In the heart of Archer City, Texas—a tiny ranching town two hours northwest of Dallas—a new chapter is being written in the legacy of one of America’s most celebrated authors. The Larry McMurtry Literary Center, newly opened on September 7, 2025, stands as a living monument to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove and Oscar-winning screenwriter of Brokeback Mountain. But this is not just another museum or a shrine to literary greatness; it’s a bid to breathe new life into a town that shaped, and was shaped by, its most famous son.
According to NPR, the center is housed in McMurtry’s legendary bookstore, Booked Up—a sprawling warren of floor-to-ceiling shelves that once made Archer City an unlikely destination for bibliophiles from around the globe. At its peak, McMurtry’s collection filled four locations in town, boasting more than 400,000 volumes. "People came from overseas. People came from all over the world to go to Larry's bookstore," recalled Murn Wages, proprietor of Murn’s Cafe, where McMurtry was a regular, ordering his cheeseburger cut in half and a piece of cherry pie. She added, “I hope it starts bringing a lot of tourists back to our little town.”
McMurtry’s impact on Archer City is a study in contrasts. In his writing—most notably in works like The Last Picture Show—he often painted the town and its people in stark, sometimes unflattering hues. He chronicled the bleakness and the burnout that can haunt small-town life, the self-destructive cowboys and oil field hands who never saw much beyond the horizon. Yet, despite these unsparing portraits, McMurtry never really left. He returned, bought up half the town’s books, and set out to transform Archer City into one of the world’s great literary centers.
"We're here inside Booked Up. This was a place that Larry—it was the center of his literary universe," said George Getschow, the award-winning former journalist and educator who now serves as executive director of the Literary Center. Getschow stands reverently among the shelves, describing the building as a “temple” to McMurtry’s lifelong love affair with books. "He got married inside here. He directed in his will that his ashes be kept here forever and ever. He wrote in the morning, spent all of his time the rest of the day pricing books, curating books, writing comments in books and cherishing these books. I've never known anyone who loved books as much as Larry McMurtry," he told NPR.
The journey from bookstore to literary center wasn’t a straightforward one. After McMurtry’s death in 2021, the fate of Booked Up hung in the balance. HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines purchased much of the remaining collection, intending to stock the library in their upscale Waco hotel. But the story didn’t end there. Getschow, who had long sought a permanent home for his Archer City writers workshop, led a group that acquired the property from the Gaineses. The transformation of Booked Up into the Larry McMurtry Literary Center represents more than just a change of ownership—it’s a mission to "preserve and perpetuate this book collection, this remarkable, immense book collection," as Getschow put it.
Yet, the center’s ambitions are threatened by the very real challenges of maintaining a historic building in a small, rural town. The structure, much like the ramshackle houses of McMurtry’s cowboy characters, is showing its age. Kathy Floyd, the center’s managing director, detailed the litany of repairs needed: "Water comes in at the ground level, and it seeps in and leaves puddles. The books that are on the bottom shelves have been damaged because it soaks up." Getschow added, "We lost a number of books that were against that wall, really very precious books that we put there 'cause we had no other place to put them." The center is in dire need of new heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and a roof—without which, the preservation of McMurtry’s collection and the community’s literary ambitions hang in the balance.
Despite these obstacles, there’s a palpable sense of hope among those who remember McMurtry not just as a literary giant, but as a neighbor and friend. Jenny Schroeder, volunteer coordinator at the writers center and a lifelong Archer City resident, reflected on the deeper meaning of McMurtry’s legacy: "For Archer City itself, it means a lot that he was part of our town. He came from this ranching tradition that is still alive, very much alive today. And I think it shows the value in that tradition, and it also shows the value in an alternate route." McMurtry, she noted, grew up cowboying on the family ranch, but he found his true calling in books—a path that opened up a world beyond the pastures and the one-stoplight town.
It’s a story that resonates far beyond Texas. McMurtry’s novels, screenplays, and essays captured the myth and reality of the American West, earning him not only a Pulitzer Prize for Lonesome Dove but also an Oscar for co-writing Brokeback Mountain. Films adapted from his books—like Horseman, Pass By, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment—won a combined 13 Oscars, while the TV adaptation of Lonesome Dove claimed seven Emmys. Yet, even with such acclaim, McMurtry remained rooted in Archer City, determined to share his passion for literature with the very community he once critiqued.
With the opening of the Larry McMurtry Literary Center, Archer City is betting on a new kind of tourism: one driven not by rodeos or oil booms, but by the lure of stories and the love of books. The hope is that literary pilgrims will once again fill the town’s cafes, browse the towering stacks, and perhaps, in the quiet corners of Booked Up, feel the presence of McMurtry himself—his ashes resting among the volumes he so cherished.
As Archer City looks to the future, the literary center stands as both a tribute to its favorite son and a challenge to preserve his legacy for generations to come. The building may need some work, but the spirit of Larry McMurtry—restless, imaginative, and deeply Texan—remains as strong as ever within its walls.