Texas - Day 36 - Athens, Corsicana, Groesbeck

Fairfield Lake State Park, Fairfield
Tuesday, 8 December 2020

Last night's campground at Purtis Creek was all about fishing.  There aren't many campsites, and more than half of those are on Purtis Creek Lake, which is stocked with several kinds of bass, and crappie and catfish.  Many of the campers I saw were clearly there for the fishing.  The good part about that is that fishermen often don't bring their dogs with them, making walking my dogs easier.

I saw a couple of Bluebirds flying in and out of a Bald Cypress that was turning a rusty red.  The gorgeous blue of the birds combined with the lovely rusty red were stunning.

today's route

On the road
I only had about 15 miles to cover from the campground to Athens, pop. 12,710.  It calls itself the Black-eyed Pea Capital of the World.  The Texas Legislature has called it the Original Home of the Hamburger.  I'm not sure how plausible either title is.  It was named after Athens, Alabama, not Athens, Greece, to my surprise.  And it's the seat of Henderson County.

Henderson County Courthouse

Fancy enough to make up for what Kaufman County lacked.

Back on the road I passed a very large flatbed that was carrying half a house.  And this was notable because the poor driver had a flat tire that he was changing by the side of the road.  He won't forget this incident in a hurry.

I passed a handwritten sign saying "BUBBA" with a phone number.  What on earth do you suppose that's about?

Past Malakoff, pop. 2,324, Gateway to Cedar Creek Lake (they say), I passed the turn for Gun Barrel City.  I thought it was a joke of some kind but it turns out to be a lot more.  Despite having been incorporated for only 50 years, it has a colorful history that goes back before Prohibition.  This Wikipedia page tells that story, presents several possible reasons for its name, and adds some very colorful history from only 20 years ago.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Gun-Barrel-City

I passed several small towns related to cotton - Trinidad, pop. 886, had a large field of cotton growing just fine in December (is this climate change?); Kerens, pop. 1,573, hosts the Kerens Cotton Harvest Festival; Powell, pop. 136, had a cotton transfer yard like I saw at Floydada.

Corsicana

Corsicana supports its 23,770 residents with several industries.  I saw a Firestone plant, a huge True Value facility, the Navarro Pecan Company, and a Crosline Plastics facility.  I hadn't heard of that last one but now know that it's the oldest privately-owned plastic pipe company still operating.

Corsicana boasts what they call the Freedom Flag Plaza with an enormous American flag.  The town did some hefty fundraising in 2010 for this plaza, but I couldn't find whether there was a specific reason other than simple patriotism.

Navarro County Courthouse

While I was driving to Corsicana, I kept wondering why I knew this town - what it was that made it distinct from other county seats.  And then finally had a Duh! moment when I remembered the fruit cake bakery.

The Collin Street Bakery is known throughout the world for its fruit cake, and my parents used to get one or two every year.  That red tin is as familiar to me as anything in my life.

Plus, they make good Pecan Bread and really good cookies.  Of course, I had to stop for both.

The bakery started in 1896 and has been family owned ever since.  It has a historical marker with some interesting information on it; I failed to take my own photo, but here's the link to it.   https://www.hmdb.org/Collin-Street-Bakery

The Bakery is less than a block away from something I'd never heard of - Petroleum Industry Park.  It was a good place to stop and let the dogs out, so we did.

This is what I saw - clearly industrial in nature,
but then it's honoring an industry.

close-up: erected by the State
of Texas 1936

more detail from the wall display

welding shop of H C Nicol
(see historic marker at right)

Private houses backed up to this site, and those houses had dogs out in the yard, so my dogs didn't get as much of a walk as I'd hoped.

Back on the road

I heard on the radio that TX Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit in the US Supreme Court, with Texas suing 4 other states for allegedly mismanaging their elections.  With all the troubles ordinary Texans are having right now from the virus and its effect on every aspect of our lives, the state's top cop has to go waste a bunch of money (it's not cheap to file a case in the US Sup. Court) on a lawsuit that I knew right then was going to get thrown out (which it was).  My first thought was that Paxton was getting ready to run for governor, or maybe even against Ted Cruz for senator, and maybe so.  But I heard folks on the radio saying he wanted Trump to pardon him out of his multiple legal problems currently pending, which is also real possible.  Maybe it's just 2 birds with 1 stone.

