What began in 1981 as a humble church bazaar has blossomed into a four-day shopping bonanza in the tradition of a European or Latin American street market, with more than 270 unique merchants offering items from gourmet food and home decor to apparel, toys, accessories, and more.
During the holiday season, once the animals are fast asleep, the Dallas Zoo transforms into a winter wonderland of light—with more than 1 million twinkle lights illuminating the grounds.
Local nonprofit Big Medium, which is dedicated to cultivating artists and the contemporary arts throughout Texas through community events like this one, engages more than 1,000 artists and 100,000 attendees each year through EAST, its sister event WEST, and various other annual programs.
“Somebody should photograph all this vanishing Texas before it’s forever lost.” What began as a chronicle of one man’s love affair with a state became one of the biggest online communities devoted to the history, people, and culture of the Lone Star State.
Running through Oct. 20, The State Fair of Texas at Fair Park in Dallas draws about 3 million people annually for everything from pig races to an auto show to fried brisket.
Bass is the heartbeat of Texas music, from the hard-rocking roadhouse blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan to the conjunto-revival sounds of Los Texmaniacs. Whenever you go out dancing to live music, the underlying tones of the upright bass fiddle or electric bass guitar drive your every move across the floor—and that’s true whether you notice the person playing the instrument or not.
For every person now alive, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, there stand 30 ghosts, “for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.” So it stands to reason that wandering spirits abound in a vast state like Texas. From the barren deserts of the west to the thick woodlands of the east, specters have been reported to haunt defunct hospitals, active schools, lonely highways, and thriving hotels.
Driving the backroads northwest of Fort Worth, you’d never know that one of the luminaries of Texas country and western music lives just around the bend. Down a gravel road, a pickup marked with Red Steagall’s “RS” brand signals that Steagall is around today. Inside his office, framed records and photos signed by the likes of Ronald Reagan line the wall, hinting at Steagall’s influential career.
O ften the most exceptional things are found by accident.
That’s what happened at Twistflower Ranch, 5,800 acres of West Texas mesas and canyons, named for the rare bracted twistflower that bathes the arid landscape with delicate purple blossoms in the spring.
The beer garden and restaurant, erected in 1866 by German immigrant and bookbinder August Scholz, is the place where college professors and state legislators often meet over pints. Nearly every Texas governor has patronized the bar, and it’s famous for game-day crowds during Longhorn football season.
Navasota has long stoked history buffs’ imaginations. It was, after all, the area where historians believe French explorer Sieur de La Salle was murdered in 1687. Then, as a 19th-century railhead on the Navasota River, the town bustled with both commerce and unsavory characters with little regard for the law.
While fall in much of the state brings only slightly cooler temperatures, pockets like the higher elevations of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park feature a seasonal display of trees dressed in oranges and yellows. Photographer Darren Huski was fortunate to encounter a rare fall-winter combination when, he recalls, he “arrived in the park in
a blizzard and awoke to find the Chisos a mixture of vivid color and fresh snow.”
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Published monthly by the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Highways, the official travel magazine of Texas, encourages travel to and within the Lone Star State and tells the Texas story to readers around the world.
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