Retrace the Life and Legacy of World-Champion Boxer Jack Johnson in Galveston
“Jack Johnson was a real person from a real place called Galveston,” Collins says while standing in his church clothes outside Old Central Cultural Center, formerly Central High School, the first black high school in Texas. In the park behind Old Central, located on Avenue M, a life-size bronze statue depicts Johnson in his prime: roughly 6 feet, 200 pounds, and ready to rumble. Read More »
One Man’s Half-Century Project to Heal a Hill Country Landscape
In 1969, a San Antonio fried-chicken tycoon was struck by a life-changing idea: He would find, buy, and heal “the sorriest piece of land in the Hill Country.” Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Bamberger Ranch Preserve sprawls across 5,500 acres of grassy hills and wildflower meadows in Blanco County. When visitors arrive May 5 for the annual family day and picnic, they will repeatedly drive across a perennial stream that cascades through a series of waterfalls and d Read More »
A Runner Reflects on Lady Bird Johnson’s Legacy and the Companionship of Nature
Johnson described nature as her daily companion. “The song of the wind in the upper branches of the pine trees is the most evocative symphony I’ve ever heard.” Read More »
Meet Our Makers: Jae Benjamin of Benjamin Soap Co.
At her studio in Hutto, Jae Benjamin crafts small batches of cold-process soaps and hand-poured soy candles using all-natural ingredients. Her artisan bath, body, and home products often contain organic herbs, raw honey, and plant-based essential oils, and some feature inventive additions like coffee beans and stout beer. Benjamin started out small at an Austin farmers market in 2014, but now her wares can be found at select shops across the nation. Read More »
Dearest Dumplin’: Ya Novelist Julie Murphy Talks Teen Empowerment, Dolly Parton, and Her Netflix Movie
Julie Murphy was on the law school track when a little book named Twilight came out during her senior year at Texas Wesleyan University. The young adult vampire novel reignited a love of reading in Murphy that she hadn’t felt in years. It also gave her the writing bug. “It was the first book that made me feel like maybe writing isn’t so far out of reach,” Murphy says, sitting at the kitchen table of her home just east of Fort Worth. “Maybe if this woman can write this admittedly ridiculous book about a sparkling vampire, maybe I can write one book that one person will read at least once.” Read More »
Willie Nelson Opens up About His Musical Family, His Love of Texas, and Why He’s Still on the Road to the Next Stage
There’s nothing like the feeling of stepping onto Willie Nelson’s tour bus. Whether you do it once or a hundred times, it’s a thrill to be invited onto Willie’s rolling roadshow. Stories will be told. New songs may be played. Jokes that may or may not be suitable for print will be exchanged. And laughter will definitely ensue. It’s Saturday night in the Fort Worth Stockyards. A sold- out crowd is already finding their seats just a few steps from Willie’s bus, which is parked behind the world’s largest honky tonk, Billy Bob’s Texas. I’ve come to see an old friend and to hear what might be my 100th Willie concert. Or maybe my 300th—I lost count long ago. Read More »
La Kiva Restaurant Helps Heal the Terlingua Community
On the banks of Terlingua Creek, a ramp leads down into La Kiva, one of the most famous bar/restaurants in the Big Bend area. In Hopi culture, a kiva is an underground chamber used for religious and political meetings. But this kiva is a meeting place for the dreamers, lost souls, river guides, and tourists who are drawn to the old mining town and surrounding desert. Read More »
A Q&A With Big Bend National Park’s New Superintendent Bob Krumenaker
Big Bend National Park got a new superintendent last fall with the arrival of Bob Krumenaker, a 36-year veteran of the National Park Service who spent the past 16 years as superintendent of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin. A native of New York, Krumenaker has worked in 14 national parks, including two years in the early 1980s at Big Thicket National Preserve in East Texas. Krumenaker sat down with Texas Highways in November, seven weeks into the job. Read More »
A New Texan Finds Beauty and Solitude Amongst the Living and the Dead in Terlingua
I live 4,900 miles away from England, where I was born, on any day of the week. But on that day, home was getting farther away still. It’s not just the eight-hour drive with my family from Austin, where we now live, to Terlingua. It’s something else, something farther than the distance … everything is left behind en route. Read More »
My Hometown: Born of Turbulent Times, Mason Today Offers Hill Country Peace and Charm
When writer and historian Scott Zesch walks through the central square of Mason, everybody he meets has something to say, a question to ask, or a handshake to offer. You’re likely to be a familiar fellow around town when your great-great grandfather settled in the area from Germany in the mid-1850s, you went to Mason High School, and you’re known for throwing rollicking chili parties. First settled as a fort in 1851, Mason formed as a community of Old World settlers scratching out a new life in harsh Comanche country. Zesch brings this history to life in his award-winning book, The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier, which chronicles the lives of nine kidnapped children, including his great-great-great uncle Adolph Korn. Here Zesch, who lives on his nearby family ranch with his wife, Amelia, muses on Mason’s past and present. Read More »
Historian and Author Lonn Taylor on Growing up in the Philippines and Settling in the Big Bend
Now 78 years old, Taylor is an old-fashioned raconteur with a bushy mustache, Stetson Open Road hat, and an assortment of snappy bow ties. He’s also the author of more than half a dozen books and a historian who draws inspiration from his adopted home of the Big Bend. Read More »
One Artist’s Mission to Make Rankin the Most Painted Town in Texas
Artist Matt Tumlinson has made it his mission to quite literally “paint the town” of Rankin, a West Texas community with a population of around 800. The once-barren walls of Rankin, which lies in Upton County an hour south of Midland, are now decorated with Tumlinson’s quirky murals that often portray a Texan sense of humor. One of his murals is of Willie Nelson painted in the style of Greek religious iconography. Another that’s “turned some heads,” as Tumlinson puts it, features two cowboys on horseback looking at a selfie stick. In another, John Wayne dressed a professor depicts his famous quote, “Life is tough, but it’s tougher if you’re stupid,” as a graph on a chalkboard. Read More »
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