A Texas/Arizona Road Trip 1.2

Just 10 miles down the road from Ranger, the sad little town featured in yesterday's post, is Eastland, which is a complete turnaround from Ranger.  It's amazing that two towns so close together were both chosen for murals by the Fine Arts section of the U.S. Treasury Department for post office murals commissioned under the WPA after the Great Depression.  Both towns are about the same size but Eastland seems to be bustling with activity, and unlike Ranger, the local people know and care about their historic mural.  The post office even has postcards printed which they readily hand out to anyone who asks about the mural.  The gentleman at the window, while helping a customer, handed me two, along with another card which I'll mention later.

Suzanne Scheuer, the artist, titled this work "Buffalo Hunt."  A native of San Francisco, she was an outspoken critic of the unjust way Native Americans were treated historically.  She chose the Comanche Indians, the noted horsemen of the Great Plains and the first residents of Texas, as her subjects for this mural.  She also shows us that she had a great sense of humor because if you will notice in the very lower right corner of the painting she has included a horny toad signifying Old Rip, the famous lizard who was buried in a time capsule in 1896 in the courthouse cornerstone along with a Bible and a bottle of whiskey.  When the capsule was opened 31 years later in 1927 when the building was torn down, Rip was discovered to still be alive and became the talk of the nation, even making a trip to Washington to visit President Calvin Coolidge.  But alas, in 1929 Old Rip died, and an autopsy (on a lizard???) showed he had been suffering from pneumonia.  He remains on permanent display in a glass, velvet-lined box at the courthouse (but I didn't go take a picture of him) to this day.  He has been kidnapped and returned, picked up by John Connally when he was running as a candidate for the governorship and one of his legs fell off, and has a rich history as Eastland's most famous resident.  If you want to read his biography, a short one can be found here, or you can call the Eastland Visitor Center at 1-800-2-OLD-RIP.

Scheuer, who also painted a post office mural in Caldwell, Texas, produced her mural on a canvas, transported it to Texas in 1938 where it was hung by a local paperhanger under her supervision.  It measures 5 by 12 feet and she was paid $650.

The second postcard handed out by the Eastland Post Office is of a stamp window created by Marene Johnson Johnson (that is NOT a typo) who was postmaster at Eastland from August 6, 1957, through July 11, 1968.  At her own expense and working on her own time away from her postal duties, over a seven-year period Mrs. Johnson used 11,217 stamps to create the window as her gift to those interested in history and geography through philately.

I apologize for the poor quality of the photographs but the glass frame caused reflection problems and the window is in a small area which made it very difficult to photograph the complete design in one photo.

The window consists of six separate panels and I find the design simply amazing.  It appears that some of the stamps have cancellation marks so I suppose she didn't have to actually purchase a few of the stamps but I'm sure the cost was still staggering on the wages of a small town postmistress.

The window was dedicated on Flag Day, June 14, 1963, about two weeks after I graduated from high school!

A Texas/Arizona Road Trip 1.1 (Day one, Stop one)

Since my last post I traveled from my current home in East Texas to my former home in Phoenix, taking a load of household goods in anticipation of my permanent move in ... well, sometime in the very near future.  It was a rather quick trip, a total of six days driving the 2,600 miles round trip and three days unloading, unpacking, and resting in between.  It was a trip designed to move, not a trip for recreation, but I managed to find some of my favorite subjects along the way.

Ranger, Texas, almost 300 miles due west of my home base, has a Post Office mural.  "The Crossroads Town" was painted in 1939 by Emil Bisttram, a Hungarian-born artist who immigrated to America at the age of 11.  He studied under Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist, and painted in Taos in the 1930s.  He found Ranger, a small town of about 2,400 85 miles west of Fort Worth, to be a shell of its former self, having at one time enjoying the plenty of the Texas oil boom in the early 1920s.  I found the same dilapidated city in 2015, with nothing appearing to be new in the past 40 or 50 years and wondering when this little town will succumb to an ever-struggling economy.  Most of the town's buildings appear to have been abandoned and few cars or citizens were on the streets.  In Bisttram's mural he attempted to depict Ranger as it had been in the previous decade and showed hope for a revitalization, which apparently never came.

