If you’ve decided to take the high-speed route along I-20, midway across Texas you’ll pass Sweetwater, where, every March during the Rattlesnake Round-Up, townspeople get together and collect hundreds of rattlers from the surrounding ranch lands, winning prizes for the biggest, shortest, and most snakes handed in. The town, 25 miles west of Abilene, also has shops selling all manner of rattlesnake-related souvenirs, and any time of year, Sweetwater—which was first settled in the 1850s and now earns its livelihood mining gypsum for use in wallboard—is worth a stop for some of the best fried chicken in West Texas, at Allen’s Family-Style Meals (325/235-2060), at 1301 E. Broadway, along old US-80.
The I-20 town of Cisco, 45 miles east of Abilene, is where Conrad Hilton bought and ran his first hotel, the Mobley, in 1919; the hotel is now the chamber of commerce office, and a couple of rooms have been restored to their circa-1919 appearance.
East of Cisco, the town of Eastland has two world-class oddities. The middle entrance to the county courthouse displays the embalmed body of “Old Rip” the Horny Toad, who survived 29 years embedded in the cornerstone of the old courthouse before supposedly being discovered, alive, when the building was being torn down. A few blocks away at 411 W. Main Street, the post office contains a huge stamp-themed mural made entirely of 11,217 postage stamps, created over a seven-year period by former postmistress Marene Johnson. (A postcard of the mural is available.)
