When I turned 18, I excitedly left my hometown of Sealy for Austin. My tiny town had felt stuck in the past, hopelessly out of the loop. My future, the future, would be in cities: skyscrapers, not grain silos; rock bands, not marching bands; concrete, not cow pastures. If young me could see me now, living in Lampasas, she’d be flummoxed. You’ve purposely chosen a Hill Country destination for deer hunters and cattle ranchers to call home?

But that Austin future, once so enticing, feels less fun in 2024. Rush hour lasts half the day, and a fancy meal means scrimping to meet your budget the rest of the week. The unlimited choices of the city can, ironically, make it feel easier to default to staying home. Given that context, it isn’t surprising that urban Texans in search of weekend fun turn to surrounding small towns.

Travelers have been visiting Lampasas for its mineral springs long before cars existed, much less rush hour. Hancock Springs Park channels bracing 69-degree waters into a crystal-clear pool next to Sulphur Creek and the remains of the original bathhouse. But what many first notice about my new home is the town’s strong sense of visual whimsy. On the south edge is the World’s Largest Spur—a 10,000-pound, 35-foot-tall sculpture verified by Guinness World Records. And just north of downtown is the Hanna Springs Sculpture Garden where you can find butterflies, tractors, and zebras like you’ve never seen before.

Wes and Carol Chancey add to that spark with their retail store Rustler’s Junction. Once home to an H-E-B, the 25,000-square-foot building has a wealth of Western furniture and décor, all hand-picked by the family from artisans in Mexico and Texas. But it’s their outdoor offerings that will literally turn your head: enormous, cast-aluminum statues from Juárez, Mexico, depict dinosaurs, dragons, and even a towering jackalope.

When asked why his place thrives while other brick-and-mortar stores are in decline, Wes points out many chain options carry identical stock and have indifferent customer service. “Our focus has been on specializing in the special projects that aren’t seen every day, with a staff that is welcoming,” he says.

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There’s additional visual flair around town. Turn a corner in Lampasas, and you’re likely to find one of the many exceptional murals created and designed by Vision Lampasas. For the past 15 years, the nonprofit’s countless volunteers have painted tributes to the town’s past and present—whether cowboy boots or the recent solar eclipse. One of the largest examples celebrates local wildflowers in a giant seed packet motif featuring larger-than-life bluebonnets, Indian paintbrushes, and blackfoot daisies.

The city’s downtown can transport you back a century with its limestone courthouse and surrounding square. However, a closer look inside the building that sports the Lampasas County wildflower mural reveals recent changes. Ana Shed-Harbin and her husband, Dalton Harbin, are the owner of Hester’s Books on the Square as well as the adjacent Lampasas Beer Market, whose scratch-made pizza has been named the city’s best. Both Ana and Dalton were raised in Lampasas and left for places like Abilene, Dallas, and West Virginia before returning home.

A stone’s throw from Odessa, you will find a population of just over 7,000 people living in a little oil field oasis marked by chaparral flats sectioned off by miles of barbed wire. This is the pasture homeland for many West Texas families and what Valhalla looks like for bygone wild-catting oil men and rig swampers. Impatient travelers can pass through the whole of the town in no less than seven minutes and, in that mistake, miss every aspect of its desert splendor.

Monahans is a country music balladeer’s dream, offering the familiar, rolling refrain of carnival fairs and horticultural showcases, livestock auctions, and rodeos bookended by quarter horse parades and a celebration of the Butterfield Overland stagecoach. And resting just outside the city limits, needing no official marker for day trippers, is Monahans Sandhills State Park, a 4,000-acre Sahara look-alike. “The park is vital to our community, bringing in tourists from all over the country,” Mayor Adam Steen says. “They come to admire the vast, singular landscape you will only find in West Texas.”

That remarkable vista includes dunes reaching over seven stories high and one of the largest oak forests in the country. The shrub-like Havard oaks that comprise the 40,000-acre forest grow only shin-high, but the wild expanse of them helps stabilize the blond sandhills that visitors can surf down on rentable discs. Additionally, there is scenic hiking, partitioned camping sites, and an 800-acre horseback riding section in the park, which was created in 1957.

