Texas'
state highways are some of the most interesting ways to
travel. They pass through--not go around--interesting
communities of every sort. The towns are both
beautiful--sometimes (and sometimes not so beautiful)--and
often historically interesting.
The two longest state highways in Texas are Highway 16 and
Highway 6. Both cut across scenic and historically
significant parts of the state.
Texas 16 branches off US 281 thirty-two miles south of
Wichita Falls--or seven miles south of Windthorst, if you
prefer. It finally terminates on the banks of Falcon
Reservoir, in Zapata, on the Rio Grande. The first town it
encounters is the community of Loving, named for Oliver
Loving of the Goodnight-Loving trail. If you saw the TV
mini-series Lonesome Dove, the character of Gus was
based on Oliver Loving. Not far away is the headquarters of
the famous JA ranch, once owned by John Adair, one of the
founders of what is now the Texas & Southwestern Cattle
Raisers Association. The JA ranch was the original
headquarters of that organization.
Just off the road to the east is the site of the Warren
Wagon Train massacre, one of the worst incidents in the
Texas Indian wars. Seven teamsters were murdered in a
particularly horrible manner by a band of Kiowas from the
Fort Sill Reservation, led by a warchief usually called
Setank or Satank. His name, pronounced phonetically, is
closer to Set-An-Gay. Literally, it means 'Bear Pushes With
Its Feet,' which is usually shortened to Kicking Bear.
In a confrontation straight out of a John Wayne movie,
Setank and two of his subchiefs were arrested at Fort Sill
and extradited to Texas to stand trial. Before the wagon
carrying him got off Fort Sill Setank tried to escape--or may
have been trying to get killed rather than face 'white-man
justice.' He was shot and killed by his guards. The other
two were tried in Jacksboro for the murders of the
teamsters. Both were sentenced to hang. One committed
suicide in prison by leaping headfirst from a third floor
window onto a stone-paved courtyard. The other converted to
Christianity, was eventually pardoned, and became a
Methodist missionary among his people. The actual instigator
of the massacre, a medicine man called Owl Prophet, was
never prosecuted.
South of Loving the road goes through the town of Graham.
Graham is a jewel--one of the prettiest towns in Texas. It's
also centered in an oil patch, and there's no pretty way to
enter the town. Every approach road is lined with oil-field
equipment yards. Don't miss Graham's downtown park. It's a
real beauty.
Near Graham is Ft. Belknap State Park. Ft. Belknap, one of
the string of frontier forts established in Texas, was
extremely prominent during the Indian Wars. It was from Ft.
Belknap that General Phil Sheridan departed for Fort
Richardson, near Jacksboro, on the same day the Warren wagon
train was attacked. Sheridan's wagons used the same route as
the Warren train, and passed the ambush site while the
Kiowas lay in wait. Owl Prophet told Setank "There will be
two wagon trains to pass. Do not attack the first. It would
be very bad to attack the first. You may attack the second
safely."
At approximately the time Sheridan's wagons were passing the
ambush site, he said to his aide "I don't see what these
Texans are complaining about. We haven't seen a single
Indian sign this whole trip." Late that evening a Warren
survivor staggered into Ft. Richardson with the news of the
massacre.
South of Graham the road skirts the north and east edges of
Possum Kingdom Lake. The fishing there is said to be
outstanding, and scuba divers have reported catfish of
gargantuan proportions in the deepest parts. According to
one I talked to, a catfish he saw "…could have swallowed a
Volkswagen and it wouldn't have made a bulge."
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The smokestack in Thurber
TE photo, 2001 |
The well-used Desdemona Jail - built of Thurber Brick
TE Photo, 2004
Below
Possum Kingdom the road meets--and follows--US 181 for a short
distance, then turns south again. At Strawn take a side trip
to the east on Spur 108 to Thurber to see the Thurber
tipple. Thurber, once a thriving community, was the site of
a coal mining boom in the early years of the 20th Century.
The great wooden coal tipple is about all that's left of
Thurber.
Back on 16, the next town you encounter is Desdemona, once
called Hogtown. Take a look at the old Desdemona jailhouse.
It's worth seeing.
