At the threshold of West Texas, where the waters of the Pecos and Devils rivers mingle with those of the Rio Grande, and the Chihuahuan Desert blends with the Hill Country and the South Texas plains, there exists a singular … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

“Febrero loco y marzo otro poco” – “February is crazy and March a little more so” – a popular saying in Mexico and the borderlands has it. There are upheavals in the weather here – swings in temperature, days of … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

“You can never hear enough sound of wind in the pines,” the writer Gary Snyder says in a poem. It’s like a vast breath, enthralling as crashing surf. In West Texas, that sound, and the presence of the towering evergreens, … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

It is – to put it mildly – a fraught history. Thousands of Native American burials were exhumed in the 19th and 20th centuries, by white scientists and collectors – the human remains displayed in “bone rooms,” or used in … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

It’s a time in the Earth’s history that speaks clearly to our own. The Eocene Epoch began – some 56 million years ago – with massive greenhouse gas emissions. Temperatures rose – the planet’s life was transformed. But the epoch, … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

Our region’s Native American legacy endures in communities and living cultural traditions – and in countless emblems and traces on the West Texas landscape: in images on cave walls and boulders; in pottery and shards of flint from stone-tool making; … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

There are few things as magical as flowing water in the desert. Such places refresh both the body and the spirit, and in a land like ours, their presence can feel like an unearned gift. We immediately sense such places … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

When it comes to understanding the deep history of human life in the Americas, our region has played a pivotal role. Sites on the plains of West Texas and eastern New Mexico yielded the first evidence of Ice-Age Americans. Indeed, … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

In 1931, the Texas historian Walter Prescott Webb called windmills “the life-savers of the Plains,” one of three technologies – along with the six-shooter and barbed wire – that allowed white settlement of the arid West. Today, access to underground … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS

For this episode, we’re teaming up with “West Texas Wonders” – a reporting series where listeners ask questions and Marfa Public Radio finds answers. This question comes from listener Pam Gaddis, of Alpine. “Why do the ladybugs gather up on … Continue reading → Hosted by for KRTS