Like all the oil field cities comprising the Permian Basin region, Monahans is not without stories of misfortune and their historical mausoleums. During a 1920s boom, the Shell Oil Company was stricken with the not-so-unique problem of what to do with the overwhelming amount of black gold drawn up from the heart of the Earth. Officials decided to hollow out a colossal, cemented crater 35 feet deep and 8 acres wide and fill it to the brim. Overloaded, the million-gallon barrel cracked and the oil, so painstakingly pulled from the ground, seeped through the fissures of the vessel back into the sand. Not 30 years later, a man named Wayne Long bought the barrel, sealed it back up, and attempted to make it the crown jewel of watering holes. The grand opening of Melody Park, and the promise of all that boating and swimming, lasted the length of a single day in October 1958. Then the crater’s old wounds opened again and stole the water as quickly as it had robbed Shell of its oil.

Monahans is a little wave of light, a picture framed within the wide expanse of the Llano Estacado. It is a dry place, hundreds of miles from the Gulf of Mexico, where you will find all of the beach but none of the ocean. It may only exist because of the oil beneath a tidal wave of sand, yet within its borders is a population of proud families and a town full of unique charms.

As it has been since the beginning of West Texas, a thing that was fractured was repurposed and given new life. The great barrel was transformed into a museum dedicated to the bad luck story. Opened in 1987, the Million Barrel Museum houses an amphitheater, oilfield artifacts, and the Holman House, which displays farming equipment, a railroad caboose, and other memorabilia from petroleum tycoon Eugene Holman. “The Million Barrel Museum not only holds the rich history of Monahans, but of all of Ward County,” Steen says. “It also houses the Rattlesnake Bomber Base Museum, which played an important role in World War II and the flight of the Enola Gay.”

When someone asks me where I’m from, originally, I used to give the obligatory, “You’ve probably never heard of it” answer—citing that it’s a two-hour drive due east from Dallas and about 40 miles west of the Louisiana border.

Longview hasn’t historically been a tourist hot spot. It doesn’t make the lists of top places to travel to like neighboring Jefferson, for instance, with its riverfront access and rich historical buildings and inns. But in the past decade, with the revitalization of downtown, Longview now offers a centralized place for out-of-towners to visit and soak up the vibrant local offerings, including an ice cream parlor with house-made scoops and cones, a variety of boutiques, and the Longview World of Wonders, an incredible interactive children’s museum.

Last summer, my family and I hosted an event for my latest novel at the local indie, Books & Barrels. I instantly became entranced by the winsome sunlit and plant-filled space, framed by its Instagram-worthy archway lined with books. Owner Laura Nevils, who opened the shop in 2020, says, “We didn’t really have a place for people to sit and read and just be transported into a new place. I wanted a different atmosphere where everyone could be comfortable.”

After my event, a group of us stepped into the night and I was struck by downtown’s stunning contrast to years past. The air felt electric with possibilities, as I reacquainted myself with one of the most iconic locally owned restaurants of my childhood. Formerly called Johnny Cace’s and situated in a grand building off US 80, it was the place to be for fancy celebrations like prom and graduation. “Then it got to be the ’90s and all the chains were popping up, and nine years ago we closed that location,” says Chelsea Cace, granddaughter of Johnny and co-owner of Cace’s Kitchen, the new incarnation of the fabled restaurant.

I’m about to drink a strong cup of freshly ground Costa Rican coffee, visit a few chic shops, and then spend the afternoon perusing museums throughout the city. No, I’m not in Houston or Dallas, but Lufkin— the midsize East Texas town that has been undergoing a slow but steady renaissance of culture and commerce over the past two decades.

At the vanguard of this change is Standpipe Coffee House, one of the first businesses to open in 2011 during downtown Lufkin’s revitalization.

“We’ve seen downtown undergo a remarkable transformation over the last decade, and we’re proud to have been a part of that change from the very beginning,” owner Taylor Kovar says. “What makes Standpipe unique, beyond our commitment to quality coffee, is our deep-rooted connection to Lufkin’s history and dedication to its future.”

That history isn’t just inherent at Standpipe, it’s palpable. In the process of readying the building for business, the owners discovered an enormous Coca-Cola ad behind a layer of plaster. The painted brick billboard, dating back more than 100 years, was on the outside of a previous business before it was expanded.

The thread of history that runs through the community is part of what first convinced Mayor Mark Hicks to lead the charge in flipping the city’s downtown buildings from vacant to vibrant.

“When you are looking for a town to start a business in or relocate a business to, there is an ‘intangible’ that often factors into the decision,” he says. “It could be the feel that comes with a downtown district that connects people, culture, and community. It is that sense that we care about each other and our shared history.”

