Most Recent in Politics:

1Environmentalists Fear Conservative Group’s Push to End Corporate Subsidies is Really Just a Hit on Renewables

2Steve King Has a Friend in Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert

3One Candidate, One Destiny: Julián Castro’s Inevitable Presidential Bid

4Border Residents Roast Plans For Trump’s Wall in Congressional Committee Now Led by Democrat

5One Casualty of the Government Shutdown: Low-Income Texans Who Need Housing Assistance

6Abbott, Patrick, Bonnen Quietly Vote to Remove Slavery-Denying Plaque from Texas Capitol

Most Recent in Environment:

1Environmentalists Fear Conservative Group’s Push to End Corporate Subsidies is Really Just a Hit on Renewables

2Report: Power Plants are Leaking Cancer-Causing Toxins into Groundwater Across Texas

3The Border Fence vs. Wall Debate is a ‘Trap’ for Democrats

4TCEQ is Finally Doing Something About an East Texas Polluter

5The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

6Six Stories About Rural Texas You Should Read Before 2018 Ends

Most Recent in Border:

1Border Residents Roast Plans For Trump’s Wall in Congressional Committee Now Led by Democrat

2Audio: Border Patrol Plans to Light Up Butterfly Refuge Like a ‘War Zone’

4Trump’s Wall Is Coming to Texas. Meet Its First Victims.

5Trump’s Border Wall is a Vortex of Stupidity that Trump and the GOP Can’t Escape

6The Border Fence vs. Wall Debate is a ‘Trap’ for Democrats

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1‘Ignored to Death’ in the Bexar County Jail

2The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

3Botham Jean’s Death Could Lead to an Overhaul of Police Oversight in Dallas

4When Prison Reform Goes Bad

5John Guandolo is on a Crusade to Turn Texas Cops Against Muslims

6State-Sanctioned Secrecy Shields Texas’ Death Penalty Machine from Scrutiny

Most Recent in Education:

1In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

2Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

3Cash-Strapped Rural Texas Schools Look to Universities for Help

4What’s in a Name? Texas SBOE Tentatively Approves ‘Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies’

5SMU Just Lost Its Independent Student Newspaper. Is Your College Next?

6Lawsuit: Texas Art Teacher Suspended Because She Told Students About Her Wife

Most Recent in Health Care:

1The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

2Six Stories About Rural Texas You Should Read Before 2018 Ends

3‘How Can You Do This to People?’: After Rural Hospitals Close in Milam County, Residents Scramble to Find Care

4Four Texas Abortion Court Cases to Watch in 2019

5Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

6Struggling Rural Hospitals Say They’re Being Preyed Upon by Blue Cross Blue Shield

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

2The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

3Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

4Senfronia Thompson Says #MeToo: Texas Lawmaker on 45 Years of Sexism, Racism at the Capitol

5Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo on Sanctuary Cities, Police Unions and Tommy Guns

6Meet Nueces County’s New DA, a Self-Professed ‘Mexican Biker Lawyer Covered in Tattoos’

Most Recent in Books:

1The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

2‘Life Was Her Art’: Nadine Eckhardt Remembered as an Influential Cultural Conduit in Texas and Washington

3Our 10 Favorite Texas Books of 2018

4The Lone Star State Teems with Snakes, Lizards and Toads in ‘Herping Texas’

5Octavio Solis’ ‘Retablos’ Recounts a ‘Beautiful, Messy’ Youth on the Border

6‘When I Spoke in Tongues’ Chronicles a Long Walk Away from the Church

Most Recent in Features:

1The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

2Raspa Revolution

3100 Ways to Draw a Line

4Homeward Bound

5The Sisterhood

6The Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Lower Pecos

Most Recent in Essay:

1The Trouble with Yoga

2Heads in the Mud

3The Day the Windows Shook

4Women’s Work

5I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

6Somewhere It Hides a Well

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

2Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

3Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

4Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

5Eye on Texas: Transgender Youth in Texas

6Eye On Texas: Hurricane Harvey

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

2Parallel Planes

4Poem: ‘Resistance’

5Poem: ‘Screenplay for a Homemade Movie’

6Poem: ‘To Be One with the All’

Joe Nick Patoski

Joe Nick Patoski writes about open spaces, among other Texas-specific subjects. His next book, Austin to ATX: The Hippies, Pickers, Slackers, and Geeks Who Transformed the Capital of Texas, will be published in February.

By Joe Nick Patoski:

Stories

Is Texas’ Overcrowded, Underfunded State Parks System Being Loved to Death?

by Joe Nick Patoski | Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 6:27 am CST

Archives

Park and Parcel

The underfunded Texas Parks and Wildlife Department struggles to sell itself

Fri, Apr 7, 2006 |

Last summer, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department commissioners contemplated selling off 46,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park, the largest state park in Texas, to John Poindexter, the Houston businessman who owns the nearby Cibolo Creek Ranch luxury resort. … Read More

Archives

The Only Honest Lake in Texas

It looks like a winner has emerged in the struggle for Caddo Lake

Fri, Jul 8, 2005 |

A table full of good ol’ boys and good ol’ girls are having a hoot over lunch at Dawn’s, under the bridge where State Highway 43 crosses the western edge of Caddo Lake. One in the crowd claims he’s been … Read More

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