Some believe that the figure in the foreground of this detail depicts the artist with his paints and brushes as he perhaps left the post office after a day of painting, followed by a dejected dog.

Not one person was in the post office or even came into the post office as I took a few photos and discussed the mural with the clerk on duty, a rather attractive woman of perhaps 50 who seemed to be well-spoken but yet had no clue as to the importance of the mural.  She appeared to be interested in hearing more about it and when I suggested she check with the local library to see if it had a copy of the book "The Texas Post Office Murals" by by Philip Parisi, she confessed that she was totally unaware if the town even had a public library.  I was stunned!

Bisttram was paid $880 for this mural measuring 4'6" by 12' and today it appears to be in good condition.

A Southern Country Home

This beautiful plantation style home is just a couple miles down the road from where I live.  It is owned by a wealthy woman who happens to be a very successful cattle rancher.  It was not originally built on this location but was moved here approximately 30 years ago.  I can't imagine what that must have entailed.  Moving a house this size is no small feat.  I'm sure it was disassembled into many pieces and then put back together much like a jigsaw puzzle.

I'm leaving early this morning for a quick trip to Arizona to take some of my personal belongings in anticipation for my move back after five years here in Texas.  At this writing I'm not sure if I even have room in Truck for my laptop to fit so if I don't post again in the next few days I hope to be back in a little over a week.

The Old Barn on Pine Hill Road

This little barn is close to a hundred years old, if not more.  I remember this barn from when I was a little girl.  It was part of a small dairy owned by a friend's parents.  She and I were the same age and in the same class in school.  It gains more character as the years pass.  I hope I do the same.

A Texas Road Trip 4.1 - Henderson County Courthouse (Texas No. 78)

This was the last day of the road trip and the plan originally was to travel to Fort Worth and then to Dallas to see two of the most beautiful courthouses in the state.  However, this sunburn situation was becoming critical and soon after awakening I was unable to even apply sunscreen or anything to my face.  Even water burned it to the point where I wanted to cry.  I decided it was time to cancel the remainder of this trip and get home.  Even though my sun exposure had been minimal during the past three days, just the mere act of having the sun shine through the windshield was extremely painful, so I skipped the two most important reasons for this trip.  I had found a map of available public parking around the courthouse in Fort Worth but it was still going to require a long walk after parking, even though I had planned for this trip to conclude on a Saturday when the buildings would be closed.  I had no idea what I would find in Dallas but I didn't figure it would be good because the old courthouse, which is known as Big Red, is in the same area as the Kennedy Memorial with the Eternal Flame, and Dallas did not have the friendly parking web page that Fort Worth did.

So instead of going north 26 miles to Fort Worth, I headed east, homebound.  As soon as I felt sure I could find a pharmacist, I stopped and spoke to one about what he would recommend to put on my face.  He suggested something with aloe vera, which I indeed found somewhat cooling and I could actually tolerate applying it.

I did make one stop in the East Texas town of Athens where I had attempted to photograph the Henderson County Courthouse on another occasion but it was unsuccessful.  One of the problems I have encountered here in Texas is that so many of our courthouses have pecan trees on the grounds and in the spring and summer they frequently hide the architectural elements of the building, and in the winter, the barren trees do not make for a very pretty picture.

Constructed:  1913
Architectural style:  Classical Revival
Materials:  Brick and stone

Henderson County was formed in 1846.  The present courthouse is the fourth such structure for the county.  It has, I'm told, marble staircases.

This photograph is actually the back side of the building, although all four sides are relatively identical.  The front entrance on this day was super exposed with sunlight due to the time of my arrival.

County Seat:  Athens, population 12,700.
Location:  72 southeast of Dallas, 200 miles north of Houston, 800 miles west of Athens, Georgia, its namesake.

Interesting facts:  The hamburger was "invented" in Athens, making its debut in the 1880s.  It was introduced to the world in 1904 at the St. Louis World's Fair.

