For Old Time’s Sake
The past enriches the present at these historical small towns to visit now
Goliad
By Clayton Maxwell
I hear singing. From within the 18th- century walls of the Presidio La Bahía chapel, a voice belts out “Unforgettable, that’s what you are.” I wait behind the door. Who is singing Nat King Cole and why? Could it be a tribute to Col. James Fannin, the Texas revolutionary leader shot in 1836 against the wall a few yards behind me?
When the singing stops, I enter the stucco arches of the chapel and am greeted by a large bald man with a tattoo of the Alamo peeking out from his black muscle shirt. “You caught me,” he says. His name is Mike Yoakum, and he’s been visiting and singing in this chapel for years. “The acoustics are awesome, and I love the solitude. It’s my own private church.” He knows the chapel’s tragic history well and looks mournful when explaining how Fannin and his men were held in its walls for a week. And yet, Yoakum’s song is not for Fannin, but for his “love.”
I knew it was a stretch. But given that we are in Goliad, a sleepy South Texas town so dense with history there seems to be more historical markers than people, one could be forgiven for misinterpreting a love song as a tribute to the fallen men of the Texas Revolution. Established when the Spanish moved their mission and fort to the San Antonio River in 1749, Goliad is one of the oldest towns in Texas. Spend some time here and Texas history transforms from something you had to study in seventh grade to something alive.
The most memorable way to make the past the present is an overnight stay in The Quarters of La Bahía, located across the chapel courtyard. Restored in the 1960s from early drawings after the original structure had crumbled, its 3-foot-thick stone walls are not original like those in the chapel, but they feel as if they are. The interior is so dark and mysterious you can imagine the Catholic priests who once lived here praying. After reading the Quarters’ guest book, I feel like praying, too. Page after page describes encounters with spirits here. A note left shortly before my stay reads, “We believe we are dealing with a wraith. Crucifixes deployed.” But my only distraction is the shine of an almost-full moon over the courtyard.
“The way the Quarters are laid out now is pretty much spot on to what they would have looked like in the 1830s,” says Heike Jenkins, an educator interpreter at La Bahía. “Raiford Stripling, the architect who did the restoration in the 1960s, was true to the original drawings we have.”
Having the entire centuries-old fort to yourself after hours is the biggest perk of an overnight stay. As the sun rises over surrounding fields the next morning, lighting up the fort’s stone walls, deer graze and an owl hoots. Presidio La Bahía’s environs are so quiet it’s easy to imagine Fannin and his battalion waking here on their last morning.
A former Texas history teacher from Poteet, Jenkins shares La Bahía’s story with the enthusiasm of a fireside raconteur. Apparently, the southeast bastion where I’d had my morning coffee once overlooked a brothel. She tells me the first casualty of the Texas Revolution was a Black man, Samuel McCulloch, shot here in the Battle of Goliad in 1835. “He doesn’t get talked about enough,” Jenkins says. “There are so many lives tangled up with this place, I never stop learning.”
The history of Goliad reverberates outside of La Bahía’s walls, too. We all party on Cinco de Mayo, but what do we know about the man behind the celebration? Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza, whose outnumbered forces defeated the invading French in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, was born at La Bahía in 1829. A walk through Zaragoza’s humble three-room stone home is a reminder that you don’t need fancy origins to make history.
Within the grounds of Goliad State Park on the other side of the river is Mission Espírito Santo. This Spanish colonial beauty was restored by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the 1930s and shows how Spaniards and the native Aranamas cohabitated here in the 1700s. Jenkins says this is where the Catholic Church attempted to convert the locals.
A mile down the highway from the state park, historical plaques on the courthouse square offer a thumbnail version of the triumph and tragedy that transpired here. A marker in front of the Goliad County Library honors John Mason Brewer, a venerable, award-winning African American folklorist who was born in Goliad in 1896 and wrote more than a dozen books of Black folklore. A marker beside a sprawling live oak on the courthouse lawn briefs passersby of the “courtroom” hearings that took place in the tree’s shade, and the convicted men who were immediately hung from its branches afterward. Peering up at the courthouse’s impressive mansard roof and towers, you can imagine it as the makeshift hospital it became after a tornado claimed over 100 lives in 1902. So many fates have played out upon this square it could be the setting of a Shakespeare play.
Goliad may be quiet, but if you pay attention, the past hums here like a well-sung song, something unforgettable.
