Old and Rusty = Vintage?

This Chevy truck was in the 4th of July parade I attended.  It's just classic redneck, with artificial flower decorations and an ice chest in the bed.  But my favorite part of it are the welded-on clasp and chain closures that keep the tailgate locked in place!

Schnauzer in Tutu

Mason County Courthouse (Texas No. 63)

Constructed:  1909
Architectural Style:  Classical Revival, as reported by the site I usually use for Texas courthouse facts; Beaux Arts, as reported by the historical marker for the building
Materials:  Granite
Cost of Construction:  $39,796
Note:  Had I taken a photo from the side, the clock tower would have appeared much taller than it seems in this photo.  The reason for no photo from that angle is there were sprinklers going all over the lawn and although I was hot and sweaty I had my "good" camera and I didn't want to risk it!

Mason County was primarily settled by German immigrants in the 1850s.  Until the founding of Fort Mason by the U.S. War Department in 1851 as a front-line defense against Kiowa, Apache and Comanche attacks against white settlers, most people were afraid to live in this region.  After the building of the fort, some protection was offered and the people came.  In early 1861, after the start of the Civil War , the Confederacy surrendered the fort.  There were few Union, if any, troops in the area and the abandoned fort caused a return of unrest for early pioneers.  After the war federal troops once again occupied the fort but only for two years and it was eventually abandoned. This was rough territory and dangerous times for people in this part of the state, the stuff cowboys and Indians movies was made of!

The Mason County Jail sits behind the courthouse.  It is still the present day jail in Mason County, although you can see by the historical marker mounted to the right of the front door in the photograph (to the left of the door in reality) that the jail was built in 1894 of sandstone mined in the nearby hills. The first floor provided living quarters for the sheriff (and more than likely his family)  while the second floor housed cells.  It's probably no fun today to spend time in this jail.  I see a window air conditioner on the first floor but no signs of the same upstairs!  And it is HOT in Mason!

The county seat of Mason County is Mason.  Not so surprising to many but in Texas that's a rarity. Here in East Texas we have such things as Athens is the county seat of Henderson County, whereas Henderson is the county seat of Rusk County, whereas Rusk is the county seat of Cherokee County, and Crockett is the county seat of Houston County, while Ozona out in West Texas is the county seat of Crockett County and Houston is the county seat of Harris County.  Don't even ask about Austin and Austin County!  That disparity just goes on and on, but there are a small number of counties which bear the same name as their county seat.

Mason has a population of 2,00 and seems like a sleepy little town.  I had never heard of it until I became interested in historic courthouses.  It is 260 miles southwest of Dallas, 270 miles slightly northeast of Houston, 470 miles east of El Paso, and 340 miles west of my home near Garrison.   In other words, it's pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.

On one side of the square across the street from the courthouse sits the Odeon Theater.  The old Model A (am I right about that, classic car aficionados?) was what drew my eye to this scene.

And this photo is for Birdman of pORTcITYdAILYpHOTO, who once asked me,"Aren't there any Lutheran churches in Texas," after I posted a plethora of pictures of Catholic churches.  On my way out of Mason toward Llano I came to a screeching halt when I saw St. Paul Lutheran Church, a small but spectacular building on the edge of town.  A historical marker says descendants of many of those original German settlers are members of this church.  The present building was constructed in 1905 from native stone. The building materials look remarkably similar to the jail.  Interesting and thought-provoking!

The Most Beautiful Post Office in Texas

Yes, indeed, this was once the federal building and post office in Jefferson, Texas, a picturesque small town just 80 miles north of where I live.  At one time Jefferson was one of the largest and busiest cities in Texas.  It is said that shortly after the Civil War it had a population of as many as 30,000 people.  It was actually a river port where tons of cotton were hauled just a few miles into Western Louisiana where it was loaded on barges and floated down the Red River which eventually merged with the Mississippi and then on south to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.  All that was made possible by an earthquake which occurred in 1811, one of the strongest quakes to hit the central part of the United States (it was centered in Missouri).  As a result, many trees fell down, especially here in the pine forests of East Texas.  Beavers later built a huge dam which created a logjam on the Red River and Caddo Lake was formed which afforded Jefferson the opportunity to become a port city.  Everything was thriving until for some unknown reason the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1870s dynamited the logjam which caused the lake to practically go dry and the port on the Red River was no longer viable.  Today Jefferson is a small city of 2,000 people which relies upon the tourist industry for its existence.  The city is full of historic buildings and interesting boutique shops.  The post office was built in 1888 and was closed in 1964, at which time it was purchased by the Jefferson Historical Society and operates today as a museum.

