Salt Palace in Grand Saline The following is an adapted excerpt from my award winning travel guide, Unexpected Texas: While the French equivalent of “window shopping” translates as “window licking” this is something that literally occurs every day at the Salt Palace in Grand Saline, Texas. The unusual building, which houses a visitor center and museum for the town and the nearby Morton Salt Company mine, is built entirely out of salt crystal bricks held together by a salt/mortar mixture. This strange combination proves tempting to many visitors who satisfy their curiosity by taking a tiny taste of its walls. A…
Tag: unexpected Texas
The following is an adapted excerpt from Unexpected Texas – my best-selling travel guide to quirky, offbeat and overlooked places near Dallas and Fort Worth. Check it out if you enjoy learning quirky facts, or are looking for offbeat road trip ideas in north Texas. Jefferson, Texas aka the Little Easy With its brick streets, horse drawn carriages, wrought iron railings, and abundance of Greek revival architecture, a visit to Jefferson, Texas can make you feel like you’ve stepped onto a movie set for New Orleans in the late 1800’s. This town’s resemblance to the “Big Easy” is no mere affectation, but a genuine…
The following is an excerpt from my upcoming quirky travel book, Unexpected Texas: Salt Palace in Grand Saline While the French equivalent of “window shopping” translates as “window licking” this is something that literally occurs every day at the Salt Palace in Grand Saline, Texas. The unusual building, which houses a visitor center and museum for the town and the nearby Morton Salt Company mine, is built entirely out of salt crystal bricks held together by a salt/mortar mixture. This strange combination proves tempting to many visitors who satisfy their curiosity by taking a tiny lick of its walls. The…
The following is an adapted excerpt from my Amazon Best Seller: Unexpected Texas. Enjoy! Wild West Toys in Azle, Texas If you enjoy retro collectibles, Wild West Toys in Azle, Texas will knock your socks off. This funky shop is stocked with vintage playthings from the 1950’s and 60’s, as well as specialty sodas (sarsaparilla and the like), candies, turquoise jewelry, western-themed dishes, housewares, and play clothes for kids. Made in the USA Wild West Toys is also the only place in the USA to manufacture metal cap guns. They must be top notch, too, because even Chuck Norris owns…
Who am I? My name is Tui snider. I’m a globe trotting writer currently based in north Texas. My passion is… …researching, photographing, and exploring the world, then sharing what I find with readers. I write about… …offbeat sites, overlooked history, cultural traditions, historical cemeteries, haunted places, scientific anomalies, Mom & Pop shops, quirky travel destinations, and other FUN stuff. Books I’ve written: UNEXPECTED TEXAS I released my travel guide Unexpected Texas on March 2, 2014 and it quickly became a number one Amazon Best Seller. Check it out! (For review copies, guest posts, interviews and other contact information, email…
The World’s Smallest Skyscraper Built in 1919, the Newby-McMahon Building in downtown Wichita Falls (701 La Salle, Wichita Falls, TX) is more commonly referred to as “the world’s smallest skyscraper.” Here’s the story behind this quirky structure and how it got its nickname: J.D. McMahon was an engineer and oilman from Philadelphia who breezed into Wichita Falls with blueprints to build a high-rise building in the downtown area. McMahon must have been a good talker, because it didn’t take him long to raise $200,000 (a fortune for that time) from local investors. The Difference Between Feet & Inches At a glance, it appeared…