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This Month's Features

The many cultures that formed this state now provide the ingredients for a wide array of holiday traditions that can be enjoyed at Texas state parks. From the German holiday traditions at Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site to the haunting echo of the choir at Mission Espíritu Santo in Goliad State Park, parks in every corner of the state have unique annual celebrations that ensure a great time for the entire family.

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Powderhorn

Partners purchase vast coastal property to preserve for public enjoyment.

By Tom Harvey

“These gravestones have been here as long as I’ve been coming here, and they all appear to be children, based on the size of the headstones and the size of the graves as demarcated by the footstones.”

Wendel Denman Thuss is standing in a little graveyard near his family’s former ranch house at Powderhorn Ranch on Matagorda Bay. One headstone is dated 1882. The graves are not far from the historic town of Indianola, on the bay just a few miles north. It was here in 1844 that German Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels (for whom New Braunfels is named) landed with 100 German families. Their Indianola community would be ravaged by disease and ultimately destroyed by a hurricane.

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Choose Your Own Adventure

State park ambassadors find unique ways to promote the outdoors.

By Alayna Alvarez

Devonte Hill turns on his camera and takes a deep breath, getting ready to begin his first mission as a Texas state park ambassador. “I just want to shoot anything that moves,” he says.

Unsure of what story he might capture and eventually tell with his camera, Hill decides to keep an open mind and let the story unravel organically. After all, being open to possibilities led him to this moment as the leader of a group camping trip in Tyler State Park.

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