Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2025 i Texas Highways Magazine

Cameron Maynard first heard of noodling, or hand-fishing for catfish, from a friend. “I was immediately drawn to its physicality, the way it places you nose-to-nose with nature in an incredibly unvarnished way,” the Dallas-based writer says. While reporting “Show of Hands” (Page 66) in northeast Texas, he tried the sport under the guidance of experienced noodlers. “Noodling is kind of like skydiving—there are people out there who just want to try it for the adren-aline rush, but for some people it’s a lifestyle,” Maynard says. “Hopefully the story does some justice to their desires, drives, and motivations.”…

FOLLOWING A GRATIFYING YEAR celebrating Texas Highways’ 50th anniversary, we’re excited to kick off the next half-century with an issue full of travel inspiration. Along with our cover story on Where to Stay in 2025, we’re bringing you our annual list of Small Towns to Visit Now early to help spark ideas for this year’s weekend getaways. If you haven’t visited our website lately, make sure to bookmark texashighways.com/2025bucketlist starting on Jan. 6 when we debut our online-exclusive 2025 Travel Bucket List. That’s also where you’ll find Chet Garner’s monthly Daytripper column as he continues exploring the state. After hearing from many of you about readability issues since our July redesign, we have increased the font size with this edition. Our magazine wouldn’t exist without your loyal readership, and we…

TEXAS WAS ONCE the beating heart of regional wrestling. In the 1980s, pros like Johnny Mantell and the Von Erich clan filled the Dallas Sportatorium with screaming fans, and legends like Jake “the Snake” Roberts and André the Giant had matches at Houston’s Sam Houston Coliseum. If King of Sports Championship Wrestling founder Khyber O’Sullivan has his way, Texas’ reign will return. O’Sullivan, a North Texas high school theater and English teacher and KOS announcer, remembers those sights and sounds with reverence. He preferred such events to the cheap thrills of madefor-TV WWF. When he went to a few local matches in recent years, though, he was disappointed at the sky-high drama with rockbottom believability. “Pro wrestling is a play about a sport,” O’Sullivan says. “The concept behind KOS is a…

I HEAR SINGING. From within the 18th-century walls of the Presidio La Bahía chapel, a voice belts out “Unforgettable, that’s what you are.” I wait behind the door. Who is singing Nat King Cole and why? Could it be a tribute to Col. James Fannin, the Texas revolutionary leader shot in 1836 against the wall a few yards behind me? When the singing stops, I enter the stucco arches of the chapel and am greeted by a large bald man with a tattoo of the Alamo peeking out from his black muscle shirt. “You caught me,” he says. His name is Mike Yoakum, and he’s been visiting and singing in this chapel for years. “The acoustics are awesome, and I love the solitude. It’s my own private church.” He knows…

BY DAY, Benny Tahmahkera lives like any other 62-year-old retiree—he plays golf at the Palo Duro Creek Golf Course, where he shoots an 80, and putters around the bucolic Panhandle town of Canyon in his dusty red pickup. “It’s one of those towns like a Norman Rockwell painting,” he says. It’s home to 15,000 people due south of Amarillo, the de facto gateway to Palo Duro Canyon State Park and the site of West Texas A&M University. The school’s 9,600 students mostly vacate the town during the summer months, but that’s when Tahmahkera shows up. On July 5, he rises early and heads for Palace Coffee Company, a hip morning hangout that offers a view of Canyon’s downtown square. Foot traffic flows between a bookstore and a boutique; cars circle…

SWEETER THAN COTTON candy and redder than rubies, Big Red has been Texas barbecue’s unofficial signature soda since its conception in 1937. Born in the Waco lab of Grover C. Thomsen and R.H. Roark, the innovative drink largely consisted of lemon and orange extracts combined with vanilla. Initially called Sun Tang Red Cream Soda, it spread throughout Central and South Texas, as well as Louisville, Kentucky, where Roark owned R.C. Bottling Company. It even-tually was rechristened Big Red in 1969 after then-president of the San Antonio bottling plant, Harold Jansing, overheard his golf caddies calling it that. But even prior to Big Red’s presence as a national brand, similar scarlet-tinged sodas were already ingrained as a barbecue staple in Texas. During its coverage of the 1965 Cotton Bowl, The Corpus…

