Big Sky National Monument - Stonewall, TX

Lyndon Johnson is not a president often associated with the Antiquities Act. In his term, he enlarged four existing national monuments and established another two, most of which he did only at the behest of others. The exception to this is Big Sky National Monument. Set close to his ranch in Stonewall,Texas, Lyndon used to load VIPs into the back of his Lincoln Continental and go careening across the open prairies that would one day become the monument. He’s quoted saying that he loved seeing the faces of those unfamiliar with the Texas sky, crushed under the weight of it. And admittedly, there is something magical about the skies over the Lone Star State, something countless have commented upon. It’s in every song and story the state has to offer, the wide panorama of open sky that ensures storms can never sneak up on you, that teaches you from an early age how small you are in the world. It’s only fitting that a state obsessed with size would be blanketed by an equally big sky. Previ...

A Town Called "Beef" - Beef, TX

Beef, Texas is in the absolute middle of nowhere. It is barely a town, more so a tightly banded unincorporated community. The town consists mainly of cattle ranches, a small main street, and the Haight Meat Processing Plant which employs those members of the town who do not actively ranch cattle. As part of a promotion in the 1950s, the plant lobbied the town to incorporate under the name “Beef.” The townspeople were initially reluctant until the plant promised that if they incorporated under the new name, every family would be entitled to weekly allowances of ten pounds of ground beef, four racks of short ribs, fifteen pounds of roast, eight pounds of ribeye, four pounds of prime rib, and “all the skirt steak they could carry.” As you might guess, the townspeople accepted, and here the story might end with a few odd welcome signs and a tiny dot labeled Beef on all Texas maps, but what’s more interesting than the origin of the town’s peculiar name is the modern day ramifications of this initial deal. You see, the contract the plant produced had two clause: one stating that the right to the meat would be singularly held by each family (i.e., no family was entitled to more than the agreed upon amount), and one stating that the deal would remain in place for as long as the Haight Meat Packing Plant stayed in business, something it continues to do today. Because of this, those initial beefy entitlements are still in place and if you ask around town you will hear countless stories of them being passed through bequeathments in wills and how families litigate in order to control portions of the entitlement from siblings and cousins. In fact, on the corner of Main, next door to the Stop N Go, is the Gonzalez, Gonzalez, & Gonzalez Law Firm which built itself up from nothing on the back of these beef rights lawsuits.

Practicalities:

You will be hard pressed to find much to do in Beef except drive straight through it. There are no hotels or motels to stop at for the night and only a single diner to eat at. The diner is on Main Street, and is impossible to miss unless you miss the entire town.


Previous Postcard            Next Postcard