Drawn from Latin roots, there are multiple multisyllabic ways to express the number 175, including quartoseptcentennial, dodransbicentennial and the Texas-size mouthful septaquintaquinquecentennial. However you say it (Texas Monthly went with terquasquicentennial), 2011 marks the 175th anniversary of the Siege of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto, which led to the creation of the sovereign Republic of Texas in 1836.
Revolutionary then and fiercely independent today, Texans’ loyalty to their Lone Star flag, adopted by the Texas Congress in 1839 (statehood followed in 1845), and to their land, heritage and traditions is unique in the American experience. More than a slogan, “Don’t Mess With Texas” represents hard-won pride that sets Texans apart. On the hospitality front, this translates into an attitude of welcome. Texan pride is for the sharing, which distinguishes the Texas meetings and group experience like no other; instantly memorable, Texas impresses deep in the heart.
Making history is a Texas tradition; there are more than 15,000 historical markers throughout the state. Interestingly, 2011 is birthday season on many fronts, including 40 candles for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines (1971), the golden anniversary of Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington (1961) and 125 years for the Driskill Hotel in Austin (1886), to name a few. Even on non-commemorative occasions, though, interactions with Texas history and heritage are special events, as at the following group destinations.
In the Footsteps of Giants
At nearly 269,000 square miles, Texas is so vast—and of such ancient geology—that dinosaurs might still roam undetected in some distant corner. They were certainly here 113 million years ago, as evidenced by the prehistoric footprints dotting Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, about 80 miles southwest of Dallas and also home to the 1,700-acre Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.
Long before giving us Dr Pepper in 1885, Waco, 100 miles south of Dallas, was populated by mammoths. Now open to visitors, the intriguing Waco Mammoth Site is an active dig site of mammoth bones from approximately 68,000 years ago.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History in Bryan College Station features an outstanding collection of dinosaur fossils.
Somewhere around the dinosaur era, another future Texas imprint was being made—oil. While Pennsylvania claims the first major oil discovery—at Oil Creek, in 1859—Texas made the modern petroleum industry its own in 1901, when a gusher blew on Spindletop Hill in Gladys City, just south of Beaumont. The resulting boom fueled America’s industrial revolution, birthed Texaco and Gulf Oil and forever changed Texas. Groups can experience this magic moment (2011 is the 110th anniversary) first-hand at Beaumont’s Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum, where a replica gusher shoots water high into the sky.
Oil is also explored at the North Texas Museum of History in Wichita Falls, where groups enjoy the Oil Baron’s Row tour, a vintage trolley ride past luxurious homes of the oil boom era, and there’s more black gold at Midland’s Permian Basin Petroleum Museum.
Especially when freedom is at stake, Texans never back down from the fight. The Alamo in San Antonio is a global icon, while in Bay Area Houston, the 567-foot column at the San Jacinto Battlefield, topped by a 34-foot star, is the world’s tallest monument tower. At the column’s base, the San Jacinto Museum of History documents the events of the revolution, while docked nearby, USS Texas is a time capsule of naval history.
In Midland, the 40,000-square-foot American Airpower Heritage Museum’s World War II exhibit includes the world’s largest collection of original aviation nose art. Also in Midland is the 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum.
Groups enjoy front-of-the-line service at the Military Museum of Texas in Houston, including special tours, while in Fredericksburg, the National Museum of the Pacific War complex is uniquely devoted to the Pacific campaign during World War II.
Groups can also visit historic forts across Texas. Fort Davis in Big Bend Country is one of the best-preserved “Buffalo Soldier” forts in the west, while in San Angelo—named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Dozen Distinctive Destinations” list for 2011—former frontier post Fort Concho is one of the best-preserved forts in the nation.
Above and Beyond
“Futurity has locked up the destiny which awaits our people…” stated Sam Houston in his inaugural address as president of the Republic of Texas in October 1836, before personally pledging to “the attainment of the great objects in view….” Had he lived to hear Neil Armstrong’s immortal words from the moon on July 20, 1969, “Houston, the Eagle has landed,” he would have known that Texans had taken his words to heart.
Just 20 miles south of the San Jacinto Battlefield, NASA’s Johnson Space Center is the ultimate symbol of the endeavoring Texan spirit, and as part of the sprawling meetings- and event-ready Space Center Houston complex, one of America’s premier visitor draws.
Texas is the place for pioneering groups with frontier spirit.
In historic Washington, about 80 miles northwest of Houston, Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, where delegates risked their lives to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836, is the “Philadelphia” of Texas.
At Frontier Texas! in Abilene, life-sized holographic figures vividly portray life on the Texas frontier between 1780 and 1880.
In Austin, the meetings-capable Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum interactively showcases the Lone Star State’s geographic, social, political and cultural history.
Hotel pioneer Conrad Hilton opened his first hotel in Cisco, Texas, in 1919. Today, the newly renovated Hilton University of Houston, built in 1975, serves as a first-class meetings destination as well as the primary teaching facility for the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management. A treat for meeting attendees is a tour of the hotel library’s archives.
Home to many Texas firsts, including the first post office, first opera house and first teaching hospital, Galveston is a heritage destination unto itself, with four historic districts and well over 1,500 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.
Founded in 1844, Grapevine is one of the oldest settlements in Northern Texas. Serving as the visitor center and home to the Grapevine Historical Museum, the circa-1888 Cotton Belt Train Depot is among several historic downtown attractions.
Historic La Villita (the “little village”) can host receptions for more than 1,200 in the old world atmosphere of San Antonio’s original neighborhood, while El Paso’s still-active missions are among the nation’s oldest.
Opened in 1933, the 285,000-square-foot Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum is the largest history museum in Texas. Located on the campus of West Texas A&M University outside of Amarillo in Canyon, Texas, the event-capable museum’s 2 million-plus artifacts range from the Comanche Chief Quanah Parker’s eagle feather headdress to historic Texas art collections.
Few Texas institutions are as spirited as Texas A&M University in Bryan College Station, offering multiple group draws, and few are as sobering as the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, its overview of the JFK assassination site below hauntingly frozen in time.
