertheless, Texas Biomed firmly
stands behind the work of its scien-
tists. Ross, the primate center’s acting
director, told me that critics don’t rec-
ognize that a deep love of animals is
what fi rst d re w many, such as herself,
to primate research. Lisa Cruz, the in-
stitute’s vice president for corporate
communications, says that consider-
ing the thousands of nonhuman pri-
mates the institute cares for, “we have
an extremely great track record of care
and safety.” Numbers vary each year,
but as of this summer, the institute is
conducting tests on more than nine
hundred monkeys. Some studies are
“terminal,” meaning the primateswill
be euthanized—both to prevent the
spread of a disease and to gather data
from the autopsiedbodies—but most
involve monkeys that will be reused
in future studies, kept for breeding,
or retired. (A spokesperson for Tex-
as Biomed declined to disclose what
percentage of studies are terminal.)
According to Bob Fischer, an asso-
ci ate professo r of ph ilosophy at Texas
State University and director of the
Society for the Study of Ethics and
Animals, “there’s a real tendency to
demonize” in conversations aboutthe
use of animals in medical research.
He notes that many consumers are
complicit in the suffering of others—
whether humans or nonhumans—
more than they’d care to recognize.
“If you go far enough back in the sup-
ply chain, for just about any product
that you like, you will find horrors,”
he says. Estimates for the number of
animals used inbiomedical research
each year in the U.S. range from about
20 million to more than 100 million,
but that’s a small fraction of those
killed for food. And only about 0.5
percent of research animals are pri-
mates, according to a recent report
from the National Academies.
John P. Gluck, a professor emer-
itus of psychology at the University
of New Mexico, is another former
primate researcher who came to re-
gret his decades of conducting ex-
periments on monkeys. He says he
fears that norms within the scientific
community overpower the basic in-
stinct not to inflict pain on another
intelligent living thing. “A good ar-
gument for doing the experiment is
very meaningful,” Gluck says. “But
the pain is st ill there, so does that pain
still have a claim on usethically? Does
it still require something more from
us? And I would say yes, it does.”
In this ethical debate, Gluck is fo-
cused primarily on animal welfare,
while Texas Biomed’s Schlesinger
is most concerned with improving
human health. “I’m thinking about
solvingthe world’s problems,” he says.
“The goal is to use less animals, to use
them in a more sophisticated fashion
whenever possible, and to make sure
that the studies are validated, so that
the work done actually movesforward
in the proper fashion. That’s what we
cando. And that’s what I think Texas
Biomed does really well.”
When weighing the risk of emerg-
ing global health crises against the
accumulated suffering of research
animals, judgments about the prop-
erbalance are inevitably subjective.
Even before Pfizer reached out in ear-
ly 2020 about testing its COVID-19
vaccine, Texas Biomed’s virologists,
immunologists, and geneticists had
alreadybegun studying the novel coro-
navirus. Researchers infected doz-
ens of primates—including baboons,
macaques, and marmosets—with the
pathogen to observe the course of the
disease. These animals endured the
little-understood effects of COVID to
help determine which species would
be best suited fortesting the anticipat-
ed treatments to come. All the infected
animals were eventually euthanized.
A Pfizer senior director would later
say this swift action by the institute
putthe pharmaceutical giant amonth
ahead ingettingits vaccine to the pub-
lic. For each of the dozens of animals
sacrificed, it could be argued, count-
less more human lives were saved.
Infectious disease experts worldwide
agree that there will be other pan-
demics, and Texas Biomed intends
to help develop the next cures. For
the foreseeable future, that work will
hinge on the ethically charged issue of
inflicting pain and death on human-
kind’s closest kin. #
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COUNTRY NOTES
by Sterry Butcher • photographs by Bryan Schutmaat
BEING
TEXAN
The Space of a Day
Seventy-eight-year-old artist Mike Capron has spent
his life with horses—and with a devotion to finding a pure and
wide-open expanse.
n a Saturday of gray bluster, ten-
year-old Isaac Rodriguez slipped
through the back door of the old
mercantile in Sheffield, some sev-
enty m iles southeast of Fort Stock-
ton. Afire popped in the woodstove
as Mike Capron looked up to greet
him. This is Capron’s art studio,
a cavernous circa-1900 building
whose interior contains a wonder-
land of objects, an encyclopedic
sampling ofCapron’s interests, in-
cluding but not limited to livestock
magazines, saddles, spurs and bits,
turkey feathers bristling in coffee
cans, finished paintings in frames
and some in progress on easels,
drawings of hounds and horses, art
supplies of all sorts, trophy mounts,
books, a framingworkshop,bronz-
es of bucking broncs, and a table
dedicated to playing dominoes.
The building is situated on the
town’s main drag, not too far from
the community center and the Tin
Cup Cafe, which appears closed this
morning. As a matter of tradition,
and in a gesture of communicative
shorthand, Capron hangs an Amer-
ican flag from the front porch to
indicate he’s there and welcoming
of company. It might sometimes
seem that the flag is the only thing
stirringinSheffield,population 174.
“Lookeehere,”Caproncalledout
as I saac sidled up. “He’s one of my
helpers when he doesn’t have to go
to school. He’s an artist, makes clay
figurines. They’re all in the comer,
and he sells them to whoever comes
through. Wliat’reyou doin’ today?”
Capron is silver haired and
sports rimless glasses. Pens and
TEXAS MONTHLY 95
COUNTRY NOTES
pencils sit sentinel in the breast
pockets of his wool vest. When he
was a teenager, in Kansas, a family
friend gave him abookon the West-
ern painter Charles Russell, and
Capron’s world broke open. “I’ve
still got that book, still look at it,”
he said. “The education of a man
who painted like Charlie Russell,
who painted his passion and made
a living doing what he wanted to
do, impressed me since day one. I
started right away drawing what I
was doing, wherever I was.”
At twenty, C apron was cowboy-
ing on the Mescalero Apache res-
ervation, in southern New Mexico,
chasing seven thousand rangy Her-
efords on seven sections of land.
“We had seventy-five horses in the
remuda,” he said. “Each cowboy
had five horses in his string, and
we’d rotate them to get the freshest
oneeveryday. We rode all day e\ery
day.” Even amid that isolation, his
draft card found him. “My interest
level in Vietnam was low,” he said.
“I thought, ‘There has got to be a
plan B.’” Instead of reporting for
duty right away, Capron met with
a Marine Corps recruiter, who of-
fered him a six-month deferment
in exchange for a three-year com-
mitment. Deal.
Immediately he set out for
Montana, with the goal of seeing
PREVIOUS PAGE:
Mike Capron at
his art studio,
in Sheffield,
on July 6,
2023. this
PAGE: Capron’s
collection of
turkey feathers;
Capron painting
alongside one of
his occasional
students,
thirteen-year-
old Cooper
Calhoun.
as many Charles Russell paint-
ings as he could find. He went to
galleries in Helena, Bozeman,
Great Falls. “Anywhere there was
a Charlie Russell original,” he
said. In Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
he stood mesmerized by Russell’s
WhenHorses Talk War There’s Slim
Chance for Truce. In it, cowboys at
daybreak are readying for work.
One holds the reins of a roan horse
he intends to mount. The set of the
cowboy’s head is determined. So
is that of the horse, though of an
opposite determination. “It was
just gorgeous,” he remembered.
“The message was of a man and a
horse fixing to go to war. The title
was so strongbecause horses don’t
always want to go with you. The
expression of the men around was
‘this is gonna be a show.’ I love the
attitude, the storyline of the paint-
ing.” As he headed to the Marines,
he thought, “That’s the plan. I want
to paint like Charlie Russell.”
Hearing Capron pause, Isaac
approached, bearing a small clay
horse. Capron examined it and
returned it to the boy. “You bet-
ter put some ears on it,” he coun-
seled. “Ears are horrible details, but
they’re what gives it expression.”
In September 1965 Capron ar-
rived at the Marine Corps Recruit
Depot in San Diego, where, after
basic and infantry training, he was
sent to communications school
to learn Morse code. After class,
Capron worked on assignments
from the Famous Artists School, a
correspondence course that adver-
tised in thebacksofmagazines such
as Field & Stream and Outdoor Life.
“They would send you a book and
lessons. You’d do the lessons, send
them, and they’d critique them and
send them back. We had instructors
like Robert Fawcett, Norman Rock-
well-tremendous instructors who
were on this staff. And I just loved
it.” He drew on the ship on the way
to Vietnam, though not many Fa-
mous Artists School lessons were
completed once he was in country.
“I did draw in Vietnam a bunch, but
onC-rationcartons. Mail was hard
to keep up with.”
Asa radio operator attached to a
mortar squad, Capron carried both
pistol and radio. Halfway through
his thirteen-month tour came a
nightofparticular reckoning,when
Capron said he thought, “This is
it, kid.” Pinned down by guerrillas
and beset by heavy questions about
what they all were doing and why,
Capron prayed. “There were no big
lights, no big voice, but a feeling of
peace cameover me that I couldn’t
believe,” he said. “The message was:
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COUNTRY NOTES
‘This could be the first day of eter-
nity, and I’m here to take care of
you.’And I’ve had that same peace
since then about picking up abrush
or getting on ahorse. It’s not that I
haven’t been bucked off or painted
a masterpiece everytime, but I have
had faith in God ever since.”
Capron’s story abruptly cut off as
the studio’s back door opened and
Larry Bishop and his wife, Shelly,
entered.
“ What’re you doin’?” boomed
Capron.
Bishop grinned. “Come to see
what you’re doin’.”
Bishop had commissioned apor-
trait of his late father, and Capron
used a photograph and conversa-
tions with Bishop and his father’s
oldfriends to get a sense of the man.
Capron handed him the finished
piece, an image of a middle-aged
man gently smiling. The color rose
high on Bishop’s cheeks.
“My dad’s been gone five, six
years,” he said. “It looks like he’s
right here.”
Commissions make up a good
portion of Capron’s work these
days. He keeps several projects go-
ing, in varying stages, at the same
time. He worked on the Bishop pic-
ture concurrently withaportraitof
a friend’s dog. A third commission,
of cowboys moving Longhorns
along the Chisholm Trail, sat on
an easel, awaiting final touches.
While its Western subject matter
registers immediately, the work
is subtly electric in its use of color.
The cowboy on the right, wearing
a wild rag around Iris neck and a re-
volver at his hip, rides a blaze-face
horse that is colored periwinkle
and lilac. The grass is lime, umber,
and orange. The painting is alive
with movement, the curves of limbs
and horns making the eye travel all
over the canvas. Theforemoststeer
gazes at the viewer, about to step
off the canvas. “I can look at those
cattle and see them anticipating
crossing the Red River, and those
cowboys making sure that they are
lined out,” Capron said. “ I love that
Capron at his
ranch, eighteen
miles east of
Sheffield, on
July 6,2023.
moment of leaving camp and the
excitement of all the things that
can happen to man and horse and
work.”
The start of an artwork comes
to Capron in different ways. Some-
times a title announces itself, and
he makes the painting to meet that,
or perhaps it’s a moment of local
history that interests him or some-
thing he sees one day. He hurtles
from one project to the next, and
if his ideas stall momentarily, he
prays about it. “ Within twenty-four
hours there will be something that
says, ‘Paint me.’ I’m constantly
thinking of good subj ects, beautiful
sights, light, gesture, proportion.”
At midday, Capron looks at Isaac,
who has placed his horse sculpture,
now eared, with others in the cor-
ner window. “You want to have
lunch with us?” The noon meal is
served at the Capron home next
door, a former hotel. Capron and
his wife, Anne, met at a Christmas
party, in December 1968, and got
engaged on their third date. He
promptly left for a welding job in
Australia, and it took so long to hear
fromhim that Anne wondered ifhe
was gone for good. “The cowboy
done rode away,” she said. Finally,
his letters did arrive, with kanga-
roos drawn across the envelopes.
Six months later, he returned to
Texas. “I want to go back to the
ranch, and I want to punch cows,”
he told her. “She said, ‘Good.’ I left a
twenty-five-hundred-a-monthjob
and took a two-fifty-a-month job
on a ranch. And we’ve been doing
it ever since.”
For the next couple of decades,
Capron found ranch work around
the Salt Flat area near Guadalupe
Peak, a place so remote that going
for groceries could be a hundred-
mile trip. One day he showed a
ranch to a potential buyer, who
told him that space, not simply
land itself, was the most valuable
commodity. “Ever since that day
I really appreciated the meaning
of the word and how much of it is
diminishing in this world,” Capron
said. “That’s why I paint—because
I love to paint space. I went into
the service, and I was itching to
go home. They asked why, and I
said, T can’t see far enough.’ I got
to the ocean and thought, ‘This is
morecrampingthananywhere I’ve
everbeen. I can only see to thehori-
zon, fourteen miles. I can’t see no
mountains.’ At home we can see
a hundred miles of dirt and dust
and clouds.”
The family moved, in 2004, to
Fort Davis, where Anne taught el-
ementary school and Capron day
worked throughout the Big Bend
and painted in a small studio in
town. Ten years ago Anne inher-
ited part of her family’s ranch,
98 TEXAS MONTHLY
eighteen miles east of Sheffield. It
lacked a house, so they bought and
renovated Sheffield’s former hotel
and then the old mercantile next door.
“It has just fit us like a glove,” he said.
“We’ve dearly loved it. The ranch is
a beautiful expenditure. We go out
there every day, watch it, take care of
it, improve it. That’s a full-time job in
Sheffield—art and the ranch.”
Anne set out country steak, rice,
beans, and gravy. Mealtime talk cov-
ered how Anne’s African gray parrot
prefers Mike to her, the musicalityof
a burro’s braying song, and the benefit
of horses having a job. “It’s amazing
howmuch animals feel connected, ap-
preciated, to be part of the routine,” he
said. “People aren’t that different.” He
spoke on the eeriness of cowboying in
the vicinity of Chinati Peak, a moun-
tain southwest of Marfa where, ac-
cording to Capron, old Mexican men
toldhim thedevil resided in acave. “I
have story after story about the top of
Chinati,” he said. “There was a wreck
every time we went up there of some
nature.” Once, while camped over-
night,his spooked companion admit-
ted to hearingsomeone ride past with
a pair of Chihuahua spurs jingling. “I
said, *Well, that’s possible.’ ”
C apron’s curiosity—his pleasure in
plumbing the why of things—never
lets up. A weanling heifer at the ranch
has escaped her pasture and shown up
at the neighbor’s. “I need to ride that
west fence to see how that heifer got
out, why she left, where she left. It’s
gonna be a good story when we figure
it out If we ever do.”
After cake, Isaac scooted offtoother
Saturday occupations and Capron
jammed a battered black hat on his
head, feathers in the band. He and
Anne clambered into a Suburban for
their daily trek to the ranch. The road
climbed chalk-colored, flattop buttes.
“ I have always related the consistency
of work ethic with horses and art,” he
explained as he drove. “If you main-
tain a regular schedule of painting
every day and riding every day, you
will increase your productivity and
efficiency, and it makes for a much
larger comfort zone. If I’m riding, I’m
payingattention to how the lightlooks
and all the things, from animal tracks
to fences that need mending to how
the animal traffic’s moving, whatev-
er’s going on. I’m always retainingin-
formation on how something looks.
It becomes habitual. You paint what
you know. The more information you
get down, the better.”
Horsemanship, he continued, is
like dancing. “You’re working togeth-
er. If they’re comfortable, the horse
will go wi th you. I f you hi t the rhythm
of music, you’re not paying attention
with right foot, left foot—you’re danc-
ing.” Painting is the same way. “I can
go to mixingpaint, and thingswill fall
into a rhythm on the canvas. You get to
dancingon the canvas with the brush,
and it becomes harmonically beauti-
ful. It becomes a rhythm of constant
practice, a comforting exercise. You
learn something every time you go
to the easel or go horseback,” he said.
“The more intent we become with
our passions, the more possibilities
we uncover, the more things we see,
the more things we feel.”
Capron slowed to look at a group of
cows and calves amid the cedars. No
sign of the wayward heifer’s escape
route. He stopped by a year-round
spring and then headed to a site called
Dead Cow Camp, where he dumped
feed for his horse and discovered a
mouse situation inside a cabin there
built entirely of railroad ties. As he
descended the canyons on the way
home, the gray day grew somehow
grayer, the sky almost lavender. Such
things should be noticed. “I love to
create the atmospheric look of the
Southwest,” he said. “Not so much
dramatic sunrises but the light and
how it plays on subjects all day long.
Space is so important to me, a natu-
ral ingredient I’ve always pursued.
I was born in eastern Kansas, went
to school in Oklahoma and Abilene,
but I never got comfortable until I
crossed the Pecos River and gotto the
Chihuahuan Desert. The colors, the
distance—I was home.”
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perfect getaway destination this fall. During your trip, enjoy the charming towns
that dot the valley and the great Texas outdoors that surround them.
Book a stay in Brenham or College Station and explore downtown streets full
of unique art, shopping, and dining experiences. Music and arts abound here as
well—catch a show at Brenham’s Historic Simon Theatre or Texas A&M Univer-
sity’s OPAS, or explore the galleries of the George Bush Presidential Library and
Museum. Outside of town, choose from several wineries and breweries where
you can taste the flavors of the valley while enjoying a beautiful Texas sunset.
Explore the countryside of rolling hills and dense forests on a hike or bike ride
with friends and family, or wander down to the river for some recreational fishing
or kayaking. There’s fun for everyone in the Brazos Valley!
CITY GUIDE
BRAZOS VALLEY ARTS
COUNCIL
Founded in 1970, the Arts Council is a
nonprofit organization that has grown to be
the leading advocate for arts and culture in
the Brazos Valley. With a driving mission of
making art accessible to all residents and vis-
itors of the Brazos Valley, they have forged
a dynamic and multifaceted arts and culture
enterprise. From providing a central location
for the arts with their art galleries and visitor
center, which include artist studios and more,
the services and opportunities provided
to the public, artists, as well as affiliated
nonprofit arts organizations are abounding.
They manage several art programs, from
artist-in-residence to public art pieces,
and host events throughout the year, from
gallery openings to galas. The Arts Council
provides resources for new and existing
art-enthused individuals, such as event
calendars with up-to-date arts and culture
events and exhibits in the area. Additionally,
their website provides a vast amount of
information and resources for individuals,
artists, businesses, and arts organizations.
The Arts Council membership program
has forged a network of multiple affiliated
nonprofit arts organizations such as The
George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and
Museum, Brazos Valley Symphony Orches-
tra, Friends of Chamber Music, Ballet Bra-
zos, Museum of American G.I., and MCS
OPAS. An all-volunteer board of directors
governs the Arts Council. Daily operations
are managed by a small but dedicated staff,
with assistance from a rotating team of
interns, many arts-passionate community
volunteers, and a team of contracted artists,
all with extensive experience in fine arts, cul-
ture, and nonprofit arts management. Visit
the Arts Councils website to learn more and
see how you can get involved!
ACBV.org
BRENHAM
Rolling hills and winding roads through
lovely countryside uncover destinations in all
directions, including Brenham, county seat
for Washington County.
ABO VEI The Arts Council gallery with visitors viewing M Walker Nelson gallery show "West of Eden"
Adorning the well-preserved historic
buildings in Downtown Brenham are giant
murals—breathtaking backdrops for visitor
selfies. Stop by the Visitor Center at 115
West Main St. for an ArtWalk map and let
the fun begin.
Diverse Brenham is busily adding wine
bars, a cigar bar, coffee bars, and more. If
music and entertainment are your things,
venues around the county include ev-
erything from tiny Carol’s Ice House in
Chappell Hill to Burtons White Horse
Tavern, to the elegant Barnhill Center at
Historic Simon Theatre. When you’re ready
for a refreshing beverage, you might choose
Brazos Valley Brewery for fine beer crafted
on the spot—or visit a downtown bar for
wine or cocktail selections.
You’ll need more than stamina for check-
ing out weekend live music offerings—or
from choosing among four wineries or
visiting historic destinations such as Wash-
ington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, the
Texas Cotton Gin Museum, the Chappell
Hill Historical Museum, or the Brenham
Heritage Museum.
Add noted annual festivals and you'll find
every comer of Washington County has
much to offer. Come see us; you’ll be glad
you did!
VisitBrenhamTexasxom
BRYAN
This fall in Bryan, Texas, you’ll find fairs,
festivals, markets, unexpected cultural expe-
riences, and a surprising foodie scene.
Savor farm fresh fare at Ronin Farm
& Restaurant, named one of the Top 15
Farm-To-Table Experiences in The U.S. by
OpenTable. Their Full Moon Dinners are
a bucket list foodie experience, where you
will dine under the stars on their farm. Their
restaurant offers a top-notch beverage pro-
gram. fresh ingredients sourced from their
farm, and a menu that honors the culinary
traditions of Texas while embracing a more
sustainable future.
Historic Downtown Bryan—a recognized
Texas Cultural District—is home to live mu-
sic venues, unique restaurants, bars, brew-
eries, boutiques, and antiques, all steeped
in more than 150 years of history. If you find
yourself in town for an Aggie football game,
the free Gameday Shuttle offers convenient
transportation from Kyle Field to Downtown
Bryan.
Fall is the perfect season to go off the
beaten path at Lake Bryan, a hidden gem
under the wide-open Brazos Valley skies.
With miles of hiking trails, kayaks, and pad-
dleboards available for rent, and fish stocked
by Texas Parks & Wildlife, this little-known
recreation destination is perfect for anyone
looking for a respite in nature.
DestinationBryan.com
102 TEXAS MONTHLY
-я ч
Come Join Us for о
BARBECUE
Tasty Texas Tradition
TWO of Texas Monthly’s‘Best BBQ Joints in Texas’
are in our hometown ...and eight more local Pit Masters
are working hard to join them on that list!
It’s time to grab your friends and family and treat your-
self to fresh air, friendly faces and so many great barbecue
joints, you’ll need to stay a few days to sample them all.
Between helpings of famous sausage, savory ribs, smoked
chicken and juicy brisket, we’ll keep you entertained
with live music, art walks, history tours and scenic drives
throughout our picturesque rolling countryside.
Come for a visit and we guarantee we’ll send you home
feeling full and satisfied. See you soon!
glRTQN
ChappellcHill
BRENHAM
Independence
Washington
For a free Visitor Guide or more information, contact us at VisitBrenhamTexas.com | 979.337.7580 o©
CLOSE OUT
SUMMER
IN STYLE.
Home to cool hotels, cold pools, and an emerging
culinary scene, College Station is the ideal place to
make your late-summer escape.
ABOVE | A striking mural of musician Blind Willie Johnson overlooks Toubin
Park, where the story of the 1866 burning of Brenham is told.
Find great places to stay at visit.cstx.gov
COLLEGE STATION
Cavalry Court Hotel
Discover the vibrant heartbeat of Texas
at the enchanting City of College Station.
Nestled in the heart of the Brazos Valley, this
captivating destination invites you to embark
on a journey filled with leisure, culture, and
adventure.
Immerse yourself in history by exploring
the George Bush Presidential Library and
Museum, where you can delve into the life
and legacy of the 41st President. Sports afi-
cionados will find their paradise at Kyle Field,
home of the Texas A&M Aggies, where
the electric atmosphere of college football
comes alive.
Indulge in delectable cuisine and savor
the flavors of Texas at the city’s eclectic
range of dining options. From mouthwater-
ing barbecue to farm-to-table delicacies.
College Stations culinary scene caters to
every palate.
With a vibrant arts and music scene, the
city’s cultural offerings are unparalleled.
Born of converging
Bryan is a community filled fr:
with authentic stories, «people,
and places - our legends. Our
legends are ever evolving while
staying true to our Texas spirit.
• W ' /
Discover OurLegendsl
destinationbryan.com/legends
V
Pictured: Messina Hof Winery & Resort, a legend in the Texas wine industry


From local art galleries to live music venues,
there’s something for everyone. Unwind in
charming boutique hotels and relax in luxury
ensuring a perfect stay during your visit.
Whether you’re seeking a family vacation,
a romantic getaway, or an adventurous
escape. College Station promises an
extraordinary experience that will leave
you longing to return. Plan your trip today
and discover the boundless charm of this
captivating Texan gem.
Visit.CSTx.flov
2024. The highly anticipated A Spirit Can
Ne’er Be Told.. A Century of Aggie Football
will be open August 28,2023 - April 28,
2024. This exhibit explores the development
of Texas A&M University’s football program,
its important role in Texas A&M’s vibrant
history and provides a glimpse of why
President Bush loved Aggieland and what
it truly means to be a part of the 12th Man.
For more information visit our website or call
979-691-4000
Bush41.org
GEORGE H.W. BUSH
PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
& MUSEUM
The George Bush Presidential Library
and Museum at Texas A&M University is a
premier destination for visitors from around
the world. In addition to the permanent col-
lection, the museum is excited to welcome
Honor, Courage, Commitment: Marine Corps
Art, 1975-2018, featuring 36 works of art by
15 Marine combat artists from immediately
following the Vietnam War through recent
years. It will be on exhibit until January 3,
OPAS AT TEXAS ASM
UNIVERSITY
Escape to Aggieland for big Broadway
shows, Bluey’s Big Play, and much more!
Beginning in October, OPAS will present a
season filled with national tours of Broadway
shows, exciting concerts, and four perfor-
mances of a live theater show featuring
every family’s favorite heeler pups—Bluey
and Bingo. The new Astonishing’’ 2023-24
season picks up on where last year’s golden
anniversary left off. Fresh-off two sell-out
musicals featuring iconic heroines last
spring (Legally Blonde. Anastasia), OPAS
TO P | A campfire in the courtyard of Cavalry Court Hotel.
В 0 TT 0 M | A couple taking a selfie in front of a "Howdy from Agg ie I an d"
mural io Century Square.
