Mike Cooper

Abandoned Texas Mike Cooper

Texas has held a special allure for settlers since the earliest days of the nineteenth century. You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas, said famed mountain man Davy Crockett after he lost an 1835 congressional election and joined the growing tide of pioneers heading west towards the Lone Star State. Millions have followed in his footsteps in the nearly 200 years since.

In Abandoned Texas: Under a Lone Star Moon, join photographer Mike Cooper as he travels thousands of miles on his late-night treks across Texas. From the ruins of a school in Terlingua to the burned-out remains of a hotel in Caterina to the crumbling, deserted hangars of Rattlesnake Bomber Base, Cooper illuminates a side of Texas you've likely never seen. These otherworldly images, shot on quiet back roads and in near-deserted oil fields under a simple full moon, take you back in time to the glorious Texas imagined by Crockett and the early settlers. These long-exposure photos of churches built by European immigrants, courthouses and schools constructed in boom towns, 1950s-era drive-ins created to entertain families, and roadside monuments meant to attract the curious will cause you to see Texas in a whole new light.