Monday, 23 November 2020
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| today's route |
This will sound stupid, but I was so tired yesterday I didn't connect Lake Texoma, which the state park is on the edge of, with the OK-TX border. But of course the lake sits smack on the border, and I saw it from the other side during my month in Oklahoma. So this morning when I left the park, I could have turned left and almost immediately crossed the bridge into OK. Instead I turned right and saw a Welcome To Texas! sign.
Denison
Not having seen anything of Denison, population 25,118, when I came in yesterday, I wanted to drive through at least a little bit of it. Of course, I discovered right away that a street Google claimed was called one name was actually called something entirely different. Getting back where I was supposed to be involved going down to the Reba McEntire® Center for Rehabilitation. As far as I can tell, that refers to the Reba McEntire, and the center is for physical rehab and is connected with the local Texoma Medical Center. Apparently when she was younger some of her family were treated at this medical center, and her involvement grew from there. Who knew?
Gasoline is cheaper in Denison than in the Dallas area.
The dogs and I went for a walk in the city's Munson Park, which has its own interesting history.
When we were walking, I saw an unusual house immediately next to the park - the gate to the house's grounds opened directly into the park, which must be a problem for them when the local baseball team is playing in the fields a few hundred yards away.
I don't know if you can see all the fancy ironwork around the house, and there's a turret or 2 that didn't seem to make it into the photo. It just struck me as odd to have a fancy house like this with a security fence and gate (gate standing wide open) smack on top of a public park. Its address is Ball Park Road.
In town I passed the Davis on Morton B&B and was quite taken with it. The owners say it's a 117-year-old Victorian house they've turned into a B&B. It's got big porches and some gingerbread and is just generally very attractive. Since the town dates back to 1872, I guess a few old houses are to be expected.
In fact, I noticed that porches are a real thing here. It seemed almost like it was a zoning requirement to have a porch of some kind on a house, but it makes the town look pleasant and relaxed. Which is pretty much their motto: "Denison - Moving Forward - Kicking Back." I saw quite a few parks in town.
It's also a stronghold for Pres. Trump, as I saw many signs and flags still being displayed.
I passed an old, fading mural for 7-Up: "You Like It, It Likes You."
I decided not to visit the Eisenhower Birthplace. Partly it was because he only lived there for a year and a half, so it's not like the place was a big influence on his life, and partly it was because I'd already been to the family home in Abilene, KS, and partly it's because of the virus and not wanting to be in an enclosed space with strangers. And besides, they insist you call ahead for an appointment, which I hadn't done. Some other trip, maybe.
Sherman
Sherman is only about 5 miles or so from Denison and has more people (38,521). Yesterday I'd noticed all the national franchises; today I saw a long road of strip malls, car dealerships, and the Midway Mall which appeared to be almost devoid of stores. It was an odd contrast with the prosperity I saw from the interstate.
They had a flyover bridge just to cross the railroad tracks.
Sherman boasts Austin College, founded 1849. It has lots of parks and lots of Trump signs.
Back on the road
On Texas 11 eastbound, I passed a small green field with cows eating hay, both young and adult goats, and white geese. It was a lovely bucolic scene.
I passed through Luella (estimated pop. 639).
For some reason, I suddenly remembered that somewhere out in west Texas I passed the office for a plaster company. I guess I was making notes about something else at the time and didn't end up noting this place, but the sight stuck with me. The pillars holding up the front porch of the plaster company were in an hourglass shape, where the plaster had been shaped around the wooden supports for the porch roof. And the four corners of the building had all been shaped similarly. Their office was really effective advertising for their services. If I'd had a house, I'd've been ready to hire them on the spot.
I passed through the town of Tom Bean, pop. 1,045. Thomas Bean donated 50 acres to establish the town in 1887.
I saw another sign that said "Jesus 2020." It's heartbreakingly sad but, from what I've been seeing lately, if Jesus had been a candidate for public office this year, he never would have made it out of the primary. Too radical - all that "love your enemies and do good to those who spitefully use you" stuff.
The town of Whiteright, pop. 1,604, was right next to large fields of what I think was winter wheat. Also an extremely large solar field.
Randolph
I found this town accidentally on the map and of course wanted to come here. And what I found looks like it's a small farming community. I think that because on the immediate edge of town I saw fully functioning farms.
I didn't see any businesses at all here, though I imagine they're there. Or not. This entry from the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas makes it sound iffy. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/randolph-tx-fannin-county And as small as this place is, there seems to be another Randolph, TX, farther south.
I passed a church in town with a sign that surprised me: "A House Divided Will Fall - Let's All Pray For Unity."
A short way beyond the town I found this historical marker.
Back on the road
From Randolph I went back north again toward the Red River.
