Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Texas Highways Magazine

Novelist Katie Gutierrez had the idea for her story “Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire” (Page 44) after her daughter was assigned to make a Día de los Muertos ofrenda in kindergarten. “I wanted to be able to tell her everything I could about the history and meaning behind the day as we worked together on her ofrenda,” the San Antonio-based writer says. “The more I read and learned, the more I fell in love with the tradition.” This year, she plans to build her own ofrenda with her family. “I often feel like discussions around death and grief are silenced in American culture, and to me Día de los Muertos felt like an open door,” she says. “Día de los Muertos is so much about remembrance and honoring our departed…

Way Up High I greatly enjoyed the July/August issue, especially Ian Dille’s article “Born to the Skies.” I have lived almost my entire 66 years on the Interstate 35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio. I spent two years in Lexington, Kentucky, and couldn’t wait to get back to Texas. After being home for about six months, I realized what I missed the most. It was the Texas sky. I missed seeing fluffy white clouds, thunderstorms rolling in with lightning glowing in the cloud tops, and the wide-open bird’s-egg-blue skies of October. Thanks for the beautiful photos. JOHN TIEMAN, NEW BRAUNFELS Bigfoot Energy I guess it’s time to revisit Jefferson [“Creature Comfort,” July/August]. We have always stayed at the Excelsior—the morning biscuits made it worth the trip. There were no…

IN THE EARLY 1950s, Waco was a bustling and vibrant community experiencing extensive growth. But everything changed on May 11, 1953, when a deadly F5 tornado ripped through the heart of downtown. The twister destroyed or damaged more than 1,600 homes and businesses, killing 114 people and injuring 597 more. It took decades for the community to recover from the devastation. And then a far happier unexpected event took the city by storm in 2013: the launch of HGTV’s Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines. In the 12 years since the rise of their Magnolia brand—including the Silos, a bakery, a coffeeshop, a restaurant, and Hotel 1928—Waco has seen its visitor count increase to almost 2 million a year. Water park Waco Surf is the latest destination drawing fans…

TO LOVE HISTORY is to try and cross the veil that separates the dead from the living. It’s no wonder, then, that wherever remnants of the past are found, paranormal legends—and the people entranced by them—are seldom far behind. This is the world of dark tourism, luring visitors eager to engage with all things mystifying and macabre. “Dark tourism is not a new concept,” says Karli Stansbury, museum educator for the Beaumont Heritage Society, “but it has only been studied academically since as recently as the 1990s. The category has just become more widespread in recent years, in part due to Gen Z and social media contributing to its popularity.” Today, the dark tourism category has grown into a booming industry that now generates $32 billion globally and roughly $575…

In 1902, Charlie and Dell Wunsche built a hotel and roadhouse, the Wunsche Bros. Cafe and Saloon in Spring, to cater to railroad workers. Their spirits are alleged to have stayed on to mind the property. Ghosts are also celebrated at La Carafe in Houston, a wine bar that originally opened as a bakery in 1860. This is the oldest commercial property in the city under continuous use—despite its late manager’s tendency to drop by for return visits. Meanwhile, Wimberley’s Devil’s Backbone Tavern is the epicenter of a whole region’s worth of spooky Hill Country stories, including the specters of a woman and child crying out for their missing husband and father.…

FEW EVENTS IN American history attract as much interest and myth-making as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The tragic events of Nov. 22, 1963, are etched across the landscape of Dallas. But while the most famous sites exist downtown, those fascinated can follow the threads across the city, visiting multiple locations that played a role in one of the most shocking afternoons in the country’s history. Oswald Rooming House This Oak Cliff home-turned-museum preserves the boardinghouse where Lee Harvey Oswald resided in the month leading up to the assassination. Inside, you’ll find his room left largely as it was, including the same bedframe and wardrobe, which holds a replica of Oswald’s gray jacket. Paid tours are available and led by the house’s owner, Patricia Hall, who met Oswald…

