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

The Gulf Island Builders - Jamaica Beach, TX


The Karankawa and Caddo both told stories of “They Who Walk on Water,” an all but vanished tribe remembered today as the Gulf Island Builders. Supposedly the Builders practiced the art of land reclamation, forming blocks of concreted mud and vegetation, using them to form stable stretches of shoreline and even islands. They supposedly believed that Texas was once a vast ocean, and that it attained its current shape through generations of their effort, filling in this ancient sea, intending to do the same with the Gulf.

The Builders did not survive the conquistadores, and in their wake became a thing of folklore, thought to be a myth until a man was found in El Mezquital, Mexico, practicing the ancient art of island building. A group of anthropologists from the University of Texas at Austin studied this man’s techniques and founded the Galveston Island Building Cultural Institute to further research the Builders’ culture and history, providing demonstrations of their techniques to keep their culture alive.

Practicalities:

The Galveston Island Building Cultural Institute is open to the public daily from noon to 5, and offers demonstrations of island building every day at 1 (if the weather is clear).


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