Texas - Day 41 - Huntsville, via College Station, to Lockhart

Lockhart State Park, Lockhart

Sunday, 13 December 2020

today's route

Huntsville

I didn't get into the downtown area yesterday, so it was my first stop this morning.

Walker County Courthouse in Huntsville

These historical markers are in front of the courthouse.  I was interested to note that the Mr. Walker the county was named for refused to support the Confederacy so the Texas Legislature (meddling in local affairs just as they do now) renamed it for a different Mr. Walker.

The current courthouse, built in 1970, lacks the soul I think older buildings have, and you can see a hint of what its predecessor might have looked like from a couple of nearby buildings.

The sign says it's the County's Criminal
District Attorney's office.

building now housing an antique store
and a jeweler

clothing store, next to the jeweler

detail from the wall above left -
likely showing Sam Houston's life

'

Huntsville is home to Sam Houston State University, established 1879, with Bearkats as their mascot.  Around town I saw signs saying, "Mask 'Em Up Kats!" and "Six Paws Apart!"  Which seemed much more forward thinking than I'm afraid I expected from this solidly east Texas town that unnamed its county for a non-secessionist.

I passed a business with a sign saying, "We By Gold."  That's not a typo on my part.

I saw several signs saying "Lone Survivor Foundation," which was something I've never heard of and couldn't figure out from where the signs were.  I've learned it's a non-profit that hopes to help wounded warriors and their families, an admirable goal.  It was started by a veteran named Marcus Luttrell, who grew up in Huntsville and who was the lone survivor of a military operation in Afghanistan.  Oddly, much of his account of that tragedy is disputed by just about everybody else involved.  If you're curious, at this link scroll down to "Operation Red Wings Controversy."   https://en.wikipedia.org/Lone-Survivor-Foundation

I heard on the radio about a book called Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States, by Colin Quinn.  A review I saw says it describes the unique character of each of the states (e.g. Vermont: The Old Hippie State; Florida: The Hot Mess State) and how they manage to stay together as a country.  Which is much of what I've been traveling to learn about.

On the road

The volunteer clean-up crew near Huntsville is the "Members of SHSU Soul Lifters" which turns out to be a small gospel choir at Sam Houston State University.  Established in 1971, they claim to be the oldest collegiate gospel choir in Texas.

I've been seeing quite a few calves lately.  For some reason I expected they'd be born in the warmer months of the year, but I obviously had that wrong.

I like driving on early Sunday mornings.  Always very little traffic, so I can be much more relaxed than usual.

I passed the town of Shiro, which had no highway sign, but I can tell you it's an unincorporated town of about 200 folks.  And I saw the Shiro Gin Co.  (As in cotton gin, not as in gin&tonic gin.) And shortly thereafter I passed Roans Prairie, also without a sign, also unincorporated, but with only 56 residents.  In a plug for AAA, though, their map showed both these little towns despite the state highway department ignoring them.

All morning I've dealt with a low cloud situation - you can see the grey sky in the photos above - and the fog increased as I drove west.

Anderson

This is a tiny town, population 222, with a very old "downtown" area that's about 1 block long.  It's the county seat, and this courthouse may give you a picture of the town.

Grant County Courthouse
in Anderson

I think this courthouse was built in 1859.  The entire town of Anderson is in the National Register of Historic Places, which may give you an idea of how old this place looks.  

And you can get an idea of how these folks think when I tell you that in 1859 the town rejected being connected to the railroad.  Nearby Navasota jumped at the chance and Anderson never caught up.  Navasota now has 7,049 residents, compared to Anderson's 222.

Anderson's Confederate
Memorial Plaza

That memorial plaza occupies a substantial part of "downtown" Anderson so I assume it reflects the current thinking of local residents.

The historical marker about Grimes County was stuck on its own about a half block from both the plaza and the courthouse.

In that same vicinity I saw St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church.  Not a saint I'd heard of before and I wondered why the folks here named their church for him, rather than Mary or some other well-known Biblical figure.  St. Stanislaus Kostka (from the 1500s AD) is called that (it was his real first and last name) to differentiate him from St. Stanislaus (from the 1000s AD), who the 2nd one was named for.  I think both were from Poland; the earlier one was martyred and the 2nd died at age 17, and I'd be curious how modern-day medical sleuths would characterize his cause of death.  He seems to have acquired some kind of illness.  Here's his information.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Stanislaus-Kostka  Given this church, I expected to find the area had been populated by eastern European settlers, but au contraire it was Spaniards who got here first.  Here's more information about the town.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Anderson-TX

Back on the road

I passed through Navasota and crossed the Navasota River, and I'm wondering why the county seat's never been moved from Anderson to Navasota.  Maybe without the county courthouse business, Anderson would wither and blow away?

College Station

As far as I can tell (without trying much), this town (pop. about 118,000) got its name after the railroad came through (about 1860) and after Texas A&M University was established here (1876).  I guess it's like the name for the town of State College in PA.

When I drove into town one of the first things I saw was "Welcome to Aggieland," which makes the town's priorities clear.

Though I didn't bother driving through the A&M campus, I did pass some of their athletic facilities as I drove out to the George [H.W.] Bush Presidential Library.  

Until his son ran for president, George Bush was known by just those 2 names; his son's election forced today's addition of the middle initials to distinguish between the two.  Though since we have the example of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, I don't know why we can't just stick with George Bush and George W. Bush for these subsequent father/son presidencies.

