Texans know and love the Lone Star State — but does the rest of the world? They did in 2025, when global magazine Time Out dubbed a Central Texas neighborhood among the best globally, bringing renewed eyes on Texas.
Last year, Austin’s Clarksville neighborhood accompanied 38 others around the globe, with featured communities heralded for their old-school roots, combination of arts, culture and architecture, cuisine as well as independent businesses. Landing at No. 33 on the list, Clarksville was the only neighborhood from Texas to earn a coveted spot among the rankings. Located west of downtown Austin, freedman Charles Clark founded the Clarksville Historic District back in 1871, with the area considered the oldest surviving freedman’s community west of the Mississippi River.
That history has since been memorialized courtesy the Hezikiah Haskell House, a property built by freedman Peter Tucker and his wife, Betty, in 1875. Those historic architectural details remain on display within the neighborhood, Time Out noted, with original facades marrying together with modern architectural elements in a “balancing act of preservation and progress.”…