Blogs from Texas, United States, North America - page 13

I took TX State Hwy 7 East to Center, Texas for a good day. I took TX Hwy 87 SE to Shelbyville (the first brief county seat for Shelby County), and the Fire Department is my first pic in the City of Shelbyville. A block West of Fire Department is the First United Methodist Church. It was late afternoon and the sun was in my face. (The congregation started before this church was built.) There was not much in Shelbyville so I continued in error SE on hwy 87 when I needed TX FM 147 to San Augustine, Texas. To get to San Augustine I turned West on FM 139 until it ended; then continued I West on West on CR 2571, a one lane dirt road with two way traffic. This worked out well cuz ... read more

THE GOOD FOLKS OF GRAYSON COUNTY The county seat of Grayson County is in Sherman, Texas. It was a prosperous agricultural community in a cotton growing region. After WWI ended cotton prices began to falter as cotton supplies exceeded demand. Throughout the 1920s the cotton market failed to recover and the sharecroppers and tenant farmers became impoverished. In 1929 the Great Depression began and soon the banks failed too and nobody had any money. The good folks of Grayson County became desperate. In April of 1930 a half- witted black farmer named George Hughes and his common law wife drifted into the area and George found work with a fellow named Drew Farlow who lived about 4 miles from Sherman along Choctaw Creek. On the morning of May 3, George dropped by to pick up six ... read more

THE LOST BATTALION William Holden has never been one of my favorite actors, but has been cast in two of my favorite movies: The Horse Soldiers, and Bridge on the River Kwai. Both movies, of course, were crapped up by Hollywood. They were both based on true stories that needed no embellishment of facts. The Horse Soldiers was a Civil War story about a daring cavalry raid commanded by Colonel Benjamin Grierson deep into Mississippi to disrupt the supply line to the Confederate bastion at Vicksburg. Rebel soldiers trapped in Vicksburg were reduced to dining on rats because of it. Bridge on the River Kwai was a story about some poor devils captured during WWII in Java by the Japs and forced to build a railroad across Burma and Thailand. A great many of them died ... read more

blog 02-10-20 Longhorn Parade As predicted the weather was the X factor in plans today. Yesterday the forecast was for rain in the morning and semi-clearing for the afternoon. So my trip to Ft Worth was planned for the afternoon until I got up and it wasn't raining. Again checked the forecast and the rain would be heavy in the afternoon but not starting until about 1 pm. There are 2 Longhorn parades a day, one at 11:30 and the other at 4. So I quickly dressed, walked the dog and layered my clothes, grabbed my gear and off I went. The trip into town was fairly effortless, the route taking me through some farm land then mostly industrial, huge grain storage towers, rail cars and lots of trucks on all kinds of construction jobs. This ... read more

I was at the Sterne-Hoya House & Library talking with their historians; and they showed me a large parchment from 1962 about the Old Stagecoach Inn (aka Halfway Inn, aka Flournoy-Grandberry House). I purchased one of the parchments for about $3 USD. Since the Old Stagecoach Inn was nearby in my neck of the woods (in Nacogdoches County) I wanted to check it out. The next day had good winter weather and I fired up my truck Old Blue and headed out to see the inn. I drove Texas Hwy 21 East (aka El Camino Real, aka The Kings Highway, aka The Old San Antonio Road). I passed through the de-funked town of Melrose (city limits signs there long gone) about seven miles East of Nacogdoches. Then after a few miles I passed the community of ... read more