A literary center named for author Larry McMurtry breathes life into his Texas hometown

ARCHER CITY, Texas — The celebrated Western writer, Larry McMurtry, aspired to turn this one-stoplight hometown into one of America's great book centers.

For a time, he succeeded. You could visit one of four of his locations around the courthouse square crammed with more than 400,000 rare and used books. But after McMurtry died in 2021 at 84, the bookstore shut down and tiny Archer City lost its number one tourist attraction.

Today, his renowned "temple of books," Booked Up, is back in business as the home of the new Larry McMurtry Literary Center .

The directors hope one day to rival Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's home in Oxford, Miss, and the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Calif, honoring John Steinbeck, author of classics like The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men .