Athens received over twenty inches of rain this past weekend in the aftermath of Hurricane Patricia, while my hometown of Garrison, 90 miles southeast, received only four!

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This concludes the September road trip.  The four days, with the fourth day having only one stop, generated 22 posts!  Thanks for coming along with me.

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Update on the sunburn situation:  The following Monday I called my doctor's office and they got me in the same day.  The doctor was out but I saw her nurse practitioner.  After doing a small amount of research, he said, "We need to get you off this medicine right now."  I'm now five weeks out and I'm doing well.  I'm adjusting to the change in medication, my lab values haven't been skewed, and I'm looking forward to my next road - this one without a sunburn!  

A Texas Road Trip 3.7 - Somervell County Courthouse (Texas No. 77)

Constructed:  1893
Architectural Style:  Romanesque Revival
Materials:  Native limestone from a nearby quarry
County Seat:  Glen Rose

Charles and Juana Barnard settled this area, arriving in 1849 and building a trading post near Comanche Peak.  A gristmill was eventually constructed and the little town which grew up around the mill became known as Barnard's Mill.  In 1871 the mill was purchased by T.C. Jordan of Dallas for $65,000 and it was decided to change the name of the town to Rose Glen because his wife, a native of Scotland, said the area reminded her of her homeland.  The citizens then voted to change the name of the town to Glen Rose and the first post office was established in 1874.  Glen Rose, a small, quiet city of  2,500 people, is 55 miles south of Fort Worth.

And look who greeted me on the steps of the courthouse door.

This third day ended with me feeling less than par with this intense sunburn I have been suffering.  This particular day I didn't even take off my hat while in the car.  I was glad that after my stop in Glen Rose I only had another 40 miles to drive before my day came to an end.  But when I returned to my car, it was totally dead!  And my cell phone was in desperate need of a charge.  I had planned to plug it in as soon as I got back in the car.  Not even enough juice in the battery to do that!  I figured someone in the courthouse could tell me how to get some mechanical help in an unfamiliar town, but to my dismay the courthouse was actually locked up.  It seemed that Friday afternoons are slow in Glen Rose and everyone had just gone home early!

I noticed two men, who later told me they were both in their 80s, sitting in rocking chairs talking with a younger woman on the sidewalk in front of an antique store across the street.  I walked over and discussed my situation with them.  No known tow facilities in town, no mechanic's garage, no auto dealership, but they were convinced they could fix my car!  Thank goodness they couldn't find a wrench or else I might have still been in Glen Rose standing by my a car with nothing under the hood!

I finally called an emergency number I had located on the back of my driver's license, which rang at the state highway patrol headquarters, who then patched me in to the Somervell County Sheriff's Office and a few minutes later a policeman arrived, followed shortly by a sheriff's deputy.  The policeman's jumper cables didn't seem to be heavy-duty enough to start my car but the sheriff's officer had a stronger set of cables so we were finally successful.  The woman with the two men had called someone named Spike about looking at my car and he said he would remain wherever he was until 5:30, and by this time 5:30 was fast approaching, although my lower legs, since I was wearing Bermuda shorts, were beginning to burn and the slightest bit of sun exposure was becoming more and more painful.

I was still a bit skeptical of someone named Spike working on my car so I asked one of the officers if they knew this person.  Oh, yes, he owns an auto parts store!   I followed the woman to Spike's place and he was waiting and had a battery that would fit my car and the day ended with me waving goodbye  to my new friends in Glen Rose as I traveled the last 40 miles of my day.

A Texas Road Trip 3.6 - Hamilton County Courthouse (Texas No. 76) and a Post Office Mural

The next stop on this third day of a tour through south central and central Texas found me in the small town of Hamilton to see its 1886 county courthouse in the city of Hamilton.  This courthouse had not even been on my list of historic courthouses to photograph until just a few weeks before this trip because the photos I had seen of it online previously showed no interest to me, just a dirty, boxy building.  Little did I know that the Hamilton courthouse was in the process of undergoing a restoration which restored its original clock tower which had been removed in a remodel in 1931. This Second Empire style building is constructed of limestone, a very popular material for this area of the state during the late 19th Century.