I saw a calf galloping across a very large field to get to the rest of the herd.  When I started this trip, it never entered my head I'd be seeing so much cow behavior that I'd start to qualify as an expert.

I saw 3 horses up by a fence, and a woman who'd stopped her car by the side of the road and gone over to the fence to talk to the horses.  First time for seeing that.

As I passed through Tehuacana, pop. 282, on the outskirts I saw a car pull out of a driveway, followed closely by a brown dog that chased the car for a long way.  Finally the car picked up enough speed to leave the dog behind, but the dog had come a long way from its home.  I tried to catch up to the car to let the driver know, being afraid the dog might get lost.  That turned out to be a long, difficult process that I hadn't expected.

She was driving a Cadillac SUV, so it took quite a few miles for my much bigger and heavier RV to catch up.  When I got closer to her, I started honking my horn to get her attention, but it looked like she (not unnaturally) concluded I had some nefarious purpose for wanting her to stop, and she didn't.  So I kept on trying, wondering at what point it became stupid or even dangerous.  Finally, the road got wider and I pulled alongside with my window down and she rolled down her window and slowed down, and I hollered at her about her dog.  Maybe she understood?  I noticed after that she slowed way down, which I took to be either wanting me to lose myself ahead of her, or her using her cell phone to get someone to check on the dog.  I did what I could.  But it was really weird.

I went through Mexia, pop. 7,459, with the motto: "A Great Place to Live No Matter How You Pronounce It."  All Texans know it's pronounced meh-HAY-yuh, but most out-of-staters say it as MEX-ee-yuh.  I've forgotten the incident some years ago in Mexia that made the national news, but I remember hearing one reporter after another mispronouncing it and knew they hadn't done their homework.

Not far away is Fort Parker State Park and Old Fort Parker, which they say is undergoing restoration.  Ft. Parker is famous in Texas history as the site of a Comanche Indian raid and massacre in 1836 when a 12-year-old girl was captured.  In time, she gave birth to Quanah Parker, the last of the great Comanche chiefs.

Groesbeck

This town of 4,328 calls itself The Friendly City.

Groesbeck is the site of a Fibrix plant, a company that says it makes nonwoven materials for bedding and so forth, and specializes in polyesters.  Groesbeck also has an Oyo Hotel (I've been seeing them all over) and is the county seat (courthouse below). Oddly, this town seems to have actually lost population since the 2010 census, but I suppose we'll soon know for sure.

Limestone County Courthouse

Back on the road

I passed a large pit mining operation, though I couldn't quite tell if they were after sand or gravel or stone.  What I do know is that they were using an enormous crane that stuck way up above the lip of the mine.  And I saw a very large fire on the land above the pit and wondered what on earth they were burning in that bonfire.  You could see the smoke from quite a distance.

Passing through the town of Buffalo, pop. 1,856, I saw the business of Ezell Services.  Their sign advertised their many services that called for bulldozers, backhoes, and so forth.  And it also advertised "chicken litter."  That sounded really peculiar to me, as if you could train chickens to poop in a litter box like a cat, but I've learned that it really means the chicken poop, aka manure, can be used as fertilizer and that's what they were advertising.  My horizons are continually being broadened by traveling in the great USA.

I passed through the unincorporated town of Dew, established 1888 they say, but even Wikipedia doesn't want to give me a population figure for it.

In Fairfield, pop. 3,094, I came unexpectedly to the Freestone County Courthouse.  I just ran across it - it wasn't on my list as a county seat - which is why this photo is from the internet.

Freestone County Courthouse

I also saw signs saying "Justice for Michelle Gaines."  That turns out to be a sad story of how the legal system can wreak injustice.  She was the victim of a bad road accident and today lives with permanent brain damage, for which she can't get compensated.  Here's the story.   https://www.texastribune.org/2012/10/26/crash-victim

And from there, I went on to the Fairfield Lake State Park for the night.  Nice tall trees, nice paved campsite, and next door was a nice couple sitting outside with their large dog.  They turned out to be very willing to coordinate with me on keeping their dog out of sight of my 2 idiots so I could walk them, something not everybody will do.