El Paso

Stories about El Paso

Five New Albums You Shouldn't Miss

Including new sets from Alejandro Escovedo, Rhett Miller, and more.

The Drop Everything List

The Memorial Hermann Ironman 70.3 Texas triathlon, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and the Avocado Takedown . . .

Offering Fine Advice Since 2007

How to respond to those weird bumper testicles, pledge allegiance to the flag, ask to see the top of someone’s boots, and decide between sweet and dill.

The Mars Volta

Omar Rodríguez-López on the meaning of Noctourniquet, doing a reunion with At the Drive-In, and getting bored.

Six Must-See Museums and Collections

Six members from Women for the Arts share which museums, collections, and venues travelers should not miss.

Father Knows West

Is it time to revisit Larry McMurtry’s Berrybender Narratives?

The Art Lover’s Companion

More than sixty art insiders gave us their list of favorite works of art to see in Texas. So grab your notepad, sketchbook, or iPad and take the ultimate tour of must-see art in Texas.

Texas Treasures

My journey in early Texas art began while I was a student at Southern Methodist University, where I studied Frank Reaugh pastels and met Jerry Bywaters. After 24 years at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, curating exhibitions and traveling the state, I’ve come up with a list of greatest hits.

The Drop Everything List

Asleep at the Wheel, Texas Olive Oil, Alejandro Escovedo, Plaza Classic Film Festival, Juan Williams, and Dandee Danao's take on Smurfs . . .

The Drop Everything List

Parker County Peach Festival, History on Tap, Heroes Celebrity Baseball Game, and the Buddy Holly musical . . .

The Drop Everything List

Pachanga Fest, the Real Ale Ride, the Kerrville Folk Festival, and Bay Day. . .

The Drop Everything List

The Golden Arm Trio, Texas Bound, the Tejano Conjunto Festival, and the 24-Hour Video Race . . .

Ten More Trips Worth Gearing Up For

The Drop Everything List

The Texas Beer Fest, Lucinda Williams and Erika Wennerstrom, the Battle of Port Jefferson, and Railfest . . .

No Country for Bad Movies

Once and for all: What are the ten best Texas films of all time?

The Drop Everything List

The Big Bend Open Road Race, Larry Joe Taylor’s Texas Music Festival & Chili Cook-off, Itzhak Perlman, and the Buc Days Carnival . . .

The Drop Everything List

Buffalo Gap Wine & Food Summit, George Saunders, the Old Settler’s Music Festival, and the Main Street Fort Worth Arts Festival . . .

The Drop Everything List

The Texas Tornados, the Festival of Ideas, Becoming Kinky: The World According to Kinky Friedman, and the Texas Pinball Festival . . .

The Drop Everything List

The Rothko Chapel, the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Mardi Gras! Galveston, and the North Texas Farm Toy Show . . .

The Drop Everything List

Robert Duvall, the Steve Miller Band, the Whooping Crane Festival, and “The Thrill of the Chase” . . .

101–125

From John Warne Gates peddling barbed wire in San Antonio to a group of cowboys and ranchers holding the first rodeo in Pecos

101–125

From John Warne Gates peddling barbed wire in San Antonio to a group of cowboys and ranchers holding the first rodeo in Pecos

The Drop Everything List

Blaze Foley, the Black Architecture Project, the Ennis Czech Music Festival, and Willie Nelson . . .

The Drop Everything List

Texas vs. the Nation, the South Padre Island Kite Fest, Barbara Smith Conrad, and Eagle Fest . . .

Hueco Tanks State Park

Long ago (c. 1000) the aboriginal peoples of West Texas turned to painting the caves at Hueco Tanks, leaving behind thousands of pictographs for those who followed to appreciate.

The Drop Everything List

Rodney Crowell, Zestfest, the NFL Experience, and the United Nations Film Festival . . .

The Drop Everything List

Pinetop Perkins, Red Hot Patriot, Fredericksburg Wine Road 290, and the Dallas Burlesque Festival . . .