Indeed, the town’s history is a fascinating one. Located both culturally and geographically somewhere between the bold Texas frontier and the antebellum South, Angelina County—of which Lufkin is the county seat—is the only Texas county named after a woman. Early Spanish missionaries were assisted by a Hasinai tribe woman who they called “Little Angel” or Angelina. The county was also the only one in East Texas to vote against secession during the Civil War, despite being surrounded by deeply Confederate cohorts.

It’s that independent spirit that has long guided Lufkin to reach above its station as the 103rd most populous municipality in Texas. Despite a population under 40,000, the town is home to multiple museums that would be the envy of any large city.

The Museum of East Texas (aka the other MET) hosts work from national artists as well as locals, like Jeffie Brewer, whose playfully modern approach to sculpture was previously on display in his Joy Machine exhibition. Last year, the museum presented linocut work from acclaimed printmaker and Laredo native Juan de Dios Mora—adding Lufkin to a list of his stops, which included museums in Mexico, Japan, and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

The Wallace Theater in Levelland had been a movie hub for the residents of Hockley County for some 50 years. But due to the advent of multiplexes in my hometown of Lubbock, 30 miles east, most residents lost touch with the theater—and it showed.

As recently as 2002, only the “W,” “A,” and “L” of the original sign were left. The stage was rotted out. There were holes in the ceiling, water leaks, and a few uninvited guests. That’s when George Keeling—who is credited with coining the town slogan “Living in Levelland and lovin’ it!”—stepped in to buy the theater. Shuttered since the late 1980s, the local businessman was looking at a mountain of work, including trapping 300 pigeons that had long made the theater their home.

Last December, the new marquee was finally raised, and all of its 300 bulbs shone above Houston Street. Crews put up the new 42-foot-tall blade sign with 6-foot-wide letters cascading down the front. When its doors are fully opened to the public this December, town residents can expect theater performances, concerts, celebrity speakers, film showings, and educational opportunities for local students.

Lubbock and Cleveland-based architects are currently renovating the interior with luxurious carpeting, brass rails, and wood. They’re even restoring the site’s acanthus “scrolling mural” that dates back to the 1950s—a fixture that made Keeling fall in love with the space as a child.

“When you walk in, we want you to feel like you are stepping back in time to the 1920s,” says Alycyn Keeling, George’s daughter and the executive director of the Wallace. Outside, maroon tiles shine on the front facade, and the original terrazzo flooring is flecked with chips of green that, over time, have dulled in color. The overall effect resembles many of the pieces of artwork found across town.

Known as the “City of Mosaics,” Levelland offers more than 100 works of art consisting of small pieces of colored stone, tile, and glass. A grassroots project that began in 1968, the collection of mosaics detail various scenes of local history, industry, and nature—like artist Don Stroud’s inaugural entry, Wild Mustangs. Other examples can be found on handrails along the town square steps, such as one depiction of a flying saucer—commemorating a famous 1957 UFO event—that brings a colorful aesthetic to downtown Levelland.

On the second Thursday of every November, that same space is overtaken by chauffeurs in limousines and horse-drawn carriages during the annual Ladies Night Out event. A pre-holiday shopping extravaganza, “it started out as an event to thank customers with a few merchants, and then turned into a very large annual celebration,” says Tania Moody, the city’s Main Street manager. At the free event, women are escorted from shop to shop as doormen in top hats and white gloves welcome them inside for wine and margaritas.

Many of these high-traffic boutiques are recent additions to the town square, but visitors would be remiss if they didn’t also indulge in historic spots like Tienda’s Tortilla Factory. A local institution since 1976, the restaurant specializes in homemade chorizo, hot sauces, carne guisada, and crispy breaded chiles rellenos. At the heart of many of these dishes are soft flour tortillas forged on a baby blue conveying machine that current owner Angie Tienda’s father brought over from Mexico. Today, she’s the only surviving member of her family lineage, but she says she still feels their presence in every homemade ingredient. “If anywhere I feel closer to any of my family members, it ain’t at the cemetery,” she says. “It’s right here.”

Whether it’s the immaculately restored architectural detail of the Wallace Theater or Tienda’s hand-laid stone put down by Angie’s bricklayer uncles, every piece of Levelland comes together to form a stunning Panhandle mosaic. Step back and you can appreciate the big picture: a gathering place on the South Plains that might just usurp Lubbock as the Hub City.