holiday joy

The Texas State Railroad in Palestine hosts Polar Expressthemed train trips in December, one of many options for experiential gifts this holiday season. (Photo: Kenny Braun)On my son’s third birthday last year, he received a gift we’ll probably never top: snow in Austin. The 4-inch snowfall provided enough white powder for all the winter fun he’d only seen in cartoons or picture books until then. For two magical hours, he ran around our yard making snowballs and snow angels and catching snowflakes on his tongue. Nearly a year later, he still brings it up on a regular basis—the night so cemented in his mind, I’m betting it’ll be one of his first recallable memories. The toys and clothes he got for gifts that year, not so much.There’s a reason experiences…

behind the story

We were knee-deep in producing this issue in October when news broke of the historic flooding that deluged the Llano and Colorado rivers. The flooding caused wide-ranging destruction, prompting Senior Editor Matt Joyce to check in with The Antlers Inn in Kingsland, one of five historic hotels he profiled in “Railroad Hotels” (Page 50). The 117-year-old Antlers sits about 100 yards from the Lake LBJ shoreline. “People from all over the United States have called, wanting to know how we fared,” reported LaVelle Haynes, the Antlers’ senior front desk clerk, a few days after the flood. “I was happy to tell them that we did just fine.” Not that it was all business as usual. The flood reached the foot of one of the Antlers’ cabins and left behind boats…

readers respond merge

When Texas Highways arrives at the post office in this little Arkansas town, I grab a beer, sit on my front porch, and begin my trip of nostalgia through your pages of beauty and memory.Melinda Reynolds, Gravette, ArkansasNew LookWhen the November issue arrived in my mailbox, I have to admit my initial reaction was “Uh-oh … they’ve gone and changed it.” But, to my delight, I am enjoying all the modifications, including the maps with the stories and the new format for events. I’m looking forward to years of worthwhile reading.Alicia Rueda, BrenhamLiving HistoryI enjoyed reading Sarah Bird’s rhapsody on the Paisano Ranch [“Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch,” November]. Being a living historian, I was also glad to see her attention to such a historic figure as Cathy Williams. One…

san elizario

As he guides walking tours of San Elizario, Al Borrego paints a vivid picture of the town’s 400 years of borderland adventure and enterprise.On Main Street, Borrego describes the day in 1598 when explorer Juan de Oñate marched through with an expedition of 500 colonists. Outside the immaculate San Elizario presidio chapel, Borrego explains how the community was actually south of the Rio Grande until an 1829 flood realigned the river. At the Old El Paso County Jail Museum, he recounts how in 1876, Billy the Kid liberated a jailed associate without firing a shot. San Elizario grew up as a Spanish military fort and farming village, about 20 miles southeast of El Paso. Acequias lace the town like veins, irrigating crop fields and adding to the Southwestern feel of…

town trivia

POPULATION:9,700NUMBER OF STOPLIGHTS:3YEAR FOUNDED:1598NEAREST CITY:El Paso, 20 miles northMARQUEE EVENTS:Luminaria Festival & Posada Celebration, Dec. 22; Rio Grande Festival and History Conference, April 26-28; Billy the Kid Festival, May 31-June 2.MAP IT:Los Portales Museum and Information Center, 1521 San Elizario Road ■…

go west, young woman

One sunny morning in July, on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday, I slide into the driver’s seat of my car and head south. I pull onto the highway, a map of Texas in the passenger seat, like an ancient rune from a time before GPS, and I watch as the billboards turn unfamiliar and disappear. Big-box stores and strip malls turn to metal silos, oil refineries, and wheat fields.Every human deserves to know they can make their own way—especially women, who are often told the opposite. I wonder if my longheld insistence that I can travel alone isn’t partly the influence of Texas.I wonder if such a small act of freedom will be unfathomable to future generations. You know, when robots have taken over and no one actually drives anymore, and…