In 1960 Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, hired acclaimed architect Louis Kahn to design a research center “worthy of a visit by Picasso.” The Salk Institute for Biological Studies was born three years later, winning accolades as one of the nation’s most magnificent...
In 1993, a headline in The New York Times described Bozeman, Montana, as a “Cow Town With Charm.” It made sense, considering the city was built around agriculture, starting with its namesake, pioneer John Bozeman. After beginning an agricultural colony in the valley, growing food...
“I found out that the sunshine in New Mexico could do almost anything with one,” wrote American arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan after moving to Taos in 1917. In the high-altitude village with an elevation of 6,969 feet, nestled beneath the Sangre de Cristo Mountains,...
Legend has it that when William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was visiting Wyoming in 1894, his son-in-law brought him to the top of the Bighorn Mountains. Looking out over the Shoshone River and the sprawling Bighorn Basin, the entrepreneur and legendary showman clearly saw an...
At 176 years old, Fredericksburg, Texas, is still abuzz with youthful enterprise. This small historic town located some 70 miles north of San Antonio is estimated to draw more than 1 million tourists annually. In the mid-1800s, a delegation was sent to Germany to promote the...
Los Angeles boasts among the richest troves of public Art Deco architecture in the nation. With its well-crafted bold geometries and bright colors, the style emerged at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, France, and made its way around...
In 1932, sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude was deep in thought as she walked by the Empire State Building during construction. Two steel beams in the fledgling structure appeared to form a holy cross in her mind’s eye. The image so impacted her that she decided...
The first train whistled into Flagstaff, Arizona, on August 1, 1882. Its riders were a rogue mix of scientists, explorers, and tourists, all of them anxious to see for themselves the magnificent landscapes they had only heard about: the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, the...
Colorful tissue-paper banners flutter high above El Mercado Market Square, a three-block outdoor plaza in downtown San Antonio, Texas. Mariachi music rings through the air, and tempting aromas from restaurants tease the taste buds. Artisans sell souvenirs from small booths on the sidewalks, and stalls...
Susan Kates, my favorite English professor at the University of Oklahoma, had just moved to the state from the Midwest when I was her student in the 1990s. I admired the way she embraced her new home. Often, she wore cowboy boots to class and...