Of course, the library was closed and I could only see the outside, and even that view was obscured by the increasing fog.  Here are 2 photos I took.

George Bush Presidential Library
in College Station

I couldn't get an angle without the trees
but see below for the inscription.

I found a photo of this same wall (above) online that let me read what it said:

        "Let future generations understand the

     burden and the blessings of freedom.

     Let them say we stood where duty required

     us to stand."

                    President George Bush   January 1993

Actually, I'm not sure about that date - it's definitely 1990-something.  But you can see how the low light level made photos more challenging.  When I drove back down the road, I noticed the press box at the football stadium was hard to see because the fog had dropped down so low.

I remembered from the short time I lived in Bryan when I was young that the main road through the heart of both towns was Texas Avenue, and it still is.  But in College Station that street has changed drastically from just an ordinary street with businesses into a very wide multi-lane boulevard with a median and many fancy national-brand stores.  Since I feel confident the residents of this area are still who they always were, I'm guessing these fancy businesses are catering to the now-wealthy A&M graduates and their kids/students.

Bryan

Support for this idea appeared the instant I crossed the boundary between Bryan and College Station.  The Texas Ave. that's in Bryan is just about the way I remembered it - still 4 lanes but without the median and with local businesses instead of national ones.

I passed a fast-food place with this sign: "Handshakes = Bad   Milkshakes = Good."  Catchy, and more progressive than I'd've expected in this conservative town.

Bryan, pop. 86,000, is the county seat and home of a courthouse that one commenter called "a forgettable building."  I thought the front was so uninspiring that I took a photo from the side, too, but that just emphasizes the boredom.  The original building from 1955 was the section in lighter stone (what you see in the 1st photo), with a courtyard behind it, and beyond the courtyard another building that housed additional courthouse functions.  Some years later, the courtyard was replaced with an addition (visible in the 2nd photo) that connected the 2 buildings.  I don't think it helped increase the beauty.

photo #1 - Brazos County
Courthouse in Bryan

photo #2 - from the side

I was pleased to see that Bryan's downtown is still as I remembered it, except they've gussied up Main St. by adding extra parking in the center.  Maybe that was always there but I don't remember it.  Considering how little time I lived there, I was surprised at how many of the buildings I remembered.  

The whole visit was a little unsettling, actually.  Fifty years ago, both cities were fairly small and definitely reflecting east Texas/rural atmosphere, which was fitting considering that's who lived there (though very hard on my brother and sister who'd had to move there from the Dallas area and had trouble with the culture shock).  Now the 2 cities couldn't look more different, with Bryan much as it's always been and College Station acting like it was never that way but has always been a clone of Houston.  Weird.

Back on the road

I picked up Texas Highway 21 in downtown Bryan and headed west, almost immediately back out in the country.

I passed a facility labeled Texas A&M University RELLIS Campus, which meant almost nothing to me.  Online I learned it's offering bachelor degrees to students from Bryan/College Station who aren't already enrolled at the main campus.  Here's how it describes itself: "An ecosystem of transformative innovation like few others in the world."  Those of us who went to the University of Texas always did think those Aggies had an inflated opinion of themselves, and this description seems to confirm it.

I passed road signs that read "JCT OSR" and later "East OSR."  I have no idea what OSR means.

Visibility continued to decrease and I passed an accident, this time not involving me.  I had rain in some form all day, sometimes heavy, sometimes as mist.  Made for some sloppy driving and limited sightseeing.

Nobody wants to tell me how many folks live in the town of Cooks Point, but their church parking lot was full.  Since there were enough cars to suggest the small church was also full, I assume few there were wearing masks, since they're obviously disregarding social distancing.  Honestly, sometimes it seems like people think this virus is like venereal disease and nice people don't get it.

Only a few more miles away I came to a "Welcome to Caldwell - Home of the Hornets" sign.  I thought it was odd that both Caldwell and Huntsville, which aren't all that far apart, would have Hornets as their mascot.  I mean, what if they played against each other?  But as far as I can figure it out, Huntsville being much larger is in 5A and Caldwell has recently been moved from 4A into 3A.  The town of Caldwell has 4,104 residents.

All my older Texas relatives, some of whom once lived in this area, pronounced Caldwell with the emphasis on the 2nd syllable - cald-WELL.  I never heard anyone else say it like that and assume it was an old-fashioned local pronunciation that has died out along with my relatives.

Caldwell, founded in 1840, is the county seat.  

Burleson County Courthouse
in Caldwell

You can see in the photo above that the clouds were down below the roof of this courthouse.  Farther along the road I noticed that the only cows I could see were in pastures next to the road.  For a while my visibility was down to less than a mile, and later on it went down to less than a quarter of a mile.  I slowed way down on these country roads.

I came to the turnoff for Dime Box, and farther along to Old Dime Box.  I always liked that name for its colorfulness.  The town of Dime Box, Wikipedia says, was named for Old Dime Box (like nobody could figure that out for themselves).  And when Old Dime Box was just plain Dime Box, back when it was founded in the mid 1800s, the name seems to refer to a large box early area settlers used for transporting mail to Giddings.

And speaking of Giddings, pop. 4,881, it was 16 miles farther down the road (which was a fair distance 150 years ago).  It has a surprisingly fancy high school, considering the size of the town, and it's the county seat.

