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US-183 South
US-183 South of Austin Today I thought it is a good day to explore the area south of Austin and have a look where US-183 will go to. So I'm driving south of Austin today on US-183. While 183 through Austin is a Freeway, which means the street has a median to separate the opposite directions of traffic and no intersections, it becomes a regular highway with mainly two lanes in each direction soon after you leave Austin.
But traffic is still astonishingly high. Not that I have to drive bumper-to-bumper but there is still someone ahead or in your rear-view mirror. Along the highway there is open but privat land which seam to belong to farmers but most of it isn't cultivated. Sometimes I see livestock and you can call them happy cows because each of them has probably an acre for its own pleasure. Every view miles there is some access road and even a house or other sort of property.
One property has a few old rusty cars parked and the barn is probably a well equipped garage. Hey, you'll never know out here!
After about a half hour -- or 30 miles -- a city named Lockhart is the first community since Austin. According to several webpages Lockhart is called 'The Barbeque Capital of Texas'. There are four BBQ restaurants in Lockhart. The restaurants estimate that about 5,000 people visit their establishments each week. This would be roughly 250,000 people a year who eat BBQ in Lockhart. Wow -- but not counting me! Unfortunately I didn't knew that before. So I will need to go there again to taste some Texas-Style BBQ.
But Lockhart also has a real historic center with some remarkable buildings. A sign indicating the historic center takes my attention and I take the right turn to took a look at it.
One is a large brick house which probably was some kind of factory.
On the bottom you can still read the name Joe Masur painted to the wall. Unfortunately the rest cannot be deciphered and I don't know if that name has anything to do with this building at all. It could be just some advertisement for other company.
Next to the right is another building which may have been some kind of a store and is now rather ruinous.
According to the text on the top it may have been the Masur Bros. Hardware & Farm Implements store. So this two buildings may have been relation to some degree. However the neon sign over the entry reads Big Dog Neon and when I made a search in the Internet later for these sentence I found directions to a neon sign company right at this place. Probably someone is still doing business in this building.
Because it was sunday and I didn't thought of taking a closer look I didn't noticed at that time that there is still some active business going on inside that building. I thought it's kind of sad that these two buildings will probably be torn down somewhen soon.
Across the same intersection is a old church which seams to be in good shape. Maybe it was restored recently.
Above the entrance First Christian Church is written on the glass.
Down the street are other nice an old buildings. One of them is even a library.
Lockhart is also the County Seat of Caldwell County and therefore has a Courthouse.
The Caldwell County Courthouse is the third courthouse built on this site. A complete historic restoration was completed in the spring of 2000.
Here is a link to some "inside" story about the
Courthouse in Lockhart, TX. Also a link for more about
Lockhart History
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