Central Texas stretches from the prairies of the
northeast through the green and fertile Hill Country into the chalky
limestone landscape of the west, and includes two of Texas's most
pleasant cities: San Antonio and Austin. Austin in particular, the
capital city and home to the progressive University of Texas, helps to
give the region an intellectual and political feel uncharacteristic of
the rest of the state.
Agriculture has been the mainstay of the economy here ever since the
resis-tant Comanche population was finally packed off to reservations in
the 1840s. The slave-driven cotton plantations of the south and east
have gone, but the small communities set up by Polish, Czech, Norwegian
and Swedish immigrants in the Hill Country maintained, even until very
recently, the traditions, architecture and languages of their homelands.
Great cattle drives came trampling through after the Civil War and
played a large part in the development of San Antonio.
Early immigration into north and east Texas , during
the days of the Republic and following the devastation of the Civil War,
was largely from the Southern states. In the 1930s, the northeastern oil
fields near Tyler (a drab town only redeemed by its beautiful rose
gardens) proved to be the richest ever found in the US. In addition to
oil, agriculture has become a prime source of commerce, with logging
important in the densely forested east. The grand exception is, of
course, the Metroplex - the area which includes Dallas and Fort Worth .
The main tourist attractions and cultural life of the region are
concentrated here; but if you enjoy exploring small-town America, and
have a car, the north and east can yield more subtle pleasures. The
national forests of Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sabine and Sam Houston in
the east offer unsurpassed opportunities for outdoor living: the forest
supervisor (tel 713/632-4446) in Lufkin, midway between Davy Crockett
and Angelina on US-59, has details of free and private camping
facilities. Fans of the movie will want to check out Paris, Texas ,
northeast on US-82.
The inhabitants of the Panhandle , the southernmost
portion of the Great Plains, call it "the real Texas"; it certainly
fulfills the fantasy of what Texas should look like. When Coronado's
expedition passed this way in the sixteenth century, the gold-seekers
drove stakes into the ground across the vast and unchanging vista,
despairing of otherwise finding their way home. Hence the name Llano
Estacado , or staked plains, which still persists today.
Once the buffalo - and the natives - had been driven away from what was
seen as perilous and uninhabitable frontier country, the Panhandle began,
around the 1870s, to yield great natural resources . Helium - especially
in Amarillo - and oil, as well as agriculture , have brought wealth to
the region, home to some of the world's largest ranches .
The Panhandle may hold few actual tourist attractions, but what appeals
are its rural charm, its quirkiness and its distance from the eastern
cities. Music has particular significance in an area famous for
songwriters such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Mac Davis,
Joe Ely and Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks, although most
musicians relocate to cosmopolitan centers like Austin. Above all, the
exceptionally hospitable people of the Panhandle make it special, along
with the starkly romantic landscape, strewn with tumbleweeds and
mesquite trees.
The coastline of south Texas , which state residents
half-jokingly refer to as the "Third Coast," curves from Port Arthur on
the Louisiana border (a shipping and petrochemical town and the
birthplace of Janis Joplin) on the much-touristed Gulf Coast , down past
the urban monster of Houston, to the Rio Grande, the border with Mexico.
Giant, cosmopolitan Houston dominates everything; its great wealth has
led to a thriving arts scene, but ultimately it overpowers, rather than
relates to, the rest of the region. Geographically and culturally, this
area has two distinct faces. To the east are the seaside resorts of the
prairie, rolling away from the hills and forests of east Texas. Much of
the coast is feeling the strain of rapid property development, but there
are still unspoiled stretches along the Padre Island National Seashore .
In the south, a Hispanic influence spreads north from the fertile Rio
Grande Valley. The border towns here have little charm and are only of
interest as points of entry into Mexico for cheap shopping and
entertainment. Uniting south Texas is the hot, swampy climate; Houston,
especially, is unbearable in the summer, one reason for the mass exodus
to the coast.
West Texas is the stuff of Wild West fantasy: parched
deserts, ghost towns, looming mesas, and above all a sense of utter
isolation. Although the area south from the Panhandle down to Del Rio on
the Rio Grande is, for convenience, also known as West Texas, the
fantasy really begins west of the River Pecos; you can drive for hours
without a sign of life to El Paso , Texas's shabby westernmost city.
Most travelers only venture into the desolation to explore Big Bend
National Park , nearly three hundred miles southeast of El Paso in the
curve of the Rio Grande.
Minimal rainfall and harsh land were not the only hindrances to
settlement. The Apache and Comanche , though accustomed in the 1820s to
trading with Mexican comancheros , were infuriated when hapless white
pioneers began to trickle in during the 1830s. With their horsemanship
and ability to find scarce water supplies, the Native Americans posed a
real threat; upon statehood, a string of cavalry forts was set up with
the help of federal money to protect Mexican and Anglo settlers from
attack. As trading posts and cattle ranges began to spring up after the
Civil War, the paramilitary Texas Rangers were sent out on violent
vigilante missions. Eventually, as in the Panhandle, a brutal program of
buffalo slaughter, supported by the US Army, starved the natives out.
Not long afterwards, oil was discovered in West Texas and boom towns
appeared, with all the attendant lawlessness, gunslinging and brawling.
|