Lee County Courthouse
in Giddings

This nice little building, erected in 1898, has all the character that the poor thing in Bryan lacked.  This one replaced the first one built in 1878 that was destroyed by fire.  I had a hard time getting a photo of this one because there are a lot of trees around the square, blocking off my view; fortunately all 4 sides looked the same so I had a choice.

I passed through a number of towns, large and small, all about 15-20 miles from each other, certainly a result of travel times in the early settlement days.

At Lockhart I didn't even go into town as I'd intended but instead went straight to the campground.  I was tired of driving through these conditions.  This state campground, as with so many of them, was built by the CCC, and this one had some original buildings and displays about their history.

Notice that they're all wearing hats -
that's what men used to do, and I think the world was a better place for it.

the water tower today

the recreation hall today -
just like it was back then

wall sconces from the recreation hall
(above right)

Texas - Day 40 - in Huntsville

Huntsville State Park, Huntsville

Saturday, 12 December 2020

I seem to be having trouble with these state park campsites recently.  Mission Tejas was that impossible sideways-leaning angle in a tiny space.  Martin Dies, Jr. was a mild angle with gobs of deer.  And here in Huntsville I've got a steep angle and dogs everywhere.

We're okay on our 2 early morning walks because almost everybody sleeps later in winter, and especially on weekends.  But any other time during daylight hours, I can barely get the dogs out of the RV without the 2 dogs next door (who are on long leashes outdoors all day long) or the 1 very large dog across the street barking away at mine.  And Dexter always thinks he needs to respond to the trash talk.

What I ended up doing was driving them down to the boat launch area, where there were dogs but not nearly as many, and more places for us to dodge them.  Of course, there was the sign saying "Alligators Exist In the Park" to make me nervous.

And today, I drove us all into town for much of the day, just so I could get an internet signal and the dogs could have somewhere to walk.  Well, not the first time for that and I'm sure not the last.

I went first to the local recycling facility and got rid of most of my accumulated pile, which was a relief.

On the way out there, I passed a parking lot next to what looked like a park, so after unloading I drove back, and we spent several hours there.  I walked the dogs around the area a couple of times and used the internet signal my hotspot could pick up.

Huntsville has a David Street.

On the radio I heard someone explain that when Santa gets stuck in a chimney, he has claus-trophobia.  (heh heh)

Huntsville has several claims to fame.  The one it pushes is that it was the home of Sam Houston.  Of course, they don't much want to mention that when he refused to pledge allegiance to the new Confederate States of America he was nearly run out of town.  But he lived here for many years, and died here.  This link gives a short version of his ties to the town.   https://abc13.com/huntsville-sam-houston

Huntsville is also known for the Sam Houston statue that claims title to World's Tallest Statue of an American Hero.  It's marble, 67' tall and stands on a 10' base.

Sam Houston

And the other thing Huntsville is known for, at least in Texas, is the prison.  The Huntsville Correctional Institution is a maximum security facility that includes Texas's death row which has a wide-spread reputation as being more active than almost any other.

I didn't pass by that but did see signs for the Texas Prison Museum.

Back in the campground, I watched a large group of kids about 11 years old pass by my campsite with quite a few adults.  Almost none of these folks was wearing a mask and it was clear social distancing wasn't something they'd thought about.

Taken together, I'd say this experience was a mixed bag.

Texas - Day 39 - courthouses, Lake Livingston, Conroe

Huntsville State Park, Huntsville
Friday, 11 December 2020

I'd stayed in last night's campground - Martin Dies, Jr. - 3 years ago and found it uncomfortable.  I stayed there this time only because it was convenient and because it had a site available for us, but was careful to be in a very different part of the park.  This time it was much better, the only problem being a LOT of deer.  When we went out at dusk before bed, I saw 5 deer, and there may have been more from the way Dexter was acting.  They complicate a walk with my dogs.

This morning on our 2nd walk (the 1st was cut short by doggy reactions to deer), many campers were up and moving about.  I was surprised at the large number that were in tents, and even more surprised at the large number of girls wearing dresses or skirts.  These weren't cute little sundresses but halfway-down-the-calf dresses.  I couldn't see any other signs of uniqueness among these or any other campers so don't know why that was their choice of attire.

Otherwise, we had an almost-level campsite, for a change, and were at a distance from the other campers which would have made it easy to walk the dogs if it weren't for all those silly deer.  (Yes, I know that's their home and we were the intruders.)

today's route

The drive this morning can best be described as 2 county courthouses, 2 road incidents, and several bits of trivia.

The County Courthouses

Tyler County Courthouse in Woodville

Polk County Courthouse 
in Livingston

Woodville in Tyler County has 2,586 residents.  Note the county seat of Tyler County isn't Tyler, which is the county seat of Smith County.  Go figure.

Livingston in Polk County is about double that size with 5,335 residents.  In Livingston I saw a billboard that said, "Don'tMethWithMe.Org."  That turns out to be an ongoing effort by the Rotary Clubs in Livingston and nearby Cleveland to educate local kids about meth and the results of meth use.  (I've seen for myself in former clients of mine the ghastly effects of meth use on dental health.)  Here's a link to their program.   https://www.dontmethwithme.org

The Road Incidents

The first was a surprise illustration of the power of example.  I was the 2nd of 4 vehicles on a 2-lane + shoulders road, with a large truck ahead of me.  The truck was trundling along at about 50 mph in a 75 mph zone, which was too slow even for me, and he went on for miles without giving any of the 3 of us a chance to pass him.  

