Texas Beef and Town Squares

Canyon, TX - Hereford, TX

Sometimes I travel to distant, exotic locations (small towns in the middle of nowhere).

Along the way, I get to have little driving adventures. Outrunning tornadoes in the Texas panhandle, for instance.

And I get to see a lot of the United States – big or small.

On my way through Texas I missed a turn, and found myself in Canyon, TX.

Among stories about cattle ranchers, Canyon was also home of Georgia O' Keefe from 1916-1918 while she was teaching at what is West Texas State Normal College (now known as West Texas A&M university).

Honestly, I was a bit puzzled by the name. There were any canyons visible from downtown (Palo Duro Canyon, the grand canyon of Texas, is to the Northwest).

But there was the town square.

In fact, Canyon is part of Texas’ Main Street City program, and was revitalized in 2002.

The time and the weather (see previous note about tornadoes, which also explains the quality of these pictures) meant there weren’t many people walking around Canyon’s main street while I was there, but the town square had its own little walk through time.

The Rock’n’Roll Soda Shoppe had I ♥ Lucy lunchboxes inside, a soda fountain, and pink flamingos out front.

It was hard to resist.

More classic stores lined the main street block, with the architecture ranging from turn of the century to 50’s chic.

Although I’m not sure that I believe that the cleaners is as modern as they want you to believe.

Also, I saw Hereford, TX in Deaf Smith County. Beef capital of the world.

This too was flat.

But there were many statues of cows. Like this one.