106 TEXAS MONTHLY
BROADWAY SHOWS & BLUEY COMING TO AGGIELAND
GEORGE AND BARBARA BUSH FIRST FANS OF AGGIELAND
® 
GEORGE H.W. BUSH
PRESIDENTIAL L1BRAR1 & MUSEUM
EXPERIENCE THE AGGIE FOOTBALL LEGACY
OPEN AUGUST 28 - APRIL 28,2024
shines the spotlight even brighter on female
protagonists for the 51st season with stories
featuring Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird
starring Emmy Winner Richard Thomas.
Cady Heron from Mean Girls, Bluey and
Bingo in Bluey’s Big Play, and Little Womens
Meg. Jo. Beth, and Amy. Plus, a one-night-
only concert by internationally renowned
cellist Yo-Yo Ma has just been added to the
season with a performance on March 6,
2024, in Rudder Auditorium. All programs
will be performed in the Rudder Theatre
Complex of Texas A&M University in Col-
lege Station. Tickets are on sale now at the
MSC Box Office (979-845-1234) and online
at our website. Whoop and wackadoo!
A Spirit Can Ne’er Be Told...
A Century of Aggie Football

:1000 George Bush Drive West, College Station, TX 77845:
: For more intonnation, please visit BUSH41.ORG or call 979.691.4000 :
4»' This program made possible i n pan through Hotel lax Revenue funded from the atv ot College Station through the Ans Counci of Brazos Valley.
RADIANT EXCEPTIONAL
DENTISTRY
Texas has a lot of firsts to be proud of,
including having the only dental practice
in the world with two Master Dentists. Dr.
Michael K. Reece, DDS, LVIM, FICOI and
Dr. Ryan M. Jouett, DDS, LVIM, FICOI,
108 TEXAS MONTHLY
MUSEUM oi hie
AMERICAN G.I
Come Explore the drts
City of College Station
Home of Texas A&M University*
in College Station
Get ini/olked!
Sign up for our
nen/sletter here:
OPAS
The zlrts Council of the Brazos Halley
Gallery & l/isitor Center
(979) 696-2787 • 4180 HH/Y 6 South
College Station, TX 77845
0@DO @bi/artsl?7O • acbzorg
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of Radiant Exceptional Dentistry in Bryan/
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ROCKABILLY BARONESS
Offering spectacular fashion for the
outlaws of style within us all, Rockabilly
Baroness unites the best of designers across
the country in two locations—Houston and
Round Top, Texas.
From amazing boots to gorgeous
bags—fantastic clothing to the best of
accessories—our craftsmen make everything
meticulously by using the finest hides, exotic
skins, imported leathers, and intricate bead-
ing. These designs are meant to be flaunted,
enjoyed, and worn for years and years. A
true extension of your lifestyle.
For every soul, there exists a perfect look
and image. We are here to help you add
fun and elegance to yours while introducing
you to both new and established design
leaders in their fields of expertise. Each has
been brought here by their own merit, and
they are joined together under two roofs,
for YOU.
RockabillyBaronessxom
SPEC'S
Welcome to Spec’s Wines, Spirits & Finer
Foods, your Texas family-owned beverage
superstore since 1962. With hundreds of
locations throughout Texas, you can always
find a store near you, where you can shop
our amazing selection of wines, liquors,
beers, gourmet foods, accessories, and
more! For over 60 years. Spec’s has been
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Rl GHT | Shop at Spec's during your stay in the Brazos Valley.
11O TEXAS MONTHLY
25 MASTER DENTISTS
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2AREIHBRVAN/COLLEGESTATION.
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(979)846-6515
CLOCKWISE FROM
TOPLEFT:
I) Burnt Bean Co.
BBQ brunch
features exciting
dishes like their
brisket Huevos
Rancheros and
delicious twists
on sandwiches
and tacos.
2) Chet takes
a refreshing
break after a
long day of BBQ
fraternizing.
3) James Beard
Award nominated
Ernest Servantes,
the Pope of BBQ,
prepares some
'cue for the BBQ
faithful.
BBQ Cooler Talks
BURNT BEAN CO. BBQ
Our series exploring some of the most popul
BBQ joints on the Texas Monthly Top 50 list
returns. Chet Garner (AKA the Daytripper)
takes to the BBQ lines to learn what makes
the Texas BBQ community so great.
Bright slashes of lightning etched across the
Seguin horizon as Chet Garner pulled up at
Burnt Bean Co. BBQ. Deep peals of thunder
rolled through the sky. Luckily for the BBQ
lovers, there was also smoke rolling off the
enormous offsets behind the Top 50 BBQ joint. It was
early on a Sunday morning, and at Burnt Bean Co.,
that means BBQ brunch.
Despite the weather, there were so many BBQ fans
at brunch that certain coveted items began to sell
out. As the rain subsided, an even longer line began
to form. Crowd favorites were the huevos rancheros
with brisket and barbacoa. Every component of the
dish is made from scratch, from the tostada to the
beans to the ranchero sauce. Also popular were
pitmaster Ernest Servantes’s BBQ interpretations of
tacos and breakfast sandwiches.
Servantes, known as the Pope of BBQ, told Chet,
“I always wanted to pay homage to growing up on
Sundays when we would have these great
meals as a family after church.”
It certainly was a religious experience for
the BBQ devotees who made the pilgrimage
down to Seguin. They journeyed from all
around Texas and beyond to enjoy the
Sunday experience Servantes and his crew
have created.
We’ve traveled all across the great state of
Texas to visit some of the best BBQ joints in the
world. We’ve had mindblowing BBQ, but we've
also had great fellowship with BBQ fanatics
from near and far. Join us as we continue to
travel and enjoy the gift of Texas BBQ.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARAH KARLAN
Produced by
Texas Monthly Studio
in partnership with
ARCACONTINGNTAL
SUB
See the video online at
TexasMonthly.com/CocaCola
Texas barbecue’s
favorite pairing.



Illustration by JASON ALLEN LEE
WE’RE THE TOPS WHEN IT COMES TO
RENEWABLE ENERGY AND GOLF.
AND WE LEAD THE NATION
WHEN IT COMES TO
tANNINGBOOKSlNDClOSINQRURALHDSPITALS.
1Ш151ЕШ
SO DARN GREAT... AND SO DARN AWFUL?
cn
The Lone Star State has always been a
land of extremes. The weather, the miles
and miles (and miles) of Texas, the dra-
matic history that’s more eventful than
that of some full-fledged nations. There’s
a reason—many reasons, in fact—why
we’re always crowing about ourselves
and why so many outside our borders
can’t help but find themselves concur-
ring. 51 Some of this is hopeless-
;: ly subjective—how, exactly, do you
measure freedom or opportunity
or the quality of a people’s character?
But some of it comes down to cold, hard
numbers. And if you’re looking for ob-
jective, quantifiable categories in which
Texas comes out ahead of the other 49
states—the theme of this feature—we’ve
got one heck of a list. 51 The topics gath-
ered here range all over the place, _
from energyproduction and shrimp д £
harvests to the number of golfers
who have become Masters champions.
Ina few cases we rank so high partly be-
cause there are just so dang many Texans
running around this enormous state. (As
many Texas schoolchildren can tell you,
we have forty times more people than
the only state that’s bigger in area, and
we’re 68 percent bigger than the only
state with more people.) But we've also
included some categories where Texans
honor ourselves on a per capita basis.
51 Or, as the case may be, dishonor our-
selves. Though there are many categories
we can take pride in, there are also plen-
ty that feel like badges of shame. Every-
thing (well, nearly everything) is bigger
in Texas—the good, the bad, and the sta-
tistically complicated. —Dan Solomon
THEMASTERUST
Things Texas
Is N umber One At
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n a recent Tuesday morning, as he presided over
the ribbon cutting for a new golf resort in Frisco,
Governor Greg Abbott sat on a dais behind a sign
that read “CREATING JOBS.” Chief Executive
magazine hadjust announced,forthe twenty-third
consecutive year, that its annual survey of U.S.
chief executives had named Texas the number one
state for business, and Abbott didn’t hold back in
trumpeting the news. He compared his nine-year
record as governor to the career of the University
of Alabama’s famous head football coach. “I have
won nine national championships for economic
development, more national championships than
Nick Saban has won,” he said. “With projects like
this, I will have a ring for every single finger.”
Hehadplentyof reasons to gloat. Ayear earlier,
Texas had leapfrogged California and New York
to become the home state of the greatest number
of Fortune 500 companies, at 53. Last year alone,
Texas attracted more than one thousand corporate
relocations and expansions, according to Business
Facilities magazine, which ranked the state first in
the nation for “business climate.”
(Note: all numbers are from 2022 or 2023 unless otherwise noted.) > Cotton production (3,104,000 bales)
116 TEXAS MONTHLY
WE’RE NUMBER ONE IN
BUSINESS! (OR ARE WE?)
Elon Musk is just one of the big-deal CEOs moving to the
Lone Star State. But some are reluctant to join him.
by Tom Foster
loo
luo
That term is based
on a number of met-
rics, though when
people say Texas is
business friendly,
they’re usually re-
ferringtoourpermis-
sive regulatory envi-
ronment. With fewer
rules, the thinking
goes, companies are
free to, say, launch gi-
ant rockets over a nature preserve without havingto
askforpermissionfromfoot-draggingbureaucrats.
“Just try to get a business license in California—
it takes forever,” says Richard Fisher, the former
president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank
of Dallas. “Here, it’s very quick”
Fisher acknowledges that Texas hasn't generated
as many innovative start-ups as Californiahas. But
he believes that rising interest rates are prompting
venture capitalists to change their calculus. “Now
that the cost of money has been restored, the neg-
atives of California—hyperregulation, extreme
taxation—are not offset any more,” he says. “That
gives Texas an advantage.” CNBC recently noted
that Texas, for the first time, tied California in the
category “Access to Capital.”
Perhaps no issue gets more attention from the
business community than Texas’s lack of personal
and corporate income taxes. The truth is, neither
maybe all thatbigadeal. Property taxes can offset
atleastsome income tax savings for individuals, and
most businesses in Texas are assessed a “franchise
tax” that can lead them to pay more than theywould
have in a typical state with an income tax. Still, ac-
cording to the nonprofit Tax Foundation, Texas has
the sixth-lowest overall tax burden in the country.
What might stop all this forward progress? Some
worry that Texas’s restrictive positions on abortion,
LGBTQ rights, and school curricula will deter com-
panies from moving here. But so far there’s little
evidence of that. “I think corporations feel they
can take care of their employees and contribute
to their communities,” says Dallas entrepreneur
Mark Cuban. “That has more impact than what the
state can or won’t do.” (Though CNBC notes that
Texas has fallen out of the top five states for busi-
ness for the first time, largely because of the state's
dead-last ranking in “life, health and inclusion.”)
One likely stumbling block for CEOs is the state of
our utilities. I f catastrophic failures like the one we
experienced in2021 are repeated, Texas will begin
to look a lot less attractive.
Abbott didn’t mention our creaky grid or divisive
social policies that day in Frisco, but why would
he have? The sun was shining, the new resort was
going to create more than one thousand jobs, and
the whole place had been buil t to complement an-
other big business relocation: the PGA of America,
which had just moved to Frisco from Palm Beach
Gardens, Florida, thanks to $160 million in subsi-
dies financed by Texas taxpayers.
“The Texas annual gross domestic product
now exceeds $2.3 trillion,” Abbott noted. “We’ve
gone from ranking twelfth in the world when I
became governor to this year now ranking as the
eighth-largest economy in the entire world.” He
paused to bask in warm applause. The business
community was delighted to be there.
► Farms and ranches (247,000, in 2021) > New techjobs created (45,331,2021-2022) ► CurrentandformerNFLPIayers(2,628)
ILLUSTRATION BY KLAUS KREMMERZ
TEXAS MONTHLY 117
HORTON
BANS 1 BOOK
Why aren’t the folks who were
up in arms about the Dr. Seuss
estate’s self-censorship bothered
by Texas purging so many works
from our libraries?
by Dan Solomon
ou may remember way back in 2021, when some
of Texas’s political leaders fervently opposed the
idea of book bans. The topic at the time was the
decision of Dr. Seuss Enterprises to withdraw a
handful of the author’s titles that included racist
stereotypes. In protest against what he called the
cancel culture mob, Texas senator Ted Cruz sold
signed copies of Green Eggs and Ham on one of
his donation sites.
But as right-wing activists stirred panic over
“woke culture,” weaponizing normal parental
concern about exposing children to adult con-
tent, schools and libraries banned hundreds of
books. Yet though no state’s schools have been
more enthusiastic about banning books than
those in Texas, Cruz’s concern over censorship
seems to have made itself as scarce as the mama
bird in Horton Hatches the Egg.
Which is too bad, given what’s been going on
Pro football Hall of Earners (37)	> Books banned (1,239 between mid 2021 and late 2022)
in his home state. According to a list compiled by
the literature and human rights nonprofit PEN
America, between July 1,2021, and late last year,
Texas saw 1,239bookbans—more
than any other state, and 316
more than the runner-up state,
Florida. These figures refer not to
individual titles but rather to the
number of times any school dis-
trict has issued a ban of a book. So
when nine schools banned Maia
Kobabe’s award-winning com-
ic book memoir Gender Queer,
that counted as nine bans. Then
again, it’s entirely possible that
more than 1,239 books have been
banned in Texas; as PEN America
notes, that number represents
just the incidents that have been
reported to the group. I t’s likely that some bans
have flown beneath its radar.
Some books are banned in school libraries,
others in classrooms. Some are restricted to
certain grade levels. Some have been removed
pending investigations that school districts may
not have the resources to conduct in a timely
manner. Most have been banned by adminis-
trators, while others are the result of a formal
challenge from a parent or community member.
What sort of books have been banned? They
include ones about gender identity, sex, race,
and political violence, as well as books that were
banned for reasons that aren't clear.
Or to put it in language that Ted Cruz would
appreciate:
Texas has banned books about boys and books
about girls, and books where the gender is more
of a swirl. It’s banned books about sex and books
about race, and books about those whose white
hoods hide their face. It’s banned classics and new
books, and books in between; best-sellers, prize
winners, and books rarely seen. It’sbannedbooks
on what the Nazis did to the Jews, and beloved
old books by the great Judy Blume. It’s banned
comics and prose books and books full of poems;
it’s banned slim books and tall books andheftyold
tomes. Of the multitudes of books a child might
read, Texas has banned hundreds of books, yes,
indeed!
No state's
schools have
been more
enthusiastic
about
banning
books than
those in
Texas.
TEXAS MONTHLY STAFFER DAN SOLOMON FEELS PRET-
TY CONFIDENT THAT SOMEONE. SOMEWHERE IN TEXAS,
WILL BAN HIS NEW YOUNG ADULT NOVEL. THE FIGHT FOR
MIDNIGHT.
No, you’re
4* not imagin-
ing it, fellow
Texans: some of us
are terrible drivers,
as likely to run a
fellow motorist
off the road as
we are to offer
a friendly “hi
sign.” And we’re
not just talking
aboutfenderbend-
ers. Accordingto
data collected by
the Insurance In-
stitute for Highway
Safety, we trounce
the competition
in the number of
fatal car crashes. In
2021,4,068 such
incidents occurred
in Texas—even
more than in Cali-
fornia, which
has a much larger
population.
In particular, you
should be very care-
ful in Dallas, which
the Austin-based
Transportation and
U.S. Census Bureau
data, ranked in
2018 as the most
dangerous place in
Texas to drive, fol-
lowed by Beaumont,
Odessa, Fort Worth,
and Wichita Falls.
(Not-so-fun fact:
TxDOT tells us that
rural areas, home
to 16 percent of the
state’s population,
accounted in _______
2022 formore
than half of our ’
automobile
fatalities.)
The least danger-
ous places? Allen,
the Woodlands,
Frisco, Pearland,
and Sugar Land, ac-
cording to Aceable.
Maybe that's anoth-
er reason to head
to the suburbs, if
you haven't already.
Just keep your eyes
peeled on the way
OVer.-KATY VINE
driving-education
website Aceable,
drawing on Texas
Department of
► Headquarter relocations (116,2021-2022) ► Fortune 500 companies (55) ► Fatal car crashes (4,068, in 2021)
7^7
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JASON ALLEN LEE ANO KLAUS KREMMERZ
TEXAS MONTHLY 119
WHAT WALKS
ON FOUR LEGS
AND HAS
14,667,100
HEADS?
Population-wise,Texasisn’taruralstate
* and hasn’t been for a long time. Even as
far back as 1950, the majority of Texans
lived in urban areas; today, 84 percent of us do.
But looking at a map, of course, tells a different
story: 83 percent of our land is rural, and we’ve got
the livestock to show it. When it comes to cattle,
goats, horses, and sheep, Texas has more than any
other state—they even outnumber newly arrived
Californians.-dan Solomon
WHENITCOMESTO
PEOPLE BEHIND BARS,
WE’RE WAV AHEAD
Texas keeps putting convicts away. And
lawmakers want those numbers to rise.
by Michael Hall
he Texas frontier was a lawless place, so the ear-
ly waves of white settlers dealt with suspected
wrongdoers the way the Old Testament told them
to. Even as other states found alternatives to the
lash, Texas—whose prison system had its roots in
the East Texas cotton fields and the convict-leas-
ing apparatus that replaced slavery—didn’t back
down from “an eye for an eye.” For years our elect-
ed officials—sheriffs, district attorneys, judges,
and governors—have won office by promising
to be tough on crime. The most infamous metric
for this is that we’re the number one state in ex-
ecutions. Since 1976, when the Supreme Court
declared the death penalty was once again con-
stitutional, we’ve killed nearly five times more °
convicts than Oklahoma, our nearest competitor. <
(Our northern neighbor, however, executes more i
prisoners per capita than we do; we’re number i
two by that measure.)
But we’re also the leader when it comes to liv- «2
ing, breathing subjects of the criminal justice p
system: no state has more inmates than Texas. 2g
(Though, again, on a per capita basis we don’t p
come out on top; we’re number ten, behind some £ §
much smaller states.) We weren’t always num- sj
ber one; California, with a far bigger population,
used to outdo us. Then in the nineties, Governor ||
Ann Richards led an expansion of prisons and a sg
tightening of parole rules that pushed us into the | 3
top spot. Between 1993 and 1998 the population 11
of our state prisons, state jails, and private facil-
ities more than doubled, to 143,889—more than
the entire population of Waco. Ten years later ||
we reached 156,126 inmates. Yet, as crime rates i<
Cattle (12,500,000, including calves) ► Money spent on a high school football stadium ($80 million, for Cy-
120 TEXAS MONTHLY
fell, so did those numbers, aided, to the surprise
of many, by conservative politicians affiliated
with the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Right
on Crime initiative, which framed prison issues
as economic issues. Texas began sending non-
violent inmates to community-based programs
designed to divert them from future crimes, and
it started closingprisons, not building new ones.
Then, during the pandemic, law enforcement
curtailed arrests, the court system slowed down
its processing, and TDC J took fewer transfers
from county lockups. By April 2021 Texas had
116,926 inmates in its prisons.
But now, as society is getting back to normal, our
numbers are climbing once again. As of January,
Texas had 124,893 inmates. California, with 10
million more residents, had about 29,300 few-
er inmates. And this is all part of a much larger
web. Texas has more inmates in “administrative
segregation”—solitary confinement in all but
name—than any other state, more than3,000. And
our numbers are shockingly high when it comes
to prisons without air-conditioning, incidents of
prison rape, and unpaid inmate labor.
None of these changes take into account our 252
countyjails, where,by some accounts, on average
more than 60,000 men and women await a trial,
a plea bargain, or a transfer to state prison. This
number could very well go up: In the fall, the Leg-
islaturewill take up two bills that, if passed, could
keep more Texans behind bars in local jails. One
would put on the ballot a constitutional amend-
ment denying bail for certain violent offenses
(such as aggravated sexual assault), and another
would prohibit personal bonds for some other
serious crimes. We already have an astonishingly
large number of inmates serving time for crimes
they were convicted of committing. Now we’re
on the cusp of putting more defendants behind
bars who haven’t been convicted of anything. -V
Fair FCU Stadium, in Cypress) ► Incarcerated adults (127,689 inmates) ► Hay production (6,528,000 tons)
ILLUSTRATIONS BY KLAUS KREMMERZ AND JASON ALLEN LEE
TEXAS MONTHLY 121
MEN»
More than one in six Texans lack health insurance, the highest rate in the country.
Behind the statistics are countless human beings experiencing unnecessary suffering.
by Ricardo Nuila
oyce Reed was once a star shooting guard on the
basketball team at Bellaire High School. When
he came to see me at the emergency room at
Houston’s Ben Taub Hospital last October, he
wore red warm-up pants, the kind with snaps
on the side so he could tear them off at a mo-
ment’s notice and enter the game—or, in this
case, change into a hospital gown. I needed
only to unfasten the two snaps on the bottom
to see what had brought him here. The middle
three toes of his right foot had been stripped
of their skin and underlying fat, and there was
a wound the size of a silver dollar coin on his
heel. Royce, who was 44, was suffering from an
infection in his foot bones that made it nearly
impossible for him to walk.
Royce’s health problems had emerged years
earlier. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes
at the age of seven, but thanks to the health in-
surance his parents had through their jobs, the
► Freight moved through the state (3.3 billion tons, in 2018) ► Uninsured residents (18 percent of the population)
122 TEXAS MONTHLY
family managed tokeep his illness largely under
control. He played intramural basketball at Sam
Houston State University, earned business and
computer science degrees, and, when he turned
28, got a job at the post office that provided him
with health insurance of his own.
Royce was, at that point in his life, lucky. Ac-
cording to the latest data, from 2021, Texas has
the country’s largest medically uninsured rate;
more than five million Texans lack insurance, a
number that represents 18 percent of our pop-
ulation. That’s 4.2 percentage points higher
than the rate in Oklahoma, the runner-up in
this sweepstakes of shame.
A perhaps even more shocking statistic: In
2021 there were 930,000 uninsured children in
Texas—a number destined to exceed one million
as the state rolls back the Medicaid coverage the
federal government provided during the pan-
demic. The percentage of uninsured children,
11.8, is the highest in the country, and more than
double the national average.
Not having insurance can be deadly. A 2017
article in the Annals ofInternal Medicine men-
tions one study that found that having health
insurance reduced adult mortality by as much
as 6 percent. The uninsured are, for instance,
far more likely to have cancer diagnosed at later
stages and to die at younger ages. And, of course,
having insurance can also alleviate manynon-
fatal forms of suffering caused by crippling
chronic illnesses. For many people, Texas is a
tough place to get sick.
When Royce was 32, he developed kidney
failure and required a transplant. His private
insurance didn’t pay for this procedure, so
Medicare paid for it and the 36 months of re-
covery that followed. His private insurance
did cover a podiatrist visit after Royce found a
small discoloration on his left foot in 2019, as
well as continued follow-ups with his kidney
doctor, who pushed him to be diligent about his
health, fearing that the small diabetic ulcer he
had developed on his foot would worsen. “She
got on my ass,” Royce noted.
Things began to fall apart in February 2021,
when Royce lost electricity during the deep
freeze and blackout. Because of the damage di-
abetes had done to his nerves and blood vessels,
Royce was especially vulnerable to frostbite,
and his feet turned black. His father took him
to the hospital, where doctors noticed a foul
smell coming from his left foot. The skin over
the wound had started to slough away, and the
ulcer had expanded. Royce underwent emer-
gency surgery to remove the infection. Once he
was released, specialists advised him to keep
off his feet.
That was pretty much impossible at the post
office, where Royce occasionally covered routes
when a colleague was absent. Something had
to give. He stopped working in early 2021, and
though the union made sure he didn’t get fired,
the post office eventually stopped paying its
part of his insurance. Soon enough, he joined
the more than five million Texans who don’t
have health coverage.
Royce couldn’t visit his endocrinologists or
podiatrists; he did, though, re-
ceive insulin and vital medica-
tions for his kidney transplant
through donations from the
American Kidney Fund. But when
his right foot began having similar
issues, he couldn’t find a way to
receive medical care. So it was no
surprise that Royce ended up at
Ben Taub, a public hospital that
teems with the uninsured.
Since our first meeting, Royce
has been admitted four timesover
eight months. He’s spent 45 days
in the hospital, visited the ER six
other times, and had dozens of
The child
uninsured rate
of 11.8 percent,
the highest in
the country,
is more than
double
the national
average.
clinic visits. Most of this expensive care would
have been prevented if he’d had coverage. And
he’s just one of many Texans suffering need-
lessly.
The first time I saw Royce, I told him how
much his ailments dispirited me. “You were
once a basketball player,” I said. That didn’t
matter anymore, he explained. He was focused
on keeping his feet and trying to stay alive. He
had applied for disability, but that took time.
In the meantime, he hopes that at some point
his health will improve and he’ll be able to start
working at the post office again.
“I still got my job,” he said, noting the diffi-
cult nature of his situation. “I just don’t have
insurance.”
RICARDO NUILA IS A DOCTOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE AT
BEN TAUB HOSPITAL. IN HOUSTON. AND THE AUTHOR OF
THE PEOPLE'S HOSPITAL: HOPE AND PERIL IN AMERICAN
MEDICINE.
Global exports ($485.6 billion) ► Percentage of residents who speak Spanish at home (28.7, in 2021)
ILLUSTRATION BY JASON ALLEN LEE
TEXAS MONTHLY 123
THE ROADS GO ON FOREVER
► Average number of tornadoes (13G, 1997-2022)	► Sheep (675,000)	► Uninsured children (11.8 percent)
124 TEXAS MONTHLY
698,839 miles of Texas roads
would cover the same distance as:
Radius of
the sun:
435,000 miles
Rerunning Vince Young’s historic 14-yard
game-winning sprint against USCinthe
2006 Rose Bowl 87,853,996 times.
Stacking 4,919,842 Towers of the
Americas on top of one another.
