The porch side
Porch Stories
True, sourced stories about the details that give Texas places their shape: the river bend, the depot, the courthouse stone, the oil field, the people who stayed, and the wild patch close to town. Pick a thread and wander.
1,272 story and local-character notes in the full library.
Water shaped the place
Rivers, springs, bays, and the public places Texans built around them.
Bexar County
Mission Reach Makes the San Antonio River Feel Like a Southside Park
Mission Reach turns eight miles of the San Antonio River into trails, paddling water, native plantings, and art gateways to the World Heritage mission sites.
Rails, squares, and main streets
The tracks, depots, brick streets, and courthouse blocks that still explain a town center.
Corsicana · Navarro County
Corsicana's brick streets are part of the downtown story
Downtown Corsicana has an official Main Street program, old brick streets, and a restored railroad freight office that keeps the center of town readable on foot.
When oil changed everything
Booms, derricks, and the places that changed course after somebody struck oil.
Corsicana · Navarro County
Petroleum Park gives Corsicana's oil memory a street address
A half-acre park on South 12th Street turns Corsicana's oil story into something you can stand beside: a derrick, a wooden jail, and a small downtown marker.
Many roots, one Texas
Tejano, Norwegian, Tigua, and other community histories that remain visible on the ground.
Polly · Bandera County
Polly's Chapel Keeps a Tejano Frontier Story in Stone
Polly's Chapel ties a rural Bandera County place to Policarpo Rodriguez, a Texas Ranger, Army scout, guide, and 1858 settler.
Texas built that
Big civic gestures, handmade landmarks, and structures with a story larger than their footprint.
Burnet County
Granite Mountain's owners gave Texas the stone for its Capitol
After Austin limestone discolored, donated Sunset Red Granite and a special railroad tied a Burnet County hill to the Capitol walls.
Wild, but close to home
Cranes, wetlands, canyons, and everyday access to the wilder side of a Texas place.
Bailey County
Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge Draws Tens of Thousands of Sandhill Cranes Each Winter
Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1935 and described by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas, sits 20 miles south of Muleshoe and hosts large concentrations of sandhill cranes during winter.
Keep wandering