Venus, Texas sits about 50 miles south of central Dallas. [I spent the day there with a friend and found the forgotten hamlet’s disappearance (minus a small revival of local government buildings) charming. The manner in which metro-areas such as DFW devour local communities and local histories with a borg-like inevitability thrusts the mortality of our collective being home, makes me think not only of personal mortality but of transience & entropy as vital forces.] Venus, first named “Gossip,” began developing after 1880 thanks to a developer named J. C. Smyth who named it “Venus” after the daughter of a local doctor. Venus continued to grow until the Great Depressions of the 1930′–after which her declilne was swift. Why do we Dallasites so often remain indifferent not only to the histories of small Texas towns, but to our own still-booming megalopolis as well?