December 1989 Issue

On the Cover

Wild Forever

Once the private preserve of an oil executive, the 300,000-acre Big Bend Ranch, with all its desert grandeur, has now entered the public domain.

Features


Teardown

Houston’s West University area was just a quiet, unpretentious neighborhood until the bulldozers moved in. Now everyone’s trying to keep up with the Georgians.

Columns


Continental Drift

Five beautifully produced books explore the Americas, from anonymous folk art to the great muralists, from revolutionary heroes to a Texas ranching patriarch.

Images at War

A Fort Worth exhibit of scenes from the Mexican War shows that fanciful lithographs outgunned the realism of nascent photography.

Reporter


Reporter

Irreconcilable Differences

An airport spat rekindles the Dallas-Fort Worth feud; South Plains farmers cotton to a colorful high-fiber crop; Houston artists collaborate to wish everyone Feliz Navidad.

Miscellany


State Secrets

Courting Disaster

Bill Clements and the courts head for a showdown over school finance; the boom in engineering may be over; wisdom from the Whitmire win.

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