Barton Creek Mall Austin Texas

Imagine New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, "and the six New England states. Texas is bigger than all of them put together. Texas is bigger than all of them put together. In the minds of most Americans, Texas is the nation's "biggest state. And that is despite the fact that Alaska is geographically larger, and that California and New York have larger populations. It's no coincidence that just about every town has a business with the word "Big" in it. In Texas, with its grand history, larger than life characters, and booming prosperity, big's not swagger or exaggeration, it's just plain fact. But as photographer Carol M. Highsmith and writer Ted Landphair show clearly "Texas: A Photographic Tour, the Lone Star State is more than just oil boomtowns, cattle, and cowboys. The authors guide the reader on a journey of discovery to such natural wonders as the hard-to-get-to, but spectacular, Big Bent National Park and the Monahans Sandhills State Park, with its famous dune field. The museums and exhibits encountered range from the fascinating Dr Pepper Museum in Waco to the Devil's Rope Museum--recounting the history of barbed wire--in McLean to the infamous Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. Among Texas's colorful historic sites are the Alamo in San Antonio and Ysleta in El Paso, the state's oldest mission. Texas is also home to the world's biggest honky tonk, Billy Bob's in Fort Worth, and the "Live Music Capital of the World," as Austin, the state capital, is otherwise known. These and many other interesting places and people await the reader. With its striking photos and insightful text, "Texas: A Photographic Tour fully captures the energy, history, and fun ofthis vibrant state. It makes an excellent gift for anyone who has visited or wants to visit this grand state.

Austin, Texas, entered the aviation age on October 29, 1911, when Calbraith Perry Rodgers landed his Wright EX Flyer in a vacant field near the present-day intersection of Duval and 45th Streets. Some 3,000 excited people rushed out to see the pilot and his plane, much like the hundreds of thousands who mobbed Charles A. Lindbergh and The Spirit of St. Louis in Paris sixteen years later. Though no one that day in Austin could foresee all the changes that would result from manned flight, people here--as in cities and towns across the United States--realized that a new era was opening, and they greeted it with all-out enthusiasm. This popularly written history tells the story of aviation in Austin from 1911 to the opening of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in 1999. Kenneth Ragsdale covers all the significant developments, beginning with military aviation activities during World War I and continuing through the barnstorming era of the 1920s, the inauguration of airmail service in 1928 and airline service in 1929, and the dedication of the first municipal airport in 1930. He also looks at the University of Texas's role in training pilots during World War II, the growth of commercial and military aviation in the postwar period, and the struggle over airport expansion that occupied the last decades of the twentieth century. Throughout, he shows how aviation and the city grew together and supported each other, which makes the Austin aviation experience a case study of the impact of aviation on urban communities nationwide.