This is the first in an occasional series exploring Texas locales near and far that offer uncommon sights and experiences.
The two-hour drive from San Antonio to Bartlett along the Pickle Parkway toll road is rife with sunflowers, filling the expansive views with contrasting bright yellow petals and dark brown kernels during a recent road trip to the town 30 minutes northeast of Georgetown.
The unusual proliferation of sunflowers serves as a metaphor for what’s happening in Bartlett, once considered a ghost town but newly revived with an infusion of planned revitalization by Robert Zalkin, a developer from the town of Liberty, New York.
Once big-box stores began populating the countryside, the mom-and-pop small businesses that formed the core of small town downtowns started going out of business, unable to compete. Those closures perpetuated a cycle of diminished…
