March 2023 Monthly Adventure
What if I told you that in the 7.5 years I've been in Austin, spending most of my days across the street from the Bullock Texas State History Museum, that I have not once stepped foot inside the building? It's true. As previously mentioned in other posts on this blog, I love museums! I have incredibly easy access to the Bullock Museum and it was finally time to just go check it out rather than spend another near decade thinking about going.
Background
The thing that really prompted me to just go was a special cash back deal with my bank. They bank cover the cost of my admission ticket to one of their partner museums and the Bullock Texas State History Museum was on the list! General admission tickets for museums typically are not too expensive (many are free with donations encouraged), but I didn't want to pass up an opportunity to visit a museum for free -- especially since this is one I've never been to before. In fact, I was able to enjoy a completely cost-free and eco-friendly experience.
Transportation
To make this a more eco-friendly visit to the museum that was 100% free of cost, I decided to take the bus to the museum. The bus stop is directly across from my apartment complex and only takes about 15 minutes to get to the stop near the Bullock Museum. My job subsidizes fares for Capital Metro because there is limited parking available and doing so encourages people to take the public transit.
The bus stop is a couple of blocks away from the museum and takes about 5 minutes to walk over there after getting off the bus. It can be a pretty miserable short walk on a hot day, but this day's weather was nearly perfect. If you ever decide to take the 801 or the 803 Cap Metro bus southbound to the museum (or any buses that stop near the same area), just know that you'll probably be much more comfortable going on a day that's not in the middle of the summer heat. Getting to the northbound bus stop isn't too bad because it's a block closer and shaded by the tall buildings, but the 18 bus that goes along MLK would drop off and pick up right in front of the museum.
Bullock Texas State History Museum
Walking up to the museum was exciting because part of an ongoing construction project was recently finished that made it even easier to get a better picture of the exterior. This construction project is the Texas Mall at the Capitol Complex. This walking mall will connect the Texas Capitol to The University of Texas at Austin and many other state buildings that are between the two locations. The museum opened at 10:00 AM and I arrived about 25 minutes after opening.
Free Museum Day: H-E-B Free First Sunday
While I had originally made plans to visit the Bullock Museum as part of my bank's partnership with them, that wasn't even necessary for my visit. It turns out H-E-B sponsors "First Sundays" to make it free to visit the museum on the first Sunday of the month. In addition to sponsoring free admission for patrons on the first Sunday, they also have special events at the museum and this month they worked with Girlstart in honor of Women's History Month. They have several interactive STEM-based activities outside on the plaza and inside of the museum for children to enjoy.
Touring the Bullock Museum
The museum starts on the first floor and continues up the the third floor –– going in chronological order from the earliest known history of what we know as Texas today. There's also a couple of special exhibits on view. Additionally, the Bullock Museum has a couple of theaters with one being a regular movie theater where you can purchase tickets for the latest blockbusters.
First Floor
Before getting to the permanent exhibits, I immediately made my way to the Hilos de Tradición: Dresses of Mexico special exhibition gallery. It was supposed to close last Sunday, but they still had it available to view and I didn't want to miss it. I was not disappointed! It was filled with great history and beautiful clothing from many Mexican states/regions. There were also samples of the materials that visitors were allowed to touch and ponder on the differences between the fabrics and styles. Throughout the museum you will find sensory hubs, sometimes referred to as "Discovery Centers", to touch or manipulate things.
The theme of the first floor for all of the permanent galleries is Becoming Texas: Our Story Begins Here. There' s the recovered and restored wreckage from the small, 54 foot La Belle ship, a landscape theater featuring a life-size buffalo statue, many weapons (bows, swords, muskets, and bayonets), and information about native and indigenous groups who originally called this land home. There's also classrooms on this floor where Girlstart had some activities set up and the IMAX Theater is also on the first floor.
Second Floor
The galleries of the second floor fit into the Building the Lone Star Identity theme. This timeline follows the colonization and settlement of what eventually becomes the Republic of Texas. There's a statue of Sam Houston to start the walkthrough of the second floor and you're eventually guided into The Alamo, and later to a gallery focused on early resources and production which includes a cotton gin. The original Goddess of Liberty that was in the Capitol dome for nearly a century is also on this floor. Texas has a history riddled with war, so there were of course even more weapons on display in the galleries of the second floor. The Texas Spirit Theater is also on this floor and you can stop by The Star Café if you need a snack break.
Third Floor
The third floor's theme is Land, Culture, and Technology in Texas. Galleries on this floor focus on modern Texas history such as ranching, film, aviation, transportation and automotives, oil and gas industry, the arts, sports, NASA, and the tech industry. There's also a small gallery that highlights the catastrophic natural disasters of Texas. Fewer weapons are featured on this floor, but they do have a gallery dedicated to Texans who have served in wars since joining the Union.
The new Art of Texas State Parks special exhibition gallery is the final thing to see on the third floor. The collection of 34 paintings is divided into the different regions of Texas featuring art inspired by the state parks in these regions. The art circles around the walls of the Rotunda Gallery, leading you to the stairs and elevators that lead to the first floor lobby to exit the museum. The special exhibition is meant to celebrate the centennial of the Texas State Park System.
Parting Thoughts
All that being said, I do feel like some information was limited at the Bullock Texas State History Museum. There was an overabundance of weapons. I guess these were the only artifacts that have been able to last this whole time and are most available to display. Many items were also on loan from the Briscoe Center on the UT Austin campus and they mostly didn't want pictures taken of those artifacts. I also noticed that the contributions of women throughout the history of Texas were rarely highlighted. Another thing that stood out to me was the lack of information about slavery in Texas. The history goes from not mentioning slavery, to talking about the cotton gin but not about the enslaved people involved in cotton production, to suddenly showing a few people who and their lives after they were freed from slavery. And I mean people during the Reconstruction Era. There's not much of anything from the 20th century about freed people or their descendants. If I didn't already know what I do about the history of slavery in Texas, visiting this museum wouldn't help me learn much of anything about that time. The chronological order was great idea, but it isn't fully encompassing. Perhaps if the Bullock Museum were larger they could cover more Texas history.
One thing that I thought was unique feature of the Bullock Museum is the changing flooring to match the landscape. The floors at The Alamo were rocky like the real floors were and floors by the trail ride gallery were bumpy from the horseshoes, wooden planks for the "ship" symbolizing the ports of Galveston and Houston, and hooves imprinted in the "mud". However, I also realized that this can be an issue for those who could potentially trip and injure themselves from falling. It's also not great to have the ever changing surfaces for people who use mobility devices. The flow of the museum was well-designed and easy to follow and interpret so you shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out where to go next.
Wrap-Up
Overall, this was a great start to my Sunday and a very peaceful morning dedicated to some "me time". It was also great to do something that was of absolutely no cost to me! Having grown up in Texas, I've learned a lot about Texas history and much of the information was familiar to me already. However, I did learn some new facts and it was nice to see the physical artifacts that I often learned about in textbooks. With much of the sites where historical events occured throughout Texas now existing as historical landmarks with their own museums, the Bullock Museum serves more as an introduction to those museums. I was actually making a list of all the other museums I could go to so I can see more artifacts and detailed history. That means I will be writing about more museum visits around Texas in the future –– likely not the near future though. I have some other ideas for activities and trips to take to do in the coming months, some of which are featured in the 2023 Travel Plans post. Time to start planning my next installment of the Monthly Adventures Series!
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