South of Desdemona, at De Leon, 16 crosses 6, the other
'longest state highway in Texas.' South of De Leon is
Comanche. Have a look at the big oak tree on the courthouse
square--Uncle Mart's Tree, it's known locally. You'll find a
local to tell you the story behind it. It was in Comanche
that 21-year-old John Wesley Hardin killed Brown County
Deputy Sheriff Charlie Webb, his last-known killing. It was
the only Hardin killing out of somewhere between 44 (my
count) and 51 (his count) that couldn't, after
Reconstruction ended, be justified as self-defense. It was
also the only one Hardin himself said he regretted.
South of Comanche the road passes through Priddy and
Goldthwaite and into San Saba. San Saba, besides being known
as 'The Pecan Capitol of Texas,' is the burial place of Sion
Record Bostick. Never heard of him? Sion Bostick was one of
the 'five young Texans' who found a 'Mexican private'
cowering in a creekbed after San Jacinto. The 'Mexican
private' was none other than Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
y Perez de LeBron, President of Mexico.
Llano - Roy Inks Bridge spanning Llano River
Photo courtesy
Barclay Gibson, December
2007
South
of San Saba the road passes through some mighty pretty
country, through the tiny town of Cherokee, and into Llano,
the 'Deer-Hunting Capitol of Texas.' There's a lot more than
deer hunting to Llano County, including the location of
La Cueva de San Jose del Alcazar, the original Lost San
Saba Mine. Take a side trip down Texas 71--another long
highway--and look on the east side of the road for the
historical marker just after you cross Honey Creek. After
you read it, go down a piece to where Click Road branches
off to the west. Stop there and look west. The mountain in
front of you, today known as Riley Mountain, is the original
Cerro del Almagre or 'hill of red hematite.' Look in
the saddle of the mountain for two large liveoaks. At the
foot of those two trees is the original Lost San Saba Mine
shaft, today called 'Boyd shaft.'
A little farther down the road you'll cross Sandy Creek. You
can, if you're absolutely determined, actually recover gold
from Sandy Creek. It's flour gold--as fine as grains of
flour--and before electronic concentration the only way to
recover it was to amalgamate it with mercury and then boil
the mercury off. Not only would inhaling the mercury fumes
kill you, you'd spend more on the mercury than the gold
would be worth.
Farther down 16, just out of Fredericksburg, you'll pass
Enchanted Rock. If you happen to be there after a series of
very hot days and camp at the park, if a norther blows in
that night you'll hear where it got its name. The rock is
made up of a series of layers, sort of like a huge granite
onion. The outer layers expand with heat, and when suddenly
cooled--like a norther hitting after a series of hot days--it
gives off some of the most ghastly, unearthly groaning
sounds you'll ever hope to hear as the outer layer,
contracting in the cold, scrapes against the inner layers of
rock. Most of the creeks in the area also yield tiny garnets
and sapphires for the rockhound--but don't do your
rockhounding in the state park. It's illegal.
Fredericksburg needs no introduction. The home of the Nimitz
Museum of the Pacific War, it is home to some of the most
interesting--and rare--exhibits of that conflict. One is a
pair of panties and a brassiere crocheted from string
scavenged off Care packages sent to the nurses who were
captured when the Philippines fell. The Sunday House Café
has some of the best wurst in Fredericksburg, and it
also stocks Doppelspaten--'Double Shovel,' a German
beer so dark it makes brown foam when you pour it. It's
brewed according to the Bavarian purity law--all it can
contain is water, yeast, malt, and hops--and the brewery's
been in business since before Christopher Columbus's great-grampaw
was born.
South of Fredericksburg the road goes through Kerrville,
another town that needs no introduction. Home of the famous
YO ranch and Schreiner College, now Schreiner University.
Kerrville was also once home to the state's tubercular
sanitarium. The high, dry climate of Kerrville was
considered ideal for putting tuberculosis into remission.
South of Kerrville at the crossing of the upper Guadalupe
River, you go down one of the last 'Model T' roads in the
state. In coming off the bluff to the bridge below, the road
is a series of switchbacks. These were necessary in the days
of Model T and Model A Fords, since neither had an oil pump.
Both depended on 'splash oiling,' like a modern lawnmower.
At the end of each switchback a Model T or Model A driver
would stop and rev his engine several times to make sure
enough oil splashed up into the cylinders and on the
bearings that the next switchback could be climbed or driven
down without burning up the engine.