The Drop Everything List

Shearwater, the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture, the Texas Citrus Fiesta, and the Monster Truck Thunder Slam . . .

The Drop Everything List

The Intergalactic Nemesis, the Cotton Bowl, the Magnificent Seven Ice Sculpting Competition, and the Ted Roddy Elvis Show . . .

The Drop Everything List

The Mesquite Championship Rodeo, Hayes Carll, Belle Starre Carriages, and Christmas in the Vineyard at Flat Creek Estate.

The Drop Everything List

The Drop Everything List

The Border Art Biennial, the Hot Rod Revolution, JFK, and Via Colori . . .

The Drop Everything List

Ornette Coleman, the Great American Peanut Butter Festival, Tommy Tune, and the 15th World Championship Ranch Rodeo . . .

The Yellow Cheese Hall of Fame

Mex-Mex has the purist vote wrapped up, but these Tex-Mex bastions win hands down when it comes to comfort food and customer loyalty.

Let’s Have Mex-Tex

Where’s the best place to get a perfect plate of enchiladas? A chile relleno to die for? A salsa you’ll never forget? Come along on our tour of the fifty greatest Mexican restaurants in Texas, from Hugo’s, in Houston, to Tacos Santa Cecilia, in El Paso. This is not your father’s Tex-Mex.

The Drop Everything List

The Fun Fun Fun Fest, the Terlingua International Chili Championship, Stephan Pyles, and Asleep at the Wheel . . .

My Tío, the Saint

Meet Toribio Romo, the patron saint of immigrants.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Illegal Immigration (But Didn’t Know Who To Ask)

What’s the deal with the border fence? Are green cards really green? How many undocumented immigrants live in Texas? Any more questions?

Contributors

Van Ditthavong, David Dorado Romo, and John Phillip Santos

All in the Family

An interview with David Dorado Romo

Spill Way

When people ask me if cartel violence will find its way into Texas, I tell them it already has—and it’s going to get worse.

Near/Far

Despite rampant fears to the contrary, the bloody drug violence in Mexico hasn’t spilled over into Texas—but that doesn’t mean it’s not transforming life all along the border.

Bordertown

Watch El Pasoans talk about their city and the continuing violence along the border.

Long Division

Nate Blakeslee talks about immigration and the media coverage of border spillover violence.

The Old Man and the Secret

Thirty years ago, people couldnt believe it: The old man’s elixir boosted crops, ate up sewage, and made the desert bloom. Today half a dozen Texas companies claim the elixir does all that and a whole lot more.

Where They're From

A memorable hour-long radio special based on the June issue of TEXAS MONTHLY, a co-production with KUT 90.5 FM.

A River Runs Through It

At the port of entry in El Paso, I always tell the agents, “American,” but what I really want to say is “fronterizo”—I’m from both sides.

Tony Rancich’s Recording Studio

Tony Rancich’s recording studio.

Dream of a Common Language. Sueño de un Idioma Común.

The future of Texas depends on how well we are able to educate kids who can’t speak English. Has an elementary school in El Paso figured out the best way to do it?

Cool Cocktails

A few of the state’s best mixologists share their secrets to making delicious drinks.

That’s the Spirit

Not that you’re looking for an excuse, but these five original cocktails concocted by Texas bartenders using local liquors are a thoroughly acceptable reason to pour yourself a drink. Or three.

Downtown El Paso

And Kern Place too! Visit chic salons, an indie press, and a cool old theater in this city on the Rio Grande.

Crossing the Line

The facts of this case are quite simple. Two Border Patrol agents shot at an unarmed man as he was running away from them. And then, they covered it up.

Chamber Made

El Paso’s Chamber Music Festival, Hallettsville’s domino championship.

Behind the Lines: Podcast

Paul Burka reads “Fed Up.”

Fed Up

An FBI investigation is only the latest of El Paso’s problems.

Third Grade Social Studies

They may only be kids in third grade, but you’re looking at the future of Texas.

Diana Natalicio

Diana Natalicio on the future of higher ed in El Paso.

