In downtown Abilene, the visitor’s center holds more than your average tourist information. It’s also the home of Frontier Texas!, a multimedia museum about Texas history. Inside, you follow a cast of characters through two theater presentations and several “Pepper’s ghost” hologram projections. It’s high-tech and interesting, if a little broad and repetitive in the telling.
Abilene Visitor Center
Frontier Texas! and the visitor’s center (which is in the same building) is located in the heart of Abilene, near other downtown attractions but with plenty of its own parking. As a visitor center, it includes all the usual brochures and an information desk, as well as a large Texas-themed gift shop. A large-scale sculpture dominates the middle of a light-filled lobby.
Behind the visitor’s center is a wide lawn for stretching your legs or exercising your dog. A fun “world’s largest buffalo skull” sits on a hill at the back. You can take your picture with/on it, and kids can climb in the eye sockets and slide out the nose. On tall poles are a series of buffalo weather vanes that turn in the wind and light up around the edges at night. The whole complex is a nice place to stop, even if you aren’t visiting the museum, and there’s a coffee shop & cafe just across the street.
Frontier Texas!
If you want to see the museum inside the visitor’s center, pay at the information desk. The experience starts with a short movie, so you might have to wait for a starting showtime if it’s busy. But there is plenty in the shop to look at while you wait.
First is the short film “Blood & Treasure.” The movie is narrated by Buck Taylor, an actor known for Gunsmoke and other westerns. In it, you are introduced to a cast of characters that will carry through the entire experience. From Native Americans, white settlers, and black slaves, these characters will tell you the story of frontier life in Texas, like it would have been around Abilene in the early-to-mid 1800s.
When the film ends, doors open automatically into the rest of the museum. The first section is called A Wild Land, covering prehistoric through indigenous populations to the rise of the Comanche Empire. The Comanche people dominated for nearly 200 years on the great plains.
In this area, you come to your first interactive station. A touch screen lets you choose between two characters and several different speeches, one pro-peace with the whites and one against.
Next, you get into the history of the Buffalo Hide Trade and the eradication of the buffalo to suppress the native population. Here, you get another hologram of a buffalo hunter.
This leads to the Civil War and Military on the Frontier, with the perspective of a field doctor. Throughout, there are also signs to read, but also these round displays that you can turn to reveal new information.
Next is a section on Cowboys & Longhorns, the thrill and danger of a long cattle drive, possibly led by Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, the inspiration for the characters in Lonesome Dove.
Finally, you find yourself among the Frontier Settlements with shops, a stagecoach, and a saloon. A rogue’s gallery hangs on the wall while the saloon keeper tells you all about the goings-on in town. A harried frontier wife will tell you about the dangers of living so close to the edge of civilization.
At the end of the museum, you enter the Experience Theater for an in-the-round theater presentation. You’ll feel right in the middle during a prairie thunderstorm, a harrowing kidnapping, and a saloon shootout. Seats are on round stools you can swivel to catch all the exciting action. If you have to wait for the show to start, there is a countdown screen with trivia, or you can browse the nearby exhibits and finish up when you get out.
As you leave the final theater, note the train that signals the end of frontier life, pass under the Texas Standard windmill, and take a look at the Guns of the West collection in the exit hallway.
Conclusion
The whole experience is very interesting and certainly worth $10 and an hour or so of your time. The person at the desk says it takes an hour and a half to go through, but it only took me a little over an hour. I read almost everything but didn’t listen to every single speech at every hologram station. It is definitely Texas history on a broad scale, and not trying to be anything super scholarly. It’s a good, entertaining overview fit for the whole family.
My only complaint is that there is some repetition in their speeches. You may hear the same bit of dialogue a few times during the whole experience. I’m not sure why this bothered me, but I feel with just a little extra effort, and a few more lines of recorded dialogue would have made it feel more immersive.
Hours & Admission
Frontier Texas! is open from 9 am-6 pm, Monday-Saturday, with the last show starting at 4:30. Sundays, they are open 1-5 pm with the last showing at 3:30. They are closed New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day, and close at 4:00 July 4th, Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve. Easter Sunday hours are 2-5.
The cost of admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors 60+ and members of the military, students and teachers get in for $6, and kids 3-12 cost $5. Children 2 and under are free.
If you are in Abilene for a few days, you can purchase a Round Up Pass, which offers access to Frontier Texas!, the Abilene Zoo, the Grace Museum, the 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum, Taylor County History Center, and the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature for a savings of around $8 per person over buying individual tickets. The Round Up Pass costs $30 for adults, $17 for kids 3-12, and $23 for seniors 65+. Hours vary for all these places, so make sure you check calendars and do the math first.
I really enjoyed stopping in Abilene, it’s definitely worth a few days of your time!
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