(Quick Takes are observations of places I’ve either traveled to or am traveling through at the moment.)

PARIS, Texas — OK. I’ll risk taking the flak: Everything in Texas ain’t the biggest or the best. (I can say that. I’m a native.)

We do, however, put a neat flair on stuff. I had been meaning to trek to the Eiffel Tower replica in this city for some time and finally got that chance one summer afternoon.

First, with a name like Paris, the branding possibilities are endless. The town has squeezed every drop of its name recognition. (Besides, the comparisons to the real City of Light belie some really deep and nasty racial divisions over the years here, but I digress.) Once a buckle in the cotton belt, stately homes line streets leading to an elaborate fountain that anchors a downtown square lined with turn-of-the-20th Century buildings with ornate cornices.

Face it, the only reason many venture off the beaten bath in Northeast Texas to this town of 24,000 is the Texas Eiffel Tower near the junior college.

Underwhelming is probably the nicest word for it, though the cowboy hat at the top makes it undeniably a Texas thang. It’s 65-feet tall (they say). All I could think when viewing it was that gasoline was about $3.75 a gallon on the way here.

The trip wasn’t a total loss, though. I sat in the town square for a bit and got out the old sketch pad to sketch out the buildings along one side of downtown.