Texas Independence Trail: Austin, the BBQ Belt & Czech Heritage Towns

The Texas State Capitol is the largest statehouse in the United States — built in 1888 of sunset red granite quarried near Marble Falls and paid for with 3 million acres of Panhandle land. The interior rotunda and dome are modeled on the US Capitol but larger; the portraits of every Texas governor and the Senate chamber furniture are original. Free tours run continuously.

The most comprehensive survey of Texas history under one roof — a three-story museum that covers the Caddo Confederacy and the Spanish missions through the Republic of Texas and the oil boom. The Spirit Theater film is overproduced but the permanent collection is genuinely excellent, particularly the land grant documents and the Republic-era artifacts.

The most visited presidential library in the country — a brutalist UT campus landmark housing 45 million documents from the Johnson administration and a permanent exhibition on the Great Society legislation that remains LBJ's contested legacy. The Oval Office recreation is faithful; the exhibition on the Civil Rights Act passage is one of the best pieces of political history interpretation in America.

A celebrated Austin taco institution on the east side — the migas tacos and the chicken mole enchiladas are prepared from family recipes, and the tortillas are pressed fresh. One of the most honest and good representations of Austin's Mexican and Tex-Mex culinary tradition.

Sixth Street was Austin's main commercial avenue from the Republic era through the 1960s, and the Victorian commercial buildings between Congress Avenue and I-35 contain the layered history of a city that has reinvented itself every generation. The Driskill Hotel (1886), the Paramount Theatre (1915), and the concrete remnants of the original 1839 town plat are all accessible on a self-guided historical walk.

A spring-fed outdoor pool in Zilker Park fed by three underground springs that maintain a constant 68 degrees year-round — 900 feet long and free to enter. The history of Barton Springs runs from Tonkawa ceremonial use through Republic-era bathing to the 1990s environmental referendum that shaped modern Austin politics. The best single place in Austin to understand the city's relationship with its natural landscape.

An Austin restaurant that treats Mexican regional cooking with the same seriousness a Spanish chef would bring to French cuisine — the mole negro, the masa-based drinks program, and the composed vegetable plates from the central Mexican tradition are all exceptional. One of the most significant kitchens in Austin.

The ur-text of Texas BBQ — a Lockhart institution that has been smoking brisket and shoulder clod over post oak since 1900 (under the Kreuz name since 1948). No sauce, no forks, no beans: the meat speaks for itself on butcher paper. The original pit room was built in 1948 and the new facility uses the same direct-heat pit technology. Open from 11am until sellout.

Lockhart's 1894 Caldwell County Courthouse sits in the center of a commercial square with a dozen Victorian-era storefronts intact — the BBQ tradition grew directly from the Czech and German immigrant butcher shops (Kreuz, Smitty's, Black's) that opened on and around this square a century ago.

The third member of the Lockhart-Luling-Gonzales BBQ triangle — the City Market in Luling is a Czech butcher shop institution serving smoked sausage and brisket from a single counter window since 1958. The link sausage (hot guts, in local usage) is the product that defines the Central Texas Czech BBQ tradition.

Luling is the self-declared Watermelon Capital of Texas, and the Zedler Mill on the San Marcos River is the oldest continuously operating mill site in Texas. The millpond and the limestone mill building above it date to 1874 and are well-preserved. The surrounding oil pumpjacks — Luling also sits on a major East Texas oil field — create the surreal agricultural/industrial landscape characteristic of Central Texas.

Gonzales fired 'the first shot of the Texas Revolution' on October 2, 1835 — the living history center documents the battle and the subsequent 'Come and Take It' cannon moment that gave Texas its most enduring symbol. The pioneer-era log cabins and the adjacent Gonzales County Courthouse (1894) are both exceptional.

One of the best county historical museums in Texas — the main focus is the 1835 battle and the 'Immortal 32' from Gonzales who marched to the Alamo and died there, but the collection also documents the 19th-century plantation economy and the Czech and German settlement of the county.

French-inspired comfort cuisine in an intimate setting perfect for romantic weekend dinners.

The Spoetzl Brewery has been producing Shiner Bock in the small Czech-German community of Shiner since 1909 — free brewery tours explain the history of the Bavarian immigrant brewmaster Kosmos Spoetzl, who brought the bock style to Texas a century before craft beer made it fashionable. The tour ends in the Hospitality Room where the original wooden bar from the 1920s serves cold Shiner straight from the fermentation tanks.

The Lavaca County seat is the most intact of the Czech-German courthouse towns in the Coastal Bend region — the 1897 Romanesque courthouse, the adjacent Czech Catholic church, and the commercial blocks of the square are all well-preserved. Hallettsville hosts the state domino championship every January, maintaining a competition tradition the Czech community brought from Bohemia in the 1880s.

A Lavaca County BBQ institution in the Mikeska family tradition — Czech-influenced smoked sausage and brisket from a family that has operated BBQ joints across South Texas for three generations. The original Mikeska was a Czech immigrant butcher; the sausage recipe is 100 years old.

One of the most remarkable architectural finds in rural Texas — the 1895 painted interior of St. Mary's Church in the tiny Czech community of Praha (population: 25) was fully restored in 2009 by a team of artists working from the original Czech Baroque templates. The trompe l'oeil painted columns, the ceiling murals, and the painted altarpiece rival any painted church in Europe for color and ambition.