Some forty years ago, a desk was dragged to the top of a hill in Alpine that overlooks the Big Bend. The notebooks stashed inside continue to capture big thoughts from the people who travel there.
Once, before fast-food franchises and ecotourists took over Alpine, the Gallego family’s Mexican restaurant survived and thrived. Today, the kitchen is closed.
Most businesses in the West Texas town of Alpine cater to locals, but one attracts Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Junior Brown, and other musical greats. It’s the modest building where Michael Stevens, luthier to the stars, produces electric guitars—fewer than two dozen a year, at $2,700 to $10,000 plus. “We
A year after Robert James Waller left Iowa for the quieter climes of Big Bend, the best-selling author is discovering that it’s one thing to live like a Texan and quite another to be one.
ON A HILLTOP NEAR THE INTERSECTION of U.S. highways 67 and 90, just east of Alpine, a plywood stagecoach and four horses seem to be hightailing it into town. “A local artist-character built the stagecoach,” says Rick Sohl, who owns the hilltop. “He used it in parades but was looking