One-Stop Shops The renovated Wilton’s Landing exhibit at Waco’s Dr Pepper Museum explores the history of convenience stores and highlights shops operated and frequented by Black, Latino, and Jewish travelers. Since their conception in the early 20th century, these stores and gas stations have been an integral part of American travel—but they weren’t always open to everyone. Purple People Greeters From late summer to early fall, hundreds of thousands of purple martins migrate from Texas to South America on their quest for tropical climates. But before they depart on their epic journey, they spend months in almost every region of the state—from the coast to the Hill Country—relying exclusively on human “landlords” for shelter during their spring nesting season. Monumental Discovery Ten years after its designation as a national monument,…

WHEN MY HUSBAND and I wandered into the visitors center of Midland’s Bush Family Home State Historic Site, we were looking for respite from the midsummer heat. What we found was a local history student thrilled to give us a tour of the place George H.W. and Barbara Bush called home from 1951-55 while George worked in oil development. In the three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot house, they raised George W., Jeb, Neil, and Robin, the latter of whom died of leukemia in 1953. The tour guide led us through the home, paying special attention to the kitchen, restored to its 1950s appearance with a still-functioning ’50s refrigerator. A kids’ bedroom displays classic toys, including a record player and a baseball mitt—young George W. was on the local Cubs Little League team, according…

O FALL THE epic roadside attractions in Texas, only one has inspired a Pulitzer Prize winner to write driving directions encoded in lyrical verse. W.S. Merwin’s 2001 poem “The Marfa Lights” is partly about the mysterious objects of the title, but it’s really an ode to the place you go to see them. And how to find it: east of town on the way to Paisano Pass  … somewhere on Route 90 looking south toward the Chinatis  a marker has been set up by the road there “SEE MYSTERY LIGHTS” promises the stencil outside the Thunderbird hotel on Marfa’s main strip in far West Texas. The sign is a relic of the old pre-Donald Judd era, when the Thunderbird was just another 1950s motor court along the highway, and the most…

I DON’T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS. THIS IS NOT A STORY ABOUT GHOSTS. But if you want to see a ghost, I can think of no place more promising than Baby Head Cemetery, where I am pretty sure I almost saw a ghost. Last November, I loaded my dog, Woody Guthrie, into the truck for a day trip from Austin. The rain starts as I head out of town, and the low-hanging clouds feel right for this mission. On State Highway 16, just north of Llano, I pull up to Baby Head, a place I did not make up in my nightmares. But to double-check my sanity, I read the Texas Historical Commission marker. Everything I’ve read online about this place—the hill, the community, the cemetery—quotes this marker, which puts the…

IN THE FAR WEST TEXAS TOWN OF STUDY BUTTE, the past lurks in abandoned buildings like a specter. Similar to the nearby town of Terlingua, the settlement gained prominence when prospectors began uncovering the mineral cinnabar—a source of the industrially useful, wholly lethal element mercury—in numerous mines established in the 1900s. The Chisos and Mariposa mines produced miles of tunnels beneath the desert, as well as an influx of cash and workers. Through the 1910s, the area was dominated by mine kingpin Howard Perry, who packed Terlingua with amenities like a hotel, an ice-making plant, the Chisos Theatre, and the Oasis Confectionery Shop. Eventually, the mines failed, and the area’s population dwindled. Terlingua hung on as a tourist spot on the doorstep of Big Bend National Park. By 1961, when this…

WHILE LOOKING FOR SNAKES on a 2024 reporting trip, writer Asher Elbein spotted a weird shape at the edge of his car’s headlights on a dark country road. The giant creature shimmied under a cattle fence, and Elbein questioned what he’d seen. “It took me a couple of seconds to realize it was a nilgai,” he says. The Indian antelope has established a thriving population in South Texas, a fact Elbein, who primarily writes about science and nature, was well aware of despite his brief moment of escapism. Elbein recalled the experience while reporting “Spirited Away” (Page 54) on cryptids, haunted landmarks, and sites of paranormal activity, underscoring how unexplainable encounters can turn into folklore. He points to recent research that found correlation between Bigfoot sightings and black bear habitats.…