After a while, I gave up on him and, when a chance for easy passing came along, I pulled over onto the shoulder to let the cars behind me go by, figuring they'd pass me no matter what and they might as well do it before I tried passing the truck.  Which they did.  

And when the next easy passing area came along, I was surprised to see that truck pull onto the shoulder like I'd done and let all 3 of us pass him.  Plus I could see him in my mirrors for some distance and noticed he kept pulling over for other cars.  I imagine like me he'd grown up knowing that's what Texas drivers do and had just forgotten for the moment.

The second incident was a car accident that I came within about a foot of being involved in.  Again a 2-lane road but without shoulders.  In the oncoming lane not far from me, I saw a small car with the turn signal going, waiting until I passed to turn left.  Another passenger car was coming toward them from behind and didn't even slow down but instead drove right over the left rear bumper and fender of the 1st car.  By that time I was actually alongside the 2 and it was just a fluke neither of them ran into the RV's side.  

I pulled partly off the road but was afraid to get too far off because of not knowing about maybe mud; turned on my emergency flashers; ran back to see if everybody was okay.  There were 2 young women and their shaken-up dog in the 1st car and a mother and daughter in the 2nd car; they all said they were okay but the 1st car was a mess.  Three of their tires were flat, the bumper was hanging down, there were car pieces in the road.  I couldn't see whether there was any damage to the 2nd car, which was newer and somewhat bigger than the 1st.

The 1st car folks said they had to leave and kept trying to figure out how to leave with 3 flat tires.  I thought maybe one or both were undocumented or running from an arrest warrant, but they said they'd just gotten news their grandmother had a stroke and they were rushing to see her.  But I'd seen they weren't rushing so much they did something wrong with their turn and told them I'd be a witness for them if they needed me.  

The 2nd car woman - I never saw the daughter - said she was on the way to a doctor appointment and figured she'd better cancel it.  She said she was a preacher and wasn't going to lie about being responsible for the accident (a relief to me, though I thought the 2 young women were too upset to realize how much worse this situation could have been).  

They started exchanging information and said they didn't need me to be a witness, and by then cars were trying to get around this mess and I was afraid someone would end up clipping my RV after all, so I left.  I was pretty shaken up, though, at how close I'd come to being involved and how close those others had come to being seriously hurt.  Fortunately, Lake Livingston State Park was just a few miles down the road, and I decided to take a break there for a while to get back to normal.

Bits of roadside trivia

I heard on the radio the New York Times had made up a list of must-have Christmas presents that included LED fake eyelashes.  Presumably they light up?

I crossed a small body of water labeled Theuvinins Creek.  I figured it had to have been named for somebody, but all I could learn online is that locals also call it Tootl'm Creek.  (Your guess is as good as mine.)

I found myself passing through the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe's reservation.  They say they're the oldest Indian reservation in Texas.  Their website provides some interesting tribal history.   https://www.alabama-coushatta.com

Having spent time both in Louisiana and in Oklahoma this year, I wondered why I was remembering a Coushatta casino somewhere other than Texas.  Turns out it's in Louisiana and belongs to the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, which may well be related to some of these folks in Texas but is in fact a distinct tribe.  The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe operates its own casino at Livingston, called Naskila Gaming.

I passed a series of signs apparently for a town called Soda: Soda Loop Road, Soda Country Outlet (thrift store), Soda Auto, Soda Oaks Road.  I was surprised to learn online that Soda hasn't existed since about 1940.  A town called Bluff Creek got a post office in 1860, and lost it again about 6 years later.  The town changed its name several times and finally called itself Soda, which was an anagram of the initials of the discarded names.  Despite this colorful background, the town withered until somebody set up a sawmill that employed 40 folks and they got back a post office around 1900.  But by the Depression they'd cut down all the trees, the sawmill closed, folks moved away and the town died.  Except, apparently, for these names.

I passed another sign for another ghost town, this one called Swartwout.  It existed only in the mid-1800s and was eventually submerged when the Trinity River got a dam nearby.

Lake Livingston State Park

This park sprawls out along a jut of land by the lake.  I told the ranger at the gate about the accident just down the road and my need to pull myself together while I walked the dogs.  She pointed me toward a picnic area nearby and said there were several places in the area we could walk.  Which we did.

Because I couldn't pick up an internet signal at last night's campground, I stayed in the parking area for several hours to get information about services in Huntsville, tonight's campground.  The dogs got walks at both the beginning and the end of this session, so they were okay.

I have a vague memory of our family camping at this park when I was in my teens, and I'd hoped I might be able to get my memory jogged at the camping areas.  But when I saw what the park looked like, I didn't bother because it bore no resemblance at all to my memory.  Which was anyway a nighttime memory so my memory couldn't see much of what our surroundings were.  The picnic area was nice.  Lots of trees.

Back on the road

I ended up on US 59 for about 20 miles and passed a sign saying it's a "Future Interstate Corridor I-69."  But I don't know why.  That road didn't need replacing.  It's already 4 lanes with a median and shoulders, and though it's not limited access like an interstate is, it still didn't have any traffic lights so you could say it's semi-limited-access.  I just don't understand this drive to fix what ain't broken.  (And I could say the same to Microsoft and Google and my blog program and all those other tech people who keep insisting we need "updates.")

I came to the town of Cut and Shoot, pop. 1,158.  I've always liked that name, but it suggests a place that's much more rural than I saw.  It's less than an hour from Houston and only 5 miles from Conroe, the county seat, so maybe it's just getting spillover growth.