Floating the m ile-long lazy river at
Waco Surf 698,839 times.
Texas has 698,839 miles of road
* lanes, which is more than any other
state in the country. That’s almost
300,000 more than the runner-up, Califor-
nia, and more than twice as many as third-
place finisher Illinois (which, to be fair, is
punching way above its weight, given that
it’s the twenty-fourth largest state by area).
But what, exactly, does 698,839 miles
of road look like? How can we hold it in our
headsand contemplate its enormity?To help
us grasp the concrete—or, rather, asphalt-
reality of this colossal figure, we offer some
helpful equivalencies, -jeffsalamon
OR TO PUT
IT ANOTHER
WAY...
► Miles of road lanes (698,839) ► Southern Baptists (2.45 million) ► Goats (725,000 )	► Counties (254)
ILLUSTRATION BY KLAUS KREMMERZ
TEXAS MONTHLY 125
WAIT, IS TEXAS...
A GO£F STATE?
Yes, Texas
4* is a football
state, and a
rodeo state through
and through. But
it’s also the number
one golf state in
the country. The
state with the most
inductees into the
World Golf Hall of
Fame? Texas, with
fifteen, including
such familiar names
as Jack Burke Jr.,
Ben Crenshaw,
Sandra Haynie,
Ben Hogan, Byron
Nelson, Lee Trevino,
Kathy Whitworth,
and Babe Didrik-
sonZaharias.The
state with the most
Masters champions?
Texas. Ten Lone Star
State residents have
won the tournament
fifteen times.
What’s more, two
of the three bridges
at Augusta Nation-
al—where the Mas-
ters is played each
spring—are named
for Hogan and Nel-
son. Oh, and what is
widely believed to be
the best-selling golf
instruction guide of
all time? Harvey
Penick’s Little Red
Book, cowritten by
thebeloved Austin
pro mentioned in the
title and the cele-
brated Texas novelist
and sportswriter Ed-
win “Bud” Shrake.
Why has Texas
made such a mark
on the royal and
ancient game? One
theory claims that
the state’s favorable
climate for year-
round play—and
our sometimes
unfavorable climate:
we play in conditions
that range from cold
to hot to dry to wet
to windy—prepares
a golfer to hit every
possible shot in the
proverbial bag.
So maybe it’s time
for more Texans to
embrace their inner
Ben Hogan, add a
few golf shirts to
their collections of
old Dallas Cowboys
jerseys, and get out
on the course. Heck,
maybe the time has
come for a TV show
set on the Texas fair-
ways. “Friday Night
Links,” anyone?
-DAVID COURTNEY
В
ШЕ NUMBER
ONE IN RENEWABLE
ENERGYAND
NONRENEWABEE
ENERGY
Why Texas is the past, present, and future
when it comes to fueling the world.
by Russell Gold
rive south from the Oklahoma Panhandle and the
first thing that greets you, after the large green
“Welcome to Texas” sign, is the nation’s largest
wind farm. Head south for another five hours un-
til you’re nearly in Midland, and you can take in
the nation’s largest solar farm—well, the largest
for now. In far northeast Texas, close to Arkansas
and Oklahoma, another one is under construction
that will eventually be the biggest in the country.
Texas generates more electricity from wind and
sun than any other state and has since2006. It ain’t
even close. In 2021 Texas’s output was more than
double that of the runner-up, a sizable state that
hugs the Pacific Ocean and likes to boast about
how green it is.
How did this come to be? Well, Texas has lots of
sun and wind and lots of land to build on. But so do
several other states. (Though let us note that the
western half of the state gets more sun than the
entirety of yet another large landmass—one that
has the temerity to call itself the Sunshine State.)
It was politics and policy that catapulted Texas
to the top. “We like wind,” then-governor George
W. Bush said in 1996. He was talking about wind
power and aimed the remark at the chairman of
the Public Utility Commission, who was baffled, so
► Counties without a local newspaper (21) >
Masters championships (15)	► Places where one can legally cross
126 TEXAS MONTHLY
Bush reiterated his point “Go get smart on wind,”
he ordered. So began the state’s unlikely emer-
gence as a renewables superpower. A few years
later, Texas ended its century-old electric-utility
monopolies, a move that opened the door wide for
renewable- energy developers.
Bush’s unexpected affection for renewables had
political roots. Two of his maj or donors, Sam Wyly
and Ken Lay, had taken an interest in the field and
supported changes to Texas’s electricity system
that would allow renewables to flourish—and, not
coincidentally, enrich themselves. (In the short
term, at least Wyly, a convicted tax cheat, eventu-
ally declared bankruptcy; Lay, best known as the
founder of Enron, declared late in life that he was
$250,000 in the red.) Bush was also considering
a presidential run. A former Texas oilman might
not play well nationally, but a fossil fuels fan who
also liked renewables? That was something new.
If Bush set the table, his successor, Rick Perry,
prepared the feast. In 2005 he oversaw a multibil-
lion-dollar project to run power lines connecting
the wide-open spaces in West Texas—where wind
and sunlight and inexpensive land were plentiful—
with the energy-hungry cities along 1-35 and to
the east. The wind farms—and, a few years later,
solar farms—piled up like rush hour traffic on the
Katy Freeway.
Perry’s successor, Greg Abbott, has looked
less favorably on Texas’s renewable output—he
preposterously blamed it for the catastrophic 2021
blackouts—even though wind and solar farms have
helped keep a lid on the state’s power prices. He has
supported state legislators’ recent efforts to slow
renewable growth, but thankfully the offending
bills never made it off the floor.
Of course, Texas isn’t going to develop a full-on
green reputation anytime soon; the rise of renew-
ables hasn’t put a dent in our ability to churn out the
old standbys. We’re still the nation’s top producer of
oil and natural gas and will be for the foreseeable fu-
ture. When it comes to barrels and electrons, Texas
is adamantly ecumenical. If energy is our religion,
we welcome all faiths to the promised land. #
the border (28) > Renewable energy production (136,118 gigawatt-hours) > New home permits (179,620, in 2021)
ILLUSTRATIONS BY KLAUS KREMMERZ AND JASON ALLEN LEE
TEXAS MONTHLY 127
OUR RURAL
HOSPITALS
ARE ON
LIFE SUPPORT
Texas has
* the largest
rural popu-
lation in the nation,
which means that
the crisis that has
hit rural hospitals
across the country
is striking us espe-
cially hard. Rising
medical costs, low
patient numbers,
and staffing strug-
gles have led to
152 rural hospitals
in the U.S. closing
or converting to
outpatient facil-
ities since 2010.
Twenty-six of those
were in Texas, more
than in any other
state. (Tennessee
has seen the high-
est percentage of
its rural hospitals
close. We’re num-
ber six by that met-
ric.) Why has Texas
fared so badly? Our
refusal to expand
Medicaid plays
a large part. The
eight states with
the highest levels
of rural hospital
closures between
2010 and 2021 had
all declined to ex-
pand their Medicaid
programs, shutting
the door to federal
aid that has helped
keep hospitals open
in other states.
- WILL BOSTWICK
BUTWAIT,
THERE’S LESS!
Wounding as it may be to our
deeply ingrained sense of Texas
exceptionalism, there are a
number of seemingly Texas-y
categories in which we don’t take
the top spot Here are a few.
Barbecue	Alice Walton), and
	twenty-thlrd-rich-
When it comes to	est person (Michael
quality, we have no	Dell), live in Texas.
doubt that Texas	But the 73 billion-
has the best barbe-	aires who call the
cue in the country.	Lone Star State
When it comes to	home don’t get us
quantity, though,	to the top of this
asof 2014 Okla-	list; California, New
homa and Georgia	York, and Florida all
had more barbecue	have more. And we
joints per capi-	rank even lower-
ta, and barbecue	number ten—on a
spots made up a	per capita basis.
higher percentage	Though we'll admit
of restaurants in	we don’t feel all
Alabama, Arkansas,	that intimidated by
Georgia, Tennessee,	sparsely populated
and Mississippi. I	Montana’s four-
mean, if you call	count’em, four-
that barbecue.	billionaires.
Billionaires	Gun Ownership
The world’s second-	As you might ex-
richest person (Elon	pect, Texans own
Musk), twenty-	more guns than the
first-richest person	residents of any
(Walmart heiress	other state, nearly
► Closed rural hospitals (26 since 2010) ► Shrimp harvest value ($183,870,316, in 2021) ► Cities among the 25
128 TEXAS MONTHLY
twice as many as	though, we’re well	ida rivalry, it’s not	Sorry, Florida, but	living in the wild,
the runner-up,	ahead of our fellow	all bad news—Texas	persuading sep-	and the widely cited
Florida. But it will	big states New	added more people	tuagenarian New	claims that there
surely trigger many	York, California, and	than any other state	Yorkers to spend	are 2,000 to 5,000
gun-loving Texans	Florida.	during that time	their final years	tigers in captivity in
to learn that we’re		period, and most	enjoying 60-degree	Texas seems to be
not the number one	Population	of Florida’s gains	lows isn't a reliable	based on scanty ev-
gun-owning state	Growth	were the result of	way to maintain	idence. There may,
on a per capita ba-		migration from	long-term popula-	In fact, be fewer
sis. In fact, we’re not	Though no state	other U.S. states,	tion growth.	than 200 of the big
even close. We rank	in the twenty-first	while ours reflect a		cats here, putting
twenty-seventh,	century has added	more-robust com-	Tigers	us behind Florida,
behind a lot of much	more residents	bination of internal		which reportedly
smaller states,	than Texas, from	migration, interna-	According to popu-	has more than twice
such as Montana,	2021 to 2022	tional immigration,	lar legend, there are	as many as we do—
Wyoming, Alaska,	Florida, Idaho, and	and good ol’ natural	more tigers living in	yet another exam-
Maine, New Mexico,	South Carolina	increase. Tex-	Texans’ backyards	ple of the Sunshine
and Vermont. If It’s	grew at a fast-	as’s population is	than in the wild.	State’s intense
any consolation to	er rate. If you’re	younger than Flor-	That’s probably	interest in trying to
Governor Greg "Buy	invested in the	ida’s, so we have	not true; there are	out-Texas Texas.
More Guns” Abbott,	Texas-versus-Flor-	a lot more babies.	about4,500 tigers	Meow! >
most populous in the U.S. (6: Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, and El Paso) ► Horses (767,100, in 2017)
ILLUSTRATION BY JASON ALLEN LEE
TEXAS MONTHLY 129

ILLUSTRATION BY HAROL BUSTOS
PAGE 131
THE APACHE,
THE PRIEST,
AND A
FORTY-YEAR
FIGHT FOR
JUS TICE

BY MICHAEL HALL
In 1983 James Reyos was convicted of the brutal
murder of a Catholic minister. The battle to dear his
name is now one of the longest in Texas history.
On a warm December afternoon,
James Reyos set out from
his apartment in Denver City,
a small town in the Permian Basin near the New Mexico border,
to hitchhike to nearby Hobbs. Reyos, then 25 years old, was
short and thin with long black hair. He had grown up on the
Jicarilla Apache Nation reservation, in northern New Mexico.
Though he’d been in Denver City for about seven months, he
didn’t have any friends, and he’d recently been fired from his
oil field gig as a roustabout. Reyos struggled with alcoholism
and had a habit of not showing up for his shifts. Now he was
going to Hobbs to try and find work.
As he walked along Mustang Avenue, a main road on the
town’s west side, a red Chryslerwith a white top slowed to a stop.
The passenger door opened, and Reyos
heard a voice: “Where you headed?”
Hobbs, said Reyos.
“I’m heading that way too. Get in.”
The driver introduced himself as
John, a Catholic minister. He was old-
er, in his late forties, tall and affable. The £
two hit it off, talking the entire 36-mile |
drive. When they got to Hobbs, John I
suggested they get a drink They wound |
up at Tip’s, a local biker bar, where John |
ordered a pitcher of Coors. The two men g
fell deeper into conversation; John had i
grown up in I reland and done mission- “
ary work in Africa, and Reyos told him |
about growing up on the reservation and |
working in the oil fields. John seemed »
genuinely curious about his family and 1
life on the rez. For the first time in years, g
Reyos felt like he’d made a friend.	s
132 TEXAS MONTHLY
After a few hours, John said he had
to get back to Denver City, so Reyos
caught a ride with him. John parked his
car at the local Catholic church. Reyos
walked home to his apartment, three
blocks away.
A couple of weeks later—four days be-
fore Christmas, in 1981— Odessa police
were called to room 126 of the Sand and
Sage Motel, where they found a naked
man lying face down, hands tied behind
his back, dead. His face and body were
battered and bloody, and a long slashing
wound ran across his buttocks. The room
was a shambles: blood on the floor and
walls, holes punched in the drywall. The
bed was broken and the nightstand was
overturned. Cigarette butts lay on the floor,
beer cans stood on a bureau, and clothes
were strewn across a chair. It looked as if
a party had gone terribly wrong.
Officers collected hairs, bloody finger-
prints, blood-stained sheets. Thepathole-
gist who performed the autopsy reckoned
the man’s heart had stopped sometime
between 7 p.m. and midnight the daybe-
fore. He had been beaten to death.
The man had checked into the seedy
motel—a place where sex workers con-
ducteda thriving business—underapho-
ny name, so it took a few days to figure
out his identity. When the cops finally
did, the day after Christmas, they were
shocked: he was a Catholic priest. Pat-
rick Ryan, 49 years old, was originally
from County Limerick, in Ireland, and
had for the previous two years been at
St. William Catholic Church, in Denver
City, eighty miles north of Odessa. Ryan
was passionate about helping the poor
and was beloved by his working-class,
majority-Hispanic flock. “He reminded
you of Saint Francis of Assisi,” said one of
his parishioners. Police found Ryan’s car
and his wallet outside the Moose Lodge
in Hobbs and dusted them for prints.
Police also found a green backpack
in Ryan’s Denver City apartment; in it
was a photo album belonging to Reyos.
When officers brought in Reyos for
questioning, he told them that he knew
Ryan and that he’d met him when he
washitchhiking.
Reyos admitted to having seen Ryan a few other times too;
the father had even lent him money. Reyos said he had been
to the priest’s apartment the day before he was killed—Ryan
had asked him to bring over the photo album so he could see
pictures of his family—and Reyos added that on the morning of
the murder, Ryan had driven him to Hobbs so the young man
could retrieve his truck, which he had left with a bail bondsman
as collateral after being arrested for driving without a license.
Nine hours later the priest was dead in Odessa.
While all of this aroused suspicion, Reyos had solid proof that
in the hours during which Ryan was killed, he was 215 miles
away, in and near Roswell, New Mexico. Reyos had spent that
whole day and night and the next morning driving drunkenly
around the Roswell area, eventually crashing his truck into a
bar ditch. He had a dozen receipts to prove it—for buying gas
and then a gas cap, for getting a speeding ticket and then getting
towed. Police checked his body for evidence that he had been
involved in a violent struggle, but he was clean. None of the
hairs or fingerprints found at the scene belonged to Reyos. He
was questioned for four hours and passed a lie detector test.
F inally, wi th nothing tying him to the crime, police let Reyos go.
The case went cold. But Reyos found he couldn’t walk away
from it. The truth was, he hadn’t told the police everything
about his relationship with Ryan. He harbored a secret that
was tormenting him: Reyos was a closeted gay man, and it
OPPOSITE PAGE:
James Reyos in his
room at Common
Ground ATX in
February. BELOW:
A residential
hallway inside
Common Ground.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTOPHER LEE
TEXAS MONTHLY 133
BELOW, FROM LEFT:
The Sand and Sage
Motel, in Odessa,
where Patrick Ryan
was murdered; a
portrait of Ryan.
OPPOSITE PAGE:
A high school
yearbook photo of
Reyos.
turned out Ryan was too. On Reyos’s visit to Ryan’s apart-
ment the day before the killing, after the two drank beer and
vodka and looked through the photo album, Ryan, a big guy
at two hundred pounds, had grabbed Reyos and forced him
to engage in oral sex.
Nearly eleven months after Ryan’s murder, Reyos, then
living in a motel in Albuquerque, was drinking heavily at a
bar and took some quaaludes. He passed out, woke up, drank
some more, and, after watching an episode of Perry Mason,
staggered to a pay phone and called 911. He wanted to talk
about the murdered priest in Odessa, he told the emergency
operator. When asked who he was, Reyos replied, “You are
talking to the killer,”
His confession was enough for an Odessa jury to convict him
of murder, in 1983. Ever since, Reyos has fought to exonerate
himself, both in prison and out. His forty-plus-year battle to
clear his name is one of the longest in Texas history.
When I met him, in January, he was living in a room at a rag-
ged South Austin housing complex, a place filled with dozens
of others also transitioningout ofprison. The first thinghedid
was pull out abinder full of articles written about him over the
years—in the Dallas Morning News, the El Paso Times,News-
week, and Out magazine. For Reyos, the binders are a bible of
sorts. Inside are letters to three Texas governors and to other
officials in which advocates proclaimed his innocence. Also
inside is a letter from the murdered priest’s boss, who said
Reyos was innocent. And there’s a missive from a man who had
once prosecuted Reyos but now wrote that it was objectively
impossible for him to have killed the priest. “That is the most
important letter right there,” Reyos said.
Reyos is no stereotypical ex-con. He’s
five-and-a-half feet tall, with a reserved,
almost timid demeanor, and speaks so
softly that you sometimes have to lean
in to hear him. His hair and goatee are
gray, and black glasses frame his impas-
sive face. He had a stroke last September
and occasionally has a hard time finding
the right words. He moves slowly, often
using a walker.
Reyos spent most of his time alone in
his small room, listening to old country
music (George Jones and Dolly Parton are
favorites), reading, writing, and remem-
bering. For Reyos, the past is never far
away. On the wall above his bed is a large
American flag and a New Mexico license
plate. He pulled out a map of his home
state and showed me where he had grown
up, in Dulce, the mountainous tribal head-
quarters of the Jicarilla reservation.
Reyos has an abiding sense of calm
about him, whether he’s talking about
his past struggles or his hopes for the
future. He spoke often of his dream of
returninghome: he longed for the moun-
tains, the snow, his tribe. He wanted to
see his three surviving brothers and
meet members of his family he’s never
known, such as nieces and nephews. But
because of restrictions from the Texas
134 TEXAS MONTHLY
Board of Pardons and Paroles, he’s un-
able to return.
All around him were reminders of
why. On his desk sat a framed cover of a
2005 issue of the Austin Chronicle, with a
close-up of his face and the words “Mur-
der Mystery.” Above the dresser were a
couple of pages from a 1993 story about
him. Aheadline succinctly summarized
the last four decades of his life: “Texas
vs. Reyos.”
Reyos has lost almost every battle he’s
had with the state. But last November,
right after Thanksgiving, he finally won
one. He was visited inacommunityroom
at his complex by his lawyer and an Odes-
sa police detective, who had come all the
way from West Texas to tell him that
newly discovered fingerprint evidence
solidly points to three other men as Ry-
an’s killers.
Reyos was stunned. It seemed that his
life might finally be changing.
Reyos had a typical sixties childhood,
ridingbikes, hittingbaseballs, watching
Bonanza on TV. He was the youngest of
six children. His father was a petroleum
engineer; his mom took care of the kids.
The family owned a couple of small cattle
ranches, and as a boy Reyos would tag
along with his older brothers as they
rode horses. “I used to love the cattle
drives,” he told me. “Come wintertime
we’d move them down south to the win-
ter ranch, where it was warmer, and in
the springtime move them back up to
the summer ranch.” He told me about a
photo he used to have that his mom, who
died when he was sixteen, had taken of
him duringbranding season. “I was six or
seven years old, and I was holding a calf
in a headlock. It had a little white face.
My mom loved the Herefords.”
When he was a teenager, in the seven-
ties, Reyos figured out that he was gay.
He was terrified to tell anyone,especially
S his parents and friends. As he would say
|	to a reporter years later, “Apaches were
о	brought up to be brave and strong—and
j not gay.” He was a quiet teen, a loner,
» ashamed of his sexuality, afraid of be-
1 ing rejected. He got good grades in high
school, but he began drinkingbeer—a lot
of beer—when he went to college, at the
University of New Mexico, in Albuquer-
que. He later transferred to Eastern New
Mexico State University, in Roswell, to
study petroleum technology. He kept
mostly to himself; the only times he
had sex were when he was drunk. And
his drinking got so problematic that he
was banned from his dorm. By the time
he was jailed for Ryan’s murder, he had
been arrested five times for driving while
intoxicated and thirty more times for
public intoxication.
When Reyos looks back, he knows that
his alcohol use had a lot to do with why he was arrested and
convicted for killing Ryan. He thinks that his homosexuality
and his identity as an Apache likely contributed to the jury
verdict too, as did the identity of the victim, a C atholic priest.
As a lonely twentysomething living far from home, Reyos
made several mistakes, ones that haunt him to this day. To
push back against the painful memories of his past, he wrote
twelve words on a sheet of paper that hangs above his dresser,
a mantra he sees every morning when he wakes up: “I KNOW
in my heart-I DID NOT KILL Father Patrick Ryan.”
Reyos doesn’t have a simple answer for why he confessed to
something he didn’t do. He recanted his confession the same
day he was arrested and taken to the Albuquerque jail. “In
the name of God, I didn’t do this,” he told his public defender
Reyos has lost
almost every battle
he’s had with the
state. But last
November, right
after Thanksgiving,
he finally won one.
TEXAS MONTHLY 135
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several times. He told a detective, “I am
not the killer. I just like to cause trouble
for law enforcement.”
He told me how hard it was being gay
back then, constantly fearing rejection,
terrified of being exposed. He said his
shame consumed him after that night in
Ryan’s apartment. “I remember walking
down the street afterward, thinking to
myself, That didn’t happen. That didn’t
happen. I was scared somebody was going
to find out.” Eleven months later, drunk
and drugged and miserable, he felt some-
how responsible for Ryan’s murder: if
he hadn’t gone to the priest for a ride to
Hobbs to pick up his truck, he thought,
Ryan likely would have stayed home at
the rectory in Denver City, and he’d still
be alive. “It just kept eating at me, eating
at me, eating at me. I should have just
hitchhiked to Hobbs. I’d done it before.”
At Reyos’s trial, in June 1983, he and his
lawyers were certain his solid alibi would
save him, especially because he wasn’t
the only one leading a hidden life. Two
young men testified for the defense that
the priest, in civilian garb, had approached
them in a parking lot in Hobbs, saying he
was looking for “a young stud to f— him.”
But Reyos wasdoomedbyhisdrunken
confession and his story about what hap-
pened the night before Ryan was mur-
dered. Reyos testified about drinking
with Ryan—first beer, then whiskey and
vodka—and said the priest then grabbed
him by the shirt collar and forced him-
self upon him. “I was scared,” Reyos said
on the stand. He fell backward during
the assault before getting to his feet and
| fleeing in such a hurry that he left his
g backpack behind. The next day, he need-
1 ed a ride to Hobbs to pick up his truck
| and, friendless, asked Ryan. Reyos said
5 Ryan apologized for the night before and
| dropped him off in Hobbs around 11:30
J a.m. Reyos was newly flush with cash
= from a quarterly oil-and-gas royalties
j check from his tribe, and he spent the
| next day and a half drinking, driving,
° and sleeping it off.
|	His lawyer, calling upon a psychology
= professor for expert testimony, insisted
s that Reyos had confessed because of the
excruciating shame he felt about his homosexuality and the
assault. But the prosecutor accused Reyos of fabricating the
story about Ryan’s aggression and of slandering the Catholic
priest. (It would be another decade before the church’s sex
scandals rocked the country.) Reyos was basically outed on
the stand in excruciating fashion, as the prosecutor made him
recount gritty details about the incident. Reyos had a hard time
explaining why he would go back to the priest the next day if
he had been so traumatized.
After more than three days of testimony, the jury ignored the
Roswell receipts and the lack of physical evidence and found
Reyos guilty. Upon hearing the verdict, he went into what he
told me was a state of shock. The jury sentenced him to 38
years. One of his defense attorneys, surprised by the verdict,
talked to jurors afterward. As he later told a reporter, “They
said no one admits to committing a murder if they didn’t do
it. That’s what convicted him.” But one of the jurors also told a
reporter that the verdict was based on both Reyos’s confession
and “characteristics”—clearly a euphemism for his sexuality.
Reyos’s father, who was eighty and using a cane, was allowed
to visit his son one last time, in a courthouse conference room,
before he was sent away. “Always be strong, son,” he told him.
“Don’t ever give up ” When Reyos got to prison, he wrote down
the words on a piece of paper and hung it on his cell wall.
At the Coffield Unit in East Texas, Reyos began gathering
documents on his case, helpedby family members who made
copies for him. He spent hours in the library, studying the law
and writing to lawyers and journalists, continued on page i48
OPPOSITE PAGE:
Mementos in
Reyos’s room,
including handwrit-
ten notes, a framed
photo of Reyos, and
a binder containing
letters and news
articles attesting
to his innocence.
ABOVE: Reyos
reacts to news that
Odessa police had
discovered Ryan’s
real killers.
OPPOSITE PAGE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOPHER LEE
TEXAS MONTHLY 137
25 BEST
FOR AWHILE
IT LOOKED AS
IF BIG-CITY
BARBECUE
WOULD
HOG THE
SPOTLIGHT
FOREVER
MORE.
I SHOULD
HAVE KNOWN
BETTER.