GROWING UP IN NEW YORK CITY, writer-director Noah Hawley says there were signs he would end up in Texas one day. His family lived in the West Village near the Hudson River and the Old Homestead Steakhouse, famous for its big plaster cow mascot. “My wife used to joke, ‘So you lived in a village near a river and a cow. It’s not much different from Texas,’” he says. “In many ways, I was preparing myself.” Best known for adapting the Coen brothers’ movie Fargo into an award-winning television miniseries, Hawley once considered pursuing music. He played in a band called Bass Nation (like the musical instrument, not the fish, he clarifies) before attending Sarah Lawrence College. But writing was in his genes—his mother was feminist author and activist Louise…

GHOSTS OFTEN APPEAR as a result of a violent or uncomfortable past, digested by time, and, possibly, sensationalized by opportunistic entrepreneurs. Take Austin, for example. Between 1870 and 1913, Austin’s First Ward—10 square blocks of businesses in the modern downtown—served as the city’s unofficial red-light district. Sometimes referred to as Guy Town, these historical buildings once housed dens of gambling, drinking, dancing, and vice, says Jeanine Plumer, owner of Haunted Texas Corporation and author of Haunted Austin. Echoes of that seedy past can still be heard—sometimes literally—at certain buildings surrounding the Capitol. DuMont’s Down Low 214 W. Fourth St., Suite B Today, it’s a low-key speakeasy in the modern Warehouse District. But in the late 1800s, brothel owner Blanche Dumont ran an establishment in the area before her young daughter…

Howard Hughes Glenwood Cemetery, Houston Founded in 1871, Glenwood Cemetery hosts some of Houston’s most illustrious dead within its lush 88 acres. Examples include Sarah Emma Edmundson, a woman who dressed as a man to serve in the Civil War; Houston Astros impresario Roy Hofheinz; and the famously wealthy and eccentric Howard Hughes. The Hollywood magnate-turned-recluse is buried in a monumental crypt, lending gravitas to the cemetery’s reputation as one of Texas’ most haunted spots. Buddy Holly City of Lubbock Cemetery Established in the late 1800s, Lubbock’s cemetery is the third largest in Texas, with over 60,000 graves backing up to an old railway trestle dubbed “Hell’s Gate” by locals. Disembodied whispers, feelings of bleak unease, and faint guitar music are sometimes reported around the grave of iconic rock musician…

To receive free travel information from the following destinations, simply circle the number on the attached reply card that corresponds to your selection, fill in your name and address, and drop it in the mail. To find our advertiser information online, go to texashighways.ai-dsg.com. 1 Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau 2 Aransas Pathways 3 Bastrop County Historical Society 4 Blanco Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Bureau 5 Bullock Texas State History Museum 6 City of Denison - Convention & Visitors Bureau 7 City of Harlingen 8 City of Huntsville 9 City of Port Isabel 10 City of Rockport 11 Cuero Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture & Visitors Bureau 12 Destination Bryan 13 Destination Dripping Springs 14 Discover Denton 15 Discover San Angelo 16 Discover Victoria 17 Dobie Dichos 18 Explore Pflugerville…

BIG BEND COUNTRY ALPINE Big Bend Bluegrass Festival Oct. 3-4 Enjoy a live music lineup that includes the Larry Stephenson Band, the Edgar Loudermilk Band, the Purple Hulls, and Catahoula Drive, plus food vendors, workshops, and jam sessions. Alpine Civic Center, 801 W. Holland Ave. 432-238-6850; bigbendbluegrass.com ALPINE Big Bend Octane Fest Oct. 17-20 Drivers take their high-performance automobiles for a cruise along Big Bend’s scenic highways, while visitors can enjoy the Shown-Shine event. The Stable Performance Cars, 511 W. Holland Ave. 432-837-9789; thestablealpine.com DEL RIO Monarch Butterfly Festival Oct. 11 Mark the monarch’s migration with a butterfly costume contest, a parade, a vendor market, and food trucks. Brown Plaza, 305 Cantu St. facebook.com/casadelaculturadelrio DEL RIO Fiesta de Amistad Parade, Charro Extremo, and Cabrito Fest Cookoff Oct. 17-18 The…