Travel through Davis Mountains State Park to the end of the road, and a complex of white adobe buildings emerges from the scrubby hillsides. The Indian Lodge dates to the 1930s, when it originated as a creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Great Depression-era federal program that employed young men to improve public lands. Formerly out-of-work crewmen baked adobe bricks and assembled them into a 16-room building resembling the kind of multilevel pueblo village seen in other parts of the Southwest. Opening to the public in 1935, the hotel was particularly popular during World War II. The first major remodel in 1967 added 24 rooms and amenities like a dining room, a meeting room, and a swimming pool, while a 2006 remodel restored some of the original building’s character. Recently reopened after two years of renovations, the Indian Lodge stands as an example of romantic—if not strictly regionally accurate—Southwestern architecture, and a beloved symbol of the public works era of Texas.
From the January/February 2026 issue