Hamilton is one of the few cities in Texas which is home to not only a beautiful courthouse but a Post Office mural, another love of mine.  "Texas Rangers in Camp" is the title of this 1942 fresco secco (tempera on plaster) painted by Ward Lockwood for the Hamilton Post Office.  A group of Texas Rangers is portrayed relaxing around a campfire. One plays a fiddle, one a guitar, another sings and the fourth simply enjoys the music as he cleans his rifle.

I had a rather lengthy conversation with the current postmaster and a clerk about the mural and both were very knowledgeable about  its origin and its artist.  The postmaster has a file with original correspondence between the postmaster of the early 1940s and the artist concerning the painting of the artwork.  Lockwood was one of the founding members of the Taos Art Colony and established the art department at the University of Texas in Austin.

Across the street from the post office was this beautiful Victorian home which called to my camera.  I noticed a Texas state historical marker near the door but I have been unable to find any information online about this lovely home.  You may notice that the ceiling of the porch overhang is painted a sky blue color.  It is believed that this deters dirt daubers, a small wasp which is common in Texas, from building their nests.

Hamilton is a city of 3,100 about 120 miles southwest of Dallas/Fort Worth, 240 miles northwest of Houston, and 165 miles west of my home in Garrison.

A Texas Road Trip 3. 5 - Blanco County Courthouse, Old and New (Texas No. 75)

Day three of my road trip next took me through Blanco County where I found two historic courthouses.  The first was in the city of Blanco, population 1,900 50 miles north of San Antonio and approximately the same distance west of Austin.  Built in 1885, it only served as the Blanco County Courthouse for five years until 1890 when the county seat was moved to Johnson City 14 miles north. Citizens in this part of the state seemed to have problems agreeing in the 19th century where their courthouse should be located.

Since the moving of the county seat, the Second Empire limestone building has served as a hospital, a school, and even a barbecue restaurant.  It eventually was boarded up and was in disrepair until the mid-1990s when preservation-minded locals stepped in and saved the courthouse from being disassembled and moved. For an account of all that went into that effort, including a well-known celebrity who stepped in to lend a hand, you can see an account of how a young woman became known as the savior of the old Blanco courthouse at this link.

Even though the county seat moved in Johnson City in 1890, I find no information on a facility which housed the county government until this structure was built in 1916.  The Classical Revival limestone structure fatures Doric columns and a domed cupola.

Johnson City, population 1,600, is the geographical center of the Texas Hill Country.  Its most famous native son was President Lyndon Baines Johnson, born here in 1908 and buried just a stone's throw from his place of birth in the Johnson Family Cemetery.  His uncle, James Polk Johnson, was the city's founder.

A Texas Road Trip 3.4 - Honey Creek

Between Boerne and Blanco I could see spires and crosses on a distant hill and wondered if I would pass by.  I eventually did find St. Joseph's at Honey Creek, a one-time community in Comal County which was settled by German immigrant families in the 1840s.

There was a large development and as \I drove through the area, another church was nearby on the grounds.  I passed a rather large cemetery and the road narrowed and went steeply up a hill and eventually became barely wide enough for even my small vehicle.

At the top of the hill stood a tiny chapel overlooking the two churches of the parish below.

And this, my friends, is the Texas Hill County where it was a wonderment to find this spot high above even the tall church spires that I had seen for several miles, and my view was unobstructed for miles and miles on this beautiful Texas day.

A Texas Road Trip 3.3 - Boerne

Stop three on day three of my September road trip was in Boerne (pronounced Bernie).  I had been there previously in December during our Christmas trip but my journey this day took me there again. I was intrigued by the castle-like beauty of St. Helena's Episcopal Church and stopped to take a walk through the gardens.

I immediately thought of TexWis and her Good Fences meme ( CHECK IT OUT) when I saw the wrought iron fencework amid the beautiful stone masonry.

The present Gothic stone structure was built in 1929.

Something very orange was happening that day at noon at Main Plaza Park.  It was mid-September so a little early for Halloween.