This too is farming country and I saw cows and calves and a sign saying, "Hay for Sale, Big Bales $45.00."
Bonham
This town of 10,127 calls itself The Star of North Texas.
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| Fannin County Courthouse |
There've been 5 courthouses for Fannin County; this structure was built in 1965-66 using part of the 1888 courthouse, so I'm not surprised to learn it needs some renovations after half a century or more. (Don't we all?)
For me the biggest surprise here was the town's obvious strong connection with Sam Rayburn. I passed a fancy building labeled Sam Rayburn Library with a very imposing statue that I assume was of Rayburn out front.
I seem to have heard of Sam Rayburn all my life, which made sense when I learned he was in politics from 1906 until 1961. He served first in the state legislature, but he was elected to Congress in 1912 and served there for 48 years. He was Speaker of the US House longer than anyone else - 17½ years, though they weren't in an unbroken period, due to changes in the majority/minority makeup of the House. Over that period of time, he had his hand in a remarkable number of significant events, and 3 US Presidents, among hundreds of others, came to his funeral. Here's a biography I found online. https://www.cah.utexas.edu/rayburn-bio
I didn't know of his connection with Bonham, or of the museum and the state historic site (his home) that could be visited. I've always thought he was a remarkable man, and sometime I want to come back to learn more.
Back on the road
A short way out of town, we came to the Bois d'Arc Day Use Area, where we stopped. It's part of the Caddo-LBJ National Grasslands, which includes scattered patches of grasslands, from as far west as Fort Worth through northeast Texas. I'd expected to find a place in Bonham to stop but hadn't, and we were all getting restless.
This place was really just an open area for people to park before setting out into the woods. There was an ominous sign that stopped me from doing that even before we started:
So we just walked around the large open parking area, which was big enough that we were able to get a little exercise.
Back on the road, I kept seeing signs telling me I'd get to Durant (OK) soon, an indication of how close to the border I was.
I think there might be a town in TX called Duplex, though AAA doesn't acknowledge it.
I passed lots of cows and half-grown calves, a few horses, a large field of round hay bales. I passed small communities here and there along the road - not organized into a town - just a loose grouping of houses.
I got to the town of Telephone, according to the highway sign, though I couldn't see much there. It's an unincorporated town that claims to have 210 residents. With a name like that I thought it'd be more fanciful than the dusty little collection of houses I saw.
A short distance down the road I came to the towns of Sash, first, and then Selfs. Sash isn't on the map but Selfs is. However, neither one appears to have any information about it online, which may give you an idea of how nearly nonexistent they are. Speaking of non-existent, I passed a sign for the turn to Tiger Town and oddly there's a history of it online, even though there doesn't seem to have been a town there since 1900, and the area's now a farm.
I passed through Honey Grove, pop. 1,679, where there was a sign saying, "No Trailers Or Trucks On Brick Streets." By the time I noticed it, I was on a brick street, so I hope they don't mind RVs. On the way out of town I saw a sign saying, "Thanks for Visiting - Buzz on Back." (It took me a minute to remember the town's name was Honey Grove.)
I kept passing huge fields of emerald green grass, which was either sod or winter wheat, I guess.
I saw a horse and 4 cows gossiping together in a field - really, they had their heads all together - and a colt was standing alone at the side of the field, left out of the grown-ups' chit-chat.
Ladonia, pop. 612, claims Small Town - Big Future. But since the sign was so weatherbeaten it was hard to read, I'm guessing the future hasn't materialized here. The Methodist church in town had more stained glass windows than many much larger churches, and the town looked much bigger than 612 residents, unless I saw every part of town and there was nothing down the side roads. Anyway, there may be more to this town than that sign showed.
When I passed through this "Small Town," I ended up on the wrong road because the road Google said I should take wasn't within 2 miles of where they said it'd be, so I thought the sign I saw referred to another piece of the road and I'd come across the right piece up ahead. When I didn't after a few miles, I pulled into a driveway and looked at the AAA map, but was so frazzled I misread it and ended up on a lengthy detour. But at least the scenery was pleasant farmland.
I passed through Wolfe City, pop. 1,412. There's a real variety in the names of towns around here.
I saw Trump flags and signs all over this region, and that struck me as an indication of a problem. Usual behavior after an election is for those who voted for the winning candidate to leave their signs up for a couple of days and then take them down, while those who voted for the losing candidate usually take their signs down right away. We're now 3 weeks after the election, and you'd think from the flags and signs that the campaign was still going strong. Except I doubt that's what these folks think because I haven't seen signs for any other race - not for the local sheriff or the state legislature or anything. Just Trump. Honestly, after spending all day looking at these indications that they believed him when he claimed he'd won, despite 3 weeks of evidence to the contrary, I was getting pretty depressed. I just see that as a bad sign for the future.