FEAST YOUR EYES on the Great Lakes of this great state: Chain-O-Lakes Resort in southeast Texas, where artesian groundwater percolates up into a series of interconnected lakes at the perimeter of the Big Thicket National Preserve. It’s a tranquil setting for anglers snagging black bass, bream, and bluegill. Nature-watchers feel a gnawing sense of wonder as they observe a beaver colony chewing trees along Turkey Creek. Visitors young and old ooh and aah over The Governor, an 11-foot-long alligator who eats table scraps. When Texas Highways photographer J. Griffis Smith took this photo in October 1988, Chain-O-Lakes had eight rustic cabins—with names like Davy Crockett and Sam Houston. The resort has since changed its name, opting for the loftier The Retreat at Artesian Lakes, and has quadrupled its number of…

THE RIO GRANDE harbors dozens of canyons along its 318-mile path through the Chihuahuan Desert from Presidio to Langtry. Formed by volcanic activity, rifts, and erosion, the canyons in Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park as well as along the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River offer a stunning land-scape for hiking, paddling, and sightseeing. As West Texans will tell you, the Rio Grande ain’t what it used to be. The river’s floods and flows have tapered significantly over the past century due to drought and upstream water diversion. “When a river can’t move its own sediment, it results in channel narrowing,” says Kevin Urbanczyk, a Sul Ross State University geology professor and director of the Rio Grande Research Center. “The sediment piles up, the channel…

THE FACES Nobe Bryant: The flamboyant Heavyweight division champ’s advice for his opponents? “Say your prayers, take your vitamins, do whatever you gotta do.” Ryker James: This rugged, tough country boy is the star of the Texas Strong division. Xavier Gotti and Nate Collins: These Grappler division wrestlers battle in a classic style—no flying off, or through, the ropes. THE HEELS Mike Gunner: A piercing blueeyed stare and large helping of trash talk are the perfect match for the red flames running down the side of his tights. Mateo Ozuna: Don’t let the hearty laugh and banana-yellow briefs fool you—he’s described by KOS as “savvy and violent.” Exodus Prime: There’s a big red X on the seat of his trunks marking him as one of the most dynamic Grapplers.…

THE OWLISH GLASS PYRAMID atop Frost Tower is one of the Austin skyline’s most distinctive features, but for musician John Doe it’s also a reminder of the city’s early 1980s punk rock scene. Back then, Club Foot occupied the same corner of Fourth and Brazos streets, and it was there the bassist and co-vocalist for the Los Angeles rock band X first fell in love with Austin. “We had a gig at Club Foot and the Big Boys opened,” Doe says, referring to the punk-funk band. “I’ve never been to Mount Rushmore, but it was like seeing something that was fully realized.” Another eye-opener for Doe was when high school marching band members snuck in the club to play horns on the song “Hollywood Swinging.” “We just thought, these are…

MY PULSE QUICKENS as I drive on a backroad north of Amarillo. The dog, who has climbed into the passenger seat, looks up at me with big green eyes that someone once described as “extra-sentient.” He knows this isn’t good. We aren’t supposed to be here, on this empty road. The day before, we had driven to Amarillo from Austin and stayed at the Big Texan Motel adjacent to the Big Texan Steak Ranch—kitsch lover’s paradise, low rates, only a $20 pet fee. The property features a “horse hotel” situated around the corner from our room. I think that’s why the dog kept me up for hours with his pacing; he was communing with the horses. If I’d gotten adequate rest, I’d like to think I’d have taken Interstate 40,…

I DON’T TO SOUNDDRAMATIC, but I have to peer through my fingers like I’m watching a horror movie. Little pieces of concrete are flying through the sunshine—tiny bits of shrapnel shooting off in all directions, and it doesn’t look like we’re trying to catch a fish so much as free someone who’s been buried alive. Drew Moore has one leg in the water, his other knee hiked up on a collapsed section of seawall, and he’s slamming a piece of concrete the size of a human head into the corner of the crumbling causeway. With each cracking thud, the hole gets bigger and bigger, fistfuls of concrete and broken rebar splashing into the small cavern below. It’s a Saturday morning in July and I’m at Lake Tawakoni’s 3rd Annual Big Cat Tournament,…

WHEN I WAS A KID, my family would gather for the holidays at my great-aunt and great-uncle’s home in Burnet, where we’d play football in the dry winter grass. Then in the summers, the Burnet Dairy Queen became our traditional stop after my parents picked me and my siblings up from Camp Longhorn on Inks Lake. Even as a kid, I could tell the community was like an extended family. Now, when I meet people from Burnet, I often find out they took piano lessons from my great-aunt or high school math from my cousin. I returned to Burnet recently to learn more about its history and the roots of its small town spirit. I found that like many Texas towns, Burnet traces its origins to a frontier fort and…