This sweet little Victorian house was getting some roof TLC.

Boerne is the county seat of Kendall County.  I featured a post on its old courthouse back in February which you can see HERE.  It was settled by German immigrants and today is a city of 10,500.  It is a part of the San Antonio/New Braunfels metropolitan area.

A Texas Road Trip 3.2 - Bandera County Courthouse (Texas No. 74)

Constructed:  1890
Style:  Spanish Renaissance Revival
Material:  Native Limestone

This is the first and only courthouse Bandera County has ever had, a rarity in Texas.  Makeshift quarters were used from the county's founding in 1856 until this courthouse was constructed 34 years later.  The architect drew the plans for $5 and the limestone came from a local quarry.  The tower houses a clock face but not a real clock.  The time is actually painted on.  When first constructed the time read 7:45 but for the past many years it has read 10:10.  No one seems to know the significance of either time.

The county seat, Bandera, is considered the Cowboy Capital of the World and that idea is perpetuated throughout the city.  This idea probably started as early as the 1920s when several dude ranches were formed, many of which still exist today.

Cowboy paraphernalia is everywhere!  Although Bandera only has an estimated population of 857, it appears to be a much larger town.  It's a gathering place for bikers, tourists, and rock star followers, and its many saloons, general stores, and barbecue joints keep the tourists coming.  Bandera's first settlers were Polish and today its sister city is Strzelce Opolskie, Poland.

In the few minutes I spent taking some photos of the courthouse, dozens of bikers passed in front of me, an amazing variety of bikes and bike riders.

I love the sound of the name "Bandera."  It seems so exotic, romantic, exuding a notion of the Old West that is somewhat still alive today.

For many years when I was a child, my dad and several of his cronies had a deer lease between Hondo and Bandera.  They went there every November on their vacation.  Now that I've been to Bandera, I'm sure a lot of their time was filled with hanging out in some of those saloons, although Dad usually always came home with venison.  That was in the days when white tail deer were practically unknown here in East Texas and were most prevalent down in the hill country around Hondo/Bandera.  Today Dad would have had to make up some excuses to travel to the hill country for a deer hunt!

NOTE:  Today's post is dedicatted to our beloved Birdman whom I believe would have been right at home in the quirkiness of Bandera had he ever had the chance to visit here.  Rest in peace, you gentle man.

A Texas Road Trip 3.2 -Medina County Courthouse (Texas No. 73)

Constructed:  1892
Materials:  Limestone
County seat:  Hondo.  Current population, 8,800

When built, the courthouse had a clock tower but it was removed in a 1941 remodeling, which also included the addition of indoor plumbing.

This area was explored by the Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca in the early 1530s.    Like neighboring Castroville, settlers were from Alsace-Lorraine, Germany, Belgium, and Mexico.  Many family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches are owned by the descendants of those early settlers.

If you were a kid growing up in the '50s and loving Western movies, you may remember the movie "Hondo" starring John Wayne, Geraldine Page, and Ward Bond.    Hondo today still looks like a town of the old West.

A Texas Road Trip 3.1

Day 3 of the road trip found me leaving found me leaving San Antonio before the city traffic became congested with my first stop in Castroville, 30 miles west, in search of the old Medina County Courthouse.  I also found St. Louis Cathedral, a quaint little church built of native limestone between 1868 and 1870.

Outside the front of the church is a strike statue of St. Louis, the warrior king of France who participated in the Crusades and who ruled the French kingdom from 1226 from the time he was 12 years old until the year 1270.

You may be thinking, like I was, why is a church in a town with the very Latino name of Castroville named for a French saint.  The city was settled by Henri Castro, a Jewish banker from France who became one of the most important empresarios in Texas.  An empresario is defined as a person who is given a right to settle upon land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for new settlers. Castro began recruiting in Paris and eventually was responsible for the settlement of people from Alsace, Baden, and Switzerland.  Other settlers eventually arrived who were German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.  Texas became a true melting pot, and land was plentiful and cheap.  After all this history, isn't it amazing that Texans are among the most irritable when it comes to questions of immigration!  (Sorry for the political comment.  I try my darnedess not to do that but it's almost laughable!)

