If Fort Worth is “Where the West Begins,” then Albany is the place where you finally feel like you’ve arrived there.
About a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Dallas, the little town was founded in 1874 by settlers moving from nearby Fort Griffin. Fort Griffin State Park remains one of the area’s main attractions, with its historic fort, exquisite hiking trails, and the annual Fort Griffin Fandangle, the world’s largest “outdoor musical.” Each year, as it has for 75 years, a 300-odd-member cast retells the area’s frontier history and founding myth with a town-size musical production.
The Fort Griffin Fandangle isn’t Albany’s only cultural attraction. In fact, the town, populated with wealthy ranchers and oil folk, has built a reputation as something of a cultural hot spot in the middle of nowhere. In 1980, native son (and Princeton grad) Reilly Nail restored the town’s oldest building, the Old Jail, and turned it into an impressive little art museum. Sure, there’s a Picasso there, but what really speaks to the progressive nature of this rural community are the periodic installations mounted by contemporary Texas artists from throughout the state. The restored Aztec Theater will also help satiate your culture appetite, and as for your actual appetite, there is the 14-day wet-aged Angus steak at the Fort Griffin General Merchandise (aka The Beehive), the best steak between Fort Worth and Lubbock.
Cultural attractions aside, if you go to Albany and don’t take advantage of the locale’s real passion, hunting, you’d be amiss. Lodges like Stasney’s Cook Ranch and Nail Ranch Adventures offer retreats on working ranches and hunting and fishing packages. Go in May, and you can catch the Musselmans’ polo benefit, an annual gala that attracts some of the best polo players in the world to a remote Texas hayfield-turned-polo ground at the Lazy 3 Ranch.
Distance From Dallas: 171 Miles // 2 Hours 39 Minutes