My blogging was interrupted for a few days while I laid my trusty computer to rest.  I was able to revive it for a couple of hours, long enough to transfer my photos to some flash drives but by the time I got up the next morning it took its final breath within a few minutes.  I lost all the recipes I have collected over a lifetime and a few other things.  During the five years I cared for my mother I occasionally made it through a trying day by writing humorous stories about things she would say and do and I thought I had lost all those also but I actually found where I had printed them off a few months ago so that was a happy moment.  So for now I'm working on a laptop that I bought a couple of years ago and I finally got my current photos loaded on yesterday.  I would have been devastated to have lost my courthouse series as I've traveled thousands of miles throughout Texas in search of the state's historic courthouses  Thank you all for being such wonderful blogging buddies!

Green Victorian

A white picket fence is a dream of many of us.  I know I've always wanted to live in a cottage surrounded by one.  How do you feel about green?

I doubt that this house was always green and I know at one time the fence was white because even after the house was painted green I've seen photos of a white picket fence.  I'm not sure how I feel about a green Victorian house, but at 140 years old I guess she can be any color she wants.

That's right.  This lady was built in 1875 in Gonzales, Texas, by Thomas Harrison Spooner for his bride Mollie.  They lived there until their deaths and a spinster daughter, who happened to be named Tom (Miss Tom Spooner as she was called), continued living in the house after the death of her parents until 1982. This old lady is said to be in remarkable condition although for a period of 50 years she went unpainted.  She has a hand-carved walnut staircase, a revolving stained-glass window between a hallway and the dining room, and several fireplaces with original mantels.  It was the first house in the city to use natural gas.

Mr. Spooner was born in Mississippi in 1849 and came with his parents to Texas in 1865.  He became a lawyer and opened a practice in Gonzales in 1874. He later served as Gonzales District Attorney, a judge, and an inspector of the state prison system, and upon retirement from his legal career he purchased controlling interests in the town's four major utilities.

According to a website of the City of Gonzales, the house operates as a bed and breakfast but I can find no listing of it on the Internet in that regard.

Linking to GOOD FENCES hosted by TexWis.

NOTE:  Yesterday my computer had a major stroke and actually died but after almost two hours of CPR, she was revived.  Nonetheless, she will be admitted to the hospital this morning just as soon as I can link to GOOD FENCES, so we may not be able to visit for a couple of days.  We have another computer but all the pictures are on this one.  Please add us to your prayer list and just maybe after a rest and a transfusion she will be be okay.

Wandering Through Georgetown

The county seat of Williamson County is Georgetown, a bustling city of 50,000 established in 1848 by settlers from Sweden, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Moravia and Czechoslovakia and from Tennessee, South Carolina, and other Southern states.  One-third of Georgetown's current population, which exploded in the 1980s and '90s, lives in Sun City Texas, a large retirement-oriented and age-restricted development on 5,300 acres with an average net worth of $1 million per person.  The city's increased growth and revitalization has not prohibited its ability to maintain the 19th Century charm as evidenced by the Masonic Building pictured above.

The Masonic Lodge building was constructed in 1900 and is one of many Victorian structures on the square surrounding the 1910 courthouse.

The Grace Heritage Center, a former Episcopal Church built in 1881 and later moved to its present site, was donated to the City of Georgetown in 1991 and is a reminder of the city's architectural heritage.

This mural on the outside of a building acts as an adornment to a free public parking lot and shows, in somewhat of a modern form, some of Georgetown's historic buildings.

The M.B. Lockett Building shows a date of 1896.  That was the date it was remodeled.  It has served the community of Georgetown in various fashions by various owners since the 1840s and is one of the most beautiful buildings on the square and may very well be one of the oldest.

