Home

Tour the Inn

Dovecote

History

Archer City

Handbook of Texas

Whatever Happened to Jacy Farrow?

Larry McMurtry's Books

The Royal Theater

Map

Reviews

Lonesome Dove Inn
225 W. Main
Archer City, Texas 76351
Phone: (940) 574-2700
Email

The Lonesome Dove Inn is located in Archer City, Texas, on the edge of the Great Plains. The area, settled in 1878, has historically been known for its rich land, its cattle and oil, its big ranches, and lonesome cowboys and their cattle calls.

The men did not settle this area alone, however. Pioneer women helped clear land and build homes as well, and brought to Archer County the music, art and literature of cultures in the border states and the South. It has been said that the area is characterized by rough men and genteel women. Both were tough. They survived and thrived in a land of drought and sandstorms, heat, cactus and mesquite.

The lonesome call of the cowboy was later replaced by the pumping sounds of oil rigs, which allowed many landowners lavish lives.

Today the combination of cultures - cowboy, rancher, driller and farmer - is laced with entrepreneurs, and art patrons. The old Royal Theatre, which burned down fifty years ago and was revived in memory by the town's most prominent native, Larry McMurtry, in his novel, "The Last Picture Show", has been rebuilt as a theatre for live performances.

McMurtry himself is rapidly turning the cowboy town into a Mecca for book lovers, bringing literary people from all over the country to browse his bookstores.

The Lonesome Dove Inn, named for McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the old West, is owned and managed by descendants of pioneer ranchers, teachers, and artists. Sisters, Mary Slack Webb (inn host) and Ceil Slack Cleveland (partner), understand the legacies of both cowboys and ladies, farming and finery, hard work and good taste. They welcome rodeo fans and sportsmen as well as book lovers and artists.

For peace and quiet, or a warm family gathering,
The Lonesome Dove Inn is the place to be.

© 2004-07, Lonesome Dove Inn. All rights reserved.
Site Design - JSB Designs