Texas Parks & Wildlife, Volume 67, Number 10, October 2009 Page: 51
64 p.View a full description of this periodical.
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LEGEND, LORE & LEGACY
Ted cdy Roo s evelf#s
h oase e sh
The great outdoorsman hunted javelinas and recruited Rough Riders here.From the side road, you may never know the history
inside the nondescript door mere feet from the Alamo's
south wall. A sign hangs overhead announcing a doorway to
history that every Texan should visit - Menger Bar.
Walking inside, the bar - which is still in operation and
greets visitors daily as a
part of the palatial
Menger Hotel - is pre-
dictably dark despite it
being early afternoon.
No exterior windows and
a dark, rich cherrywood
interior accounts for the
dimness while turn-of-
the-century-looking in-
candescent bulbs provide
enough fill light to bring
out the detail in the fine-
ly carved wood.
"Hello," I say to the
bartender, who is
dressed in appropriately
professional togs with a
hint of old-school flair.He wipes the bar with a white rag and looks up to return my
salutation. He offers me a drink but I decline - opting instead
to talk about the history of the bar and to shoot a few images.
It takes no time exploring the lower level of the bar, as it
isn't all that big. I scamper up the stairs to the top level and
look over the rail at the black-and-white-clad barkeep sort-
ing bottles and carrying about his business before his mid-
week crowd filters through the doors. I catch a subtle waft of
cigar smoke and see a man walk through the door from the
hotel. Turns out, he's a filmmaker scouting locations for an
upcoming feature and figured that Texas is the place where
he'd find what he was looking for.
It seems that this bar is a good place to find what adven-
turers seek. In 1898 Colonel Theodore Roosevelt sat in this
very bar looking for a piece of a puzzle that, he surmised, heRA NGERS N EEDED E
IFA C THING. ,THEY Wim
STRAINED TO OBEY ANI
FO TAKE RESPONSIBIIT
HEY WE RE SPI.E NL
SHOTS, HORSEMEN
:TRAILERS.''would have no trouble
finding in Texas. I'm
on TR's trail and aim
to visit some of the
same sites he visited in
Texas and, in the
process, learn how the
26th president influ-
enced our state.
(continued on page 55)ram-
er ar' " F .,f dye A 16w
y /-
lTEXAS PARKS & WILDLIFE * 51
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Texas. Parks and Wildlife Department. Texas Parks & Wildlife, Volume 67, Number 10, October 2009, periodical, October 2009; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth641673/m1/55/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.