BY DANIEL VAUGHN
photographs by Brittany Conerly
and Mackenzie Smith Kelley
NEW
a
pg. 139
n Texas, a few towns are so closely asso-
ciated with legendary barbecue joints
that just uttering their names—Llano,
Lockhart, Luling, Taylor—conjures up
the smell of woodsmoke and prompts an
irresistible urge to get in the car. And it
used to be that a trip to the rural enclaves,
especially in Central Texas, was neces-
sary to find superlative smoked meat. But
in the ten years that I’ve been covering
the state’s barbecue landscape, I’ve seen
buzzy new spots in Austin, Fort Worth,
and Houston start to draw all the atten-
tion. That, plus the closingof many small-
town joints—Prause Meat Market, in La Grange; the Swinging
Door, in Richmond—had me wondering if I was witnessing the
end of an era. 51 I’m happy to report that’s not the case. Texas
Mon thly’s most recent select ion of the fifty best barbecue joints
in the state, which we published in 2021, had already shown
some promise. New additions proudly representing more far-
flung parts of the state included Convenience West, in Marfa,
and Rej ino Barbeque, in Olton. And the trend continues with
this latest batch of new and improved joints (“new” beingthose
that opened since our2021 report and “improved” including
those that made significant changes to their menu or settled
down in one spot long enough for me to catch up to them). I
found destination-worthy barbecue from Denison and Decatur
to Mabank and Montgomery. 51 Even the edges of Texas are
getting in on the action. Two newplaces in El Paso embody that
city’s growing barbecue culture, and the Rio Grande Valley
has gone from a smoked-meat afterthought to a place where
I can fill a whole weekend checking out new spots. Swinging
back up to Central Texas, I feel as if I’m coming full circle as I
witness three women with big-city barbecue experience plant
their flag right on the square in Lockhart. 51 No matter where
I go, I find there’s no end to smoked-meat innovation. Thanks
to ingredients and preparation methods from a medley of
culinary traditions, we’re
now blessed with dishes
such as za’atar-spiced lamb,
berbere-seasoned pork
ribs, and brisket fried rice.
It’s a glorious time to eat
Texas barbecue, and I’m
more excited than ever for
what the future will bring.
ARLINGTON
Smoke’NAshBBQ
Opened: 2018
Pitmasters: Patrick and Fasicka Hicks
Pro tip: Bring your vegetarian friends,
because most of the sides are meatless.
Move over, white bread, and make way
for injera at the state’s (world’s?) only
Tex-Ethiopian smokehouse. Fasicka Hicks
uses flour imported from her home coun-
try for the spongy sourdough bread that
comes with the brisket and pork ribs that
her husband, Patrick, smokes and coats
with awaze, a deep-red sauce that com-
bines clarified butter with bold berbere
spice. In their first years in business, the
Hickses kept the barbecue and Ethiopian
dishes separate, but a new menu, intro-
duced in 2021, combined the two, with
items such as smoked-chicken doro wat
(a spicy stew) and barbecue nachos with
injera “chips.” 5904 S. Cooper, 817-987-
7715. Open Tue-Thur 12-8, Fri & Sat 11-8.
OPENING SPREAD: Pitmaster Alec
Varnell at J-Bar-M Barbecue, in
Houston; a platter from Douglas
Bar and Grill, in Dallas; Nidia Vargas
with a customer at Vargas BBQ, in
Edinburg. RIGHT: In the kitchen at
Douglas Bar and Grill.
AUSTIN
Briscuits
Opened: 2021
Pitmastors: Christopher McGhee and
Will Spence
Pro tip: Orders are taken only online, so
save time by placing yours before arriving.
As the name suggests, this food truck
combines brisket with biscuits. The truck
is parked outside Radio Coffee & Beer,
in South Austin, so get your drink there,
then find a picnic table and wait for your
name to be called. Your reward is the
unusual combination of savory biscuit,
chunky house-made strawberry jam, and
sliced brisket (or pork belly or beef-belly
bacon). The play between sweet and salty
is barely contained by the made-from-
scratch biscuits, which have pleasantly
crunchy edges on each buttery layer. The
rest of the menu looks more like that of
a modern barbecue joint, with peppery
chicken wings in a tangy buffalo sauce
and pork steak with chimichurri. The
jalapeno-cheese sausage is so good it will
make you gasp. 4204 Menchaca Rd. Open
Thur-Sat 9-8:30, Sun 9-3.
140 TEXAS MONTHLY
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRITTANY CONERLY
AUSTIN
KG BBQ
Opened: 2022
Pitmaster: Kareem El-Ghayesh
Pro tip: The hibiscus-mint iced tea is the
best drink pairing for the barbecue.
Before Kareem El-Ghayesh’s first trip to
Austin, in 2012, the Cairo native (handing
over an order at right) had no idea Texas
was famous for barbecue. But once he
tasted smoked brisket, he knew the flavors
he grew up with would be a good comple-
ment. Wanting to learn more, he moved
to Austin, in 2015. Seven years and nearly
as many kitchen jobs later, he opened this
trailer, which sits outside Oddwood Brew-
ing, northeast of downtown. Pork ribs are
dusted with za’atar, and the stunning lamb
belly ribs are served with tahini, which
El-Ghayesh calls the national barbecue
sauce of Egypt. Find it in the brisket sha-
warma, where the smoky chopped meat is
topped with salata baladi, a mix of diced
cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and mint.
Garnishes of pistachios and pomegranate
seeds brighten up a barbecue tray more
than pickles and onions ever could. 3108
Manor Rd, 512-586-9624. Open Thur-Sat
11-8, Sun 11-5.
AUSTIN
Mum Foods Smokehouse
8 Delicatessen
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Geoffrey Ellis and
Travis Crawford
Pro tip: Take home a loaf of the brioche,
which is made with beef tallow.
Geoffrey “Geo” Ellis has been slinging
smoked pastrami at Austin-area farm-
ers markets since 2016, but he finally
got to realize his vision of a full-blown
restaurant when he opened Mum Foods.
Ellis bakes his own breads, including the
sourdough rye used for sandwiches that
are generously stuffed with pastrami and
slathered with house-made mustard. The
brisket is also impressive, as are the ribs,
but its the sausages that add that special
Texas touch. The juicy beef links go great
with the inspired side of potato chips and
pimento cheese. And where else can you
get spareribs alongside a bowl of matzo
ball soup? 5811 Manor Rd, 512-270-8021.
Open Wed & Thur 11-3, Fri-Sun 9:30-3.
DALLAS
Douglas Bar and Grill
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Doug Pickering and Alex Meza
Pro tip: Weekday happy hour specials, such
as the $10 Wagyu smashburger, are a heck
of a bargain.
Too fancy to be called a joint, this restaurant
in Snider Plaza has a bit of a split personality.
Though barbecue can be ordered at all hours,
Prime steaks dominate at dinner, along with
a honey-glazed smoked salmon that’s an
ideal mix of sweet and savory. Lunchtime
is when barbecue takes center stage. The
Wagyu brisket is always tender, the glazed
ribs have just the right touch of sweetness,
and the brisket bullets—bacon-wrapped,
meat-stuffed jalapenos—are not to be
missed. When you order your meal, go ahead
and ask for the most perfect fried apple pie
you’ll ever have. That way it will be ready
when you are. 6818 Snider Plaza, 214-205-
5888. Open Mon-Thur 11-9, Fh& Sat 11-10.
DECATUR
North Texas Smoke BBQ
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Derek Degenhardt and
Taylor Shields
Pro tip: Access the driveway from the
northbound lane of the divided highway.
Parked along U.S. 287 between a fireworks
shop and a motorcycle dealership, Derek De-
genhardt’s food truck isn’t easy to spot at 65
PHOTOGRAPH BY MACKENZIE SMITH KELLEY
TEXAS MONTHLY 141
miles per hour. He says he sells just enough
barbecue to keep it open, but he carries on by
sticking to the basics, such as a dynamic duo
of classic beef and jalapeno-cheese links.
The brisket is sliced thick, and even the lean
is juicy, with a stout bark and plenty of black
pepper. A brush of sweet barbecue sauce on
the massive spareribs doesn’t overwhelm,
and the smoked turkey is an underrated
standout thanks to a flavorful rub. Degen-
hardt has never liked potato salad, but he
loves loaded baked potatoes, so he combined
the two and created his best side, a baked
potato salad chock-full of bacon, shredded
Cheddar, and green onions. 2803 U.S. 287,
940-393-6776. Open Wed-Sat 11-3.
DENISON
Heritage Butchery 8
Barbecue
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Pete Gonzales, Arthur Finney,
Garrett Nichols, and Marco Rios
Pro tip: Check the freezer for some good
discounts on Texas-raised beef.
When you think of barbecue joints with an
active meat market, you might picture an old-
school place such as Dozier’s, in Fulshear.
This is the modern version, with the raw beef,
pork, and chicken in the case all coming from
local farms. If you see a sausage in there,
such as a spicy chipotle-and-jack-cheese,
chances are you'll also find it smoked on
the menu. (Heritage sources the rest of
its barbecue meat from larger commercial
suppliers.) The burgers are a mix of ground
Wagyu and Angus, and the chicken sandwich
is made with a boneless thigh that’s smoked
before it’s fried to a golden brown. 211N. U.S.
75,903-287-9390. Open Tue-Thur11-8, Fri
& Sat 7-10 (breakfast) & 11-9.
EDINBURG
Vargas BBQ
Opened: 2021
Pitmaster: Ram Vargas
Pro tip: Burgers made with freshly ground
beef are available every day.
Nidia Vargas didn’t even know how to cook
rice when she and her husband, Ram, an
aspiring pitmaster, began an underground
business selling his smoked chicken out of
their home to raise money to open a restau-
rant. Yet by the time Vargas BBQ debuted,
she had developed most of their non-
barbecue recipes, such as a hearty brisket
fideo, charro beans, and a creamy green spa-
ghetti, the pasta bathed in pureed jalapenos,
poblanos, and cilantro. It stands out on a tray
surrounded by Ram’s beef-cheek barbacoa
(a Saturday-only special) and brisket birria
tacos (pictured, opposite page, along with
Ram next to his smoker). And if those Rio
Grande Valley specialties aren’t enough, the
brisket and pork ribs more than hold their
own. 701E. Cano, 956-278-0094. Open
Wed 5:30-8, Thur, Fri & Sun 11-4, Sat 10-5.
Hallelujah BBQ
Opened: 2023
Pitmaster: Blake Barrow
Pro tip: Ask about their pet leopard.
The Rescue Mission of El Paso has provided
services for the homeless since it opened,
in 1952. Director Blake Barrow started a
catering operation from the mission in 2015,
and this year he opened his long-awaited Hal-
lelujah BBQ in a renovated historic building
nearby. The restaurant is staffed exclusively
by people who have benefited from the mis-
sion’s outreach. The barbecue options include
tender brisket, peppery baby back ribs, and
a sausage called 13 Habaneros, which is
reminiscent of a spicy Italian link with plenty
of caraway seed. As for sides, you’re in luck
if you’re a fan of carbs, because you have
your choice of tater tot casserole, au gratin
potatoes, and mac and cheese. The green
beans are cooked down with barbecue spices,
green apple, and mushrooms—an unexpected
combination that works. 130A N. Cotton, 915-
307-7500. Open Wed-Sun 10:30-3.
EL PASO
Smokin’Joe’s Pit BBQ
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Joe and Martin Martinez
Pro tip: The banana pudding is better once
the chill has faded, so let it bask a bit in the
El Paso sun.
Joe Martinez had a reputation for barbecue
long before he opened his food truck. At the
142 TEXAS MONTHLY
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRITTANY CONERLY
same time the El Paso native was planning
his retirement from a corporate job, his
instructional barbecue videos on YouTube
were collecting millions of views. He and
his brother Martin smoke a black-barked
brisket that could hold its own anywhere.
Peppery spareribs get a brush of sweet
barbecue sauce, and the meat comes off
the bone with just a tug. There’s also a juicy
cheeseburger on brioche, dressed with
grilled red onions. Joe uses his sausage to
bring some El Paso flavor, adding Hatch
chiles and Muenster cheese. The Marti-
nezes grew up with beans in their chili,
so you’ll eat beans in your chili (and I bet
you’ll like it). 10150 Montana Ave, 602-
796-2211. Open Fri & Sat 11-8.
HARKER HEIGHTS
Rossler’s Blue Cord
Barbecue
Opened: 2021
Pitmasters: Steven and Kristen Rossler
Pro tip: Get all the meats and four sides
in the $75 RBCB platter, which serves
four to six.
Harker Heights is next door to Killeen,
where Steven Rossler was stationed at
Fort Hood. When he retired from the
Army, in 2021, he launched this food truck
with his wife, Kristen. They are open on
Wednesday and Thursday only, leaving the
weekend free for catering opportunities
and barbecue festivals. The menu has a few
unexpected items, such as brisket ramen
and deviled eggs topped with a brisket
burnt end. The rest is standard fare, and
the Rosslers do it well. There's a stout bark
on the brisket, and any leftovers become a
great brisket chili. The sides are well made;
picture an eggy potato salad and cheesy
poblano grits, which are even better when
deep-fried into hush puppy-like balls. 300
Morgan, 254-345-2313. Open Wed & Thur
11:30-4.
HOUSTON
Brisket 8 Rice
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Hong and Phong Tran
Pro tip: Try the house-pickled jalapenos
made with soy sauce and a hint of sweet
lemon-lime soda.
It’s not often you'll find a great barbecue
joint at a gas station, but don’t worry—the
wood-fueled smokers are far from the
pumps. Owners Hong and Phong Tran
say their second-most-important piece
of cooking equipment is a well-seasoned
wok. That’s where they craft their barbecue
fried rice, with chunks of smoked meat and
Chinese sausage, as well as their namesake
dish: jasmine rice topped simply with slices
of tender brisket and a drizzle of barbecue
sauce. It’s an homage to the way their Viet-
namese mother would use rice to stretch
takeout barbecue. The brothers grew up in
Brenham, and the simple salt, pepper, and
garlic seasonings in the sausages from that
area inform their snappy house-made beef
links. 13111FM 529, 713-936-9575. Open
Wed-Sun 11-7.
HOUSTON
J-Bar-M Barbecue
Opened: 2021
Pitmasters: Alec Varnell and Nick Orozco
Pro tip: Study the patio wall mural, which
traces the history of Houston barbecue.
When I visited J-Bar-M last year, everything
was sunshine and rainbows at the recently
opened joint. The barbecue was spectacular,
and longtime Houston-area pitmaster Wil-
low Villarreal was finally getting his turn in
the spotlight. Within a few months, though,
he and his wife, the talented chef Jasmine
Barela, had departed, citing disagreements
with owner John Toomey. The team they left
behind, though, has done a good job expand-
ing on the recipes the couple developed.
Clues that you won’t get basic sides here
are a bright tomato salad and cauliflower au
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MACKENZIE SMITH KELLEY
TEXAS MONTHLY 143
gratin with melted Gouda and fried leeks.
Drinking the pot likker from the collard
greens will fortify you to tackle one of the
massive spareribs. The smoky brisket is still
superb, as are the house-made sausages
and the half chicken, but it’s best to get
them before they start to show their age,
which is around 5 p.m., when the steak-
focused dinner service begins. 2201 Lee-
land, 713-534-1024. Open Tue-Thur 11-11,
Fri & Sat 11-midnight, Sun 11-6.
LOCKHART
Barbs B Q
Opened: 2023
Pitmasters: Chuck Charnichart,
Haley Conlin, and Alexis Tovias
Pro tip: Dunk a smoked lamb chop into a
tub of the salsa verde.
Months before it opened, there was plenty
of media coverage of this women-owned
joint located in the barbecue capital of
Texas. Such high expectations are daunting,
but Barbs delivers. Chuck Charnichart,
Haley Conlin, and Alexis Tovias’s combined
barbecue experience—all three at Franklin,
in Austin; Conlin at Micklethwait, in Aus-
tin; and Charnichart at Goldee's, in Fort
Worth—already spoke volumes about their
chops, but this isn’t some big-city barbecue
copycat. The pork spareribs are a revela-
tion, salty, spicy, and sweet, with an acidic
kick from lime zest. The brisket is already in
contention for best in town, if not the state,
and Barbs is able to pull more flavor out
of turkey than seems possible. The green
“spaghett” already has a cult following
thanks to its spicy, creamy sauce consisting
of pureed poblanos and cream cheese; soak
up any extra with the house-made blue corn
tortillas. 102 E. Market. Open Sat 11-3.
MABANK
B4 BarbequeS Boba
Opened: 2021
Pitmaster: Nolan Belcher
Pro tip: Don’t miss the sopaipilla cheese-
cake bites for dessert.
Two years ago, Nolan and Emily Belcher
opened a barbecue truck that was too
successful. The couple just couldn’t keep
up with demand, so they took a hiatus to
regroup. Not long after, Kevin Carter, a fan
of the truck and the owner of Mabank Feed
& Southern Glitz Boutique, offered the
couple space inside his store, and they were
back in business. The menu’s bold flavors
run the gamut, from the bacon-wrapped
stuffed jalapenos to the pork belly burnt
ends topped with peach jam and crumbled
shortbread (they’re called Meat Candy for
a reason). The juicy brisket is coated with
a sixteen-ingredient spice blend, while the
pork ribs are done competition style, with
a heavy combination of sweet, salty, and
spicy flavors. Charred elote and mac and
cheese with a brisket garnish are tops for
the side options. 1100 N. 3rd, 903-910-
5272. Open Wed-Sat 11-3.
MIDLAND
Midland Meat Co.’s
Half Acre
Opened: 2019
Pitmaster: Aaron Lesley
Pro tip: Don’t come on the weekend. Unlike
a lot of joints, this one is closed Saturday
through Monday.
Owner John Scharbauer opened MMC’s
Half Acre as a food trailer, in 2019, closed it
during the pandemic, and then reopened it
in a building left vacant by another barbe-
cuejoint. He’s better known locally for his
family’s cattle-ranching business, as well
as Midland Meat Co., a market he opened
to showcase their Texas-raised Wagyu.
At Half Acre you can always find a cut of
that prized beef on the specials board, and
whatever form it takes—shaved ribeye in a
taco, smoked picanha (top sirloin cap) atop
flatbread with queso bianco—be sure to
order it. The sliced brisket is tender (try it
in the brisket-stuffed egg rolls), but the star
of the menu is the St. Louis ribs; they’re
well seasoned, with a great bark and a
sweet glaze that shows off pitmaster Aaron
Lesley’s barbecue chops. 1101 Washita,
432-218-7735. Open Tue-Fri 11-8.
MISSION
El Sancho Tex Mex BBQ
Opened: 2019
Pitmaster: Danny Sanchez
Pro tip: Prepare to pay with cash or online,
as credit cards are not accepted.
The husband-and-wife team of Danny
and Ale Sanchez parked their barbecue
truck behind Jitterz Coffee Roasters, in
downtown Mission, back in 2019. It was an
on-again, off-again business until Danny
quit his day job, in 2021, to focus entirely
144 TEXAS MONTHLY
on cooking. The gamble seems to have paid
off. Early this year the couple upgraded to a
larger, air-conditioned truck, and their bar-
becue, offered four days a week, is usually
sold out before noon. The menu is heavy on
tacos; breakfast brings the Iron Mike, a flour
tortilla stuffed with a thick slice of mes-
quite-smoked brisket, shredded cheese,
and your choice of bacon or sausage, plus
a fried egg on top. It’s so big you could start
and finish a meal with it, but you won’t want
to miss the brisket burnt-end taco or the
one filled with crispy smoked pork belly,
both of which feature blue corn tortillas.
1625 N. Conway Ave, 956-424-2493. Open
Thur& Fri 7:3O-noon, Sat & Sun 8-12:30.
MONTGOMERY
Bar-A-BBQ
Opened: 2019
Pitmasters: Cooper, Shelby, and
Caleb Abercrombie
Pro tip: Breakfast tacos, biscuits, and
klobasniky are served from 8 to 10:30 on
Saturday mornings.
With just a folding table and a tent, Cooper
and Shelby Abercrombie started out
serving barbecue at pop-ups. In 2022 they
upgraded to a food truck, and this year saw
the grand opening of their permanent loca-
tion, in downtown Montgomery. Business
has grown, and Cooper’s brother, Caleb,
is now on board. The brisket and pork ribs
hold their own, but it was the trio of house-
made sausages that caught my attention.
There are two mainstays: a classic beef
link and one called the South Texan, with
jalapeno and cilantro. To those Cooper
adds a monthly rotating sausage featur-
ing ingredients that range from Oaxacan
cheese to Spanish rice. The Abercrombies
make all the sides, including the fried onion
strings on the stellar green bean casserole.
21149 Eva, 940-445-0148. Open Wed-Fri
10:45-6:30, Sat 8-6:30.
ODESSA
Brantley Creek
Barbecue
Opened: 2019
Pitmaster: Brandon McPherson
Pro tip: The barbecue may sell out, but the
smashburgers won’t.
Brandon McPherson lost his job in the oil
and gas industry in 2019. Thankfully he
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRITTANY CONERLY
TEXAS MONTHLY 145
had a food truck already outfitted from
his days as a barbecue-competition cook,
so he and his wife, Ashley, shifted their
entrepreneurial dreams into high gear. It
didn’t take long for them to start serving
the best barbecue in town, but I was a
little late finding it. The couple moved the
business around Odessa for a few years
looking for a permanent home, and they
have finally settled into a newly construct-
ed space on the east side of town. Expect
the same superb brisket, simply seasoned
with salt and pepper and smoked with
post oak. The pork ribs glisten with glaze,
but the flavor of smoky pig comes through
above all else. Brandon now has the room
to make his own sausage, and Ashley’s
side options have expanded to include
cucumber salad and jalapeno creamed
corn, alongside the always satisfying pinto
beans and mac and cheese. If you fell in
love with the apple cobbler at the trailer,
you’ll be thrilled to rediscover it here. 3541
Faudree Rd, 432-275-0037. Open Wed-
Sat 11-8, Sun noon-5.
SAN ANTONIO
Reese Bros Barbecue
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Nick and Elliott Reese and
Gabriel Perez
Pro tip: If the parking lot is full, there are
more spaces available a half block north,
across the street.
Brothers Nick and Elliott Reese wanted to
help forge a distinct San Antonio barbecue
style when they opened Reese Bros, down
the street from the Alamodome. They
brought on Gabriel Perez, a graduate of the
Culinary Institute of America in San Anto-
nio, and the results have been incredible.
Boring white bread and pedestrian barbe-
cue sauce are replaced with homemade
flour tortillas and charred-jalapeno salsa,
the better to cradle the juicy brisket and the
queso fundido sausage, made with Oaxaca
cheese and serranos. Their signature sand-
wich is a torta stuffed with carnitas, pickled
onions, guacamole, refried beans, and a
smooth jalapeno-and-serrano salsa. Slaw
dressed with a blend of mayo and lime juice
and topped with pea tendrils is refreshing,
and the unexpected addition of okra to
the pinto beans lends a pleasant texture
variation. The poblano mac and cheese is
as green as an avocado and anything but
ordinary. 906 Hoefgen Ave, 512-925-9205.
Open Fri-Sun 11-3.
SAN JUAN
GW’s BBQ Catering Co.
Opened: 2017
Pitmasters: George Watts Jr. and
George Watts III
Pro tip: If you need a break from barbecue,
the Sunday special is fried chicken.
After closing their food truck at the start of
the pandemic, the father-and-son team of
George Watts Jr. and George III reopened
in a brick-and-mortar, in August 2021.
Rather than focus on Rio Grande Valley
specialties such as fajitas and barbacoa,
146 TEXAS MONTHLY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MACKENZIE SMITH KELLEY
the Wattses lean completely into Central
Texas-style barbecue. That means oak-
smoked brisket sliced thick and served
on a butcher paper-lined tray. House-
made sausages vary, from habanero and
Havarti to brisket burnt-end boudin. For
a side, it’s hard to choose between the
braised cabbage and the jalapeno creamed
corn, so get both. Specials—pastrami,
chicken-fried brisket, smoked pork belly
porchetta—really show off this family’s
creativity. 107 N. Nebraska Ave, 956-601-
0056. Open Wed-Sun 11-4.
SPRING
Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q
Opened: 2021
Pitmasters: Jordan Rosemeyer and
Ben Maxwell
Pro tip: The ice cream is made in house,
and flavors change monthly.
Jordan Rosemeyer ran a barbecue catering
business and did pop-ups on his own until
2021, when he opened a food truck next to
a gas station and brought on his best friend
since kindergarten, Ben Maxwell, as his
partner. Their accommodations are sparse,
just a few picnic tables under a shade
tree, and most orders are for takeout.
Even so, demand is high. I suggest digging
into the jalapeno-and-Oaxaca-cheese
sausage as soon as possible; it’s got extra
burn from chile pequin. The brisket is
simply seasoned and perfectly executed,
and the tender spareribs get a splash of
honey simple syrup. Rosemeyer entered
a few barbecue competitions before his
food truck days, and his pinto bean recipe
always scored high marks. You can see
why here; pair a bowl with the green beans,
which are sauteed with bacon and onions.
2111 Riley Fuzzel Rd, 281-205-0625. Open
Thur-Sat 11-3.
Hill City Chop House
Opened: 2022
Pitmasters: Dustin Martin and Jack Allison
Pro tip: Pay attention to the hours.
With just about a thousand residents in tiny
Tolar, Dustin Martin knows his barbecue
has to be good enough to draw folks from
farther afield. But he’s no stranger to
challenging circumstances. A wakeboard-
ing accident on Lake Granbury, in 2007,
nearly cost him his leg. Then, in 2020, he
and his family lost everything in a house
fire. At that point the Martins decided that
a barbecue joint would be the fresh start
they needed. The smoked brisket is the star,
plenty tender with a peppery bark. And the
trimmings go into the smashburger, which
boasts a thin patty with a proper sear and
lacy edges. As for the sides, I enjoyed the
mustardy potato salad, but the well-sea-
soned borracho beans in a rich broth were
better. For dessert Martin dries bread in
the smoker to make crumbs for the base of
his berry bread pudding. 8718 И/. U.S. 377,
254-834-4224. Open Thur 4-9:30, Fri
noon-9:3O, Sat 11-5, Sun 10:30-2.
