Abilene and the Texas Frontier

Here we are in Abilene, Texas. 

Established by cattlemen as a stock shipping point on the Texas and Pacific Railway in 1881, the city was named after Abilene, Kansas, the original endpoint for the Chisholm Trail.  The town sits near the center of Texas, not far from Clovis, New Mexico, where bones of the earliest verified American peoples, named after that town, were discovered.  Abilene and the great plains around and north of Abilene, were the land of the Apache (related to the Navajo because both tribes descended from the Athabascan peoples), and then the Comanche Nation (now consigned to a reservation in Oklahoma).

We heard that "Frontier Texas" is a museum not to be missed.  It is a western heritage museum that allows visitors to relive the Old West through the magic of state-of-the-art technology. Frontier Texas brings the frontier to life and lets visitors meet people who played out their lives on the Texas frontier. Frontier Texas also serves as the official visitor center for Abilene and the Texas Forts Trail Region.

So we decided to bike the 6.5 miles in to tour the museum.  Kathy led the way:

On the bike ride, we encountered some unique scenes of modern Abilene that attracted our interest - such as this Christian Missile --

-- and this Route 66 era gas station --

-- a modern portable oil derrick --

-- and genuine military surplus vehicles:

Frontier Texas is housed in a modern, attractive building that draws the visitor in with its open ambience:

The story of Texas's history is told in the museum by orienting it around the true stories of nine individuals who represented the vast number of people that lived, survived and died in this frontier, making it what it is today.  There are two Native Americans, a Comanche chief and a Kiowa chief, the famous lawman Pat Garrett who killed Billy the Kid, Cynthia Ann Parker who was kidnapped by Comanches, married a chief, and became the mother of Quanah Parker, one of the great chiefs of the Comanche people, and Britt Johnson, an African-American slave whose owner freed him to let him track down his wife and children who had been kidnapped by the Comanches, and who later established a major freight hauling company in Texas.

These nine historical figures became our Spirit Guides as they led us through the history of the Texas frontier.  Each of them had his or her own station, where, in holographic form the Spirit Guide told us his/her story:

We spent a couple hours at the museum, and then bicycled back toward our campground, stopping at Sharon's Barbeque, a local award-winning restaurant, whose BBQ was just as delicious as we imagined it should be!

Pedaling further along we saw more quaint local examples of Americana, such as Elmdale Flea Market --

-- and -- not to be missed! -- Nana's Bootique:

Oh, yes, and, by the way, "Frontier Texas!" also serves as the visitor center for Abilene, so, while we were there, we got some good tips on other places to visit in the next couple of days.  It looks like there will be another interesting adventure before Thursday, which we think will be "A Fine Time to Leave Abilene."