Abilene Real Estate, Area and Community Information

Welcome to the City of Abilene Texas located in beautiful Taylor County! Here on the "Friendly Frontier," Abilene maintains the traditional heritage of the Old West while providing all the advantages of a thriving, contemporary city. Located approximately 180 miles due west of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Abilene is the center of a 22-county area commonly referred to as the Texas Midwest or the Big Country.

Described as "The Future Great City of West Texas," Abilene was established in March 1881 upon the completion of the Texas & Pacific Railroad, and continues its cowboy heritage by hosting numerous cutting horse and other western equestrian events held at the Taylor County Expo Center.

Our community offers excellent schools, attractive and affordable housing, a regional airport, a historic downtown and a strong community spirit, as well as a wealth of tourism and recreational opportunities. Abilene also has a long and proud military history and prides itself on the good relationship it maintains with Dyess Air Force Base and its more than 4,000 civilian and military personnel.

Abilene Community

Abilene's downtown revitalization efforts is allowing the city to undergo a renaissance with the steady growth of cultural, shopping, and dining attractions centered around historic Cypress Street. Trolley buses provide free transportation to the downtown.

As the business and financial core of the city, downtown boasts hundreds of private, public and non-profit organizations, numerous upscale shops, bars and restaurants dot the downtown map, meeting the retail demands of Abilenians every day.

Abilene has an active and successful downtown association. Organizations from all sectors of the downtown economy are linked together in a spirit of cooperation and self-promotion. Abilene 's civic progressiveness as a regional center for distribution, commerce, industry, transportation, and education provide an assortment of lodging, dining, cultural, and shopping opportunities typically found only in much larger cities.

Attractions and Recreation

The Paramount Theater is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This fully restored art deco movie theater features a ceiling with slow drifting clouds and twinkling stars on a blue sky, numerous archways, and a bell tower with twin domed turrets. The theater shows classic films on weekends and hosts art films, plays, and concerts throughout the year.

Two blocks down the street from the Paramount, and also on the National Register of Historic Places, is the Grace Cultural Center, a beautifully restored 1909 hotel. The Grace houses a history Museum, an art Museum and an interactive children’s Museum, as well as a permanent collection. Throughout the year, The Grace hosts special exhibits, classes, seminars, weddings and other special events.

About ten miles out of Abilene is Buffalo Gap Historic Village, made up of several hundred-year-old buildings representing the Old West.

For recreational pursuits, the city also offers 26 spacious parks. The largest is Nelson Park, located across from the West Texas Fair Grounds. The park features a lake with dog park, playgrounds, a duck pond, a festival garden, and is home to the Abilene Zoo.

Abilene also boasts four public golf courses, six softball fields, and a very active tennis community. The city also offers two disc golf courses at Cal Young and Will Hair Parks and the first municipally-owned concrete skate park.

Abilene Events

There are always a wide variety of events and attractions to keep Abilene residents and vacationers occupied.

The West Texas Fair & Rodeo, ten days in mid-Sept., features exhibits and amusements reflecting early days of Abilene, plus modern attractions of West Texas. 
 
The Western Heritage Classic in early May features ranch rodeo, campfire cook-off, sheep dog trails, farrier competition, Cowboy Poets Society, Western art show and many other activities.
 
The first weekend in April features Celebrate Abilene, an outdoor festival held in the historic downtown area bringing the arts, history, railroad and family entertainment. 
 
On every second Thursday evening of the month, Artwalk is held in downtown Abilene. During Artwalk all the local museums are free, the Paramount theater shows an "Art Film", local musicians and performers busk, and several crafters and artists set up booths and sell their wares.

The Erinshire Folk Festival is an annual event started in 2003 and is held at Erinshire Gardens. The purpose of the festival is to spotlight Abilene area musicians and original music.
 
For the car enthusiest, the annual "Cruise Night" parade of classic and modern sports cars held each September.

Education in Abilene 

Abilene has two school districts within the city limits, the Abilene Independent School District (AISD) and Wylie Independent School District (WISD). The local high schools are Abilene High School and Cooper High School of AISD and Wylie High School of WISD.  AISD has begun taking steps towards creating magnet schools for the school district specializing in four areas: math, science, technology, and fine arts. The four areas will be divided among each of the four middle schools in the district. Regular curriculum will still be taught, but extra emphasis and equipment would be given based on the specific field of the school, such as extra labs for a science school, and an instrument lab for a fine arts school.

The city is also home to several higher education units, including three religiously affiliated private universities: Abilene Christian University (ACU), Hardin-Simmons University (HSU), and McMurry University (McM), as well as the Abilene campus of Cisco College (CC), a West Texas campus of Texas State Technical College (TSTC), and American Commercial College (ACC). In addition, a new Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Abilene Campus was recently built in north Abilene.

 

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