VANALSTYNE
Pit Commander
Barbecue
Opened: 2022
Pitmaster: Stephan Nedwetzky
Pro tip: Pit Commander will be closed
in September and October to serve its
famous pork belly burnt-end pizza at the
State Fair of Texas.
Stephan Nedwetzky had been trying to find
a home for his barbecue for years. The Ma-
rine veteran and former heavy metal guitar-
ist tried Plano, Murchison, and Fort Myers,
Florida, before settling into a storefront in
Van Alstyne’s historic downtown. He and
his wife, Yolanda Russotti, open the place
just twice a week, and for such a little shop,
they serve an unexpected variety of smoked
meats. Tender and more juicy than any beef
brisket, the smoked pork belly steals the
show, whether it’s the burnt ends or the
slices they call bacon brisket. Nedwetzky
makes a beef sausage with jalapeno and
cheese that’s spectacular, and it goes great
with a side of savory pinto beans. Russotti
uses an Austrian-style white-bread dough
to make knotted rolls for burgers and
barbecue sandwiches. When the couple
aren’t cooking barbecue, they fire up their
oak-fueled pizza oven. 224 E. Jefferson,
972-400-0234. Open Fri & Sat 11-3.
WHITE OAK
Sunbird Barbecue
Opened: 2021
Pitmasters: Bryan Bingham and
David Segovia
Pro tip: The brisket taco is far superior
if you ask for sliced meat instead of the
standard chopped.
Bryan and Kimmy Bingham and David
Segovia personify perseverance. Since
leaving the original Bodacious Bar-B-Q,
in Longview, in 2021, they’ve been serving
smoked meat from a food truck they’ve
parked at convenience stores, car deal-
erships, and even a brewery in Louisiana,
all the while searching for a permanent
home. Until they find it, they’ll keep serving
exceptional barbecue from the window
of their faithful truck, currently parked
in White Oak, about six miles west of
Longview. Of course the sliced brisket
is good, and you can get it chopped in a
stuffed baked potato, a taco, or even a que-
sadilla. The sweet-glazed baby back ribs
and the juicy smoked turkey are always
smart choices, and the well-seasoned
pulled pork is great. Kimmy makes a few
sides that are destination worthy as well,
including a sticky-sweet honey butter
corn bread and some of the best mac and
cheese in the state. 1908 E. U.S. 80, 903-
399-6562. Open Wed-Sat 11-3. +
TEXAS MONTHLY 147
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THE APACHE, THE PRIEST,
AND A FORTY-YEAR FIGHT
FOR JUSTICE
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 137
Though his first appeal, in 1984, was
denied, it didn’t take long to get advo-
cates on his side.
One of the first was Bishop Leroy T.
Matthiesen, Ryan’s supervisor, who
in 1990 wrote to a chaplain at Cofficld
that he was convinced Reyos was in-
nocent. A year later, Ector County
prosecutor Dennis Cadra, who had
fought against Reyos’s appeal while
working for the district attorney’s of-
fice, wrote an eight-page letter to Gov-
ernor Ann Richards saying that after a
careful reading of the trial transcript,
he too was now convinced Reyos was
innocent. “I came to the firm conclu-
sion that it was physically impossible
for Mr. Reyos to have committed the
crime,” Cadra wrote, addingthat Reyos
had several strikes against him in front
of that jury, including that he was gay
and Native American. Reyos told me
he was astonished when he got a copy
of the letter. “ I remember sitting in my
cell reading that letter over and over. I
couldn’t believe that a prosecutor had
made a one-eighty-degree turn.”
Reyos thought he would get out soon,
and he set his mind on returning to New
Mexico. When that didn’t happen, he
sent a letter to Howard Swindle, an
investigative reporter for the Dallas
Morning News, askinghim to look into
his case. Swindle did, and in 1993 pub-
lished a front-page Sunday story ques-
tioning Reyos’s guilt. Two months later,
Newsweek wrote about the case too.
Finally, in 1995, twelve years after
he was arrested for murder, Reyos was
set free under the state’s mandatory
supervision law, which required the
early release of certain well-behaved
inmates. He was allowed to return to
New Mexico under his brother’s watch.
But Reyos didn’t adapt well to his new-
found freedom and was still haunted
by Ryan’s murder and by his own sex-
uality. “I was afraid to get out in the
open,” he told me. He began drinking
again and was arrested for drunken
driving—a parole violation—and sent
back to prison in Texas. Behind bars,
he spent time as a teacher’s aide and
continued to write letters to lawyers
and governors—first George W. Bush,
then Rick Perry.
148 TEXAS MONTHLY
PREVENT
WILDFIRES,
FOR THE
LOVE OF THE
OUTDOORS.
In 2003 he was released again. Reyos
felt confident that things would finally
turn around. His case had been fea-
tured in an A&E documentary series,
American Justice. It had also caught the
attention of state representative Paul
Moreno, a Democrat from El Paso, who
told Reyos he could help him more if he
lived in Austin. So Reyos moved there
and got a room at a transitional living
facility called the South Austin Market
Place, on Ben White Boulevard. He was
required to attend Alcoholics Anony-
mous meetings and meet regularly with
his parole officer.
Reyos worked various jobs, including
cleaning rooms at an upscale boutique
hotel near the University of Texas. His
bosses liked him so much they offered
him a supervisory position, though
he turned it down. One of them later
wrote in a letter, “James respectfully
declined the promotion only because
he soon hopes to see the fruition of his
labors to clear his name, and to return
to his home in New Mexico.” He also
worked as a janitor at his housing facil-
ity, cleaning up trash in the parking lot,
and at Dance Across Texas, a country
nightclub next door.
But Texas authorities weren’t through
with him yet. Early on the morning of
April 25,2008, Reyos was stopped by
Austin police on his way to work Officers
said a man who fit his description had
opened his coat and flashed his genitals
at a woman named Alison Sterken. They
made Reyos, whodenied the accusation,
stand in front of her car. Sterken says
today she told the cops that although
Reyos was dressed like the flasher and,
like him, was c arrying a flashlight, Reyos
was too short by half a foot. “I’m five sev-
en and this person was taller than me,”
she told me. “But the cops wouldn’t
listen to me. One of them said we were
probably standing on uneven ground.”
Reyos was arrested. Although the
charges were soon dropped, the inci-
dent led to a parole-revocation he aring.
Sterken was subpoenaed to testify, and
she told the board what she had told
the cops: the flasher was much taller
than Reyos.
Still, Reyos’s parole was revoked,
likely for previous violations that had
until then gone unnoticed by parole
officers, and again he was sent back to
prison. He was now 52. This time he
stayed in prison for four years. He got
out again in 2012—“a little more bitter
about the system,” he told me—and was
restricted from leaving the state, so
he moved back to South Austin Mar-
ket Place, into the same small room
he rents today.
The complex, now called Common
Ground ATX, is a rough-looking place
along Texas Highway 71, populated
by ex-cons, sex offenders, and former
residents of mental health facilities.
“There’s good people here,” Reyos told
me early this year. “You know, youjust
gotta watch out who you associate with.”
Occasionally he wanders over to the
courtyard and talks to fellow residents,
but he mostly keeps to himself, walking
to the convenience store to buy ramen
noodles or sitting out front and watch-
ing the cars zip by on their way to the
Austin airport. For years he hasn’t had
a cellphone, a car, or a job. A royalty
check from his tribe covers his $700
monthly rent.
IN UNGUARDED
MOMENTS, REYOS
WOULD TELL PATINO
ABOUT HIS GHOSTS.
“THERE’S NOT A DAY
THAT GOES BYTHAT I
DON’T WAKE UP AND
THINK ABOUT IT,”
HE SAID OF RYAN’S
MURDER.
One of his closest friends is Carlos
Patino, the complex’s 62-year-old office
manager. Patino is a native of Guana-
juato, Mexico, and still speaks with a
heavy accent. He’s openly gay and is in
many ways Reyos’s opposite: outgoing,
exuberant, the kind of hands-on per-
sonality who can take care of the daily
needs of some one hundred men living
on the fringes of society. Most morn-
ings Reyos would wake early, listen to
the local news on his radio, go to the
dayroom for coffee and a doughnut,
and then, when Patino came in to work
at 8 a.m., head to the office to visit him.
Reyos would tell Patino and others in
the office the news of the day, and he
and Patino would chat and spar play-
fully. “We laugh all the time,” Patino
told me. “He call me senorita and 1 call
him nina—or senora, because, I say,
you are older.”
Afterward Reyos would head back
to his room, where he would spend
most of his day alone, surrounded by
Bible quotes written on scraps of pa-
per and taped to his walls. “Rise up, О
Lord my God, vindicate me. Declare
me ‘not guilty,’ for you are just,” reads
one. Another reads: “Demand justice
forme, Lord!”
Occasionally Patino would walk to
Reyos’s room and knock on his door.
“Nina, you okay?” he would ask. In un-
guarded moments, Reyos would tell
Patino about his ghosts. “There’s not
a day that goes by that I don’t wake up
and think about it,” he said of Ryan’s
murder. Reyos was still troubled by the
assault on him by someone he trusted—
by a priest, of all people. Patino told me
he once asked Reyos if he had been in
love with Ryan, and Reyos replied, “No,
Carlos, I don’t love him, but he was very
nice to me.”
Patino learned that there were two
versions of his friend. “When he’s not
drunk, he’s very quiet,” he told me. But
when Reyos drank, he got loud—so loud
that his neighbors would complain.
Patino said that after Reyos got out in
2012, it was clear something had shift-
ed. Reyos sometimes missed meetings
with his parole officer and occasionally
showed up for them drunk. In Janu-
ary, Reyos told me he was no longer re-
quired to attend Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings and that his drinking wasn’t
a problem anymore. “I don’t have any
craving for alcohol,” he insisted. But
sometimes he would catch a bus and
head downtown to barhop, wandering
Sixth Street and shambling home in the
wee hours. He swore he wasn’t inter-
ested in finding a partner. “I don’t even
think about that now, you know? I’m
happy alone. All I have to think about
is myself, my fight for justice. That’s
my main goal.”
Last fall he was joined in his fight by
an unlikely ally: the same office that
pu t him behind bars in the first place. 11
started when ayoung woman in Odessa
heard a recent episode of the popular
Crime Junkie podcast about the Reyos
case, which explained Reyos’s airtight
alibi and the dearth of evidence tying
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him to the crime scene. She happened
to be the daughter of Michael Gerke, the
chief of the Odessa Police Department,
and told her father about it. Gerke’s
son heard the same episode and also
let him know about the case. His curi-
osity piqued, the chief asked for a copy
of the case file. “I got to the end of it,”
he told me, “and I went, ‘Well, where’s
the rest of it?’”
Gerke asked a couple of his men to
investigate further. One of them was
Sergeant Scottie Smith, who read the
file and obtained a copy of a recent book
on Reyos by the British writer Scott Lo-
max, who had been following the case
since 2004. “It just didn’t match up,”
Smith told me. “There was nothing to
put Reyos at the scene. How did they
get a conviction?”
Most of the evidence from the case
had been destroyed back in 1993, ac-
cording to department policy, but
Smith looked through an old case file
and was surprised to find photocopies
of latent fingerprint cards, which he
showed to a crime-scene tech, Stacy
Cannady. She found the actual cards
and ran the prints through the Auto-
mated Fingerprint Identification Sys-
tem, a national database that didn’t
exist in 1983. The result floored her and
Smith: the names of two men showed
up, neither of whom were Reyos, and
investigators soon identified a third
figure present at the scene. All three
had extensive arrest records on charges
ranging from auto theft to assault. The
prints of one of the men, who had a long
rap sheet, were found on the cruise con-
trol knob on Ryan’s car and on a credit
card that had been stolen from him.
All three of the men were now dead.
But suddenly room 126 of the Sand and
Sage Motel looked less like the site of a
solitary killing and more like the scene
of a murderous brawl.
Smith took everything to the Ec-
tor County district attorney’s office,
where Greg Barber, the first assistant,
was also mystified as to how Reyos had
been convicted. Barber, an ex-cop and a
longtime prosecutor, says he had never
come across a case like this—such an
obvious wrongful conviction. “This was
new ground for us,” Barber told me. “We
didn’t know howto go about correcting
it. We wanted to know the best route to
make things right.”
Barber had gone to law school at
Texas Tech University with Allison
Clayton, the deputy director of the
Innocence Project of Texas, so he con-
tacted her. Clayton, forty years old and
also a law professor at her alma ma-
ter, jumped at the chance to represent
Reyos. She brought three of her law
students to Odessa, all women in their
early twenties, and the police put on a
PowerPoint presentation of the evi-
dence theyhad come up with.
By that point, the defense lawyer and
the prosecutor were working together
to exonerate Reyos. To Clayton, this
kind of cooperation was unheard-of:
she has helped free or exonerate six
men, but she almost always finds her-
self fighting against the police and the
district attorney, who usually want to
keep the conviction on the books. “I’ve
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I he
Big Texas
(ookhook
had prosecutors in counties the size of
Ector County tell me, off the record,
‘Yeah, he’s innocent,’ but on the record,
‘We’re going to support every conviction
that comes out of this town.’ That’s what
I normally see.”
In November, Clayton decided it was
time that Reyos heard what was happen-
ing with his case. Smith and Barber also
wanted to be part of the conversation, so
a week after Thanksgiving, Clayton ar-
ranged a meeting in one of the communi-
ty rooms at Common Ground ATX. The
lawyer and one of her assistants were
there. Smith and Cannady came in from
Odessa. Barber and another attorney
helpi ng о n the case, Car men Villalobos,
phoned in on FaceTime, the cellphone
propped against a bag on a table. The
acclaimed Austin-based documentary
filmmaker Deborah Esquenazi, who had
been workingon a film about Reyos, set
up a camera.
Reyos sat in an overstuffed brown
chair, his walker in front of him, and
looked bewildered at those gathered
around him. He had no idea what the
meeting was about. Clayton, a gregar-
ious lawyer accustomed to speaking in
front of large groups, explained to Reyos
how they had all come to be there. “We
always thought all the evidence in your
case had been destroyed,” she said. “But
there was actually some evidence that
was still around.”
Clayton asked Smith to talk about
what the police had found, and the bur-
ly cop moved to the couch across from
Reyos. “We’ve identified some people
that were never mentioned in the re-
port that we can place in that room,”
he began. Reyos nodded his head, but
the words didn’t fully register. He was
still processing the fact that a police-
man from Odessa—from the same de-
partment that had helped send him
to prison—was sitting there talking
to him. Smith continued, explaining
how officers had taken the fingerprint
evidence to the district attorney’s office.
“We’re all working together to try and
help you.” Reyos thanked Smith, but
his face was blank.
“So!” Clayton said brightly. “Here’s
where we’re at.” She knelt at Reyos’s
side and looked him in the eye. Then
she took his hand. “We think we know
who really did it.”
F inally, Reyos grasped the gravity of
what they were tellinghim. He reached
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into his pocket to get a tissue but pulled
his hand back empty and began patting
his chest slowly. Tears came to his eyes.
Clayton drew closer, like a mother com-
forting her child. After a few seconds,
Reyos began repeating the mantra he
had held fast to for forty years. “I did
not kill Father Ryan,” he said slowly,
his words slightly slurred because of
his stroke. “I know that in my heart.”
After a pause, Smith said, “With ev-
erything that we have in our report, I be-
lieve one hundred percent you didn’t do
it.” Reyos was finally getting the official
validation he had desperately sought
for so long. He dabbed at his eyes as
Barber piped in from the phone. “The
Ector County district attorney’s office
believes you’re innocent and is working
with Allison to go to court to prove that.”
Reyos nodded. He could barely get
any words out. “Thank you,” he said.
“Long overdue, but thank you.”
InFebruary, Clayton filed a writ of ha-
beas corpus in the Seventieth District
Court, the Odessa jurisdiction where
Reyos was convicted forty years ago.
The writ argued that he’s “actually in-
nocent,” a legal term for those who can
prove, through new evidence, that they
didn’t commit the crimes they were
convicted of. A hearing was set for the
following month.
But as the day drew nearer, Reyos
seemed to be falling apart. In early
March, Claytoncalled Common Ground
to check in on her client, and Patino told
her Reyos was in the hospital. They’d
found him passed out in his room with a
potentially lethal blood alcohol level of
.35 percent. He was released a few days
later and returned to his room.
A week after that, and just a week
before the hearing, as Clayton and her
law school students were preparing in
earnest at her office, in Lubbock, the
lawyer got a call from Reyos. The team
was working around a large table cov-
ered with binders and legal documents.
Clayton laid the phone on the table and
put Reyos on speaker as Esquenazi
filmed. 11 was nine in the morning, and
it quickly became clear that Reyos was
drunk. Clayton begged Reyos to go into
rehab. “I’m worried you’re going to kill
yourself,” she implored. “I’m worried
that you’re spiraling.”
“I’m spiraling up, not down,” he re-
sponded. “I’ll be okay.”
A minute later he confessed, “The
reason for all this: what happened to me
by Father Ryan is still fresh in my mind.
Like it happened yesterday.”
Esquenazi couldn’t believe what she
was hearing. “James’s shame cuts so
deep,” she told me later. Esquenazi,
a gay woman from Houston who also
grew up in the closet, often found her-
self tearing up as she filmed Reyos. “His
story is one of the most painful tales of
internalized homophobia, shame, and
guilt I’ve ever seen.”
Esquenazi drove Reyos to Odessa for
his hearing. On March 24, wearingjeans
and a bright red sweatshirt, he walked
into the courthouse, just a mile from
the motel room where Ryan was mur-
dered. Everyone in the building was
buzzing about the proceedings, from
secretaries to security guards. Every-
where Reyos walked, he was hailed by
spectators. “How are you feeling?” one
asked. “God bless you,” said another.
He was escorted by Clayton’s young,
earnest law students. “This is the best
day of my life,” one of them told me.
The courtroom looked as if it hadn’t
changed in decades: white walls, brown
paneling, portraits of judges from years
gone by. Three dozen spectators settled
onto the benches. At the defense table,
Reyos sat between Clayton and Mike
Ware, the executive director ofthe Inno-
cence Project of Texas. The judge, Denn
Whalen, was in law school when Ryan
was killed in 1981. A Republican district
court judge in a conservative, law-and-
ordercounty,heseemedmovedby Reyos
and his case, saying at one point, “I’m not
aware of any hearing like this ever taking
place in Ector County before.”
Clayton questioned each of the wit-
nesses, and they were unanimous in
their opinions. “I don’t believe he com-
mitted this crime,” said the police chief,
Gerke. “My professional opinion in the
case of Mr. Reyos is that he was wrong-
fully convicted,” said Smith, the Odessa
police sergeant. “I see no evidence that
he had anything to do with the murder,”
said former Texas Ranger Brian Bur-
ney, who had been asked by the district
attorney to review the case file.
John Smith, one of Reyos’s origi-
nal trial attorneys, who had gone on
to serve as the Ector County district
attorney for thirteen years and then
as a district judge, spoke about how,
even back in 1983, he believed Reyos
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was innocent. But he and his partner
knew they would have trouble winning
the case because of Reyos’s sexuality.
“In 1983 people looked at homosexu-
ality with a veryj aundiced eye,” Smith
said. “It was considered abad thing to
be gay.” The verdict still troubled him.
“It’s haunted me for forty years.”
Another witness distraught by how
the state treated Reyos was Sterken,
the woman who was flashed in Austin in
2008. When asked why she had traveled
450 miles from Tyler to testify, she told
the courtroom, “I felt a lot of guilt for
not speaking up more loudly. I feel like
he’s been wrongly treatedby the justice
system. I want to help right the wrong.”
I t’s almost impossible to prove, i n le-
gal terms, that an ex-inmate is actually
innocent. The Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals, the state’s highest criminal tri -
bunal, has described it as a “Herculean
task” But the strength of Reyos’s case
became even clearer when Smith and
Cannady walked the judge through the
newfingerprint evidence. On a giant TV,
they showed photos and mug shots of
the three men. Bobby Collins, a stocky
former Marine, had left abloody thumb-
print on the showerhead. A bloody fin-
gerprint from Charles Burkart, a tall,
dark-haired 22-year-old, was found on
the door. Gary Ehrman, a long-haired
drifter, had left a print on a plastic cup
found behind the broken bed.
It turned out that both Collins and
Burkart had lived in Odessa in 1981 and
that Ehrman, originally from Ohio, had
checked into the Sand and Sage with an-
other three guests—an hour after Ryan
did. Collins had a record as a violent
criminal, and Smith testified that he
had talked to one of Collins’s sisters and
his daughter, both ofwhom told the ser-
geant how ruthless Collins was after re-
turning from a tour in Vietnam. When
Smith told Collins’s daughter about the
suspicion that her father might have
killed a priest, Smith said she told him
she wasn’t surprised, adding that he had
spent time running drugs in Mexico. “I
know he’s killed more people than what
he killed in Vietnam,” Smith recounted
her saying.
In most actual-innocence hear-
ings, the DA and the defense lawyers
are locked in battle, with the prosecu-
tors refusing to admit that their office
might have made a mistake. The Odes-
sa hearing was different; the two sides
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FASHION’S FIGHT
were working together to exonerate
Reyos. Throughout the hearing, Bar-
ber asked questions that strengthened
Reyos’s case. "Everything,” he conclud-
ed, “comes back to this: We can’t find a
single thing that points to James Reyos.
If this came to us now, we’d look at three
suspects and not Mr. Reyos. It’s our belief
that Mr. Reyos didn’t commit this crime,
and we ask the court to exonerate him.”
Clayton eloquently summed up the
case. “Father Ryan suffered a horren-
dous death at the hands of violent, en-
raged people,” she said. “They com-
pletely destroyed a motel room and
left their fingerprints behind. We don’t
knowexactly what happened that night,
but the objective evidence proves it
couldn’t have been James Reyos. At this
point not a single person thinks James
Reyos is guilty. He has been suffering
for the last forty years.” The courtroom
went silent. “He’s a man who’s kind,
timid, and didn’t deserve this. We plead
that the court would finally bring him
some degree of justice and recommend
that his conviction be overturned.”
Whalen thanked everyone for testi-
fying, saying that “it gives the court a
lot to chew on.” The judge will at some
point make an official recommendation
to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which
has the final say on whether Reyos will
be exonerated. The high court has a
reputation for taking its time, some-
times years, even in obvious cases like
this one.
After the Odessa hearing, Reyos did a
series of interviews with reporters and
held a press conference. He was closer
than ever to vindication, yet he sounded
exhausted, speaking even more quietly
than usual. He recalled how this build-
ing was the last place he had seen his
father, back in 1983. The eighty-year-
old had attended the trial every day and
would sometimes come up behind his
son at the defense table and place his
hand on his shoulder, a show of silent
yet resolute support.
Reyos’s father died a year later, and
Reyos wasn’t allowed to attend the fu-
neral. Reyos could still picture him slow-
ly walking away down the courthouse
hallway, using a cane, after the two were
allowed a final goodbye. Hegot tears in
his eyes thinking about that—and all the
other things he’d lost.
Clayton told Reyos that while the legal
process ran its course, she could pos-
sibly arrange for him to get released
from his parole restrictions so he could
go home to New Mexico. He told her
he would rather wait. “I’m not going
to leave Texas until I’m officially con-
sidered actually innocent,” he said. “I
don’t want to leave Texas until I know
I don’t have to come back.”
He returned to his small Austin
room, hoping for long-overdue abso-
lution from the state’s highest criminal
court. But once he got home and closed
the door, he was beset, as he has always
been, by demons. On the night of May 5
he hopped on a bus and headed down-
town, hitting several bars, staying in
at least one of them after hours. By the
time he started for home, he was wob-
bling so badly that he was arrested for
public intoxication. His lawyers got the
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charge, a misdemeanor, dismissed. But
because Reyos had racked up several
other parole violations over the past
decade, he was held for a parole-revo-
cation hearing.
At the hearing, held in Austin shortly
before this article went to press, Clay-
ton made the case that Reyos deserved
to go free: he was as good as exonerated,
so the state shouldn’t send him to pris-
on for violating parole for a murder he
didn’t commit. Afterward, Clayton was
optimistic, but she knew there was still
a chance Reyos would get sent back to
prison while he awaits news from the
Court of Criminal Appeals.
Ever since his May arrest, Reyos
has been living at the Travis County
Correctional Complex. I went to vis-
it him a few times, including the day
after his sixty-seventh birthday. He
was in a wheelchair and moved slowly,
sometimes aided by a guard, and wore
a gray striped uniform. We sat on ei-
ther side of a plexiglass window, and
he told me he was in the chair because
he’d been having dizzy spells when he
had tostand forlongstretches. He’d lost
weigh t but said he wasn’t experiencing
alcohol-withdrawal symptoms. Consid-
ering all that he had been through, he
seemed in good spirits. From the first
time I’d met him, Reyos had impressed
me with the placid way he dealt with
the world, battling the forces both in-
side and outside of him. He was ready,
he said, for whatever happened next.
“I’m not depressed or pessimistic,” he
insisted. “I’m optimistic.”
He was still determined to clear his
name, and he still dreamed of going
home to the mountains of northern
New Mexico. He hasn’t seen his broth-
ers in decades, and he wants to visit the
graves of his mother and father and his
two siblings who died while he was in
prison. For years he’s subscribed to the
Jicarilla Chieftain, a twice-monthly
newspaper that covers Dulce and the
reservation. He’d read about elderly
members of the tribe living in a re-
tirement community. He thought he
might find a place there too. Maybe,
he told me, he could even work in the
local supermarket, sweeping, mop-
ping, helping people carry groceries
to their cars.