A side
trip down Spur 173 will take you to Camp Verde, once home to
the US Army's Camel Corps. Only one of the original
buildings stands today. Once the camp headquarters, it is
today a private residence. The chimney is dated and marked
'Pisé Work.' That's not a misspelling of 'Piece Work.'
'Pisé' is French for adobe.
FM 2828, which leaves Spur 173 just south of Camp Verde,
will take you through some very pretty country and join 16
just south of Medina. In Medina there is a house of
particular interest. It was designed by General John Bell
Hood--Commander of Hood's Texas Brigade, CSA.
Southeast of Medina you encounter Bandera, 'The Cowboy
Capitol of Texas.' There's an interesting old museum there,
but mostly, these days, Bandera is home to what were once
called 'Rexall Rangers'--drugstore cowboys. That doesn't mean
it didn't have a rootin', tootin', shootin' past, though.
From Bandera the road goes through Pipe Creek and Helotes
and into San Antonio. South of San Antonio the road goes due
south in an almost straight line for nearly 150 miles. It
passes through Poteet, 'The Strawberry Capitol of Texas,'
where the water tower is painted to look like a giant
strawberry. Poteet is home to a Strawberry Festival every
spring. The next town is Jourdanton, where a lot of the old
cattle trails began to join up. The cowboy statue in
Jourdanton is interesting.
South of Jourdanton you enter what's known as 'The Free
State of McMullen.' McMullen County is one of the few
counties, if not the only county, in the US which does not
take and has never taken federal subsidies of any kind. The
county seat is Tilden, once known as Dogtown.
Tilden
came by its new name in 1876. Samuel J. Tilden, former New
York Governor, founder of the New York Public Library, and
the 1876 Democratic candidate for President, actually won
the popular vote. The electoral vote was tied, which
threw--by law, at least--the election into the US House of
Representatives, a body dominated by Radical Republicans. In
a series of machinations probably understood fully only by
God, the Radicals disrupted the election process and
Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugurated. This was known as 'The
Crime of '76,' and the people of Dogtown renamed their town
for the man who won the vote but was denied the presidency.
From Tilden it's a long way--41 miles, to be exact--to Freer,
and there's nothing out there. You've heard of 'miles and
miles of Texas?' This is where it's brought home to you with
a vengeance. You're in the brasada--the brush country
of South Texas. The ranches are big and the side-roads few.
In fact, you'll find only two side-roads on your Texas map.
You will, however, cross the Nueces River.
Freer is in Duval County, which once had an evil reputation.
It was the domain of George B. Parr, 'The Duke of Duval.'
Parr has an evil reputation outside Duval County, but
if you ask the ordinary people in Duval County, you'll hear
a different story. While George B. treated the Duval County
treasury as his own personal checkbook--Duval County once
bought $40,000 worth of snow-removal equipment because
George B. got a sizeable kickback from the seller--nobody
went hungry in Duval County if el Patrón heard about
it. Don't have enough money to give your daughter a proper
quinceañera? El Patrón will see to it she has
her quinceañera. Got a son or daughter who's smart
enough to go to college but you can't afford it? Talk to
el Patrón. Many a Duval County youngster got a far
better education than the family could afford, thanks to
el Patrón. Far from being a parasite like many
'political bosses,' George B. Parr was something entirely
different and far older. He was 'el Patrón.'
Another 39 miles of brasada--make sure you have plenty
of gas, because there's nothing but miles and miles of miles
and miles between Freer and Hebbronville--will bring you into
the heart of the South Texas oil patch. Between Hebbronville
and Zapata things get a mite more interesting. You'll pass
through--or by--three almost-ghost towns. They are Randado,
Escobas, and Bustamante. The latter two contain some
interesting buildings. The few residents of Escobas and
Bustamante, for the most part, speak only Spanish. It's best
to photograph the buildings' exteriors and leave exploration
of the interiors--even the abandoned ones--alone. The final 55
mile stretch from Hebbronville to Zapata brings you to the
shores of Falcon Reservoir. In the lake--sometimes visible if
the water is very low--are the ruins of 'old Zapata,' the
original town the lake covered when it was built. |