New and Noteworthy

Café Central, El Paso and Sagra, Austin

The Class of 2017

The future according to third-graders.

Tomorrow Never Dies

The perils of prediction.

Badges of Dishonor

Two Border Patrol agents are sent to prison while the dope smuggler they pursued and wounded is granted immunity by federal prosecutors and goes free. A miscarriage of justice? Not so fast.

Custom Boots

How to design custom cowboy boots.

Carrillo’s Crossing

In the bloddy billion-dollor business of drug trafficking, Amado Carrillo Fuentes is king. He is the elusive ringleader of a smuggling operation that police on both sides of the border are powerless to stop.

The Good Old Boy

After four decades of writing classic Texas novels, there’s no denying that San Angelo’s Elmer Kelton has earned his Spurs.

Texas Twenty: Dagoberto Gilb

Macho fiction.

Games of Chance

Bummers

Around the State

Pasó por Aquí

José Cisneros, the legendary illustrator of the Spanish Southwest, is 96, almost blind, and nearly deaf. And, of course, he has no plans to put down his pen.

He Walks The Line

Silvestre Reyes has a plan for the border.

F. Murray Abraham

CD and Book Reviews

The Doctor Is In

For El Paso physician Abraham Verghese, writing about life and death in the age of AIDS is a prescription for literary success.

Debbie Reynolds

Who gave Debbie Reynolds her name, and what did she have to learn to do before starring in Singin’ in the Rain?

Dumped On

It’s almost certain that Hudspeth County will soon be the site of a nuclear-waste dump—but officials in neighboring Presidio County think they’re the ones getting dumped on.

Victor Alfaro

CD and Book Reviews

West Seller

An El Paso novelist makes history.

Shooting on the Border

Why John Sayles’s Lone Star takes its improbable place in the pantheon of great Texas movies.

Mesilla Real Soon

The time is ripe, and so are the chiles: This tiny, homey town in New Mexico is the ideal spot for a fall weekend getaway.

Theater • Lou Diamond Phillips

It’s good to be King.

Art • Harriet and Harmon Kelley

Collecting their culture.

Ring Class

A knockout boxing program in West Texas.

Social Climbers

This month, a ragtag group of wanderers will descend on Hueco Tanks state park in West Texas, where they’ll spend their nights hanging out and their days hanging on to the most challenging boulders around.

Sam Donaldson

Dual in the Sun

What do the sculptures of Jim Magee and the paintings of Annabel Livermore have in common? Nothing—except that they were created by the same person.

Statues of Limitations

Which version of history should be promoted by El Paso’s new statue series: the Wild West or the mild West?

We Are the World

Want to see Kuwait, Iowa, and Washington, D.C.? Go to El Paso, Austin, and Houston.

Desperately Seeking Cormac

Cormac McCarthy’s birth date and birthplace are just two of the facts about him that have eluded his rabid fans—until now. A dossier on the most fiercely private writer in Texas.

Lee Trevino

Which soft drink’s quart-size bottle did Lee trevino use as a golf club?

EDUCATION • Diana Natalicio

Diversity U.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Why did Sandra Day O’Connor once say, “I come to you tonight wearing my bra”?

The Blood of the Tigua

Factions of the West Texas tribe are feuding, and while the problem is supposedly one of genealogy–who is and is not a member– you can bet that casino gambling has something to do with it too.

Blues Brothers

Long John Hunter and his guitar-slinging friends sharpened their axes in and around Port Arthur, so their recent return was truly a homecoming.

School Spirit

Even in death, the former principal of El Paso’s Cathedral High is larger than life.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Next Cormac McCarthy

Meet El Paso novelist James Carlos Blake, who writes critically acclaimed literary westerns with lots of violence but few female characters. Sound familiar?

Score!

One of college basketball’s great coaches finally gets his due.

Elisa Jimenez

The Ex Files

Dogfight

Texas at war with the United States Air Force.

And Justice for Some

How the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals mistakes toughness for fairness—and gives the state a black eye.

Numbers Game

Inside the election's numbers.