Texas Monthly July 2021

TEXAS REALTORS ARE OVERWHELMED—AND ASTONISHED Long hours, longer lines, fierce bidding wars, and letters penned in the names of pets: real estate agents are just as shocked by the crazy market as their clients are. Peter Holley recounts wild tales from the land rush in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and beyond. MEET WADE, THE ONE AND ONLY EMPLOYEE OF WADE’S BARBECUE This Lufkin trailer is winning over customers with nothing but the basics: no specials, no dessert, and no complicated rubs. As Daniel Vaughn writes, the approach has been so successful that owner, pitmaster, server, and cleaning crew Wade Barbe has barely taken a day off. HOW POET ROBERTO TEJADA EXPERIENCES THE WORLD University of Houston professor Roberto Tejada was awarded a 2021 Guggenheim fellowship for his work-in-progress poetry collection, “Carbonate of Copper.” In an installment…

During his college days at the University of Dallas, our features director, J. K. Nickell, played point guard on the varsity basketball squad, where his approach to the game foreshadowed his career in journalism. J. K. routinely gave up shooting opportunities in favor of deft passes that helped his teammates score. He was more likely to lead the team in assists than in points. His quiet, unselfish manner sometimes frustrated his coaches—but it has endeared him to colleagues here at Texas Monthly, where his editing elevates tales like this month’s cover story on pioneering Black lawman Bass Reeves. The author of that article, associate editor Christian Wallace, typically pitches stories to our editors. But this time J. K. brought the idea to him. He had become intrigued by the debate over…

TexasMonthly Last year, Cadillac took audiences on a culinary road trip, spotlighting top chefs from Dallas to San Antonio. This year, the brand will explore bold, creative leaders in music, design, home, and sports through a video series hosted by Jay B Sauceda, a fifth generation Texan whose eclectic career brings a creative, innovative spirit to these interviews. Sauceda is the founder of Texas Humor, runs a logistics company that helps power other entrepreneurs, and when he has time, photographs Texas landscapes from the cockpit of his single engine Cessna. In his second stop along the journey, he drives to meet Shay Spaniola, a creative entrepreneur who combines watercolor paintings with technology to create unique fabrics for her home décor line, bunglo. The Austin-based mom talks about the difficulties and triumphs of…

“THESE WERE GUYS FROM A SMALL TOWN IN WEST VIRGINIA WHOSE TEXAS COUNTERPARTS WOULD BE YOUNG COWBOYS, AND, AS MCMURTRY OFTEN MADE CLEAR, NOT THE READING TYPE.” The Power of Books I enjoyed Skip Hollandsworth’s remembrance of Larry McMurtry [“The Larry I Knew,” May 2021], so I want to share this story. I grew up in Waco in the fifties and sixties. In 1990 I taught a freshman composition class at Marshall University, in West Virginia. The Last Picture Show was on the syllabus. At the end of the class, two boys asked me, “Do you have any more books like that? That ‘Picture Show’ book.” Both teens told me it was the first novel they had ever read. These were guys from a small town in West Virginia whose Texas counterparts would…

Clattering hooves, swishing tails, and high-pitched whinnies have enlivened the soundtrack to the story of Texas since Spanish explorers first brought horses here in the 1500s. Pickup trucks and tractors now handle much of the work once performed by these animals, but plenty of Texans still rely on them for companionship, recreation, and maybe a little labor. Of the roughly 7.2 million horses in the United States, about 767,000 live in Texas—more than in any other state. (Equestrian-themed dating sites such as datehorselovers.com and equestriansingles.com also seem to thrive here, but that’s a different story.) ¶ Not everyone with a horse owns acres of hills or prairie on which to ride, especially as ranchlands are subdivided and rural areas become more developed. Many riders therefore head to public lands. Twenty…

1. Padre Island National Seashore: Horses are allowed on most of the Gulf side of this seventy-mile stretch of undeveloped barrier island near Corpus Christi. 2. Hill Country State Natural Area: Riders can explore challenging terrain, from flat prairies to rocky canyons. A group equestrian site includes a barn and nine stalls. Or book a guided ride from a service provider, such as Bandera’s Outlaw Outfitters, whose rates start at $100 per person for a two-hour minimum. 3. Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland: This 20,250-acre preserve northwest of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex features several small lakes and nearly 75 miles of multipurpose trails that are open to equestrians. 4. Big Bend Ranch State Park: Visit this remote West Texas park to ride through rugged canyons and prickly landscapes in a high-desert setting. The…