We continued our tour through Texas history with a visit to the Texas History Museum in Austin. This is a newer museum which was not even contemplated when I was here in graduate school. Now it is a three story facility with theatres and interactive exhibits all focused on telling the story of Texas.
The museum is laid out chronologically, starting with the Karankawa Indians on the first floor and their first encounters with Spanish explorers, and wending its way up to the third floor where cowboys, oil and gas, and space exploration are all detailed.
We bought tickets for the film on the history of Texas, presented in an IMAX-type theatre—wraparound screens and multimedia. I was not prepared for the Galveston hurricane (if you visit, bring along a towel!), the grasshopper plague (watch your hair), but especially not prepared when a character on the screen tossed a lighted stick of dynamite down a hole filled with rattlesnakes!
I’m afraid Texas history when I was in 7th grade was just a matter of textbooks and papier mâché. We’ve come a long way in telling the stories of the past.
The museum is laid out chronologically, starting with the Karankawa Indians on the first floor and their first encounters with Spanish explorers, and wending its way up to the third floor where cowboys, oil and gas, and space exploration are all detailed.
We bought tickets for the film on the history of Texas, presented in an IMAX-type theatre—wraparound screens and multimedia. I was not prepared for the Galveston hurricane (if you visit, bring along a towel!), the grasshopper plague (watch your hair), but especially not prepared when a character on the screen tossed a lighted stick of dynamite down a hole filled with rattlesnakes!
I’m afraid Texas history when I was in 7th grade was just a matter of textbooks and papier mâché. We’ve come a long way in telling the stories of the past.
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