It’s a sweet, humble vision, and like
so many of Reyos’s dreams, it remains
just out of reach.
162 TEXAS MONTHLY
PROMOTION
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IN TEXAS
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Enjoy the fall season with a visit
to the Beeville Art Museum (BAM).
Located in South Texas, the museum is
an easy drive from Austin, San Antonio,
Victoria, Corpus Christi, and Houston,
and a perfect family road trip. Admis-
sion and activities are always free.
Housed in a graceful Victorian-style
house built in 1910, BAM is home to one
of the most ambitious art and educa-
tional programs in Texas. The museum
features rotating exhibits from a variety
of established and cutting-edge Texas
artists and mediums. Upcoming artist
exhibitions include: Orna Feinstein,
Lorena Morales, Annie Uhr, Tiffany
Heng-Hui Lee, and Kingsley Onyeiwu.
Children can enjoy BAM Kids Art
Space, featuring an on-site themed
art project inspired by a book, and
use their powers of observation with
a museum scavenger hunt. Do-
cent-led tours are also available upon
request. The museum is surrounded
by a public park featuring several
sculptures that is perfect for enjoy-
ing a break, stroll, or picnic lunch.
BAM, created in 2000 by the Joe
Barnhart Foundation, is dedicated pro-
viding educational programs and activ-
ities that stimulate the imaginations of
young people throughout Bee County.
BAMTexas.org
THE HOUSTON
MUSEUM OF
NATURAL SCIENCE
One of the most popular and revered
science museums in the U.S., the
Houston Museum of Natural Science
at Hermann Park has five floors of per-
manent exhibits, spanning astronomy,
anthropology, medical science. Native
American culture. Ancient Egyptian
culture, paleontology, the energy sector,
gems and minerals, and Texas’s beautiful
wildlife and scenery, alongside a slew of
rotating world-class, special exhibitions.
The ongoing mission of HMNS is
to preserve and advance the general
knowledge of natural science, and to
inspire all who walk through its doors to
explore the world around them. HMNS
also houses three other venues: the
historic Burke Baker Planetarium, the
Wortham Giant Screen Theatre, and
the Cockrell Butterfly Center, a must-
see destination for butterfly lovers.
HMNS.org
PORT ARANSAS
Its no secret that Port Aransas is
the True Texas Coast. Texans have
made the trip to the seemingly
endless beaches and quiet fishing
bays for generations. But the secret
www.artmuseumofsouthtexas.org

FALL TRAVEL
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to planning the best trip to Port Aransas
is...timing. Port Aransas is Texas’s favorite
summer spot, but autumn takes everything
you love about Port A and perfects it.
With the ebb and flow of summer visitors
long since faded, the coast is left open for
fall visitors who prefer a quieter beach expe-
rience. The cooler autumn weather invites
couples to take long walks along the beach,
birdwatchers to capture world renowned
migrations, kayakers to paddle through calm
waters, and cyclists to ride miles of trails.
As the water cools, redfish, trout, and
flounder come into season, making a fishing
trip to Port A special, even for the most
seasoned fishermen. With jetties and charter
boats at your disposal, you’re almost assured
to come home with the catch of a lifetime.
Autumn reveals Port Aransas’s true self.
It’s a place where busybodies find solitude,
serious fishermen chase their dreams,
and outdoor enthusiasts hear nature’s
whisper. It’s time you find your escape,
its time to make your way to Port A.
VisitPortAransas.com
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND
South Padre Island was once again
named the Texas’s Destination of the Year
by the Texas Travel Awards. Winning a total
of six awards, including best beach, best
views, and outdoor activities, South Padre
Island is the perfect tropical retreat for
families, with 34 miles of coastline, 300 days
of sunshine, and all forms of entertainment.
For nature lovers. South Padre Island
has two major eco-centers where you
can learn all about the fauna and flora of
the region. Sea Turtle Inc. is a non-profit
organization whose mission is education,
conservation, and rehabilitating sea turtles.
Here, visitors can learn about their history,
what to do if they encounter a sea turtle,
and meet their permanent residents. The
South Padre Island Birding, Nature Center
& Alligator Sanctuary has more than 3,300
feet of boardwalk, five bird blinds, and a
viewing tower. Kids can spot birds unique
to our region and learn about the cutest
couple on SPI: Big Padre and Lady Laguna.
their permanent resident alligators.
South Padre Island is the sandcastle
capital of the world. SPI is home to many
sand masters ready to teach you the
science behind sandcastle building.
The waters around South Padre Island
are wonderful to fish any time of the year,
but summer is when they shine bright
like the Texas sun. From wahoo and tuna
to tarpon and snapper, you can reel in
your limit of giant fish and great times.
You’ll find no shortage of knowledgeable
captains ready to show you their secret
spots and put you in schools of fish. Even
better, once you’ve filled your cooler, tons
of local chefs are ready to take your day’s
catch and turn it into a truly memorable
meal. It’s a signature South Padre Island
experience and one not to be missed.
SoPadrexom
Hilt COUNTRY
HEATH FAMIlV BRANDS
Heath Family Brands is your Napa
next door. These family-owned winer-
ies and vineyard estates offer the best
Hill Country vineyard views paired with
excellent, award-winning wines. Along
Highway 290, Grape Creek Vineyards
and Heath Sparkling Wines make up one
25-acre vineyard estate with a full produc-
tion winery and beautiful tasting rooms.
Experience a guided tasting in the Tuscan
inspired tasting rooms at Grape Creek or
enjoy distinctive sparkling wines paired with
seasonal small bites in the clean, modern
architecture at Heath Sparkling, Texas’s first
winery dedicated to the art of fine sparkling
winemaking. Members can also dine by the
vines at the full-service restaurant, savoring
vibrant, fresh, and comforting wine country
cuisine and an extensive list of wines. While
strolling along Fredericksburg’s Main Street,
visit their urban tasting room and sample
90+ point wines across their family brands
including the ultra-premium Jenblossom
Cellars collection. Located just five minutes
from Main Street along Highway 16, you’ll
find 35 acres of working vineyards and a
stunning winery at Invention Vineyards.
Experience Invention’s full production winery
tour and wine tasting and enjoy covered
170 TEXAS MONTHLY
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FALL IN LOVE ON
ALABAMA'S BEACHES
Escape to paradise on Alabama’s Gulf Coast and enjoy
turquoise waters, breathtaking views, and 32 miles of sugar-
white sand beaches.
The mild temperatures and comfortable breezes of
fall make it the ideal time to explore the natural wonders of Gulf
Shores and Orange Beach. Long walks on the beach, captivating
kayak excursions, and stunning sunset cruises are just a few ways to
experience the area.
Whether you prefer activities with a bit of excitement or
endeavors that provide relaxation, you’re sure to find a special way
to make new memories.
With fewer crowds and lower rates, a beach trip is just what you
need to unwind and reconnect this season. Book your getaway and
fall in love all over again on Alabama’s beaches.
Kayaking in Gulf Shores.
GulfShores.com
OrangeBeach.com
Surrounded by water.
GET YOUR FREE VACATION GUIDE ЦЦ
Escape to Alabama's 32-mile island and experience
a vacation like no other. Relax on sugar-white sand
beaches, indulge in our coastal cuisine and reconnect
with the one you love, all in one unforgettable place.
GULF SHORES &
ORANGE BEACH
TOURISM
Alabama's White-Sand Beaches
GulfShores.com . OrangeBeach.com . 877-341-2400
TEXAS MONTHLY 171
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A В OVE | Vineyard views at Heath Sparkling, Texas's first winery dedicated to the art of spa riding winemaking.
patios overlooking the vast vineyard
estate. When looking for the ultimate
wine destination, don’t compromise.
HeathFamilyBrands.com
KERRVILLE
Experience the fall season in the
Texas Hill Country when you take
a trip to Kerrville, Texas. Known for
its scenic beauty, artistic attractions,
and world-class shopping and dining
options, visitors can craft their own
unique adventure this fall in Kerrville.
Begin your getaway by taking in
the sights of trees displaying their
fall foliage on the Guadalupe River.
Kerrville is home to the headwaters of
this favorite Texas river where visitors
can enjoy paddleboarding, fishing,
and kayaking. Continue the outdoor
fun with a bike ride along the Kerrville
River Trail, a six-mile trail that weaves
its way through the heart of downtown.
Kerrville’s bustling art scene is also one
of the unique draws to the city. Check
out 28 area art installations on the
Public Art Trail and then feel inspired
as you roam the Museum of Western
Art and Kerr Arts & Cultural Center.
After working up an appetite, take a
bite out of the Kerrville culinary scene.
Dine on handcrafted artisan dishes riv-
erside and stop by Kerrville Hills Winery
for an afternoon of winetasting. Com-
memorate your visit by shopping for
the perfect souvenir or custom home
decor item at Kerrville’s many down-
town shops, like Schreiner Goods. It’s all
found in beautifully crafted Kerrville.
KerrvilleTexasCVB.com
LACANTERA
RESORT 8 SPA
Escape to La Cantera Resort & Spa
and immerse yourself in the scenic
beauty as you witness the mesmerizing
Texas Hill Country fall foliage in all its
glory, just a stones throw away from
the San Antonio resort. Experience the
ultimate luxury hideaway at the resort’s
enchanting Villas, featuring relaxing
hillside landscapes, exclusive amenities,
and a serene oasis that offer a residen-
tially inspired retreat. Unwind by one of
the five sparkling pools, each offering a
distinct experience suited for couples,
friends, or families. Epicurean delights
await at Signature, their chef-driven
dining destination using locally-sourced
ingredients to elevate your culinary ex-
perience. At nightfall, admire the magic
of the Texas Starry Nights at Plaza San
Saba, creating a mesmerizing ambiance
for unforgettable evenings. For those
seeking unparalleled relaxation, experi-
ence the award-winning Loma de Vida
Spa & Wellness, where cutting-edge
OTO CBD treatments reward a luxuri-
ous wellness journey towards re-balanc-
ing the mind, body, and skin. Discover
nearby wine spots to immerse yourself
in the beloved Texas Hill Country wine
region or hop on their daily resort shut-
172 TEXAS MONTHLY
NOW OPEN
HOUSTON MUSEUM I For tickets & information, visit
of NATURAL SCIENCE I HMNS.org or call 713-639-4629
King Tut's Tomb Discovery Experience is generously supported by
Woodforest National Bank | John P. McGovern Foundation | Harriet and Truett Latimer Endowment Fund | HMW Entertainment
FALL TRAVEL
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ABO VE LEFT | Enjoy thrilling attractions, delicious dining, and premium shopping (luring a fall getaway in Round Rock.
А В 0 VE RIG H11 From museums and murals to theaters and festivals, art and culture abound in Kerrville.
tie to The Shops at La Cantera for a day of
exploration. Create cherished memories at
La Cantera Resort & Spa, where the perfect
blend of relaxation and adventure awaits!
LaCan teraResort.com
OMNI BARTON CREEK
RESORT 8 SPA
The most memorable, indulgent, and
restorative experiences are already in your
backyard. Nestled within 4,000 wooded
acres of picturesque rolling hills on the
edge of Austin—surrounded by pristine
vineyards, nature preserves, hiking trails,
and waterways—Omni Barton Creek
Resort & Spa curates an elevated expe-
rience of the Texas Hill Country where
style, craftsmanship, and imagination come
together in an experience as magnificent
as Austins Hill Country. Savor the luxu-
ries of the Texas Hill Country with a stay
at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa.
OmniHotels.com/bartoncreek
ROUND ROCK
Fall in love with Round Rock this fall
season when you embark on a getaway. Not
only has Round Rock been named one of
the top places to live, but it is also one of the
top destinations to visit in Texas.
Round Rock is home to Americas Largest
Indoor Waterpark at Kalahari Resorts &
Conventions, so slip on your suit and get
ready for some water fun. Grab a tube and
ride down one of the 30 waterslides, and
try the wave simulator, wave pool, and a
newly expanded outdoor waterpark area.
Continue the fun at Tom Foolerys, Kalahari’s
80.000-square-foot adventure park.
Next, grab a pumpkin spice latte and
head to Old Settlers Park to see trees
displaying their fall colors. A local favorite,
this park has everything from 3.3 miles of
trails and a lake stocked with fish, to 12 tennis
courts and seven playgrounds. Later you can
get your game on at Home Run Dugout, a
virtual batting cage experience, located at
Dell Diamond stadium.
Don’t forget to shop around at the Round
Rock Premium Outlets before you head
174 TEXAS MONTHLY

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AB OVE | Omni Barton Creek Resort and the Fazio Foothills 18-Hole Coif Course.
Recharging in nature is our specialty.
30* miles of hiking/biking trails
Canoeing, kayaking, paddleboarding
Fishing, rock-climbing, camping
MINERALWELLS
WHERE TEXAS RUNS DEEP.
home to snag a souvenir. When you
need to refuel, try cuisine from around
the world when you explore Round
Rocks diverse dining scene.
Go Round Rock for your next
vacation!
GoRoundRock.com
SAN ANTONIO
Experience the allure of fall in San
Antonio, where unique attractions
and exciting celebrations await. From
cultural festivals to diverse cuisine and
outdoor adventures, immerse yourself
in Real & True San Antonio and create
unforgettable memories this season.
During fall, the abundance of cultural
and culinary festivals fills the city with
festive and colorful celebrations.
Cheers—or should we say “Prost!”—to
Oktoberfest, commemorate some
of the largest Di'a de los Muertos
celebrations, get lively at DiwaliSA’s
15th anniversary, and more. Then
explore our culinary scene at the Tasting
Texas Wine + Food Festival, which
allows visitors to savor an array of local
specialties and international flavors.
On October 14, San Antonio is
treated to a rare celestial spectacle:
an annular eclipse. Experience this
stunning event, as the moon passes
between Earth and the Sun, creating
a mesmerizing ring of fire in the sky.
For adventure-seekers, the new-
ly opened Hidden Wonders Tour
Experience at Natural Bridge Caverns
takes visitors through underground
caves and a 5,700-square-foot ballroom
chamber. This fall, join in vibrant
festivities and outdoor adventures,
savor the diverse culinary delights,
and marvel at the wonders of nature.
San Antonio invites you to take part in
exciting and enchanting experiences.
VisitSanAntonio.com
PANHANDLE PLAINS
ABILENE
Abilene represents the frontier
spirit with its rich Western heritage
and authentic cultural experiences. Its
storied past gives rise to a charming and
flourishing historic Downtown Cultural
District with inspiring and educational
museums, urban parks, and a public art
scene featuring an unrivaled collection
of storybook sculpture, giving Abilene
the distinction of being the Storybook
Capital of America®. Created by the
T&P Railway and established in 1881,
Abilene is the hub of activity in West
Texas. With three private universi-
ties, an Air Force base, and a major
downtown revitalization underway,
Abilene is a community that celebrates
its history while embracing innovation
and exploring new frontiers. History
comes full circle as Hilton returns to
downtown Abilene, where Conrad
Hilton leased one of the first hotels
www.VisitMineralWells.com
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REAL CULTURE. TRUE TRADITIONS.
San Antonio in the fall is filled with unlpi’gettable cultural celebrations that are
rooted in the authentic foundations of the city and baked into everything we d$.
In addition t o Diwali, Okt oberfest, and	other events. San Antonio is homh-
to the largest Dia de Muertos celebration in the country as well as the Tasting
Texas Food + Wine Festival, the first-ever statewide culinary festival to parther
with the James Beard Foundation.
Learn more about how we celebrate the diversity of cultures that call
San Antonio home at visitsanantonio.com.

₽ •'
What started as a refreshing drink in a country club many
summers ago can now be found all around the Hub City.
Who knew a shot of vodka, a squeeze of lemon and a spritz
of soda water would one day become an iconic Lubbock
libation? From crisp cucumber to ruby grapefruit and every
rendition in between, taste your way around the city one sip
at a time with our cocktail pass! Scan the QR code to plan
your first stop on Lubbock's Chilton Trail.
yfisit
LUBBSCK 0OOQO
ttLIVELOVELUBBOCK
VISITLUBBOCK.ORG

FALL TRAVEL
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ABOVE | Enjoys seasonal brew, live music, and epic food track eats on the Iwo Doc's patio.
in the world to bear his name. The new
2OO-suite Doubletree Hotel & Conference
Center offers the first-class hospitality and
well-appointed accommodations travelers
have come to expect and deserve. Escape
the ordinary and experience the authentic
charm of Abilene. The city is brimming
with rich heritage, cultural events, and
Texas traditions. Whether you’re looking for
enriching adventures or a relaxing get-
away. Abilene is the ultimate destination.
AbileneVisitors.com
LUBBOCK
Embrace the charm of fall in Lubbock
this year. From seasonal sips to farm-to-fork
favorites and every memorable activity
in between, plan a weekend trip out west
and surround yourself with autumn skies
that stretch across the wide-open plains.
Start the weekend with a trip to Two
Docs Brewing Co. and enjoy the fall weather
with a sip served on the pup-friendly
patio. With year-round. Lubbock-inspired
choices like the Prairie Dog Porter and
festive beverages like the Pumpkin Ale,
add this brewpub to your itinerary.
Nothing says West Texas like a hat bar!
While you’re in town, stop by to custom-
ize this wearable souvenir. From picking
your hat to branding it and adding on as
many accessories as your heart desires,
the Hatristas will guide you through the
creative process until you’re left with a
product you can’t wait to add to your closet.
A farm-to-table favorite of locals and
visitors alike. The Fresh American puts a
Texas-inspired twist on west coast cui-
sine. Open for lunch and dinner with the
option to reserve the chef’s table, this
restaurant offers handcrafted cocktails
and a fine-dining experience fit for fall.
Ready to fall in love with Lubbock?
Plan your weekend stay today.
VisitLubbock.org
LUBBOCK MUNICIPAL
MUSEUMS
Here in Lubbock, we have two amazing
museums that showcase the City’s unique
180 TEXAS MONTHLY
expanded
HORIZONS come
endless possibilities.
Austin’s luxury resort, Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa
curates an elevated experience, sure to create unforgettable
memories for all ages. Nestled amidst rolling hills and
picturesque landscapes, our resort offers an oasis of
tranquility and relaxation. Located just 10 miles from
downtown Austin, your perfect fall retreat awaits.
OMNI
BARTON CREEK
OMNIHOTELS.COM/BARTONCREEK
FALL TRAVEL
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ABOVE) Visit the San Angele Symphony for an evening
of incredible music.
history: The Buddy Holly Center and Silent
Wings Museum. The Buddy Holly Center
preserves and promotes the legacy of
Buddy Holly and the music of West Texas,
as well as provides exhibitions on Con-
temporary Visual Arts and Music, for the
purpose of educating and entertaining the
public. Exhibitions, tours, concerts, classes,
and gallery talks are designed to cultivate
an atmosphere where art and music are cel-
ebrated, The Buddy Holly Gallery features
a permanent exhibit on the life and music
of the Lubbock native and West Texas icon.
Artifacts include Buddy’s Fender Stratocast-
er guitar and famed horn-rimmed glasses,
along with items from his youth and career.
The Silent Wings Museum is locat-
ed in Lubbock, adjacent to the Preston
Smith International Airport. Its the only
museum in the world dedicated solely to
preserving the history of the WWII military
glider program. The museum is home
to one of the few accurately and com-
SAN ANGELO SYMPHONY
2023-2024
FIESTA AT THE MURPHEY
GERSHWIN, ROSSNI, 8 THE FRANK
OCTOBER 7. 2023 I 7 PM
THE MURPHEY PERFORMANCE HALL
FEATURING SOFIA ROS. ACCORDION
SORANTINGOLD
NOVEMBER 4.2023 I 7 PM
THE MURPHEY PERFORMANCE HALL
SPECIAL GUEST. SORANTIN WINNER
MIKHAIL BERESTNEV. PIANO^
FEATURING CONCERTMASTER FAGNER
ROCHA. VIOLIN. EMILEE HALL-ROCHA,
VIOLIN. JOHN IRISH. TRUMPET. AND
JANELLE OTT. BASSOON
VIGNOLA TRIO
JANUARY 27.2024 I 7 PM
THE MURPHEY PERFORMANCE
HALL
FEATURING FRANK VIGNOLA.
GUITAR. VINNY RANIOLO. GUITAR,
AND GARY MAZZAROPPI. BASS
SPECIAL NARRATION BY RICK
MANT00TH
FIRST FINANCIAL BANK
FAMILY POPS CONCERT
MARCH 23. 2024 I 7:30 PM
ASU JUNELL CENTER
A HOMETOWN HOLIDAY
DECEMBER 3 2023 I 7 PM
THE MURPHEY PERFORMANCE HALL
THE SYMPHONY CHORUS FEATURING
MEMBERS FROM ANGELO STATE
UNIVERSITY, CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL.
CORNERSTON CHRISTIAN SCHOOL.
LAKE VIEW HIGH SCHOOL. AND THE
SAN ANGELO CHORUS
FEATURING CIRQUE DE LA
SYMPHONIE
P 0 BOX 5922 I 325.658.5877
SANANGELOSYMPHONY ORG
pletely restored CG-4A gliders left in the
world. The exhibits focus on the airborne
operations in which gliders were used,
the training of the glider pilots, and the
technical history of the gliders themselves.
The Buddy Holly Center and Silent
Wings Museum are open Tuesday through
Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and on
Sundays from 1pm to 5pm. Visitors are
invited to call or look online for admission
prices, special events, and holiday hours.
BuddyHollyCenter.org
SilentWingsMuseum.com
MINERALWELLS
Escape to Mineral Wells, the Wellness
Capital of Texas! Discover the power of na-
ture as you recharge amidst our three state
parks, four serene lakes, and the majestic
Brazos River. With more than 50 miles of
enchanting hiking and biking trails, immerse
yourself in the beauty that surrounds you.
For a slower pace, unwind amidst the
beauty of our gardens adorned with
soothing water features and tranquil
walkways. Lose yourself in tranquility
as you wander through labyrinths and
soothing water features. Pop in for
rooftop yoga with breathtaking views of
downtown and the iconic Baker Hotel.
Or take a leisurely drive through roll-
ing hills and picturesque landscapes.
For the more adventurous, find your
way along our mountain bike trails,
or try your hand at the only natural
rock-climbing area in North Texas.
To complete your wellness experience,
embrace the healing properties of Crazy
Water. This natural mineral water, revered
since the late 18OOs, has been making
visitors feel revitalized for generations. Sip it,
soak in it, or savor it in a variety of bever-
ages crafted from its restorative essence.
Come, experience the ultimate well-
ness retreat in natures embrace.
VisitMineraiWells.org
SAN ANGELO
This fall, discover San Angelo, a
hidden gem in the heart of West Texas
offering a unique blend of history, cul-
182 TEXAS MONTHLY
TRADITIONS
ANCHOR HERE
VISIT THE TRUE
TEXAS COAST
Ono visit and yon II soe why
generations of Texans have anchored
thoir favorite traditions in Port
Ai an ci > VisitPortAransas.com
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PORT ARANSAS
—	the island life
FALL TRAVEL
ABOVE) Channel Gardens at Clark Gardens Botanical Park in Mineral Wells.
ture, and natural beauty. With its stun-
ning Concho River Walk flowing right
through the vibrant downtown, and the
rich cowboy heritage, San Angelo is the
perfect destination for anyone seek-
ing an authentic Texas experience.
Fall is the perfect time to explore San An-
gelo, with a range of events and festivals to
enjoy. Just to name a few upcoming events,
the San Angelo REVOLUTION Film Fes-
tival, a unique celebration of independent
films, is definitely worth a visit. It features
thought-provoking independent films that
embrace diverse cultures and perspec-
tives. The city’s vibrant Dia de los Muertos
Celebration is also a must-see event, where
visitors can enjoy live music, art exhibitions,
and experience traditional activities around
the community. Art lovers can indulge in the
100th celebration of EnPleinAir TEXAS.
This is another fantastic event that draws
artists from all over the world to create
stunning art on-site at local landmarks.
With so much to see and experience, fall
is an exciting time to visit San Angelo.
DiscoverSanAngeloxom
SAN ANGELO
SYMPHONY
The San Angelo Symphony offers a con-
cert season packed with programming for
every musical taste, world-class guest artists,
and talented, professional musicians creating
an experience like no other. Celebrating 74
years of live performances, we invite you to
join us for an anything but ordinary season
of musical experiences. The San Angelo
Symphony proudly presents performances
that offer a unique balance between the
masterpieces from composers such as Bach
and Tchaikovsky and exciting performances
by the Frank Vignola Trio and Cirque de
la Symphonie—one-of-a-kind orchestral
entertainment perfect for the whole family.
The San Angelo Symphony’s Season
Ticket and Patron Memberships are avail-
able for purchase over the phone or in the
office. For more information, please visit our
website or call the Symphony’s office at 325-
658-5877. We hope to see YOU in the Mur-
phey Performance Hall for a night of incredi-
ble music by the San Angelo Symphony!
SanAngeloSymphony.org
PINEYWOODS
SHENANDOAH
Conveniently situated on 1-45, adjacent
to Conroe, Spring, and The Woodlands.
Shenandoah provides a great value for
those looking for a place to stay in the North
Houston area. It also has a lot to offer for
a city of its size—home to five shopping
centers, several family-friendly entertain-
ment venues, nearly sixty restaurants, and 12
quality hotels (including new Aloft, EVEN,
and Hyatt House hotels that opened in
2021), Shenandoah's great amenities provide
visitors with a variety of options when
considering things to see and do, whether
you’re looking for an afternoon excursion,
weekend getaway, or extended stay.