Conroe is much bigger than I remember it from my childhood, in 2010 registering 82,286 residents.

Montgomery County Courthouse
in Conroe

This isn't my photo, but an internet one.  I couldn't get a photo myself, partly because of the traffic and partly because of a mass of trees in front of the building.  To get the photo above, the photographer must have been lying down in the grass in front of the courthouse to avoid the trees.  All the other online photos show the front completely obscured by that batch of greenery.

In Conroe I saw a truck with a sign in its rear saying, "Dead Pedophiles Don't Reoffend."  And then, with things as they are now, I found myself wondering if this person was an adherent of QAnon and was referring to the world-wide Satanical cannibalistic pedophile ring of Democrats and Hollywood figures that it claims exists.  (Just typing that makes my mind reel.  How can anyone believe all that?  Or any of it?)

I saw a sign saying Montgomery County is the Birthplace of the Lone Star Flag, so I looked it up.  The Texas Legislature says it's true: they issued a resolution in 1997, signed by Gov. George Bush, saying Dr. Charles B. Stewart, resident of Montgomery County came up with the design which was adopted by President Mirabeau B. Lamar (Texas was a nation in 1839, so it had a president).  Texas Flag Day is coming up: January 25th, its 182nd birthday.

In the town of Willis, pop. 6,100, I saw a large sign saying 

Congratulations

Trump Wins!

Wins . . . KNOW IT!!!

And a few more small towns later, I passed a sign saying Huntsville, pop. 38,548.  But the road for the state park came several miles before the town did.

It took some driving just to get to the park gate, and a fair amount more driving to get down into the campground area.  In a valley, with heavy trees all around, I was sure I wouldn't be able to get an internet signal here either - and I didn't.  Maybe just as well.

Texas - Day 38 - Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Jasper

Martin Dies Jr. State Park, Jasper
Thursday, 10 December 2020

Sadly, nothing about our overnight stay at Mission Tejas State Park was pleasant.  Our extremely short campsite was seriously not level, and I'd've had trouble making it level even if I had the equipment.  When I took the dogs out for early walks, I was worried about the likelihood of deer I wouldn't be able to see in the pitch dark.  So when Dexter started sniffing away madly, so completely living through his nose that he ignored me, and then when Gracie started the same routine, I went into panic mode and hauled them back up the steep hill to the RV.  Which set off my asthma problems.  I left as early as we could get daylight down into the campground area.

Oddly, they did have something that might have been interesting if they'd bothered to explain it.  Across from the bathhouse was the head of a hiking trail, that had a sign saying "CCC Bath Tubs" with an arrow pointing down the trail.  I've seen CCC bread ovens and dining halls and trails and bridges and swimming pools, but this bath tub bit was new to me.  In line with this park's refusal even to put up a one-way sign on a one-way road, they didn't bother to explain anything about the bath tubs either, not on a sign or in their literature or online or anywhere.  I suppose if I'd stopped at the office on the way out, one of the rangers could have told me, but I was so peeved with this park I was afraid to open my mouth to them, in case something ugly came out.

today's route

On the road

Driving back east from the campground, I saw horses and cows; hay; grazing land and brushland; trees and thick undergrowth.

I came back to the Caddo Mounds site, still surprised that there wasn't even a highway sign for it - I guess they don't really want visitors to their archeological dig.  But at the turn there was a sign saying Weeping Mary that-a-way (well, there was an arrow).  Because I couldn't imagine what Weeping Mary was, I looked it up and found, as I have so often, that it's a town established by freed enslaved people and has a fascinating history.   http://www.texasescapes.com/Weeping-Mary  That article was written in 2008, but I imagine it's still relatively accurate.

I came to a stretch of highway where the volunteer litter crew was from SRG Film Productions.  I guess it's a form of advertising?

And back to Alto, and on this road there was a sign saying the town's population is 1,225.

And another sign saying I was on the Original Route of El Camino Real.

I came to what seemed to be the town of Douglass, though there was no sign.  (It's an unincorporated town of about 500, I learned.)  But I did see a sign saying they were the 2014 1A Baseball State Champions.  And I saw a place labeled "Doug's Restaurant Farmers Market Chocolate Factory."  I was certainly surprised to find a chocolate factory here in deep east Texas, so I looked it up and learned they do indeed claim to make real chocolate there.  But they also say they're closed right now (maybe the virus, though they don't say) but will reopen at some point.  Here's their website.   https://udougs.com/about-us  (They've got BBQ, too, of course.)

At Winters Hill I saw a sign saying, "Keep America Safe - Vote Republican."  Unfortunately, these days supporting some Republicans seems to mean trashing democracy, with our senator Ted Cruz leading the charge.  Though I imagine if Democrats wanted to throw out the votes in Texas, he might sing a different tune.  What a strange world it is lately.

Nacogdoches

Nacogdoches, pop. 32,996, is a name I grew up pronouncing without saying the "g" and the emphasis on the 1st and 3rd syllables.  As far as I know, that's how Texans pronounce it.  

Nacogdoches County has moved its courthouse from the center of town, where the very obvious former site (it's in the middle of a square in downtown) is now occupied by a 1-story brick visitor center.  The new courthouse (built 1958) is a couple blocks away.  I didn't take a photo but this is an internet version.

