Events

In the last decade, archeologists have made a number of fascinating new discoveries about the way Paleoindians lived and even how they arrived in the land we now call Texas. These first peoples passed on knowledge and traditions through the generations, eventually giving rise to many culturally distinct Tribes and Indigenous American communities. Some Indigenous Americans traditional stories say that their ancestors were always here. Archeologists, who study objects and evidence left behind from early cultures, believe people have lived here for at least 16,000 years. Both ways of understanding the past are important to the study of Paleoindian history. A Time Before Texas considers both current science and cultural tradition to explore what life was like for the first people to call early Texas home. A Time Before Texas is created by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and ciruculated in partnership with Humanities Texas. For more information contact the Historic Upshur Museum.

In the early 1970s, Bill Wittliff visited a ranch in northern Mexico where the vaqueros still worked cattle in traditional ways. Wittliff photographed the vaqueros as they went about daily chores that had changed little since the first Mexican cowherders learned to work cattle from a horse's back. Wittliff captured a way of life that now exists only in memory and in the photographs included in this exhibition. This Humanities Texas traveling exhibition features photographs with bilingual narrative text that reveal the muscle, sweat, and drama that went into roping a calf in thick brush or breaking a wild horse in the saddle. For more information, contact the Harlingen Arts and Heritage Museum.

From 2:00–3:00 p.m. on January 11, Irving Public Library will host Riders on the Orphan Train: The Texas Story. For more information, contact Irving Public Library.

Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island, a Humanities Texas traveling exhibition presented in collaboration with the Bullock Texas State History Museum, explores the Port of Galveston's role in the story of 19th and 20th century immigration to the United States and considers universal themes of immigration including leaving home, encountering danger, confronting discrimination, and navigating bureaucracy. For more information, contact the Texas Maritime Museum.