Little Town on the Prairie
Why do so many people trek to Albany (population: 2,000)? For starters, it has a serious art museum, an imposing courthouse, picturesque storefronts, historic ranches—and every June it lets its hair down with a Texas-size spectacular under the stars. Fandangle, anyone?
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In contrast to his spartan lifestyle, Watt Matthews donated lavishly to Albany doings. He gave dozens of his mother’s belongings to the Old Jail Art Center, enough to create the Sallie Reynolds Matthews Room, with its saddles, tools, rugs, and other pioneer relics, and he arranged for the Fandangle Association to lease part of the family’s land for a dollar a year for the Fandangle’s outdoor amphitheater. Recalls Debbe Hudman, “He gave me fifty dollars for my sixteenth birthday. Fifty dollars! I was in heaven.” He was also admired for his wit and his loyalty to his rugged home turf. As one friend remembers, “Watt Matthews used to say that bluebonnets only grew on sorry soil.” The Lambshead patriarch died in 1997 at the age of 98 and is buried in the ranch cemetery. On his tombstone is the simple epitaph “A Generous Man.”
Today Lambshead’s chief guardian is Ardon Judd, the youngest of the Matthews grandchildren, who lives in Albany with his wife, Rue. The rural area, where coyote-yowl serenades are commonplace, is a bit of a change from life in Washington, D.C., their home for 38 years. In the wake of Watt’s death, Ardon, a retired corporate lawyer for Dresser, Incorporated, has helped Lambshead make the transition from “a benevolent dictatorship to a democracy,” he says; a seven-member family board now runs the cattle operation and another group of seven oversees the ranch’s buildings and equipment. He jokes that he is also “vice president of whining” for Bright Sky Press, which Rue helped found in 2001. An experienced publisher who has produced books for Simon and Schuster, Random House, and others, she enjoys telling people that Bright Sky has a branch office in Washington. One of its 27 titles is Barbecue, Biscuits, and Beans: Chuck Wagon Cooking, by a Lambshead manager, Bill Cauble, and Cliff Teinert, a neighboring rancher.
Although Lambshead is famous, it is only one of Shackelford County’s many ranches, most of which have been in the same families for three or more generations. (“If you wanted to buy five hundred acres in Shackelford County,” points out a resident, “you couldn’t do it. There isn’t any land for sale.”) Because ranchers founded the town and still help run it, evocative terms like “feedlotting” and “working cattle” are still everyday expressions (and they produce a romantic frisson that “networking” and “pushing paper” can never hope to match). The Green Ranch, for instance, dates back to the 1880’s and looks much as it must have then except for a few modern touches—like power lines and bright-green signs that read “Drive Slow or Keep Out. Animals Have Right of Way.” On an April morning, owner Bob Green, who is pushing eighty, was working cattle with his great-nephew Henry Green. The younger man, a long, tall drink of water, was wearing dusty chaps and a black hat; his great-uncle is a Chill Wills type, silver-haired and likable. When they broke for lunch in the cookshack—chicken-fried steak with gravy, baked potatoes, and cherry pie, prepared by a smiling cook named Roberto Rodriguez—Bob Green proved that he deserves his reputation as the county’s one-man history book. He related the story of John Larn, a corrupt former sheriff who was shot to death by vigilantes in 1878, and the saga of nearby Camp Cooper, a military post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River that was perfectly situated for being sneaked up on by Indians. After lunch Green retired from the table to his minuscule office six feet away, where a computer monitor was flashing cattle futures (“They’re up to $78.75,” he told a caller). He continued to expound knowledgeably on almost every aspect of Albany life over the past century and a half, then commented sadly, “I wish you could have met ‘em—Watt Matthews, Robert Nail. I wish any one of those great old-timers was still around. But they’re all gone now.” Not quite, Mr. Green.
TOURISM IS A MAJOR ALBANY business chiefly during Fandangle, in part because few local ranches are open to the general public. A classy, comfortable exception is Stasney’s Cook Ranch, where Johnnie and Debbe Hudman serve as wildlife manager and head of marketing and guest services, respectively. The ranch is graced with the same rocky, rolling, mesquite-and-cactus-strewn landscape as the rest of Shackelford County. But back in 1926, when it was just the plain ol’ Cook Ranch, the Cooks and their in-laws the Nails discovered that it had something extra that wasn’t immediately apparent: oil. Royalties from the Cook Field, which has produced more than 30 million barrels (so far), benefited not only the landowners and Albany in general but also Fort Worth, where the family established the Cook Children’s Hospital to commemorate a daughter who died giving birth.
