126 | Buzz Bissinger arrives in Odessa—with notepad
4700 Golder Avenue, Odessa | July 15, 1988
127 | T.S. Hogan builds Petroleum Building
214 West Texas Avenue, Midland | July 4, 1929
128 | Buddy Holly opens for Elvis
1012 Avenue A, Lubbock | February 13, 1955
129 | Flying Queens begin their historic winning streak
1900 West Seventh, Plainview | November 7, 1953
130 | First suspects rounded up in fraudulent drug sting
136 East Broadway Avenue, Tulia | July 23, 1999
131 | Hunters kill bison the old-fashioned way
Texas Highway 207, outside Silverton | c. 7500 BC
132 | Charles Goodnight starts ranching
Palo Duro Canyon | 1876
133 | Coronado gets lost
Somewhere on the Llano Estacado | October 1541
134 | Stanley Marsh 3 buries Cadillacs
Interstate 40 frontage road west of Amarillo, between exits 60 and 62 | May 28, 1974
135 | Headquarters for the XIT is built
517 Railroad Avenue, Channing | 1899
136 | Battle of Adobe Walls leads to ruin for Comanche
East of Texas Highway 207, near Stinnett; Adobe Walls | June 27, 1874
137 | The Plains Village Indians arrive
Five miles west of Texas Highway 136, along Cas Johnson Road; Fritch | 1150
138 | Bob Wills rides forty miles on horseback to hear Bessie Smith
Almost one mile east of FM 657 on the first ranch road south of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River; between Lakeview and Turkey | c. 1925
139 | Wyatt Earp meets Doc Holliday
Fifteen miles north of Albany on U.S. 283 | 1877
140 | Gregorio Cortez is buried
Along U.S. 180, 4.7 miles west of Anson | 1916
141 | T&P Depot is built
1101 North First, Abilene | 1910
142 | Willie Nelson sneaks two beers
Interstate 35 South service road and County Line Road, West | 1942
143 | Two locomotives collide—on purpose
Former site of Crush, McLennan County | September 15, 1896
144 | David Koresh aspires to be a rock star
926 South Lacy Drive, Waco | 1992
145 | First Dr Pepper is served
Corner of Fourth and Austin, Waco | December 1, 1885
146 | Mob lynches Jesse Washington
501 Washington Avenue, Waco | May 15, 1916
147 | Comanche raid Fort Parker
866 Park Road 35, Limestone County | May 19, 1836
148 | Nidal Hasan kills thirteen people at Fort Hood
Building 18000 on Battalion Avenue, Fort Hood | November 5, 2009
149 | German soldiers arrive at POW camp
North of the Municipal Airport on FM 485, Hearne | June 1943
150 | Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen write songs on a porch
302 Church, College Station | 1976
Courtesy of Robert Earl King
Contrary to legend, Lyle Lovett was not Robert Earl Keen’s roommate at Texas A&M. Rather, Keen shared a little wood-frame house at the corner of Church and Boyett, about a block from the back door to the Dixie Chicken, with his childhood best friend, Bryan Duckworth. But Lovett did live around the corner, and whenever he rode his bike by the house at 302 Church, Keen and Duckworth, budding guitar and fiddle players, respectively, would be on the front porch, drinking beer and pretending they could keep up with old Doc Watson records. Eventually Lovett started bringing his guitar by, as would nearly every folk and bluegrass picker on campus. “I remember sitting there one day, in maybe 1976,” says Keen, an English major who’d written poetry since he was a kid, “and thinking, ‘How does this porch make me feel?’ So I wrote three verses. It was a bull; it was a plate of enchiladas. Big metaphorical ideas. I played it for Lyle, and maybe two weeks later he came back and said, ‘I added to it.’ Then he played his part, and I wrote that down.” Thirty-five years later, Keen and Lovett are world-famous singer-songwriters, and that song—Keen calls it “The Front Porch Song”; Lovett calls it “This Old Porch”—is still a fixture on both artists’ set lists. The house, alas, has been torn down. —JS
•••••
Read the entire story of 175 moments and places on our list.
To visit every place on our list—or tell us what we missed—go to our Terquasquicentennial Blog.
Check out videos from six locations, including Buddy Holly in Lubbock.