In Shenandoah, shopping choices
abound, and foodies will appreciate the
breadth of the city’s dining scene. Restau-
rateurs provide a variety of cuisines, dining
experiences, and price points, whether you’re
looking for something quick and casual, or
a more sophisticated, fine dining adventure
you might enjoy at Killen’s Steakhouse, with
two-time, James Beard semifinalist, Ronnie
Killen. Entertainment options include a
state-of-the-art AMC cineplex, Dave &
Buster’s, Main Event, Pinot’s Palette "paint
and sip” studio, and an Urban Air Trampoline
and Adventure Park. Outdoor enthusiasts
can connect with nature as they explore
the W.G. Jones State Forest or George
Mitchell Nature Preserve, just minutes away.
VisitShenandoahlx.com
PRAIRIES & LAKES
AMON CARTER
MUSEUM OF
AMERICAN ART
The Amon Carter Museum of Ameri-
can Art (the Carter) is centrally located in
184 TEXAS MONTHLY
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Fort Worth’s Cultural District. The Carter
has a rich history in offering events and
exhibitions that provide insight into the past,
present, and future of American creativity.
Experience and understand American
art in new ways by visiting the Carter.
Explore the influences that impacted
the art of Lousie Nevelson in The World
Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury,
on view August 27,2023, through January 7,
2024. The exhibition, included in the Muse
urn’s free admission, illuminates Nevelson’s
multidimensional mastery of form and
dialogue with postwar America and features
more than 50 defining artworks by Nevelson
on view together for the first time. Experi-
ence the site-specific installation by New
York-based artist Leonardo Drew which fills
the Carter’s gallery. And discover new work
created in response to James Prosek’s two
years of travel investigating the allure of Tex-
as’s grasslands, while raising broader ques-
tions about the boundaries that shape, limit,
and define prairie spaces in the present day
in Trespassers: James Prosek and the Texas
Prairie, on view September 16,2023, through
January 28,2024. Plan your visit to the
Carter to experience these exhibitions and
see what events we have planned this fall!
CarterMuseum.org
CEDAR HILL
Family memories and outdoor fun make
Cedar Hill the place to be in the fall. On
September 23 at Valley Ridge Park, we
celebrate Latin American culture with
LatinFest! LatinFest has something for
everyone, a community event that gathers
everyone together for one purpose—to
celebrate the Latin culture. Bring your taste
buds and be a People’s Choice judge of the
Best Hot Sauce of Cedar Hill! There will also
be delicious food vendors, kids’ activities,
music, and entertainment by tribute bands
for Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and Pitbull—you
can dance the night away and there is plenty
of fun for the whole family. On October 14
in Historic Downtown, feel like a local at the
86th Annual Country Day on the Hill with
all-day fun that starts with a parade and in-
cludes vendors, food, activities, and live en-
tertainment on three stages. The fun in Ce-
dar Hill continues with Scare in the Square
in October for safe and friendly trick-or-
treating, and Holiday on the Hill to light the
city Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving
in Historic Downtown for fun memories with
the kids. Make your plan today to join us and
celebrate the holidays—the Cedar Hill way!
VisitCedarHUITx.com
DALLAS
With ideal sunny days in the seventies
and nights made for chilling out, Dallas
thrives in autumn. Stroll through the State
Fair of Texas to the smell of Fletcher’s
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corny dogs and funnel cakes tempting
your taste buds. Take a thrill ride or
kick back with Big Tex himself. Don’t
miss the Dallas Arboretum’s dazzling
seasonal showcase of vivid fall foliage
and creative pumpkin displays. Join
the crowd as fans fill AT&T Stadium
to watch the Cowboys showcase their
grit on the gridiron. And lively sports
bars with lively patios give everyone a
chance to cheer on America’s Team.
From golden sunsets at the Cotton
Bowl to the crunch of leaves under-
foot at the Arboretum, autumn sure
likes to show off here in Dallas.
VisitDallas.com
DENISON
Get ready for an unforgettable
autumn adventure in Denison, Texas!
Located just one hour north of Dallas,
this charming town is packed with ex-
citing activities and attractions that will
make your trip truly memorable.
Start your journey by exploring
downtown Denison, where you’ll find
a delightful blend of historic charm
and modern amenities. Take a stroll
along the picturesque streets lined with
unique shops and boutiques, perfect
for some retail therapy. Don’t miss
out on the chance to experience the
vibrant events happening in downtown
Denison, such as the annual Fall Fest
on Saturday, October 7, or Dia de los
Muertos on November 4—both held
right on Main Street!
History buffs will be delighted
to discover Denison’s rich heritage.
Immerse yourself in the past as you
visit the historic sites like Eisenhower
Birthplace State Historic Site, the Red
River Railroad Museum, or Perrin Air
Force Base Museum.
For nature enthusiasts seeking
outdoor adventures, make sure to visit
Eisenhower State Park on Lake Texoma.
This breathtaking park offers endless
opportunities for hiking, fishing, boating,
and more.
Plan your trip to Denison today
and discover all that this incredible
destination has to offer. From charming
downtown experiences to thrilling out-
door escapades, there’s something for
everyone in this hidden gem of Texas.
DiscoverDenisonxom
THE DOSS HERITAGE 8
CULTURE CENTER
Have you ever wondered what life
was like for pioneers? Wonder no more,
when you come experience the Pioneer
Heritage Festival at the Doss Heritage
and Culture Center. Held annually
on the first Saturday in October, this
festive event offers visitors a unique
opportunity to step back in time and
explore four original log cabins at the
museum, located just 20 miles west
of DFW. Built in the late 1800s, these
cabins offer a glimpse of home life for
many settlers. Dressed interpreters
will greet you and explain the history
of each cabin and bring history to life.
You can also watch spinning, basket
weaving, and black powder musket
demonstrations while listening to live
music in the park and in the museum.
For a more interactive experience, try
your hand at cotton carding, butter
churning, and candle dipping. This fes-
tival is great for all ages and admission
is free. Don’t miss out on this chance to
explore the museum and the cabin park
in all its glory. Make it a weekend and
visit one of the oldest open-air markets
in Texas, First Monday Trade Days,
located minutes from the museum.
DossCenter.org
GRAPEVINE
As summer fades and the leaves start
to change. Grapevine invites visitors to
experience a memorable fall getaway.
One of the highlights of the
season is the largest wine festival
in the Southwest.GrapeFest*—A
Texas Wine Experience, presented
by Bank of the West, features more
than 150 wines, live music, delicious
food, and great shopping. This event
is a must-visit for wine enthusiasts.
For those who prefer a more leisurely
L you
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OLD TOWN
LEWISVILLE
Enjoy an amazing blend of
DINING, SHOPPING, ENTERTAINMENT,
AND CULTURAL EXPERIENCES.
Blacka/I Photography
(a)otlewisville
Experience the excitement of attending
free festivals year-round, browsing the
local vendor market on First Fridays, and
immersing yourself in the vibrant live
music scene across the city. The Lewisville
Grand Theater hosts captivating live
stage performances, music events, and
thoughtfully curated art galleries.
Come explore over 20 incredible works
of public art throughout the area.
Old Town Lewisville will captivate you
with specialty merchants, delectable food
and beverage options, and charming
local experiences.
Epjoy exploring the heart of
Lewisville, Texas!
oldtownlewisville.com
FALL TRAVEL
А В О V E | Big Tex gazes out towards Dal las from the State Fair ot Texas.
experience. Grapevines Urban Wine Trail
offers a unique opportunity to explore the
city’s vibrant wine scene. With multiple
tasting rooms all within walking distance,
visitors can enjoy a self-guided tour.
The charming and Historic Main Street
also offers unique culinary experiences and
the sounds of live entertainment fill the air
many nights of the week. Catch fantastic
tribute artists Friday nights throughout the
season at Grapevine Main Station’s Peace
Plaza, then go inside Harvest Hall's Third
Rail to dance and sing along with DJs
Dueling Pianos and Live Band Karaoke.
Don’t miss out on the incredible expe-
riences Grapevine has to offer, including
fabulous accommodations from a full range
of hotels and resorts such as Hilton DFW
Lakes and the Gaylord Texan Resort.
GrapevineTexasUSA.com
LEWISVILLE
Immerse yourself in the enchanting
nostalgia of Old Town Lewisville, where
authentic historic buildings from the
turn of the last century set the stage for
a captivating blend of dining, shopping,
entertainment, and cultural experiences.
Kickstart your day with a steaming cup
of coffee from the Perc Coffeehouse as
you leisurely wander amidst the charming
local shops like Main Street Mercantile,
Odin Leather Goods, or Flourish Flowers
and Gifts. Take your time as you experi-
ence the inviting atmosphere and satisfy
your cravings with a delectable meal
along the way from well-known Sullivan’s
Barbecue, new Italian restaurant D’Nonna,
stylish Bendt Distilling Co., and more.
Elevate your cultural journey with live
stage and music performances at Lew-
isville Grand Theater, engaging events,
enriching classes, and a curated art gallery
that will inspire and ignite your creative
passion. Be captivated by the vibrant
tapestry of creativity woven by artistic
experienced and skilled artisans, includ-
ing more than 20 works of public art.
Uncover the allure of an urban oasis in
captivating Old Town Lewisville, where
custom homes and stylish apartments
seamlessly blend with specialty mer-
chants, comforting food and beverage
options, and heartwarming local expe-
riences. There are unique options for
every palate. Plan your visit today!
OldTownLewisvillexom
LOCKHART
Come for the barbecue and antiques
but stick around for the history and “small
town” hospitality that our community has
to offer. Stroll around our historic down-
town square to visit our unique shops and
restaurants, eat some of our world-famous
barbecue, and stay the night at one of
our friendly hotels or historic B&Bs.
On November 4 and 5. Texas Monthly
BBQ Festival will take place in our historic
downtown square and expansive city park.
The free and open-to-the-public Worlds
Fair of BBQ on Saturday will feature eclectic
food, cold drinks, live music, cooking demos,
and a marketplace. More than 45 of the
Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ joints from
across the state will be in attendance for
the Sunday BBQ picnic. Visit our web-
site for more information on everything
happening in the BBQ Capital of Texas.
Lodchart-Tx.org
THE SIXTH FLOOR
MUSEUM AT
DEALEY PLAZA
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey
Plaza explores the life, death, and legacy
of President John F. Kennedy, who was
assassinated in Dallas 60 years ago on
November 22,1965. Located in the former
Texas School Book Depository building in
downtown Dallas, the Museum provides
unparalleled insight into this generation-de-
fining moment in the very place where
history happened, providing an authentic,
powerful connection to the assassination
and the events that surrounded it.
Learn more and book your tick-
ets in advance at our website.
188 TEXAS MONTHLY
ADVERTISEMENT
STATE FAIR OF TEXAS
The State Fair of Texas will return for
another season of food, festivities, and
family fun. It kicks off on Friday, September
29, and runs through Sunday, October 22,
in historic Fair Park. Themed “Explore the
Midway,’’ the State Fair of Texas is excited
to welcome back everyone in the most
Texan way possible—with a big "Howdy!”
Adding to its annual offering of more
than 100 free attractions, 70 Midway rides,
and endless activities across the fairgrounds,
the 2023 State Fair of Texas will be a
celebration bigger than ever! From the Fairs
newest attractions, like the Dinosaurs at the
Lagoon, to fairgoer favorites, like the nightly
parade and the Texas Star Ferris Wheel, this
season will be filled with never-ending fun.
Free with fairgoers’ admission, the
Chevrolet Main Stage concert lineup
features various musical acts across all
genres. Your trip to the Fair is your ticket
to Texas-sized fun—with hundreds of
activities included in the price of admission.
Whether you come for the food, the
Texas Auto Show, or the all-around Fair
fun, be sure to celebrate with us! Buy
your tickets online today at our website!
BigTexxom
TEXAS WOMAN'S
UNIVERSITY
The Sue S. Bancroft Women’s Leader-
ship Hall is an interactive digital exhibition
gallery that showcases the achievements
of hundreds of women who were pivotal in
advancing women’s leadership in Texas.
Learn about 12 women who channeled
their Texas grit to make a lasting impact on
politics and public policy. Be inspired by
women who have run for and won office
in Texas—highlights include an interactive
map with more than 200 women who
contributed to the history of Texas, and a
display commemorating 17 African Amer-
ican women elected as judges in Harris
County in 2018. Find your elected officials
at our Texas voter information stations.
Read excerpts of speeches by prominent
women leaders at our Rising Star interac-
tive podium that simulates the scene of a
breaking news story on television. Explore
women’s suffrage through the lens of Texas
native Minnie Fisher Cunningham, a key
leader whose efforts led to the passage
of the 19th Amendment which ultimately
granted women the right to vote in the U.S.
Visit the Hall on Texas Woman’s
University campus, Tuesday through
Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Drop in to
browse the exhibits or call ahead at
940-898-4573 to reserve a guided tour.
TWUxdu/lead
TEXAS MONTHLY 189
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._/ :>oss V*—
OCTOBER 7th 2023
ioam-4pm
ABOVE | Santa Fe, NM-whereartistry meets authenticity.
WACO
Make your fall plans for a “Get-
aWaco!" Right up the road, right
up your alley! Waco is an amazing
escape with so many great things
to do and activities to enjoy.
You’ve heard of Magnolia Mar-
ket and its fun shops, bakery, food
trucks, and a wiffle ball field. But
come explore the rest of Waco! How
about a cold Dr Pepper, hand-pulled
at the old-fashioned soda fountain
at the Dr Pepper Museum? Explore
the history of the Texas Rangers at
the official museum. See orangutans
and Sumatran tigers at the Cameron
Park Zoo. Check out sports legends
at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
Other great attractions include
Waco Surf. Waco Mammoth National
Monument, Maybom Museum, the
Suspension Bridge, Waco Down-
town Cultural District, and more.
Visit our website to plan
your Waco trip today!
Waco HeartO fTexas.co m
SOUTH TEXAS PLAINS
BROWNSVILLE
Enjoy the perfect weekend surround-
ed by nature, unique culture, and inno-
vation! Located at the southernmost tip
of Texas, Brownsville is in a thriving envi-
ronment with a tropical and dynamic
climate. Our city offers you a diverse list
of activities, such as 100 miles of hiking,
biking, and kayaking; Boca Chica beach;
and nightlife activities at the Historic
Downtown area where rich cuisine and
culture immersion comes at their fullest!
If you love nature, immerse yourself
in a quiet retreat and discover more
than 500 bird species in our World
Birding Center, or experience the
unique habitat of our Sabal Palm
Sanctuary. Additionally, watch 1,600
animals and enjoy a walk in our 31-acre
Gladys Porter Zoo. Before the day
ends, visit the future of space, Starbase!
This is the SpaceX South Texas Launch
Site for the next-generation vehicle
Starship, where more than 140 launches
and counting have been launched!
To find more information or to book
your next stay, visit our website today!
YisitBTX.com
HARLINGEN
Experience the charms of Har-
lingen: a haven of attractions, ex-
citing events, outdoor adventures,
and unforgettable memories.
Welcome to Harlingen, a vi-
brant city in the heart of Texas's Rio
Grande Valley. Discover an array of
captivating attractions that will leave
you enthralled. Immerse yourself
in the rich history and architectural
wonders that adorn our streets.
Harlingen pulses with vibrant
events that leave a lasting impression.
FREE Festival
AUTHENTIC, ALL-INCLUSIVE
WILDERNESS PROPERTIES
•	Cloud Camp
•	The Ranch at Emerald Valley
•	Orvis-Endorsed Fly Fishing Camp
EXCEPTIONAL DINING & RETAIL
•	An Abundance of Distinct Restaurants,
Cafes and Lounges on Property
•	19 Unique Retail Outlets
AWARD-WINNING AMENITIES
•	5-Star Spa and Fitness Center
•	2 Championship Golf Courses
♦	3 Pools, including Seasonal Infinity Pool
•	5 Tennis Courts
•	3 Pickleball Courts
BOUNDLESS ADVENTURE
•	The Broadmoor Manitou
and Pikes Peak Cog Railway
•	The Broadmoor Seven Falls
•	The Broadmoor Soaring Adventure
•	Falconry Academy at The Broadmoor
•	Hiking
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•	Horseback Riding
•	Fly Fishing
•	On-Site Bowling Alley
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888.249.8384
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TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY
JANE NELSON INSTITUTE
for WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP
Sue S. Bancroft
Women's Leadership Hall
Discover how
Texas women
changed history
•Pioneering women
•Women in politics
•Texas women’s
suffrage movement
Come visit us and
explore our interactive
exhibits, historical
documents and more.
Bring your family,
student group or friends.
No cost.
twu.edu/lead
940-898-4573
leadership@twu.edu
Experience the rhythmic beats and
lively celebrations of Riofest, a cultural
extravaganza showcasing the vibrant
traditions of Hispanic culture, art. and
music. For the spirited athletes, the
Harlingen Marathon offers a thrilling
opportunity to test your endurance
and explore our scenic city on foot.
Outdoor enthusiasts will find their
haven in Harlingen. The RGV Birding
Festival is a must-attend event for
birdwatchers, offering a chance to tick
off your “Birding Life List’ as you spot
a diverse array of avian species. Our
parks and nature preserves beckon you
to immerse yourself in the tranquil-
ity of nature, offering hiking, biking,
and picnicking amidst landscapes.
Visit Harlingen and create unforget-
table memories. Whether you’re drawn
to our city’s attractions, seeking the
excitement of our events, or longing
for outdoor adventures. Harlingen
offers something for everyone. Plan
your visit today and experience the
magic that waits in our charming city.
VisitHarlingenTexas.com
LAREDO
Deep in the heart of South Texas,
two countries, each with their own
distinct cultures and history, meet along
the banks of the Rio Grande River.
And here in Laredo, they do more
than just meet—they meld together
to create an entirely unique expe-
rience we call “Mex-Tex," and you’ll
feel it everywhere in the city. An ideal
escape for all ages, this charismatic
city exists in a world unto itself; rich
with natural beauty and steeped in
history, it’s a place for rest, relaxation,
and discovery unlike anywhere else.
Discovered in 1755, Laredo tells
its fascinating, centuries-long story
through incredible cuisine, authentic
cultural and historical experiences,
one-of-a-kind festivals, and a wide
variety of budget-friendly activities both
indoors and out. And our welcoming
people are always ready to greet
you with a smile and boast about the
place they’re proud to call home.
We not only welcome curious
visitors to our city, but we’re also
happy to host your next sporting event
or tournament as well as meetings
and other business gatherings.
Whether you’re here on business
or pleasure, we want you to have an
unforgettable experience. Walk with us
through the famous “streets of Laredo"
and experience a unique view of Texas.
VisitLaredo.com
ARKANSAS
ARKANSAS
Here in Arkansas, our wide-open
spaces leave plenty of room to stretch
your legs and get away from it all.
Float down the Buffalo. America’s first
national river, or visit Hot Springs, the
nation’s oldest national park. Keep
exploring at Arkansas’s 52 state parks,
where you can dig for gems and keep
what you find at Crater of Diamonds
in Murfreesboro, stay in a luxurious
lodge with stunning views at the state’s
highest point. Mount Magazine State
Park, and experience Ozark music,
crafts, and culture at the Ozark Folk
Center State Park in Mountain View.
When you visit, come hungry. We’ve
got exceptional food throughout the
state, with James Beard award-win-
ning classics like Jones Bar-B-Q diner
in Marianna and Lassis Inn in Little
Rock, as well as fine dining like The
Preacher’s Son in Bentonville and
Fayrays in El Dorado. When you get
thirsty, you can also find craft brew-
eries and distilleries, like Lost Forty
Brewing in Little Rock, and Delta Dirt
Distillery in Helena-West Helena.
When you vacation in The Natural
State, you’re sure to find unexpected
beauty, adventure, and memories to last
a lifetime. Where will your journey take
you? Plan your getaway at our website.
Arkansas.com
192 TEXAS MONTHLY
leit Distilling Co. Shelbyville
KENTUCKY
DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM
kentuckytounsm.com
FALL TRAVEL
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COLORADO
THE BROADMOOR
Magical, of course. Iconic, no ques-
tion. But why do generations of guests
return to The Broadmoor year after
year? Well, that’s easy—the people.
Timeless elegance, gracious service, and
unplugging are the mantra here. While every
season has its charm, fall is outstanding. The
arid climate, iconic Aspens, and bound-
less options for adventure await. Choose
from the three all-inclusive Wilderness
Experiences, golf on two championship
courses, soar high above Seven Falls, fly
Falcons, relax in the Forbes Five-Star Spa,
ascend Pikes Peak at sunrise aboard The
Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog
Railway, or play pickleball in the clouds;
these are just a few ways to spend your days.
The Broadmoor’s passion for great
food has created a range of award-win-
ning restaurants and lounges that ensure
our diners fresh and inspiring menus
for every occasion. From fine dining
to a quick bite, whatever the moment
needs, something delicious awaits.
Whether it’s your first time at the iconic
Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs or
your family has been coming for six genera-
tions—if you’ve been here, you know, and if
you haven’t, do yourself a favor and find out.
Broadmoor.com
SNOWMASS
VILLAGE
Step out of the beat and into the fresh
mountain air of Snowmass Village, Colo-
rado. Situated among breathtaking peaks
and verdant valleys, just nine miles from
Aspen, Snowmass puts nature right at your
doorstep. More than 90 miles of impeccable
hiking and biking trails inspire you to get
out into the mountains, while the vast views
and glorious summer weather invite you
to slow down and enjoy each moment.
Don’t miss the outdoor concert series,
weekly rodeo, and Lost Forest adventure
center complete with a speedy alpine
coaster and challenging ropes course. With
an abundance of vacation rental proper-
ties nestled around a vibrant mountain
village. Snowmass is an ideal place to
bring your favorite people together for
a quick visit or a season-long stay.
Snowmass is sublimely accessible yet
blissfully remote, just 15 minutes from
Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, with
direct flights from eight cities including
Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, and Hous-
ton, and easy connections throughout
the U.S. To plan your perfect getaway
to Snowmass, visit our website.
GoSnowmass.com
One of Texas's Great Small Towns for Art
2023-2024
EXHIBIT SCHEDULE
Orna Feinstein
Fall 2023
Lorena Morales
Winter 2023
Annie Uhr
Spring 2024
Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee
Kingsley Onyeiwu
Fall 2024
194 TEXAS MONTHLY
WHERE HISTORY IS UNDENIABLY PRESENT.
No other city makes a first impression like Santa Fe. The moment you arrive, adobe-style
architecture captures your gaze. Each building crafted and shaped by the historic city that
surrounds it. When you stroll through the streets, it’s clear how The City Different got
its name. It’s just one of the things that makes The City Different, but there’s still so much
waiting to be uncovered.
UNCOVER YOUR DIFFERENT AT VISITSANTAFE.COM
FALL TRAVEL
KENTUCKY
KENTUCKY
Known as the Horse Capital of the
World and the epicenter of Bourbon
Country, the Bluegrass State is also a land
of immense natural beauty and wide-open
spaces offering plenty of places to play.
Sip centuries of tradition in the birthplace
of bourbon and tour distilleries to learn how
Kentucky’s signature spirit is made. Stroll
through rolling horse farms, catch a race at
the track, and take a trail ride through the
forest. Visit epic family attractions, vibrant
cities, and charming small towns. Explore
woods, waters, tracks, and trails offering
endless outdoor adventure. Or just find
your own quiet spot, hidden waterfall, or
stunning overlook to sit down and soak up
the soothing sights and sounds of nature.
Match these experiences with the perfect
accommodations. Check into a luxury hotel.
Camp under the stars in a Conestoga
wagon. Escape into nature in your very
own treehouse getaway. Book a B&B in
the heart of Bourbon and Horse Country.
With so much to see, do, and sa-
vor. the Bluegrass State is the perfect
place for your next road trip, week-
end getaway, or family vacation.
This is Kentucky—come see for yourself!
Ke ntu cky To urism.com
MISSISSIPPI
MISSISSIPPI
Throughout Mississippi, in virtually every
comer of the state, you’ll find hundreds
of historical markers commemorating
Mississippi’s history—the people, places, and
events that define our state and have had a
lasting impact on our nation’s arts, culture,
and history. Together, the Mississippi’s Blues,
Freedom, Country Music, and Writers Trails
provide a better understanding of our past
and show great achievements that have
come before to inspire future generations.
Mississippi can rightly lay claim to the title
“The Birthplace of America’s Music" due,
largely, to the foundational role of our state’s
legendary musicians in the creation of blues
music. From its birth in the Mississippi Delta,
Mississippi blues artists would go on to
influence other musical genres, from country
music to rock n’ roll and gospel. This story
is told at more than 200 historical markers
throughout the state, and for blues lovers,
there’s nowhere on Earth quite like Mississip-
pi. Here, you’ll find Robert Johnson’s legend-
ary crossroads, the B.B. King Museum and
Delta Interpretive Center, GRAMMY Mu-
seum® Mississippi—the only one outside of
Los Angeles—and the hottest musicians en-
tertaining blues fans from around the world.
Wander the Mississippi Blues at our website.
VisitMississippi.org/Blues
THE HEART
OF MEX-TEX CUISINE
----------- —L 
Laredo, Texas, isn’t just a city on the border of two countries.
We live at the nexus of two distinct cultures fusing together
to create something brand new. Where authentic Mexican
dishes are not only served next to hearty American fare, they
also come together to form a unique cuisine we like
to call “Mex-Tex.” Learn more about this delicious melding
of cultures at VisitLaredo.com.
6 LAREDO
TEXAS I EST 175S
| visitlaredo.com 1.800.361.3360
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NEW MEXICO
SANTA FE
When you visit The City Different,
you feel something different. Something
brand new, yet hundreds of years old.
You’ll also find fresh and diifferent—both
in your surroundings and in yourself.
