Texas Parks and Wildlife has embarked on an ambitious plan to restore the desert bighorn sheep population in Big Bend Ranch State Park. To accomplish this goal, the department has had to make hard choices about which animals live, which animals die, and what truly belongs in the Trans-Pecos.
South from Alpine to Study Butte, west to Presidio, north to Marfa, and east to Alpine.
Why are there so few Texan philosophers?
The first column I wrote for Texas Monthly appeared in the March 2000 issue. The article was titled “Voting Rites,” and I argued that the Voting Rights Act, which Lyndon Johnson had proposed to a joint session of Congress 35 years earlier, was the greatest accomplishment of his
For many travelers, this far West Texas town is a last-chance pit stop before heading south to brave the wilds of Big Bend National Park. But, this past spring, after driving 407 miles (that’s roughly 7 hours and 143 country songs) from Austin to
In one of my favorite descriptions of Marfa, writer David McDannald points out that sometimes it’s “a shadow of a town” and sometimes it’s “a desert Mardi Gras.” At the end of this month, West Texas’s buzziest destination will be lit up like Bourbon Street on
The feds have postponed their decision on whether to add the dunes sagebrush lizard to the endangered species list until mid-2012.
The word probably makes you think of rhinestone-studded jeans, floppy-brimmed hats, and Nashville queens, but “cowgirl” ought to stand for the tough pioneer women who built ranches and went on cattle drives and the hardy rural women who are out there today doing their fair share of the work, usually invisibly,
In January, the Gage Hotel, which is one of my all-time favorite romantic destinations in West Texas (well, the rooms in the Los Portales section are, not the ones with the bathrooms down the hall in the historic building–not so romantic running into some unknown dude in his
Suzy Banks hits the roads less traveled.
To hear John Poindexter tell it, he’s one of the good guys—a faithful steward of his West Texas land and therefore a worthy bidder for 46,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park. But sometimes having your heart in the right place simply isn’t enough.
Forty-five years after Betty Williams was shot to death by the handsome football player she had been secretly seeing, her murder haunts her Odessa high school—literally.
Meet the 22-year-old hooker who, with her fellow “massage therapists,” scandalized Odessa
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.
Sixty-five years after his first recording sessions with the Texas Playboys, 25 years after his death, Bob Wills is still the king of western swing.
Buddy Holly. Waylon Jennings. Carolyn Hester. The Hancocks. The Flatlanders. An oral history of the state's most storied music scene.
So few people, yet so many feuds.
The life and legacy of a Texas icon.
It’s still the best little town in Texas.
High peaks, scant rain, and hardpan soil—but also high art, hip hotels, and a new telescope that’s a star in its own right: Snapshots from a remote region of our state unlike anyplace else on earth.
Here comes the judge.
Texas at war with the United States Air Force.
Now is the time to check out newly stylish hotels and restaurants in West Texas. Tourists aren’t far behind.
Follow that ribbon of highway to discover the breathtaking River Road, a beer-drinking goat, fabulous fajitas, and the ghostly cavalry of Fort Davis—all in the vast vacation resource known as West Texas.
A photographer finds mystery and magic.
Wide-open spaces and prairie madness make the special music of Lubbock.
There’s a heaven for record collectors and it’s in the middle of West Texas.
Especially not in Sweetwater: the score at last count was Humans 10,000, Rattlers 0.