The church in Castroville has celebrated St. Louis Day in August of every year in celebration of the Feast of St. Louis since 1847 when the first St. Louis parish church was established in this little town.

While I was taking photos of the church and the statue of St. Louis, a gentleman who had been sitting outside the church and had moved thinking he was in the way of my photos approached me and we struck up a conversation.  He kept inviting me to come see the interior of the church but I declined, not wanting to get a late start on my day's journey as I had the day before by going on a historic house tour.  He told me there were workers inside the church who had been repainting and giving the sanctuary a thorough cleaning.  I finally agreed to take a look-see and I was definitely glad I did.  It was absolutely beautiful and gleaming.  He said it was the first fresh coat of paint in 20 years.  The tile floor were sparkling with wax and there was not a speck of dust to be found.  I loved the curved wooden beams in the ceiling, and although the pews were stacked on top of each other it looked almost perfect.  I could understand his feelings of affection when he told me that the next day was the 45th anniversary of his wedding in this church and how much St. Louis meant to him and the entire community.

The Castroville City Hall was originally the Medina County Courthouse.  This building was constructed in 1854 and is one of the oldest original courthouses still standing and still in use, although not as a courthouse.  A special election in 1892 changed to county seat from Castroville to Hondo.

I just happened upon this very interesting door during my drive up and down some of the streets of Castroville.

Population:  2,700
Location:  300 miles south of Dallas, 220 miles west of Houston, 1,680 miles southeast of Castroville, California, and 350 miles southwest of my home in Garrison, Tx.

A Texas Road Trip 2.9 - Bexar County Courthouse - Revisited (Texas No. 42)

The second day of the trip concluded in San Antonio.  My daughter and I spent last Christmas there and we had very gray, washed-out days.  I vowed to return to get a better shot of one of the largest and most beautiful courthouses in Texas, the Bexar (pronounced "bear") County Courthouse.  I made a reservation at a downtown hotel and I was afraid of the traffic conditions coming in at 5:30 in the afternoon, but downtown was quiet and peaceful, nothing like what we experienced the week of Christmas.  I checked in, headed back out, found a free parking place a short two blocks away and walked over for a second chance at this beauty.

Constructed:  1892-1896
Architectural style:  Romanesque with Spanish influences
Materials:  Pecos red sandstone and Burnet pink granite with red and green tiles
Architect:  James Riely Gordon, Texas's master courthouse architect
Original construction cost:  $621,000

The original post can be found HERE.

Another repeat of the December trip was a meal at Mi Tierra Cafe Y Panaderia, the oldest restaurant in San Antonio located in Market Square.  My hotel was directly across the street and I wanted another opportunity to see the ever evolving mural of folks associated with San Antonio.  Here are two panels from the huge mural which wraps around two walls of the inner portion of the restaurant, which opened in 1941 and has the capability of seating 500 guests.  It never closes and it celebrates Christmas every day with decorations of Christmas trees, lights, and tinsel all over the place.

This was a long, hard day.  And I have failed to tell you of all my troubles on this trip.  The first day I experienced GPS problems  Someone (no doubt me!) put in an erroneous setting when I updated the maps before I left and every time I went through a town it had me going to the strangest places.  I experienced delays of a couple of hours wandering around country roads until I finally discovered the problem and reprogrammed the device.

On this second day at lunchtime I noticed when I visited the ladies room that my face appeared to be sunburned.  I've lived in Texas and Arizona my entire life and I've never experienced a sunburn to this degree.  I actually purchased sun screen and a big floppy hat but by the end of the day my face was red enough that people were staring.  And although I made ten stops during the day, my usual exposure was no more than about five minutes with the exception of my second stop of the day when I was probably in the sun about 10 minutes before noon.  That evening I checked to see if perhaps any of my medications might be to blame, although none were particularly new.  That's when I discovered that there was a recent warning that, although rare, photosensitivity issues with one medication could be severe.  I would have to see what the next day would bring.