Burnet
By Matt Joyce
When I was a kid, my family would gather for the holidays at my great-aunt and great-uncle’s home in Burnet, where we’d play football in the dry winter grass. Then in the summers, the Burnet Dairy Queen became our traditional stop after my parents picked me and my siblings up from Camp Longhorn on Inks Lake. Even as a kid, I could tell the community was like an extended family. Now, when I meet people from Burnet, I often find out they took piano lessons from my great-aunt or high school math from my cousin.
I returned to Burnet recently to learn more about its history and the roots of its small town spirit. I found that like many Texas towns, Burnet traces its origins to a frontier fort and railroad lines. What distinguishes Burnet is the work locals have done to preserve tangible links to these cornerstones.
“The historical commission and heritage society are both very active within our county,” explains Blair Manning, tourism and marketing director for Burnet County. “You pair that with an influx of people who grew up here and are returning to raise their families, and who want their kids to have the childhood that they had, and there’s a sense of community that’s a driving force.”
Located in the Highland Lakes region, Burnet sits at the intersection of US 281 and State Highway 29, a busy crossroads that reflects the town’s longtime status as a commercial center for ranching and rock quarrying. Two blocks from the intersection, Burnet’s courthouse square hums with commerce and serves as a gathering point for locals and visitors with its boutiques, restaurants, newly restored jail museum, and Wedding Oak Winery.
Scenic byways extend out from town to outdoor attractions among the limestone and granite hills that descend to the Colorado River. Within 20 minutes, motorists can reach destinations including Inks Lake, Lake Buchanan, and Longhorn Cavern State Park. There are also mountain bike parks within range.
Enjoying this article?Burnet first took shape alongside Fort Croghan, which the U.S. military constructed on Hamilton Creek in 1849 to protect settlers from Comanche raiders who also lived in the area. Today, the Fort Croghan Museum interprets Burnet County history with relics donated by local families and a collection of pioneer buildings. “I came in the museum [in 2009] to see if my grandmother’s sewing machine was still here, and I’ve been here ever since,” says Ann Nelson, volunteer curator and maintenance director.
The museum’s artifacts range from musket balls, buttons, and buckles from the fort’s active period to Burnet’s 1910 fire engine and Nelson’s 1879 heirloom Singer sewing machine. Outside, a collection of 19th-century structures portrays life on the frontier. Two of the buildings are original to Fort Croghan—the Adjutant’s Office, which was the only fort building made from limestone blocks; and the Lookout Building, which provided a 360-degree view from its perch atop nearby Post Mountain.
The army decommissioned Fort Croghan in 1853, but settlers stuck around, eventually adopting the name Burnet in 1858 and incorporating in 1876. Burnet County and Burnet are named for David G. Burnet, a Republic of Texas president. To correct the mispronunciation of “bur-net”—as in fishing net—locals coined the rhyme, “It’s Burnet, durnit, can’t you learn it?”
The arrival of the Austin and Northwestern Railroad in 1882 fueled Burnet’s economy as a shipping center. In addition to serving as a railhead for wool and livestock, Burnet was home to a finishing yard for rock from Granite Mountain that was transported to Austin for the construction of the Texas Capitol. The Austin Steam Train Association keeps railroad history engaging with its Hill Country Flyer, which makes roundtrips between Cedar Park and Burnet in vintage train cars. The Flyer’s two-hour layover allows time for the three-block walk to the courthouse square.
On the square, the Burnet County 1884 Historic Jail opened as a museum in 2022 following an extensive restoration. Girded by thick limestone bricks, the three-story building held inmates from 1885 to 1982. On a self-guided tour, visitors can wander through the drunk tank, solitary confinement cells, and ground-floor apartment where the sheriff’s family resided. Fascinating details include inmate registry books, the wall slot where the sheriff’s wife would pass meal trays to the inmates, and the discreet listening holes that allowed the sheriff to keep an ear on the inmates.
Wedding Oak Winery, a purveyor of Texas varietals, offers a different take on historical renovation with its light-filled tasting rooms and an outdoor patio and upstairs terrace overlooking the square. Owners Mike and Lynn McHenry oversaw the 15-month renovation of the 1883 Badger Building in 2018 and ’19, preserving historical touches along the way.
“Having people come enjoy a building that’s 141 years old is pretty cool,” Mike says. “We’ve turned our interest in repurposing old buildings into part of our business model. And we really enjoy seeing the downtown core businesses start to come back and people enjoying them.”