Georgetown is an eclectic Victorian/modern city with many boutiques and art galleries on the public square.  We met this decoupaged lady who was relaxing on a bench, having just read the local newspaper, outside a colorful shop across the street from the courthouse.

In addition to scenes of the Texas capitol building, the yellow rose of Texas, the Alamo, and many other photographic mementos of our great state, she had silver longhorns embellishing her -- um -- well -- you know -- well, you can tell what they were embellishing.  And she had a very nice silver belly button as well!

She also had eyelashes and five-point star earrings.  This was my favorite photographic capture in Georgetown!  My cousin and I both posed for pictures with her but I decided to refrain from publishing those.

And then of course there were several sidewalk cafes on the square.  I think the flowers were fake but the red brick sidewalk was real!

Georgetown is the Red Poppy Capital of Texas and has a Red Poppy Festival each spring.  It is also a significant Texas wine-growing region.  Its most famous resident is Nolan Ryan, one of the greatest baseball players of all time. I'm not much of a sports fan so I associate Nolan Ryan with things like steak and commercials for foundation repairs!

Georgetown is located a short 30 miles north of Austin on Interstate 35, 170 miles south of Dallas, 240 miles southwest of my home near Garrison, Texas, and 1,500 miles from the Georgetown most of you are familiar with in Washington, D.C.

Williamson County Courthouse (Texas No. 62)

Constructed:  1911
Architectural Style:  Beaux-Arts
Materials:  Brick and stone
County Seat:  Georgetown

This style of architecture was very popular during the first two decades of the 20th Century, a stunning transition from the Victorian and Renaissance Revival styles so popular in the late 19th Century.

A better view of the beautiful copper dome can actually be seen a block away.

Tomorrow:  Wandering Through Georgetown

Rust Never Sleeps

NOTE:  After original publication, Gail Dixon brought to my attention that "Rust Never Sleeps" was the title of an album produced by Neil Young and the band Crazy Horse in 1979.   I was certainly unaware of that but in that event I must give credit to them for the coining of the title "Rust Never Sleeps."

Moonshine Express

Lampasas Murals

On my courthouse scouting road trips one of the things I'm always on the lookout for is local murals.  I realize some people don't regard murals as art but I view them as art by the people and for the people.  I found some good examples in Lampasas recently.

One might consider this more of a sign than a mural, but stay tuned - it is a prelude to a mural.  Since I also love native wildflowers I was intrigued by this slogan and it's a wish I have for everyone.

Next to the wildflower sign/mural on the next building is the flower seed packet mural, featuring the wildflowers of this region:  prairie verbena, Mexican hat, evening primrose, Indian paintbrush, Blackfoot daisy, Maximillian sunflower, and the ever popular bluebonnet.

And I of course always love showing the perspective of the courthouse in relation to other aspects of these small towns.  I love how the courthouse is usually the first thing you see when entering these towns.  This one looms high above the rooftops on every roadway that approaches the city.  If you've been to Lampasas, you've surely seen the courthouse in one view or another.

Another mural I found a couple of blocks outside of the downtown area is this 1800s scene of the Wholesale Grocers Commission.

Some of this blog's visitors seem surprised at how small the towns are that comprise the county seats in Texas.  Lampasas, weighing in at under 7,000 population, is actually a medium-sized town in this big giant state.  The overwhelming majority of the county seats I've blogged about are under 2,500 people.  After all, there are 254 counties in Texas (compared, for example, with Arizona which has 13 and California, with a much greater population, has only 58).  This is because when Texas became a republic in 1836, the founding fathers believed that every person should have access to government and in order to provide this it was decreed that a county seat had to be within one day's ride of a citizen's home.  And I don't know that for a fact but it's the answer I'm giving and I'll stick to it.  The nearest county seat to Lampasas is only 22 miles away.  And just in case you wondered, I have no intention of visiting all 254 courthouses!  My goal from the beginning was to see those that were built in the 1800s that are still standing and I've since expanded that quest to encompass some of the beautiful courthouses I've found that were designed in the early part of the 20th century. The ones that have been constructed from the 1920s through the present day are generally architecturally void in character!

