Lampasas County Livestock Show: Spa Brochure Lures Austin Wellness Crowd
Buyer Committee Volunteer Reissues an 1880s Resort Advertisement to Promote the Stock Show, Hears Back From 37 Austin Wellness Travelers Who Would Like to Take the Waters in January
LAMPASAS, Texas — A volunteer on the buyer recruitment committee of the Lampasas County Livestock Show was looking for a fresh way to invite out-of-county bidders to the 2027 show when she found, in a box at the restored Hancock Springs bathhouse, a newspaper advertisement for the Park Hotel.
The Park Hotel was an 1880s summer resort with 200 guest rooms, built beside the springs when Lampasas was one of the most popular health destinations in Texas. People came from all over the state to bathe in the sulphur water and drink it.
The volunteer has written the buyer letter for nine years and believes nobody has read past its second sentence since 2019. She rewrote the 2027 invitation in the voice of the 1880s advertisement and mailed it to 600 addresses.
A copy was provided to Farm.FM, along with the replies.
The Brochure: A Resort of Health and Premium
The invitation is printed on cream card stock and headed as follows:
THE LAMPASAS COUNTY LIVESTOCK SHOW. A RESORT OF HEALTH AND PREMIUM. SEASON OF JANUARY THE THIRD THROUGH JANUARY THE NINTH, TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY-SEVEN.
“The discerning traveler,” it begins, “is hereby invited to Lampasas, a city of seven mineral springs, where the waters of Sulphur Creek have flowed for the comfort of mankind since before the courthouse was raised, and where the finest young stock of Central Texas are presented each winter at the Youth Livestock Center upon the Highway 190.”
It then lists the show’s actual divisions, “accurate, just dressed for dinner.”
- “Poultry of every description, being Pullets, Cockerels and Roasters, received first, as is proper.”
- “Rabbits in the Four-Class and the Six-Class, which is to say, by the course.”
- “Dairy goats shall be received in their private carriages and shall not be asked to enter the barn.” (According to the show rules, dairy goats show off the trailer.)
- “Guests are respectfully requested to depart the premises at the conclusion of their engagement.” (Animals leave the barn right after their class.)
- “Of a Wednesday evening, a Grand Pyrotechnical Exhibition of the Mechanical Arts.” (This is the Fastest Torch contest.)
- “Supper is served to all patrons by a staff of young persons in white shirts.” (The Junior Board serves the buyers dinner in white shirts.)
Every item is true. She simply removed anything that sounded like a rule and replaced it with something that sounded like a privilege. “The 4:15 to 6 p.m. swine validation window,” she said, “is now an exclusive evening reception.”
Testimonials of Satisfied Guests
Like the Park Hotel advertisement, the invitation includes a column of testimonials. FFA members from Lampasas and Lometa helped choose which animals would recommend the experience.
“Before my visit I was a nervous Dorper of 94 pounds. I departed a calm Dorper of 118, and was placed second in my class by a judge of rare discernment. I recommend the hay.” — A Wether, Lometa
“The bedding was fresh, the water was cool, and the young lady who exhibited me never once allowed my topline to sag before company.” — A Southdown, Lampasas
“I was received first, before the rabbits, as is proper.” — A Roaster
“I would not enter the barn, and nobody made me. Five stars.” — A Dairy Goat, from her trailer
The volunteer notes that Lampasas County takes sheep and goats seriously. The county ranks 23rd in Texas in sales of sheep, goats, wool, mohair and milk from them, and the 2022 census counted 7,273 sheep and lambs and 6,446 goats grazing across more than 315,000 acres of pasture. “If a Dorper here says he recommends the hay,” she said, “he has tried a lot of hay.”
The Lampasas County Livestock Show Receives 37 Replies
The invitation went out in October. By the first of November, when online registration opened, the show had received three replies from regular buyers, all of them in the form of a phone call asking whether the volunteer was feeling all right.
It had also received 37 replies from Austin.
Lampasas is a little over an hour from Austin, and somewhere on the way the invitation reached a set of people who read the word “waters” and did not read much else. Questions have included:
- “Is the sulphur barn-adjacent?”
- “Do you offer a cold plunge, and is it the goat trailer?”
- “Can the Grand Pyrotechnical Exhibition accommodate a sound bath?”
The volunteer forwarded the questions to the Lampasas and Lometa FFA officers, who answered all 37 in two lunch periods. Their reply, a one-page document titled “Your Itinerary of the Cure,” is the actual show schedule, with no words changed except the title. Guests are directed to the show’s schedule and events page for times, and to the city’s mineral springs page for the actual springs, which the officers note are “a separate place, with no pigs.”
That page confirms that Hancock Springs feeds what is called the oldest spring-fed pool in Texas, at about 69 degrees year-round. An FFA treasurer added a footnote to the itinerary pointing out that 69 degrees in January is warmer than a lot of January in Lampasas, “so it will feel great until you get out.”
Rates and Terms
The final section of the invitation is the one the volunteer is proudest of, because she did not have to change anything at all. It is headed RATES AND TERMS and explains the premium sale, held after the buyers dinner on the last Saturday.
“The patron,” it reads, “bids upon the young exhibitor’s project in open competition with other patrons. The patron who prevails pays a handsome sum, receives the gratitude of the county and a photograph, and supports a young person’s education in agriculture. The patron does not, as a rule, take home anything that eats.”
Regular buyers say this is simply how a premium sale works. The Austin travelers had never heard of it, and loved it.
“You pay a significant amount,” one wrote, “receive nothing you can hold, and leave feeling better about the world. We have been looking for this for years. We have tried a cold plunge in a horse trough in Dripping Springs. Nothing has had a picture with a lamb in it.”
Fourteen of the 37 have registered as buyers. One has asked whether the show offers an annual membership, and was told that it does, technically, and that it starts with raising a broiler.
The volunteer has already begun the 2028 invitation. She has found a second advertisement, for a summer encampment, and is “considering a tent division.” The FFA officers have asked to proofread it first, and have already drafted the itinerary.
Five Humorous Observations About Texas 4-H Livestock Shows
- The Lampasas show already lets dairy goats stay in the trailer. That is not a rule. That is a five-star amenity, and the goats have known it for years.
- The Fastest Torch contest is a room full of teenagers cutting steel in seconds. Austin will call it a sound bath. Lampasas calls it Wednesday.
- The premium sale is the oldest wellness product in Texas. You pay, you get a photo, you feel good, and you never have to feed anything. Lampasas had it before Austin had cold plunges.
- A Dorper wether who gains 24 pounds in a sulphur spring town and calls it “the cure” is not wrong. He just left out the feed bill, like every resort testimonial ever.
- Two lunch periods. Thirty-seven replies. The FFA officers solved the whole thing by handing out the schedule with a new title. Somebody should put them in charge of Texas tourism, but only after Saturday barn cleanup.