The field is still producing, but in 1989 the Cook family sold the ranch—to another Albany clan, of course. Today the historic property is owned by the H. R. Stasney family and managed by native son C. Richard Stasney, now a Houston otolaryngologist whose clients include Luciano Pavarotti. Unable to visit as often as he’d like, Stasney decided eleven years ago to open the ranch to hunters, who fork over anywhere from $50 for a half-day dove shoot to $4,000 for a four-day trophy-buck hunt. Nature lovers are welcome too and are likely to spy the ranch’s herds of tame buffalo and elk as well as coyotes, feral hogs, and rattlesnakes. There are also wild turkeys, quail, roadrunners, red-tailed hawks, and many other birds (the Hudmans abandoned one deer blind after a pair of barn owls took up residence there). The ranch is on the Texas Forts Trail, and three stone cabins on the grounds are replicas of the officers’ quarters at Fort Griffin, Fort Concho, and Fort Mason. The main lodge is decorated in puredee Western style, with lots of leather, mounted animal heads, and antlers (or “reindeer faces,” as one New Jersey visitor dubbed them).
In town, there are several lodging possibilities (although it’s way too late to snag anything for the Fandangle weekends; overnighters had better plan on the short hop from Abilene). Most rooms are fairly basic, catering largely to the scratch-and-spit hunting trade, but the grande dame Ole Nail House, a 1914 Prairie-style bed-and-breakfast in the Nail family’s former manse, manages to be both frilly and funky, and it’s right on the square. The Hereford Motel, unremarkable on the inside, is worth checking out for its rooms’ funny faux fronts—bakery, barbershop, boardinghouse—which mimic those along an Old West main street. (They have fooled many a newcomer looking for a haircut or a lemon pie.) The Hereford is also conveniently close to Albany’s best eatery, the Fort Griffin General Merchandise Restaurant. Brothers Ali and Nariman Esfandiary have mastered the region’s preferred cuisine—steak, burgers, fried chicken—and also own the adjacent Bee Hive, a bar named after Lottie Deno’s hangout. It’s actually a private club, since Shackelford County is dry. (You knew this town was too good to be true, didn’t you? Not to worry—you can still enjoy your favorite libation by paying the $3 club fee.)
Between museumgoing and Fandangleing, pop into the courthouse; it’s almost as impressive inside as out. And by all means browse Albany’s nice block of shops, just northeast of the courthouse. Outdoorsmen and indoorsmen alike will enjoy the Blanton-Caldwell Trading Company, which owner Holly Bernard advertises as “Guy Heaven”; a hunting and fishing store, it purveys everything from beer koozies and crappie jigs to hurricane lanterns and horse shampoo. Next door is the Next Door Store, with candles, note cards, and such (not recommended for possessors of Y chromosomes), and down the block is KitchenWorks, a nifty little cookware shop that stocks, among other things, at least seven types of pepper mills and seven coffee-bean blends, including Fandangle Favorite. For quick refueling, drop into the high-ceilinged Weaver-Oates Pharmacy across the street, where you can get a chocolate malt or a vanilla Coke at the old-fashioned soda fountain. Finally, try to make time for a quick run out to Fort Griffin State Park, where you can admire part of the state’s Longhorn herd and investigate various ruins, some of which are said to be haunted by the ghosts of dead soldiers.
If you’re already booked up for June, consider visiting Albany on October 18 for Watt R. Matthews Cowboy Day, with all the attendant Western hoopla the name implies (plus team chicken-roping, reputedly the highlight of the event), or next spring for the annual Polo on the Prairie weekend; Tommy Lee Jones and George Strait are regulars. But there’s enough in Albany to make a visit enjoyable any day of the year—unless you don’t like art, architecture, books, shopping, food, history, or wildlife. And in that case, what in the fandangle is wrong with you?
If you go . . .
Fort Griffin Fandangle, June 19-21 and 26-28 at dusk; $5-$15; 325-762-3838; fortgriffinfandangle.org.
Old Jail Art Center, 325-762-2269. Open Tuesday-Saturday 10-5, Sunday 2-5.
Ole Nail House Inn Bed and Breakfast, 800-245-5163; doubles $70-$80.
Stasney’s Cook Ranch, 888-762-2999; doubles start at $125.
For more information, contact the Albany Chamber of Commerce, 325-762-2525; albanytexas.com.
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