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BY JODY EDWARD GINN, PHD
Executive Director Texas Ranger’s Heritage Center
Fresh air, an old- fashioned Christmas wonderland and an authentic fully restored pioneer wagon and educational opportunities await you in the majestic Texas hill country. Come have fun and explore! Texas would not be the Great State it has become, but for the Texas Rangers.
If you have not had the opportunity to visit the Texas Rangers Heritage Center in Fredericksburg, this is the time of year! Historic Fort Martin Scott, a living history pioneer town is adjacent to Phase I and has been open for several years now welcoming hundreds of visitors.
Keeping in line with Fredericksburg’s dedication to historic preservation, the Texas Rangers Heritage Center brings the story of the state’s famous lawmen to life.
The 12-acre outdoor campus includes a 350-seat open-air pavilion with a full catering kitchen and a LoneStar Stories Campfire Ring. These amenities support a wide range of event opportunities.
Phase I of the Texas Rangers Heritage Center is complete. The project on the town’s eastern edge was about 14 years in the planning.
In September 2013, then-Gov. Rick Perry and other dignitaries attended a groundbreaking ceremony on the land between Fort Martin Scott and the Hill Country University Center.
The site also includes a campanile (bell tower) and a Ring of Honor, and a 30-foot simulation of a Ranger badge which memorializes Rangers who lost their lives in the line of duty.
You can see all of this now and in the future an historic flintlock rifle used by Mexican Texas colonist and elder statesman Ben Milam during the Siege of Béxar will be on display at the Texas Rangers Heritage Center when Phase II opens in August of 2023, just in time for the 200th traditional anniversary of the Texas Rangers.
The foundation has begun fundraising for Phase II, which will feature a museum building. There, visitors will learn about well-known Rangers and episodes in Ranger history.
Museum planners promise an immersive experience which will include interactive exhibits, an introductory theater, and episodes of Rangers who battled bootlegging, counterfeiting and murder, and even the man who stopped the University of Texas Tower shooter in 1966.
And youth will be taught the five Ranger traits of courage, determination, dedication, respect and integrity.
The Former Texas Rangers Association welcomes new memberships. Get more information about the organization at www.TRHC.org.
Contact the Former Texas Rangers Foundation office, at 103 Industrial Loop in Fredericksburg at (830) 990-1192. Walking tours are available Thursday through Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Texas Rangers saying: “No man in the wrong can stand up against a man in the right who keeps on a-comin’.”
The Texas Rangers Heritage Center has brought the story of the state’s famous lawmen to life since it opened in September 2013. — Standard-Radio Post
//SA