Lampasas County Courthouse (Texas No. 61)

Year Constructed 1883
Style:  Second Empire
Materials:  Limestone
Interesting Facts:  Third oldest functioning courthouse in Texas; underwent reconstruction in 2003.

Lampasas is the county seat of Lampasas County.  A town with a population of 6,700, it is 290 miles northwest of Houston, 180 miles southwest of Dallas, 260 miles west of my home near Garrison, and 400 miles southeast of Lazbuddie in the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle.

JD Houston House - Gonzales, Texas

This beautiful iron fence surrounds the Queen Anne Victorian house of an early Texas cattle baron, James Dunn Houston, in Gonzales, Texas.

Linking to Good Fences

Outside of Nacogdoches, Gonzales has perhaps the richest history in the state of Texas.  It was here that the first shot of the Texas revolution was fired.  It was here that 32 men answered Sam Houston's call for aid in defending the Alamo. All lost their lives in the fight for independence from Mexico.  After learning of the fate of the Alamo defenders, Houston, believing that Gonzales would be the next site of attack by the Mexican army, ordered the town evacuated and burned to deny the enemy another conquest.  After the revolution and through the 1840s the town was rebuilt on its original site and eventually became a financial center as men made their fortunes in cattle and cotton. Lavish lifestyles resulted in large homes that were built and have been preserved for over a hundred years.  Eighty such mansions have been documented, although the list and the research continues to grow.  Today all of these homes seem to be occupied with the exception of one.  Over the next few weeks I'll bring you a small sample of these Victorian beauties that I discovered on my last road trip through Gonzales.

James Dunn Houston was born in Texas in 1851, his parents having come here from Mississippi.  He began construction on this beautiful home in 1895 and it was finally completed three years later.  It has 15 main rooms, five bathrooms, an indoor conservatory, and each of the main rooms has its own individually designed fireplace.  The floors are oak hardwood in an original parquet pattern. Light fixtures in the dining room, banquet room, living room and foyer hang from elaborately carved medallions which match the molding around the rooms.  Two wall murals painted on canvas and purchased in New Orleans still grace the foyer.*  Houston only lived in the home two years.  In 1900 he moved to San Antonio where he became a banker.

* From tourgonzales.com

Strange Sightings

A car parked on the country road just a tad down from my house has the sunroof covered with --

BUBBLE WRAP!

Cattle and Cattle Egrets

There there are cattle, there are cattle egrets in summertime

Farm Country ...

... where deer, cows, and tractors have the right of way!

I followed this fellow the last few miles into town the other day - at a racing speed of 7.5 mph!

San Saba County Courthouse (Texas No. 60)

San Saba County Courthouse

San Saba, Texas

Constructed:  1911

Materials:  Brick and sandstone

The old courthouse is still being used today but is considered one of the most endangered buildings in the Texas historic courthouse family.  It has received numerous emergency grants in the past decade but is still awaiting complete funding for restoration.  In order to receive funds from the State Historical Commission, counties must participate in funding requirements and for a small county like San Saba that can be a most difficult task when millions of dollars are needed.  Some of the major issues are water intrusion (there are actually holes in the roof in many areas) and electrical considerations (a breaker must be manually activated to turn the air conditioning on and off in the courtroom and the noise is said to be so loud as to make the conducting of business almost impossible when the air conditioner is running; numerous electrical fires in the building have been caused by faulty wiring). 

For this courthouse enthusiast, an actual "high" is experienced when first sighting the courthouse in some of these small Texas towns.  I love seeing the perspective created by these architectural giants on the landscape.

San Saba is a small town of approximately 3,000 people located 185 miles southwest of Dallas, 260 miles northwest of Houston, and almost 300 miles west of my home in Nacogdoches County.  It is the birthplace of the actor Tommy Lee Jones.  Known as the Pecan Capitol of the state, one of the largest pecan orchards has been operated by one family for six generations.

On the Run

Almost every day that I venture out I see deer.  There are one or two spots where they are most prevalent and yesterday was no exception.  I was driving fairly slowly and had my camera ready when I spotted this little doe to the left of the roadway.  I slowed down to a crawl and approached very carefully but of course she bolted and ran right in front of me.  No chance to focus, to zoom, no chance for anything, and the minute she hit the other side she became a shadow that disappeared into the woods. She turned a boring day into a day of beauty in a matter of a few nanoseconds.

