Hill City Chop House might need to depend on people coming from outside of Tolar to keep it afloat, but the smashburger and smoked dump cake are well worth a trip.
The Nazareth Swiftettes have won 25 state championships in less than fifty years—and they just hung another banner for 2023.
I left homogenized Austin for the Texas Gulf Coast—and felt right at home amid the Speedo-wearing bikers and chicken feet–fed alligators.
Long lines, packed parking, and sold-out meat are regular features of Kat’s Barbecue in Santa Fe, thanks to lauding loyal customers.
There’s no stoplight, no stores, and no walk-in businesses in Valentine. But there’s plenty of space to stretch those legs.
The Hill Country destination’s economy has coalesced around the wedding industry, with a slew of new event spaces, vendors, and florists willing to work as many as six parties a weekend.
They keep their communities running, whether it’s providing a gathering space or keeping prices low in the face of inflation.
The Grammy winner is the most famous export from Lindale, but the charming East Texas town also boasts a delightful candy shop, blackberries galore, and plenty of live music.
The Hill Country town supplies cowboys—both real and temporary—with a dose of ranch life, complete with hotcakes and trail riding.
This serene Hill Country town boasts a treehouse hotel and an idyllic swimming hole.
Small towns, like Bellville in Austin County, raise funds for various efforts through preparing meat using direct heat and old-school brick pits.
For decades, Roddy Wiley ran the only bank in the small town of Oakwood, which happily resisted modern technology well into the twenty-first century.
The town, an easy back-roads drive from Austin or DFW, is both quiet and brimming with worthy new shops and eateries.
I’ve visited the T. C. Lindsey & Co. General Store multiple times over the years, but our most recent visit was a surprise in the best possible way.
Professional baseball teams once traveled here in search of healing waters
Bob Wills fans flock each spring to the tiny Panhandle town to “dance all night, dance a little longer.”
This far-flung spot has a rich history, excellent fishing, free beach camping, and no crowds.
Small-town locker plants, lifelines for rural Texans for generations, have vanished from parts of the state. Christy Miller’s company is an exception.
From Flatonia to Marathon, communities—often small and rural—band together to serve their own needs with local essentials.
Rocky paths wend their way past the crumbling ruins of animal dens, making for a one-of-a-kind nature walk.
At tiny Dell City School in far West Texas, more than half of the high schoolers are on the varsity football team.
A searingly feminist 1925 memoir of life in small-town Texas rises from the dustbin of patriarchy.
No Googling allowed.
Mobile City was incorporated in the early nineties to facilitate alcohol sales in a dry county. Now residents—especially its devoted mayor—fear for the fate of their accidental utopia.
A Dallas man is flummoxed by Quitaque. And Danevang, and Jiba, and Study Butte, and Zuehl . . .
Often described as a ghost town, this Central Texas community is alive and well.
This scrappy town on the edge of the Big Bend region has a trendy motel, pistol-packing waitresses, and starry nights aplenty.
The new docuseries follows tiny Strawn High School's six-player football team in its quest for a three-peat.
Across the state, small towns are fading away. But in a few places, rich people are spending big to revive them. And that comes with its own set of complications.
How ranching and oil families have kept Albany flourishing.
The philanthropic financier who restored a West Texas outpost.
High finance in the High Plains.
This delightful burg, halfway between Austin and Houston, invites you to stop and stay awhile.
Behind the scenes of our August cover shoot.
The Texanist on five great small towns that are (pretty much) just like they always were and don’t need to change at all.
These intimate retreats, elevated restaurants, stylish boutiques, and sophisticated art spaces would be right at home in the big city.
Dismayed by sky-high rents and yearning for a slower-paced lifestyle, a new generation of Texans is ditching the big city and fostering a Rural renaissance across the state.
Catch the Polar Express, visit the Grinch, or have your own 'It's a Wonderful Life' moment in a festive town square.
A struggling community forges a life for itself against the odds.
From a high-end winery in Coleman and an art deco hotel in Big Spring to a bookstore in Alpine and an art museum in Canadian, some of the best places to eat, stay, and shop are in our small towns. You've just got to get out and find them.
By reviving a small-town movie theater, can a Lubbock businessman revive a small town too?
Coming to Austin and want a break from SXSW's landscape of rock shows and long lines? Here are a few small towns, just a stone's throw away, offering some of the state's best barbecue and most charming pieces of the past.
Where to stay. Where to play. Where to eat. Where to shop. What to see. From Abram to Yoakum, a special report on our favorite down-home destinations.
Savoring Christmas in Beaumont.
Our exhaustive, exhausting, strictly scientific (and lamentably fattening) survey of the finest home cooking around, from Maxine’s on Main, in Bastrop, to El Paraiso, in Zapata.
Growing up in a small town has its privileges.
Eight years ago, 42 people in the West Texas town of Roby—7 percent of the population—pooled their money, bought lottery tickets, and won $46 million. And that's when their luck ran out.
For teenage girls in the Hill Country town of Llano, life can be short on glamour and excitement—except at the annual rodeo, when one of them gets a rhinestone tiara and a rare, thrilling moment of glory.
ISSUES LIKE YOUR LATEST, “The Best of Small-Town Texas” [March 1999], are why we moved back to Texas.Gary SalyerArlingtonI CANNOT IMAGINE LIVING ANYWHERE ELSE but Hico. I love this town. Everything you said about small towns is so right. The ambience makes up for the lack of malls.Anita MuellerHicoYOUR
La Grange’s Mr. Barbecue, the police chief of Athens: fifteen local characters with, er, character.