Perhaps its the blue skies or the adobe
architecture. Maybe its the vast art scene
or colorful cuisine crafted meticulously on
each and every plate. Or the unique mix of
culture and tradition or simply the clarity
of the stars at night. There are so many
things that make The City Different, and
so much more waiting to be uncovered.
SantaFe.org
WYOMING
Wyoming, this autumn as you plan
your Rocky Mountain getaway.
Vi5itLaramie.0rg
SHERIDAN COUNTY
The summer of 2023 is poised to be a
big one for Sheridan County. Wyoming,
as we celebrate some major anniversa-
ries! The legendary mountain hideaway
known as Spear-O-Wigwam, beloved by
Ernest Hemingway during the 1920s, turns
100 years old. Don King Days, an annual
celebration of Western history and heritage
that takes place at the Big Horn Equestrian
Center (the epicenter of polo in the western
U.S.), celebrates 35 years over Labor Day
Weekend. The Bighorn Wild and Scenic
Trail Run, an iconic stop on the trail running
circuit, turns 30. Trail End State Historic Site
will be 110. Not to be outdone, the Historic
Sheridan Inn, where Buffalo Bill Cody
auditioned his Wild West Show, turns 130
years young, and has never looked better!
Of course, there are plenty of other
events and attractions to look forward to
this year, like the 93rd edition of our beloved
Sheridan WYO Rodeo! For info on all of
our special events, plus itineraries, travel
guides, and much more, visit our website.
SheridanWyoming.org
For free information from our travel
partners, scan here!
LARAMIE
In the valley east of southeast Wyoming’s
Snowy Range lies Laramie, a spirited offbeat
college town with an abundance of outdoor
recreation. Laramie offers a unique blend
of outdoor adventure and vibrant culture,
all deeply rooted in a historic railroad past.
Fall calls a little earlier in the season in
Laramie at 7,220 feet, with color as soon
as late September. Golden Wyoming
cottonwoods in the valley make way for
aspens up in the crisp mountain air. Wind
your way through enchanting forest trails
and alpine lakes, surrounded by a kalei-
doscope of golds, fiery reds, and vibrant
oranges tucked between the trees.
After exploring fall in the mountains,
embrace Laramie’s rich history on a stroll
through the historic downtown. Discov-
er the vibrant arts scene, with delightful
murals interspersed between the art
galleries. Then immerse yourself in the Old
West spirit with a visit to the Wyoming
Territorial Prison State Historic Site, the
only prison to ever hold Butch Cassidy.
Whether you seek tranquility in na-
ture or a taste of the Wild West, Lara-
mie is the place to be this fall. Come
and experience the magic of Laramie,
TEXAS MONTHLY 197
WINFREY ESTATES
SINGLE-FAMILY LUXURY HOMES FROM THE $400'5
RESIDENT-ONLY CLUBHOUSE | SWIMMING POOL | PICKLEBALL COURTS I WORKOUT ROOM
346.762.18641 ROC-HOMES.COM
A QUARTER MILE NORTH OF FM 2920 ON FM 2978
HOMES
ADVERTISING SECTION
ENCORE
On paper, retirement seems easy—you just step away from your work and do whatever
you want to do. living off pensions and savings, right? But as with many things in life, pre-
paring for these later years is multifaceted and deserves careful thought.
Retirement is more complicated than figuring out how to pay rent and buy groceries.
It requires us to wake up from the day-to-day, sometimes decades-long patterns we find
ourselves in—holding down jobs and home life, and participating in whatever extracurricu-
lar we have the energy for in our spare time. Retirement—similarly to other times when our
lives are at a crossroads, like when we graduate from school or have a baby—upends our
regularly scheduled lives and asks us to step into a new phase when we get to explore what
we really want to do and where we really want to live. It also invites us to discover who we
are apart from the career and activities that previously defined us.
Retirees nowadays are all ages, from young tech investors who cashed in big before they
turned 40 to professionals who finally step back from work in their 80s. For most people,
retirement comes at middle age or beyond, when many also recognize that staving off
illness and extending longevity are pretty good ideas. As a result, many retirees regard
self-care practices and healthcare with importance that younger people often deny. And
in a day and age when experts disagree on many issues, research clearly points to simple.
straightforward ways to extend lifespan and improve health even as we age.
◄ ROC Homes
ROC-Homcs.com
♦1 346-762-1870
TEXAS MONTHLY 199
Just like our money, we want our bodies and minds to go the
distance when we hit retirement. While there’s no guarantee that
we ll be physically active oldsters with sharp minds, there’s many,
relatively easy steps we can take that tip the odds in our favor
and make the most of what we have.
Living as healthily as possible for as long as possible needs
focus and care, like managing finances to make sure they’re
going to stretch to cover your needs in the years to come.
Luckily, scientists have identified a number of ways that serve
people’s health well across the spectrum of ages. Many are
simple to implement, and even life-threatening conditions like
diabetes can be manageable, especially when diagnosed early.
That’s good news because taking proactive self-care steps
ramp up in importance as we approach and enter the “foothills
of old age,” as singer Leonard Cohen describes the years when
we re encountering health issues, achy joints and bodies that
can’t handle the activities we once enjoyed.
Good health and enhanced longevity are never guaranteed
no matter what we do, but we stand a better chance of aging
well if we pay attention to recommendations from the U.S.
Preventive Services Task Force, the American Diabetes
Association, and the American Heart Association, among other
health organizations committed to helping people find their best
health through proactive screening and medical care.
Check-ups and screening. Ge: -=gul?' mecica checkups
and recommended bleed tests. Your doctor or medical clinic
knows the be?: tests and recommendations for conditions such
as ’T alood WBwure gnd ад t-q£ hackbbod suga that car
take years off your ife.
High blood pressure	П
_.r .'id..-	т.н X and K'-iv . rfhearttfeease.
The good news is that its usua’ly centre’fed w*th medication.
diet, and exercise.
- I. । high cholesterol i. . r .'I'.r । u. .i I .. :l
outcomes, and it can be managed. /- nnual physlca s n/prcally
include screening far cardiovascular "isle factors.
----: diabetes and prediabetes _	.
blood sugar test, done at least every three years, helps in 'ts
management. Diabetes car come or silently arc cam age boT’v
systems mcud’ng the nervous system, blood vessels and feet.
But many issues are prevented or delayed when the disease
is managed with ifesty’e and medical ‘nte’ventons. Current
recommendations point to screening =s early as at age 35. ue to
70. especial’y for people w~o are overwe:ght or obese.
’ I cervical cancer
a ery three to Tve r-j: re women between Tic sges of 30 and
breast exams and mammograms
mnee: -л • i  r.ir«nded starting a c^r./ar ag?4C.
colorectal
*v«ryor.e starting at age SC up m an a 73. unless ycu have a
• • i •• i ' ' I " i. ' ' I I Ini lib
Carlsbad Chamber
CarlsbadChamber.com
575-887-6516
200 TEXAS MONTHLY
In 2014, the City of Carlsbad, New Mexico, proudly joined the
WHO Age Friendly Cities and Communities Network. Carlsbad, the first New
Mexico community to join, was also the first community in the state to receive designation as
an age friendly community in 2017.
LET YOUR DESTINATION В ECOM ЕЖЯЮ11
_ I
ft;
1ЖЛ
'Ж-
IRWllREM E N'WLO N G
ТЙЕ’BANKS OF THE PECOS

Nestled along the banks of the Pecos River, Carlsbad offers a picturesque place for those looking to retire. Carlsbad offers
over 300 days of sunshine each year with an average temperature of 78 degrees over the course of the year. Whether you
are the outdoor adventurer, or more focused on arts and culture, Carlsbad has both.
We are quickly becoming an outdoor adventure community with opportunities for hiking, biking, walking, water sports and
so much more. Life in Carlsbad can be laid back, or very active depending on your retirement goals. Your destination for
retirement awaits you in Carlsbad.
OASIS IN THE DESERT
From other worldly topography of the famous Carlsbad Caverns National Park to the awe-inspiring Sitting Bull Falls, with
trails that wind through ancient landscapes or the majestic Guadalupe Mountain National Park, there is something for
everyone.
PEARL OF THE PECOS
Stroll through the treelined streets of the MainStreet/Arts and Culture District and you will find the Carlsbad Museum
and Art center. This unique museum illustrates the wonder of living in Southeastern, New Mexico. Continuing on your
journey you will come across the Artist Gallery, featuring the many talents of our local artists, sculptors and more (are your
masterpieces next on display?). End your evening dining at the tranquil Trinity hotel and winery which has been converted
from a 19th century bank. Let your imagination swirl as you taste local wine and dine on beautifully crafted cuisine.
Learn More at carlsbadchamber.com or agefriendlycarlsbadnm.com
1-866-865-6575.
retirement@carlsbadchamber.com
Paid for in part by Carlsbad Lodgers' Tax
;	- -	prostate
p v• т=ле ra  n? - am  have pros arc ">it fr • re -. 55 to 70. After
TD^ihe-benefit ma rxj i ~’ i therte . foUI -•. '•‘.-nwll
commend we bier you’re a candidate for screening at oui age.
Skin checks i	i .
[
eye and vision I I
i - T -	' . -i i - I/ 'i r ‘	. -ii . i.i I; 
VXI hve an Issue or p;edh.p<: s’ticn tbt needs i-.ore frequent
monitoring. 3 auco- id, it acu ar degeneratioi , and cate; acts are
some. f the . nndMons that tend to develop with age and n ay
cause probler is, including b indne x, if untreated.
hearing	i . I I
has >=en associated wit i denier tia. Hearing kss also impacts
connection with those arcund us. Have ?r ear. nose, and to'oat
dc-to* т sudio .gist скес<-your ИеэЧгд regularly and tak- step^
to correct free;Tnq Ioll wrtli 1 earirp aids anc other devices.
dental exams i	i I
for other bodily systems as well, A A J on tai disease has beer
Irked wltl- cardlov-iCjl.T disease, possiby because oftbe chronic
inFammation associated with poor oral health. Frequency of
cletnl'.gs =r<J <=yams should be talcred to a- irdMducl’s der tai
health—a dentist nay recommend more cleanings and exams for
a person with periodontal disease, whereas a Health' mourn might
need only an annual visit.
immunization!	=age
After 65, ar annual flu shot and the pneumonia veccine are
recommended. Those 50 and up should consider a shingles
vaccine, detenus vaccines need a booster every 10 years, and your
docto- may recommend immunization For whocp’ng cough end
diphtheria st a similar frequency.
cognitive Functioning. and sleep, just for starters. VYb'le the
Centers For Disease Control and Prevention reccmmenc 150
minutes of exercise a week, walking for as fttle as 10 minutes a
day car enhance well-berg and longevity, according to JAMA
Maintain a healthy weight, г	.	_:d
or obese are at greater risk tor myriad health issues, inducing
diabetes, heart attack, and cancer. Dropping as l?ttle as fve
□ercent of weight. however, can reduce risk of type diabetes and
heart disease, wHIe -osing eve- more has been shown to reduce
nsk of obesity-linked cancer.
Watch your diet
plants, including bears, vegetables, and fruits. Hydration is
important too. The Meditemanean diet—plant-forward meals with
ean protein, mcnoursaturetec Fats like o’r/e oil instead o-butter
and lard, and 'ots of legumes and produce—is ar oft-recor—lercec
dietary model that studies have shown to be associated with
longevity and disease reduction. Try to incorporate even small
changes based or its guidelines anc cut out or reduce cor. sumption
of junk food like chips, soda, s jgary U eats, an d fast toon.
Prioritize and nurture sleep
a an sential согг.;?''Пег11 af - '.eallr.y li e; yle at any acje.As we
grow olc.ei. changes In out circadian rhythms, meefcs-ИйПК, art d
health conditions such as depression, at tluitis. and heart disease
may cause us to sleep lex or encounter imomnia, according to toe
Sleep T 11 -f i .'fit i ।-i ' ' -IviJ alva i-h i 1 n
sleep e person needs, aiming "s.< sever; to eight Sours : t shureye
every rght i; a good place to start
Chambers Creek
A Caldwell Community
ChambersCreekTx.com
936-585-8025
202 TEXAS MONTHLY
Chambers Creek is all about living, and loving, your 55+ best life! Situated
in the rolling green hills just north of Houston, our like-no-other active
adult community offers extraordinary amenities that deliver enriched,
resort-style living. And built-in neighbors and friends enhance everyday
fun. Plan a tour and start enjoying your someday, today.
CHAMBERS
CREEK
•	Summit Amenity Center
•	Shoreline Park and Marina
•	Lehman Park Golf Course
•	Resort-Style Pool
•	Fitness Center
•	20+ Mlles of Trails
•	Pickleball and Tennis
•	Recreational Lakes
chamberscreektx.com | 14940 Chambers Creek Drive, Willis TX 77318 | 936-585-8025 КЗ? FAhPiYKffet
COMMUNITIES

ADULT LUXURY
APARTMENT LIVING
Д n V P R T I 4 F M R N T
Because
You
Deserve
The Best
alderscrosscreek.com
(346) 746-7969
Alders Cross Creek is the new
active adult community serving
Fulshear and Katy, Texas, that
redefines the 62+ living experience.
Fill your days with the things you
love to do...having friends over for
cocktails and dinner, enjoying an
invigorating workout in the fitness
center, trying your hand at abstract
painting, or enjoying the solitude
of curling up with a good novel.
Because now you can. Living at
Alders Cross Creek means you
have more time for leisure, more
time to engage with friends, or
escape to your home, your private
retreat. With beautifully appointed
interiors and resort-inspired
amenities, Alders Cross Creek
is everything you’ve wanted in a
home and in a community.
Cut back or eliminate alcohol
Maintain connection.
maintalrfng or Increasing social Viteracttor
js you retire. Refationsh'ps with tfencs
tre fam ily have seen shewn tc a key
facte' 'r longevity i- Blue Zones—peaces
around the world where people enjoy long,
healthy lives. Studies ^ave l:nhed soc'al
isolation to a greater ’’ncidence of dementia
and oti-er dem'mentcl heath conditions.
Human connection is hey. whether in
pe’sor or via the phone or video calls, and
tec" solutions afoot—for example, me New
vo'< State Office for the Aging is working
with a robot- and tab et-baseo solution to
enhance seniors’ social netwc-cs.
•< Cushman Wakefield
CushmanWakefield.com
204 TEXAS MONTHLY
ADVERTISEMENT
HOME TO YOUR
55+BEST LIFE
Step into Chambers Creek and expe-
rience a vibrant, active adult community
built just for you. Here, an exciting mix of
amenities brings you together with friends,
and family too. Lace up on more than 20
miles of trails. Get in the swing at Lehman
Park where you’ll find a 9-hole golf course,
18-hole putting course, fishing lakes, and an
onsite vineyard. Take fun to the peak at The
Summit with a resort-style pool, pickleball,
bocce ball, horseshoes, and a fitness club.
Or cruise to Shoreline Park featuring a
private marina with access to Lake Conroe,
one of Texas’s largest lakes. It’s all right
outside your new front door in Willis.
With quality homes by five premier
builders, there is real choice when it comes
to finding or building your dream home.
Plan a tour today and discover Cham-
bers Creek, home to your 55+ best life.
ChambersCreekTX.com
936-585-8025
CHAMBERS
CREEK
HBCALDWELL
COMMUNITIES
VISIT CARLSBAD
After you explore the subterranean
wonderland of the Carlsbad Caverns
National Park, your adventure is only halfway
done. More adventure awaits at the Lake
Carlsbad Recreation Area, located in the
heart of Carlsbad. New Mexico. Enjoy
boating, waterskiing, and fishing along the
sidewalk draped shores of the Pecos River.
You’ll find plenty of picnic areas, parks, golf
courses, pickleball, and tennis courts as
you meander along the almost five miles
of paved walkway. You and the kids will
enjoy using our splash pad. as well as the
basketball, racquetball, and beach volleyball
courts. The Lake Carlsbad Recreation Area
is also home to the Carlsbad Water Park—
enjoy thrilling slides and casual pools to beat
the summer heat. For more information,
contact the Chamber of Commerce at
575-887-6516 or visit our website. Carlsbad
is your next destination for outdoor fun
CarlsbadChamber.com
575-887-6516
WINFREY ESTATES
NOW BUILDING IN
TOMBALL, TX
Welcome to Winfrey Estates, an all-new
55+ active adult community currently
under construction in Tomball. TX. Nestled
amidst picturesque landscapes and a vibrant
neighborhood, this exceptional devel-
opment promises an unparalleled living
experience for discerning homeowners.
Designed with the specific needs and
desires of active adults in mind, Win-
frey Estates offers a wealth of amenities
and recreational facilities. Residents will
enjoy access to a resident-only swim-
ming pool, fitness center, pickleball, and
community gathering spaces, fostering a
lively and engaging social atmosphere.
With a focus on comfort and luxury, the
thoughtfully designed homes in Winfrey Es-
tates boast modem architecture, energy-ef-
ficient features, and high-quality finishes.
Whether you’re looking to downsize or
seeking an enriching lifestyle in retirement,
this community offers an ideal blend of
serenity, convenience, and companionship.
Embrace a life of leisure and fulfillment
at Winfrey Estates, where every day offers
a new opportunity for relaxation and
enjoyment. Discover your perfect haven in
this thriving 55+ active adult community.
ROC-Homes.com/winfrey-estates-tomball
346-762-1864
HOMES
TEXAS MONTHLY 205
THE TEXANIST
AUSTIN
A creative
community that
offers free writing
programs.
For more information on
programs, events, and
volunteering, please visit
austinbatcave.org
Get involved.
Donate today!
TexasMonthly
VOLUME SI. ISSUE 9
texas monthly (usps 552-650) (issn 0148-7736) is published
monthly by Toxas Monthly LLC Principal office-. 816
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continued from page 208 asevenyour
average Aggie knows, are members of
the animal kingdom too,sothejudges
will allowit.
Where such acclaimed creatures
end up depends on the school and,
in many cases, on the decade of their
final departure. The cremains of
each Baylor bear are placed in a
chest that was handcrafted out of
wood sourced from the universi-
ty’s on-campus bear habitat and
stored in the school’s gold-domed
Pat Neff Hall. At Houston Christian
one can head over to the grounds of
the basketball gym and gaze at the
markers standing atop the graves of
two early huskies. (More recently
the school has retired its mascots
into the care of individuals who
have made a connection with the
animals. When the time comes, the
dogs are presumably dealt with in a
respectful manner.)
Likewise, SMU has laid to rest a
number of Perunas at various loca-
tions around campus. Texas A&M
inters its deceased Reveilles in a
Reveille-exclusive cemetery located
at the north end of Kyle Field that
features a special scoreboard so the
former first ladies can keep up with
the action on game days. U of H’s
Shastas seem to move on much as
they live, which is to say somewhat
stealthily; the cats that came before
Shasta VII aren’t memorialized in
any manner, though the school in-
forms the Texanist that some sort of
tribute at the alumni center is under
consideration.
Each of West Texas A&M’s bison
is memorialized at the south end of
Bain-Schaeffer Buffalo Stadium,
though the first one, which was sold
to the school in 1922 by the legend-
ary rancher and noted bison pres-
ervationist Charles Goodnight and
his wife, Mary Ann, was taxidermied
and eventually donated to the nearby
Panhandle-Plains Historical Mu-
seum. As for Tech’s Masked Riders,
the Texanist was relieved to learn
that they’re not stuffed and put on
display. After the big dismount, they
go the way of the rest of us, though
TEXAS A&M
INTERS ITS
DECEASED
REVEILLES IN A
CEMETERY THAT
FEATURES A
SPECIAL SCORE-
BOARD SO THE
FORMER FIRST
LADIES CAN KEEP
UP WITH THE
ACTION ON
GAME DAYS.
presumably an obituary will note
their sendees to the school.
But to get to the heart of your
question, Ms. Thompson, what
awaits UT-Austin’s beloved mascot
after he has shuffled off his mortal
coil? Though the Texanist knew of
a permanent exhibit dedicated to
Bevos past in the bowels of Darrell
К Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium,
he didn’t know where any of their
literal bodies wereburiedorwhether
Be vo XV would join them when his
time comes. Luckily, the Texanist was
able to get ahold of Ricky Brennes,
theexecutivedirectorofUT-Austin’s
Silver Spurs Alumni Association and
as close to a Bevo expert as there is.
Brennes informed the Texanist that
in recent decades Bevos have been
privately owned and that decisions
related to their afterlives have been
left to the indirtdual owners.
Though Brennes could not ac-
count for the ultimate destiny of
each of Bevo XV’s predecessors, he
was able to provide details on some of
them. A few of the earliest Bevos, he
said, were sourced from Fort Griffin,
in Albany, just outside of Abilene, the
site of the state’s official Longhorn
herd, and were returned there af-
ter their terms of sendee. Closer to
home, the horns of Bevo VII hang in
the school’s football complex, and
Bevo IX’s shoulder mount adorns
the office of the athletic director. The
shoulder moun ts of Bevos X, XI, and
206 TEXAS MONTHLY
XII are currently in private hands,
though Brennes was not at liberty
to reveal whose hands, specifically.
Interestingly, the Longhorn who
started it all, Bevo I (the school’s first
mascot was a dog named Pig), made
a single official appearance, at the
1916 Thanksgiving Day game with
Texas A& M, and was, despi te a sol id
21-7 Longhorns’ victory, eventual-
ly, slaughtered, barbecued, and de-
voured. That seems like a cruel way
to treat a steer who wanted nothing
more than to bring smiles to the faces
of thousands of football fans. But at
least he made for good eatin’.
Or did he? The Texanist’s colleague
Daniel Vaughn, the magazine’s bar-
becue editor, says that Longhorn
“doesn’t usually have great mar-
bling, so the brisket would be dry and
stringy. Sausage would be about the
only way to make a dead Bevo toler-
able to eat.” The Texanist hopes it
never comes to that. Better that we
feast on the ground-up remains of all
those nuisance whitetail deer or that
endless supply of feral hogs wreaking
havoc across the state.
As for Bevo XV, the Texanist can-
not foretell the future with complete
assurance, but given that the past is
often prologue, he’s comfortable in
making a prediction. Bevo XV’s im-
mediate forebears, Bevo XIII (the
school’s winningest and longest-
serving mascot) and Bevo XIV were
raised on a ranch in Liberty Hill, just
northwest of Austin, by John T. Baker
and his wife, Betty, and lived out their
postretirement days there. Today,
the shoulder mounts and hides now
hang in Baker’s home, and some-
day, when Bevo XV’s time on earth is
done, his will presumably join those
of his brethren. That would be a fit-
ting and proper end for a noble beast
who will hopefully bring as muchjoy
to your son, Ms. Thompson, as Bevo
XII andXI11 provided the Texanist lo
those many seasons ago. And, fingers
crossed, many more victories.
Thanks for the letter, and Hook
’em, Horns!
WHATEVER
JUST
DON'T
TEXT
AND '/I
STOPTEXTSSTOPWRECKS.ORG
НУ NHTSA
TEXAS MONTHLY 207
TheTexanist
q: Last fall,my family attended
a football game at UT-Austin,
where my son will enroll as a
Longhorn this fall.Late in the
fourth quarter,while roasting
in the Texas sun,I noticed
the paddock on the field and
wondered,“What happens when
that beloved Bevodies?”
MEI LISA THOMPSON,
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
д,	Many, many decades ago,
the Texanist was lucky to
spend a few of the happi-
est years of his life at the U Diversi-
ty of Texas at Austin. So he knows
ofwhat he speaks on matters per-
tainingto the state’s flagship insti-
tution of higher education—and
of collegiate-style merrymaking.
Things were very different
during those long-gone days of
yore; there was no internet, tele-
phones were hardwired to each
other like two cans and a length of
string, and decent sushi couldn’t
be found anywhere in the Capi-
tal City. But students didn’t eat
sushi, beer cost about a buck, and
the drinking age was nineteen, so
we had that going for us. Plus, it
was much easier to get into UT in
that bygone era. Were the Texanist
to graduate today from dear old
Temple High School (Go Wild-
cats!) with the same GPA that he
had back then, there’s no telling
the TEXANIST is senior editor
David Courtney. Send him
your questions at texanist
@texasmonthly.com and be sure
to tell him where you’re from.
where he might end up for his ad-
vanced lessons. Perhaps he’d be
an Aggie!
The Texanist jests, of course.
Still, despite all the changes that
have ensued over the years, some
things have remained very much
the same, such as the UT commu-
nity’s rabid support for its teams.
This sort of fervent allegiance,
which can be found at any Texas
college worth its salt, happens to
be the key ingredient in the phe-
nomenon known to social scien-
tists as school spirit, a mysterious
force that binds together folks
from very disparate backgrounds.
But while it’s true that college
teams aregenerallybelovedbystu-
dents, faculty, and alumni, it’s the
living, breathing beasts serving as
the physical embodiments of said
school spirit who occupy apartic-
ularly special place in the hearts of
fans. Just think about the many
cherished live mascots that can be
found in Texas. In addition to UT’s
Bevo XV, a Longhorn steer, there’s
Baylor University’s Judge Indy
and Judge Belle, a pair of Ameri-
can black bear cubs who debuted
in the job this summer; Houston
Christian University’s Wakiza
III, a Siberian husky; Southern
Methodist University’s Peruna
IX, who, despite the team’s name,
is a black Shetland pony, not a mus-
tang; Texas A&M’s Reveille X, an
American rough collie, a.k.a. the
“first lady of Aggieland”; the Uni-
versity of Houston’s Shasta VII,
a cougar; and West Texas A&M’s
confusingly named Thunder and
Thunder,bothofwhom are Ameri-
can bison. In Lubbockonecan also
encounter Texas Tech’s Masked
Rider, who, mounted atop a lively
jet-black quarter horse, is not a
typical live-animal mascot. But hu-
manbeings, continued on page гое
208 TEXAS MONTHLY
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