Nacogdoches County Courthouse
in Nacogdoches

the 1911 county courthouse
it replaced

I didn't see this side of the new building.  It's built on a serious slope, and the backside, which I did see, doesn't have much for windows and is built into the hillside.  I'm sure it's all very clever and environmentally sound, and I'm sure the building is far more functional than the previous one.  But I don't see east Texas as a bastion of Spanish/Mexican architecture, and though attractive, this new(ish) building just doesn't have character the old one did, to my eyes.

When I discovered the erstwhile site of the county courthouse and its present non-spectacular occupant (the visitor center), I assumed I'd followed directions wrong and drove around a bit trying to find the real county courthouse.  What I found was an attractive old section of town with brick streets, many of which were one-way but weren't marked as such.  I ended up going the wrong way on 2 of them, and of course they were too narrow for me to turn around in so I had to keep going.  I can't possibly be the only visitor to come to Nacogdoches, so why wouldn't the town see fit to Mark The One-Way Streets?  (I'm trying not to shout.)  Maybe they took their cue from Mission Tejas State Park's non-one-way-street marking.

After locating the current county courthouse, I found a nearby city park where the dogs could get out.  And I found some art work reminding me that Nacogdoches is the oldest town in Texas, having been founded in 1779 (take that, New England).  And I found some historical markers that told me stuff I'd never known about Texas.

I was especially interested in the marker about Angelina, and the note that Angelina County (my next stop, where Lufkin is) is the only Texas county named for a woman.  For some reason, I'd never noticed that.

I drove around town a bit and found Stephen F. Austin State University.  Established in 1923, it now has 9,567 students and is one of only 4 state universities that are independent of any of the state systems.

I saw a sign saying Nacogdoches is home of Foretravel.  I was surprised to learn that the local Fore family has been making motorhomes since the 1960s, and that they're sold at the same place I bought my RV.

And I saw a sign for Moore Supply Co.: "Keeping Nacogdoches in hot water since 1955."

Nacogdoches is sister city to Natchitoches in Louisiana but, though the spelling would lead someone (like me) to assume they're pronounced similarly, I learned from east Texas TV weather people that the LA version is pronounced NACK-ih-tish.  It figures I'd spend a month in LA and not learn what I had to come to TX to learn.

Back on the road

I crossed the Angelina River.

I passed a small building with a sign in front saying "Fill Dirt Wanted" and then below, in smaller letters, "Around Back →" and I had a mental image of the big dump-truck-loads of dirt that would have been piled up in the small space in front of this building without that extra sign.

I saw "Abitibi Consolidated" with a long line of railroad tanker cars.  Unfortunately, I can't find out what the connection would be because Abitibi Con. is a large Canadian paper & pulp company, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with tanker cars.  For some reason that name Abitibi was niggling at my brain (aside from sounding like it belongs with the Disney song "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo"), and I finally found it in an online image of those dumpsters where people can recycle paper that you see around here and there called "Abitibi Paper Retrievers" with a picture of a dog with a rolled-up newspaper in its mouth.  I couldn't find an uncopyrighted version online so can't show you what I'm sure would jog your memory too.

Lufkin

This town of 35,067 somehow didn't rate a highway sign going into town.  But it's the county seat.

Angelina County Courthouse in Lufkin

The present courthouse (the county's 5th) was built in 1955 and then drastically modified in 1962 when a clock tower and upper story were removed and 2 wings were added.  It's been called "uninspiring" by some writers (I agree).  If you want to see the lovely building that preceded it, click on this link and scroll way down to the painting near the bottom of the page.   http://texasescapes.com/Angelina-County-Courthouse

I'm sorry to say I didn't see anything of interest here in Lufkin, and even TripAdvisor suggests only the zoo and museums for Texas forestry, natural history and East Texas.  Apparently, Lufkin isn't a happenin' place.

Back on the road

I crossed both the Angelina River (again) and the Attoyac River, and thought both of them were lakes because of their width, until I saw the signs saying otherwise.

I passed through the Angelina National Forest.

I got back on Texas 21 (it runs between Crockett and Nacogdoches, for instance) and noted I was back on the El Camino Real Original Route.

I went through Milam on my way to Toledo Bend Reservoir.  Like Caddo Lake, this is a body of water that Texas and Louisiana share.  I remember staying in a state campground on the Louisiana side of the reservoir and wanted to see it from the Texas side.  That turned out to be surprisingly difficult.  There isn't a town or anything sitting on this side of the lake - at least, not down in this part of it - just a bunch of private campgrounds.  When I told Google to take me to the lake, it insisted I wanted to go to the LA side.  Finally, I found a gas station/convenience store (Big Daddy's Chevron) near the water and asked for directions to it.

Toledo Bend Reservoir

Sorry.  I know that's a lousy photo, but I was parked precariously at the side of the road near Big Daddy's and this was the only angle I could get.  It's the 5th largest man-made body of water in the US, and it stretches along 65 miles of the TX/LA border.

Turning away from Louisiana, I passed through Hemphill, pop. 1,198, and found it's a county seat that I didn't know was there.  My first clue was when I drove past the courthouse and thought, "that looks just like a county courthouse."  And it was.

Sabine County Courthouse in Hemphill

Hemphill is also the location of the Patricia Huffman Smith NASA Museum.  I knew nothing about this either and hadn't planned to stop.  But from the comments I found online, it sounds like a worthwhile place to visit when I have more time.  Patricia Huffman Smith was born in Hemphill and was on the Columbia spacecraft when it blew up in 2003.  The Columbia was over east Texas at the time and pieces of debris were found near Hemphill.  Here's a link to the museum's website.   http://www.nasacolumbiamuseum.com

I saw lots of Trump flags and signs all day.

