An abandoned trailer sits on the side of a desert highway.
Kat SwanseyThis abandoned trailer sits off Highway 90 in West Texas, just outside of Langtry.

Two 1960s-era gas pumps stand sentry in front of the Shelby Store in Fayetteville, stubbornly holding their ground as the world around them rusts away.

The store’s once-bright tin roof has faded into a weathered amber. The awning leans gently to the left, yielding to the pull of gravity. The wooden steps have been worn smooth by a steady shuffle of Tony Lamas and Dan Posts. Not long ago, locals would tether their horses out front, and if I stare long enough, I can almost hear the clink of hooves on gravel.

An abandoned, decaying white church with a cross on the front stands in an open field.
Kat SwanseyThe Doole Baptist Church is a relic of the early 1900s. Located in Concho County in Central Texas, Doole reached its peak population of 250 in the 1940s before WWII.
A small town main street of old red, white, and blue buildings.
Kat SwanseyThe old sign for Winkelmann Portrait Studio still hangs on East Alamo street in Downtown Brenham. Winkelmann’s Studio operated from 1906 to 1991.

Many of us rush past these forgotten landmarks—the rusted iron, crumbling brick, and beer bottle-strewn gravel that line the interstate. But not Kat Swansey. She slows down to capture them in her large-scale film photographs. “If there’s an abandoned gas pump, I’m hitting the brakes,” she says. Building on the success of her debut book, Texas Textures, Swansey is releasing its eagerly awaited sequel, Texas Textures Volume Two, with all new photographs in February.

Swansey’s mission is to preserve the hidden corners of rural Texas before they’re replaced by supersized Buc-ee’s or bulldozed in the name of “development.” Her family has called the state home for five generations, and she grew up in Brenham, just 20 minutes from the aging Shelby Store featured in this volume. “The store hasn’t changed one bit since I was a kid; the same woman still runs it,” she says with a smile. “Locals know that if the front porch light is on, it’s open for business.”

Wooden crosses mark the graves at a cemetery backdropped by a mountain.
Kat SwanseyRock graves and wooden crosses in the morning sun at Concordia Cemetery in Shafter.

Many of the locations featured in Swansey’s first volume, released in 2022, have been demolished. “It’s heartbreaking to watch these small towns fade away,” she says, “but it’s important to keep these places alive—if only in my photos.”

From an early age, Swansey was drawn to capturing the past. She loved playing with the cameras that her grandfather had scattered around his office. When she was a teenager, she’d sneak into Yellow Fever Cemetery near her grandparents’ house to photograph headstones from the 1800s. “I would run off with their Polaroid camera and burn through all their film before they realized it was gone,” she recalls. “Those were my first photos. I wish I still had them.”

This graffiti lines the wall of a once-abandoned building in the West Texas town of Langtry. This area is now being turned into vacation rentals.

Just like her grandfather, Swansey exclusively shoots on film, ignoring technological advances and convenience. After every shot, she has to crank a handle on her camera to advance to the next frame. Her work is laborious: “I have to manually line up every shot, focus, and get the aperture just right,” she says.

Swansey is as passionate about history as she is about her art, meticulously researching each subject before including it in her book, offering readers a deeper understanding of the stories behind her images. On her days off from her role as a social media manager at Expedia, Swansey will drive as far from the bustle of Austin as possible. Often logging over 400 miles in a weekend, she hunts for places that have seen better days.

Her new book explores a wide range of settings she has discovered over the past two years, from the cemetery in the ghost town of Shafter, where most of the graves were dug by hand, to the colorful, 19th-century storefronts of Downtown Brenham, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed in 1836.

A white abandoned building stands in the desert. On the wall is a painted doodle of a house with text that reads "Wanted: The Past."
Kat SwanseyThis graffiti lines the wall of a once-abandoned building in the West Texas town of Langtry. This area is now being turned into vacation rentals.
An old general store with gas pumps in front of it and a sign that reads "Shelby Store."
Kat SwanseyThe Shelby Store—opened in 1946—still operates and serves as a hub for the Shelby community.

This new collection isn’t just for photographers, art aficionados, and history buffs. The book belongs on every Texan’s coffee table—not only to admire the surprising beauty of rusted gas pumps but also to uncover or rediscover the hidden gems we’ve overlooked while speeding down the interstate.

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