Eastland Bound For The Daytripper’s latest adventure, Chet Garner headed 90 minutes west of Fort Worth to the small town of Eastland. Founded in 1875, the city is known as the home of Ol’ Rip, a Texas horned lizard that defied death and lived for 31 years in the cornerstone of the county courthouse. Garner visits the Eastland County Museum; explores Ringling Lake, which was built to accommodate the Ringling Bros. Circus; and grabs a chicken-fried steak lunch at Mae’s Meat Market. Flight Risk Texans are intimately familiar with grackles. There are 4.8 million great-tailed grackles in Texas, and the birds are a particularly common sight in urban areas. But the common grackle, found throughout Central and East Texas, may be in trouble. A report by researchers at the University…

I ARRIVE AT THE CANYONLANDS at sunrise, the same time goldencheeked warblers begin their morning song. Armed with binoculars and light hiking shoes, I take the Cactus Rocks Trail, accessed through the Warbler Vista entrance off FM 1431 in Lago Vista. The trailhead details local wildlife, and while I don’t expect to spot a warbler with my amateur birdwatching skills, I know from past visits I’ll be mostly—if not totally—alone among the abundant ashe juniper and oak trees. That’s why I come to this lesser-visited refuge. Its rugged trails are well-maintained and just difficult enough to turn my thoughts away from daily stressors and toward the surrounding environment. Four main entrances dot the 27,523-acre site, offering their own bird blinds, trailheads, and educational resources among the tree-filled hills. fws.gov/refuge…

LAST MARCH, the side-saddle, flag-flying album cover for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter immediately sparked references to stately portraits of George Washington and Napoleon. Discerning critics even compared Queen Bey’s red, white, and blue getup and pageant sash to the legacy of Black cowboys in the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. Shot by Texas photographer Blair Caldwell, the cover has transcended any influences and cemented itself as an iconic image in its own right. “It ended up being great timing in my life because I grew up around the rodeo and barbecue and old school cars with the big rims,” the 34-year-old photographer says. “I was doing a lot of personal photography for her, but I always wanted that big commercial opportunity. She’s from Texas. I’m from Texas. It just made sense.” One…

DESCENDANTS OF THE Seminole Negro Indian Scouts gather in the arid canyonlands west of Del Rio to hike down a steep and rocky path into Seminole Canyon, the namesake of Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site. On this breezy September morning, the 20 hikers—ranging in age from 20 to 70-plus—catch up with old friends while navigating tricky boulders, slick algae, and the persistent spines of blackbrush acacia. Reaching the dry canyon floor, they turn upstream toward their destination—the Watering Hole, a small pool beneath a limestone overhang where a little-known band of U.S. soldiers found refuge on the Texas-Mexico border 150 years ago. Descended from runaway slaves and Seminole Indians, the scouts were contracted by the U.S. government in the 1870s to protect Anglo settlers and trade routes in…

GROWING UP, Oscar Rodriguez was curious about the sacred burial mound tucked in a historic neighborhood he often walked by in the West Texas border town of Presidio. An enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, he grew concerned in the late 1980s when he started to see encroachment on the 4-acre plot known as El Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes. He decided to do something about it and spent decades researching the tribe’s history, and he pushed for the cemetery to earn designation as a State Antiquities Landmark in 2014. “Like a spell that suddenly filled an old dried-out lake basin, official recognition of that site popped back into existence a people and history that had been invisible,” Rodriguez says. In recent years, Rodriguez and fellow…

BIG BEND COUNTRY ALPINE Far West Comic-Con Jan. 25 The Magical Warehouse toy store hosts this event for collectors and fans of pop culture. Enjoy cosplay contests, Magic: The Gathering card games, featured guests, and live performances. Alpine Civic Center, 801 W. Holland Ave. 432-294-1836; themagicalwarehouse.com/farwestcomiccon ALPINE Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering Feb. 20-22 Poets, musicians, songwriters, and wordsmiths come together to celebrate the oral traditions of the working cowboy. This year commemorates 39 years of cowboy poetry in Alpine with a range of both free and ticketed performances. Sul Ross State University, 400 N. Harrison St. 432-244-9967; lonestarcowboypoetry.com EL PASO Travel the World in Architecture: Downtown El Paso  Jan. 31 The architecture of Sun City features symbols of both pre-Columbian and modern styles. This tour, presented by the…