Much of my drive between Milam and Jasper passed through the Sabine National Forest.  East Texas is known for its large wooded areas.

I saw a sign advertising Mayhaw Jelly.  Not knowing what a mayhaw was, I looked it up and learned it's a berry.  It comes from a mayhaw tree, which is a species of hawthorn tree, and ripens in May.  Hence, May-haw (it's easy when you know how).  If I'd been in a car, I'd've gone to find this jelly because it was probably pretty good.  But the road didn't look like my RV belonged on it.

Jasper

I saw a sign saying "Welcome to Jasper - Jewel of the Forest" when I drove into town, but the highway department hadn't put a sign up.  I learned online it had 7,590 residents in 2010, and it's the county seat.

Jasper County Courthouse in Jasper

Now see, that courthouse has some style to it, and I'm sorry I couldn't get a better angle on it.

The reason I wanted to come to Jasper, though, was to honor the memory of James Byrd, Jr.  When I was planning this section of my trip, I couldn't remember Mr. Byrd's name, but I could sure remember what happened to him.  This is the Black man who was dragged behind a truck for miles by White supremacists, remember?  It happened in 1998, which was a while ago but not long enough for me to forget.  I was living in Washington at the time and heard about it even way up there.  Here's the factual account of the crime.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Murder-of-James-Byrd-Jr.  Oddly, it sounds a lot like the beginning of John Grisham's A Time To Kill.

I learned online that the town created a park in his memory and went to visit there.

The James Byrd, Jr., Memorial Park is a nice little park with lots of play equipment and a basketball court and picnic tables and so forth.

But I was taken aback to discover that there was no information here about why this man was being honored in this way.  And though this crime was committed more than 20 years ago, there's no historical marker about it.

This was a lynching that took place long long long after people were saying racism is behind us.  Yet, this racist killing isn't even behind this town, let alone the larger issue being behind the country.  This NPR report shows the town trying hard to minimize the crime, as if it could be swept under a rug and forgotten.   https://www.npr.org/james-byrd-jr

Honestly, I was glad to see the park but seriously disheartened to see no acknowledgement of the fact that the perpetrators came from this community just like the victim did.  I left town in a pretty down mood.

And drove the 11 miles to tonight's campground.

Just as a side note on a completely different subject, I stumbled on this little historical note about a Texan (of course) who refused to concede he'd lost an election for governor.   https://www.msn.com/bud-kennedy-claimed-election-fraud-and-wouldn-t-leave-office

Texas - Day 37 - Palestine, Rusk, Crockett

Mission Tejas State Park, Grapeland

Wednesday, 9 December 2020

When the dogs and I went out for a 4:30 AM walk, we surprised a roost of vultures that were occupying a tree right above the trailer of that nice couple with the large dog.  I doubt if I'd have noticed, but the vultures did notice and all flew away at once, which was pretty startling in the dark.  I felt really bad when we found them in the tree they'd all moved to after we startled them the first time, scaring them a second time.  Poor things probably just wanted a decent night's sleep.

today's route

On the road

On the outskirts of Palestine, I saw a sign that said Old Magnolia Town.  That's all I saw about it, so I looked it up and found these combined sources of information about life on a Texas river in the 1800s.   https://historictexas.net/magnolia-texas

I came next to a sign saying Tennessee Colony, and that's all I saw about that too.  It turned out to be almost what you'd expect - an unincorporated town established in 1847 by settlers that moved in from Tennessee and Alabama.  It may still exist and was said to have 300 residents in 2000.

Palestine itself has 18,712 residents and struck me as an old town with random growth spread out around the original part of town.  And it's the county seat.

Anderson County Courthouse
in Palestine

detail from photo at left

Palestine, by the way, is pronounced -steen, not -stine like the area in the Middle East.  And to my surprise once again, it was named for the town in Illinois, not the Biblical place.

It's so common for towns in east Texas to be 25-35 miles apart, that I feel confident it's because of travel times in the early and mid-1800s when White settlers came into this area.  In this case, Palestine is less than 30 miles from Rusk.  I drove past thickly wooded areas, hay fields, deer, frost still visible at 9:15 (I was right to get propane 2 days ago).

There's an old railroad that still runs between the 2 towns.  Built originally in 1881 by the inmates of the Rusk Penitentiary to bring supplies to the prison, it soon expanded to public use and then was converted to a tourist attraction in the 1970s.  

I went to the Rusk Depot, hoping to see the train or get some information about its history.  Instead I found no trains in sight but, because the area included a campground and picnic area, they charge an admission fee for any day use, like walking my dogs, which is what I'd also hoped to do.  When I explained my plan to the woman at the ticket counter, she agreed I could walk the dogs for free if I stayed in the immediate vicinity.  She said the only train this time of year is the Polar Express, running in November and December.  The railroad's website has a vehement statement about the virus and the behavior expected of passengers.  It's the most detailed I've seen anywhere so far, and I'm attaching it in case you're curious.   https://texasstaterailroad.net

So, on into Rusk, pop. 5,551.  I saw an old town with an old downtown and zero vacancies.  To me, that was stunning, indicating as it does that this town is doing just fine.

Cherokee County Courthouse in Rusk
(as I saw it)

online version, showing
what's behind the trees

I could find no angle that I could take a photo where the building wasn't mostly obscured by those huge oaks in front.  That's why I looked its photo up online (on the right, above).  What I could see, though, was an unusual building made of a stone I haven't seen on any of the others.