In the main barroom, visitors can sip wines like Texedo Red and Tempranillo Reserve while peering through a floor window that looks down to a 15-foot-deep cistern dug into the bedrock. Workers uncovered the cistern during the renovation—yet another reminder that you never know what history awaits when you take time to look below the surface.
Presidio
By Sarah M. Vasquez
Growing up, Oscar Rodriguez was curious about the sacred burial mound tucked in a historic neighborhood he often walked by in the West Texas border town of Presidio. An enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, he grew concerned in the late 1980s when he started to see encroachment on the 4-acre plot known as El Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes. He decided to do something about it and spent decades researching the tribe’s history, and he pushed for the cemetery to earn designation as a State Antiquities Landmark in 2014. “Like a spell that suddenly filled an old dried-out lake basin, official recognition of that site popped back into existence a people and history that had been invisible,” Rodriguez says.
In recent years, Rodriguez and fellow descendants of the Lipan Apache Tribe have partnered with the Big Bend Conservation Alliance and MASS Design Group to protect and preserve the deteriorating cemetery. In 2021, they began a restoration that included installing protective barriers made of gabion wire baskets filled with sentinel stones. The project was completed in 2024, providing a public space for people to visit and learn about this history through bilingual interpretive signage.
Elvira Hermosillo knew very little about the town’s history until she worked on the project for the BBCA. “I kept telling everyone that I wish when we were in school, they would have taught some of the local history because it is so rich, and people are not aware,” says Hermosillo, who is also a member of the Presidio Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Presidio is considered the oldest continuously cultivated farmland in the United States. The earliest record dates to 1535, when Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca first encountered the Jumanos in the region, but the town was officially established in 1683 through a peace treaty between Spanish settlers and Indigenous peoples. The two rivers that connect in Mexico—Rio Grande and Rio Conchos—attracted inhabitants, creating a hub for trade. But archeological digs and preserved sites with pictographs and earth ovens revealed there have been inhabitants in the area for thousands of years.
Presidio tends to be overshadowed by its more popular neighbors, Marfa and Terlingua. Still, this sleepy town with a population of 3,264 residents has much to offer beyond its history. This includes nearby recreational opportunities and the recent addition of new restaurants and cultural offerings.
“When we talk about Presidio, people remember the parks—Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park. People drive through or they’re going into Mexico, so what we want to do is create a better downtown to bring more types of artisan shops and stores,” says Arian Velazquez-Ornelas, who is simultaneously mayor pro tem, president of the Presidio Convention and Visitors Bureau, and an interpreter at Fort Leaton State Historic Site.
Under Velazquez-Ornelas’ leadership, the bureau started two annual music series in 2018— the Bluebonnet Music Series in March and the Dark Skies Music Series in August—as an extension of the annual Presidio Multi-Cultural Festival. There is also the independently run, yearly River Run convoy of motorcycles and classic cars.
David Beebe traveled from Marfa to perform conjunto and ranchera music with Primo y Beebe, his duo with Primo Carrasco, for this summer’s Dark Skies series. Beebe, who is a Presidio County commissioner, has participated in the series at least twice at different locations. This time he played at Casa Agave, the newest addition to Presidio’s restaurant scene. He says there were at least 75 people hanging around the cantina that August evening. “We played a two-hour set, and by the time we finished, they were still going,” Beebe says.
Casa Agave’s burgers are a crowd favorite, but they also serve tacos, steaks, and cocktails, along with breakfast. It’s one of the few places in town that stays open until 10 p.m. during the week—Presidio Trading Post & Cantina is open Thu-Sat until 10 p.m. for food—and midnight on Friday and Saturday. “Any type of place that can be a gathering place for the community has got value,” Beebe says.
Yosdy Valdivia hopes to provide another community space with her gallery, Galería Raíces, whose October opening was a fulfillment of a high school dream. She returned to Presidio after graduating with a degree in studio art from Sul Ross State University in Alpine. Galería Raíces, which means “roots gallery,” is the first art gallery in Presidio and features Valdivia’s work among other regional artists.
“I see potential in Presidio,” Valdivia says. “A lot of other young people are coming back. We grew up here, and then we moved away to study or live somewhere else, and we realized we want to be in Presidio to make a change or build something.”
The COVID-19 pandemic inspired Sharon Hernandez to return home after living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In 2022, she opened Presidio Pour-Over Coffee Co., expanding a Presidio culinary scene that includes Don José Panadería, a staple that has served pan dulce for over 20 years.