Redneck Rocket

New Trend in Landscaping?

This lonely piece of heavy-duty equipment sits in the front yard of a rather nice-looking house not far from where I live.  The homeowners keep a nicely mown, manicured yard except for this centerpiece attraction which is now so overgrown and vine-infested that it's become a permanent, unmovable fixture. As a matter of fact, I've seen this scene repeated more than once in about a 25-mile radius so I'm led to believe it must be a new trend in garden landscaping.

Post Office Murals - 10 (Linden, Texas)

The mural in the Linden Post Office entitled The Cotton Pickers is a haunting picture of a time gone by, because if you've ever heard stories from people who picked cotton, you know it was a grueling task.  The majority of cotton pickers in the South were African-Americans who were poverty-stricken folks who did back-breaking work for pennies an hour during this era.  They weren't slaves any longer but living in the South before the Civil Rights Movement wasn't far from slavery.  In the far background is the landowner's mansion shaded by a cluster of trees and nearby, in stark contrast, sits the shanty of a fieldhand's quarters with a barren, leafless tree.

Not all cotton picking was done by blacks.  Poor white folks, as well as children, worked as pickers.  My dad had seven younger sisters, the oldest having been born in 1917, and most of them only went to school up to the middle grades and then worked in the fields to help feed the family.  The girls had the reputation of being able to pick as much cotton in one day than any of the tough men pickers in the county.  The cotton sacks they pulled along as they bent over the cotton plants pulling the fibrous bolls from the plants held 100 pounds of cotton.

Despite all the flaws expressed about our culture I love this mural and find that it is spot-on representative of agriculture in this era of the Great Depression here in the South.  I love the muted colors, and the flowing nature of the cotton sacks lend to the impression of the toil endured by these people as they go about their work.

This mural was painted by Victor Arnautoff of San Francisco, a native of Ukraine who migrated to this country.  Another of his murals is located in Coit Tower in San Francisco.  He informed the agency after he painted another Post Office mural in Texas that he was very discouraged because after he paid his bills connected with the project he was left with $10.  Some people have commented in former posts that the amount paid the artists was a generous sum. Please don't fail to recognize that these murals may have taken several months to complete and very possibly it was the only commission or work they received during that period of time.  Arnautoff received $670 for this mural.  He later returned to Russia after the death of his wife and died in 1979 in Leningrad.

Linden is the county seat of Cass County and is located 157 miles east of Dallas and 97 miles north of where I live near the Louisiana border in Deep East Texas.

Hays County Courthouse (Texas No. 59)

Location:  San Marcos, Texas
Constructed:  1908
Style:  Beaux Arts
Materials:  Buff and gray bricks and limestone

This sculpture of John Coffee (Jack) Hays, the namesake of Hays County, sits on the courthouse grounds.  Hays was a nephew of President Andrew Jackson, who gave Hays a letter of recommendation to Sam Houston when Hays came to Texas from Tennessee in 1836.  Hays was a Texas Ranger, a noted military leader and surveyor.  After the Texas Revolution he went to California where he was elected sheriff of San Francisco County and was one of the founders of the City of Oakland where he is buried.  He remained neutral during the Civil War.

San Marcos is a bustling city of 45,000 located 31 miles south of Austin and 50 miles northeast of San Antonio on Interstate 35.  Its most notable resident was Lyndon Baines Johnson who received a degree in history and a teaching certificate from what is now Texas State University.

Parade Favorites - Timpson Frontier Days

 I couldn't just pick one or two favorite photos from the Timpson Frontier Days July 4th parade, so here's a sampling of the various modes of transportation represented.

.

There were farmers and grandmas on tractors

motorcycles with lots of rumpffff

'

ladies on lawn mowers

cheerleaders on speed boats

boys with their toys 

kids on four-wheelers

miniature kids on miniature four-wheelers

kids on bikes

boys playing cowboys

pretty girls on pretty horses,

as well as firetrucks, the local sheriff in his pickup, twirlers, football players, conestoga wagons, horse-drawn buggies, mule teams, and even an Army jeep. This little town knows how to put on a parade!