It was another 35 miles to Crockett, past nonstop farms and clusters of houses or occasional solitary houses, interspersed with thick woods.  Narrow winding roads with lots of hills, and more than a few logging trucks.

I saw a cow facing the road by the fence obviously mooing, with several other cows rushing over to the mooing one.  Really.  I can't help but wonder what on earth was going on.

Both Slocum (pop. 198 in 2018) and Salmon (pop. 20 in 2000) have operating sawmills, which seemed surprising in a relatively uninhabited area.  Grapeland has 1,489 residents and an extremely popular cafe, judging by the number of cars in the parking lot at 11:20 AM.

Latexo, pop. 322, must be a very forward-thinking community because they've got a big sign bragging about the excellence of the local high school students in UIL academic competitions.  Specifically they usually do well in speech, persuasive speaking and current events, and in 2015 took 1st and 2nd and 3rd places in the 2A math competition.  I'm impressed.

Crockett

I just did not get along with this town at all.  I'm sure it's a nice place, but it and I just didn't work out together.  It started with a shopping trip into the worst Brookshire Brothers store I've ever seen by a mile.  It was dirty and crowded and some people didn't wear masks and I couldn't find most of what I wanted.

Then I misunderstood the road signs and thought I was on a 1-way street, and was only saved from running into someone by their quick thinking.  That was on a narrow uphill street, making things even more difficult.  I stopped at a nearby green area for us to walk around, and learned it's set aside for a Farmer's Market, which I appreciated, but it just wasn't enough to keep me from having a bad feeling about this place.  A shame.

Houston County Courthouse in Crockett

Back on the road

I drove through part of the Davy Crockett National Forest, passing through Kennard, pop. 337 - Small Town, Big Heart.

In the town of Ratcliff, so small nobody wants to tell me how many people live there, I saw a sign saying: "The wages of sin are death - Quit before payday."  Presumably meaning to quit sinning.  That seemed like some odd reasoning to me, assuming the "payday" is the day we die, but if everyone dies (which we do) then does it matter how much we sin?  But then I realized the sign poster must be meaning eternal life, which I can't say I find very attractive, personally, but it's clear lots of other people do.  All of which doesn't mean I intend to run out and start sinning.  (See, this is what happens when I can't get an NPR station - I start following my thoughts, usually leading to a tangle.)

I passed what I'm sure was a chicken farm, though there was no sign of any kind.

Google had told me to exit right from TX 7E, then turn left on US 69.  Of course I assumed there'd be some kind of sign indicating the roads or the towns the roads would go to.  I assumed way wrong.  No sign whatever.  Just suddenly there was a ramp off TX 7E at somewhere near the mileage Google had said it would be, so I took a chance.  It wasn't until I was ready to turn left that I finally saw a sign saying I'd be turning onto US 69.  Color me peeved.

In the town of Alto, with 1,225 residents (but no highway sign) I saw a sign for "Jone's Farm Produce."  Do you suppose the person's name was Jone?  Or instead that someone named Jones had lived all his or her life without learning where to put the possessive apostrophe in his or her name?

I turned on TX 21 and saw a small barn that had been turned completely over and was lying on its roof.

I'd intended to go to the Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, where I understood they were still excavating the mounds they'd discovered that had been built by the Caddo Indians.  Yet another disappointment in this day: the site was barely marked and was behind a serious fence that may not have been intended to discourage, but did discourage me.  So I kept on going down the road to tonight's campground.

I'd been semi looking forward to Mission Tejas State Park, where I'd heard there were some historic buildings that had been preserved, plus the campground was so small I figured I'd be okay walking my dogs.  Of course, none of that happened.  Instead, the park's signs routed me, in my RV, into a parking lot way away from the office (cars were allowed to drive right up to the window).  I parked, put on my mask and gloves, and climbed a bunch of stairs to the office to get checked in.  When I commented on having to park so far away and walk up all those steps, the ranger said, "Well, if that's what you wanted to do . . ." like their signs had given me a choice.  I was really peeved (again), because I'd been trying to avoid closed areas and limit my contacts with people.  By the time I'd walked back down to the RV, I just couldn't summon any interest in tracking down whatever historic remains they had.

I found the road to the campsites was very narrow, 2-way in name only, winding, very much downhill with blind curves.  I was extremely grateful I didn't meet anyone on the way down.

Then getting to my campsite was challenging because I like to drive around the campground and see where the dogs and I can walk, but at this campground they'd neglected to put up signs saying it was a one-way road around the camping loop, and of course I went the wrong way and had a heck of a time trying to back up and turn around, and ended up not knowing what lay beyond my field of vision in the campground.

So I gave up and went to my campsite, where I discovered that I could park in the space only because my RV was less than 25' long: when I was as far back as the tree smack behind my site would allow, there was less than a foot between my front bumper and the road.  It gave me no chance to try to maneuver a little to make the RV remotely level and we spent the night feeling like we were hanging on the edge of a cliff.  

There was nowhere at all for us to walk that wasn't a very very steep hill, meaning we had to climb up either to come or to go.  And Gracie hates going uphill and makes me do half the work of getting her up, which with my asthma isn't something I can do easily.  

In other words, this campground may have been wonderful for other folks, but it was a disaster for us.  The appropriate end to a messed-up day.

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.