Hermosillo calls these new developments a complement to Presidio’s heritage. “It’s still a small town feeling, very community-oriented,” she says. “Everyone knows each other. I like that.”
Canyon
By Christopher Collins
By day, Benny Tahmahkera lives like any other 62-year-old retiree—he plays golf at the Palo Duro Creek Golf Course, where he shoots an 80, and putters around the bucolic Panhandle town of Canyon in his dusty red pickup. “It’s one of those towns like a Norman Rockwell painting,” he says. It’s home to 15,000 people due south of Amarillo, the de facto gateway to Palo Duro Canyon State Park and the site of West Texas A&M University.
The school’s 9,600 students mostly vacate the town during the summer months, but that’s when Tahmahkera shows up. On July 5, he rises early and heads for Palace Coffee Company, a hip morning hangout that offers a view of Canyon’s downtown square. Foot traffic flows between a bookstore and a boutique; cars circle the block for parking spots at Tex-Mex, Italian, and Thai fusion eateries. A stately, three-story courthouse complete with a working clock tower presides over it all. The college town is in good health despite being separated from its student body.
Tahmahkera, a former U.S. Marine with 20 years of service, has summered in this hamlet of higher education for the past 12 years. By now he’s a fixture of the community, regarded as a local celebrity for his leading role in the outdoor musical Texas, a regional production with an international fanbase. At the coffee shop, Tahmahkera is greeted by owner Patrick Burns, who’s an old friend (and former Texas co-star). They catch up and make plans to get together soon—for a round of golf, of course. “I’ve met some nice people out here. Locals I look forward to seeing every time I come back,” says Tahmahkera, who spends the other nine months of the year at his home in Cache, Oklahoma.
Down the block at Burrowing Owl Bookstore, owner Dallas Bell helps a steady stream of readers perusing new and used books on the Fourth of July weekend. “We get lots of tourism here,” Bell says. “We love getting to know the people who come through the door.” This building was constructed in 1909—around the time electricity came to Canyon—and formerly housed a bank. Bell’s landlord, 89-year-old H. Root, has been restoring the two-story structure since the 1980s. That includes the basement, or Root Cellar. Here the octogenarian keeps his most prized memorabilia from a lifetime in a small town. “Canyon is a jewel—a lot of people don’t know it’s here,” says Root, who has served on the Randall County Historical Commission for nearly 30 years. “We’re part of a deep ranching history. What’s drawing people now is the hometown feel.”
As the sun begins to slide down in the Canyon sky each evening, migrating west over the Staked Plains like a moseying cowboy, Tahmahkera disappears. By night, he becomes Quanah Parker, the last Comanche war chief—and one of the Texas Panhandle’s most legendary historical figures. The transformation takes place inside the state park’s 1,300-seat amphitheater, where Tahmahkera dons a Comanche war bonnet, a bone breastplate, and leather moccasins before mounting a white paint horse named Spirit and riding onto the Texas stage. This goes beyond play-acting: Quanah Parker is Tahmahkera’s great-great-grandfather. From June to August, six nights a week, the younger stands in for the elder.
“It’s humbling and personally rewarding to portray my grandfather in this way,” he says. “And for me to ride a horse every day in the canyon is special, even if it’s just from stage left to center stage.”
Texas is set in the late 1800s, a decade after the Comanches were driven from the Panhandle to reservations in Oklahoma. Sodbusters and drovers are laying claim to the land. The story finds cattle baron Col. Henry McLean—an analogue of ranching icon Charles Goodnight—fighting a railroad planned by farmer Calvin Armstrong, who’s in a tizzy about settling the High Plains. There’s a love triangle, a riotous hoedown, and at least two fever dreams.
Like Canyon, the play’s fictional town of Henrianna was founded near the turn of the century by farmers and ranchers. Both communities have been besieged by twisters, grass fires, and bone-chilling blue northers. Both have fought over a prospective railroad. (In Canyon, it came in 1898; in Henrianna, Act 2.) The towns seem to share a single fate as they balance the pursuit of progress with a reverence for the past. For tradition. For the land.
Not everyone understands. Tucker Yelldell, a dimwitted gold prospector, tells audience members that the Panhandle is “where you can look further and see less than anywhere else on earth.” The fool’s amplified voice ricochets off shadowy canyon walls—it haunts the lightning bugs that twinkle like stars in the twilight between the past and present. Beating wings carry them across the ages, stretching seconds into centuries as they flit from the pioneers onstage to the people in stadium seats. And then to points yet uncharted.