Commerce, pop. 8,078, advertises "fresh pecans" and their 1st Christian Church has as many stained glass windows as Ladonia's Methodist church. This is also the location for a Zurn plant, which wasn't a company I'd heard of but they seem to be involved with bathroom fixture products - toilets and such.
It was still early afternoon when I left Commerce and I decided to go on to Sulphur Springs today, instead of waiting until tomorrow morning.
Sulphur Springs
According to its official history, there were (maybe still are) more than 100 natural springs in this area, which encouraged settlers in the mid-1800s to put down roots. They named the new town Sulphur Springs in 1871 to encourage tourism, which apparently worked because when the railroad reached nearby Mineola in 1872, it brought many visitors who hoped to benefit from the mineral springs and sulphur baths. Some of the springs were freshwater as well, so crops flourished in the area.
Beginning in 1937 when the Carnation Co. opened a processing plant here, dairy farming became widespread, leading to Hopkins County being called the Dairy Capital of Texas. (Sorry, but I just have trouble making my mind believe in dairy cows in Texas, not beef cows.)
But driving into town I passed a sign for the Southwest Dairy Museum, which sounds like an interesting place to visit with more time and less COVID.
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| Hopkins County Courthouse |
Does that convey an extremely busy and lively scene? That I had to navigate while driving on streets that were made even more narrow than they were because vehicles were allowed to park along the curbs? So I passed very close to this courthouse and wanted to get a photo but couldn't figure out any way I could get close enough - certainly not by parking in some nonexistent parking space. I got the impression that I shouldn't have been driving in that area, though there were other trucks - UPS and so forth - that navigated it, so I kept on with the directions I had.
I was aiming for a grocery store about a mile from the courthouse, but when I got there I found the parking lot completely full. On a Monday. In the middle of the afternoon (not a lunchtime crowd or the going-home-from-work customers). So I got out of that parking lot as quickly as I could because, even if I'd found a parking place, there was no way I would go into what was certainly too big a crowd in an enclosed space, with some doubt about mask use, based on the folks I saw at the courthouse.
I decided I wasn't so desperate for groceries I couldn't wait until tomorrow, and went back through town the same way I came in.
My impression of Sulphur Springs is that it seemed smug. Maybe it was just my mood, but it was so incredibly cutesy and precious in the courthouse area, and nothing remotely like it out where regular folks lived and did business, that I got an unpleasant feeling from it. Too bad.
Back on the road
As often happens, I'd hoped to find a place to walk the dogs before we got to the campground, not knowing what to expect there or what the dog-walking conditions would be like. We got really lucky with a very pleasant roadside park about halfway there.
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| obviously one of the original 1939 picnic tables |
But I've never seen an official sign that looked like this one and wondered if it's the new version intended to save money, or maybe it's just a placeholder until they can get one of the usual metal ones done, or what. Still, it's easier to read than the other historical marker I found at the park.
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| Don't try to read this - enlargements below. |
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| enlargement - part 1 |
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| enlargement - part 2 |
I had a hard time with this marker, and I wish there'd been a date on it. It is clearly written from the perspective of Confederate supporters (Union troops were the "enemy"). It expresses great sympathy for the plight of a Louisiana family who "fled" to Texas to evade Union forces during the Civil War. These poor folks had to abandon their home and their family and neighbors to try to make a life for themselves "and 90 slaves" in this new location. (Not a word about how the 90 folks who had been enslaved had originally been torn from their families, their homes and even their continent to live a life of slavery.) And despite the local folks providing friendliness and support, the sign expressed sadness that these "refugees" had to endure "poverty, loneliness and sorrow" in their new home.
I got so disgusted with this message that I looked it up and learned it was erected in 1965. That's the year following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the same year as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It's a clear response by folks who just weren't willing to let go of the stupidity of the justification for trying to tear our country apart in the Civil War.
So that was unpleasant, but the little park was full of pecan trees and was old and peaceful and I felt lucky we'd found it.
From there, we passed through the town of Birthright, an unincorporated town which claims a population of 40 and says it's also known by the name of Lone Star. Two names for one unincorporated almost non-existent town seems excessive.
And from there to the campground.
I hope this post isn't too depressing, but that's the mood that increasingly came over me as the day went on. I have no problem with people expressing support for their cause or candidate whether I agree with them or not, but I'm finding the level of display of Trump flags and signs I've been seeing so many weeks after the election seriously disturbing. I hadn't truly believed the stories that large numbers of folks believed the president when he claimed widespread fraud in the election - but I'm beginning to believe it. And that's what's making me feel discouraged and worried for my country.
And with that idiot historical marker on top of it - another version of denying reality - I just felt really bummed. Thank goodness for my critters - and for alcoholic beverages and for chocolate, of course.
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