Briggs, TX

     Why do I do this? I mean, the driving around part and taking pictures. Sure, going to parks and lakes makes sense because that's what they're for, right? But why small towns? Abandoned buildings? It's a good question, and one that I have an answer for, but it would take a while to fully articulate. For now, I think, I'll just say that time is kind of compressed now. A lot of things change in a short period of time and I wonder, sometimes, what it was like to live in a time when things didn't change quite so much quite so quickly.
     Labor Day weekend. Other people have families and go camping or to the lake or do some grilling or whatever it is people that have families do on holidays such as this. I was determined not to spend all my time at home but didn't have anything planned. So I went to Briggs, TX.
     Briggs is on U.S. Route 183 in Burnet County. US 183 is kind of a big thing in Austin. It's one of the highways that are always clogged up when people are trying to get somewhere. I'm betting not too many people know that it runs from nearly the Gulf of Mexico to almost Canada. Or they don't care. Once you get north of Austin it kind of calms down, although it's still pretty busy. It isn't until you get past Cedar Park and Liberty Hill that it turns into a small four- to two-lane highway.
     If you leave 183 and take State Spur 308 you'll pass by the bank in Briggs, which closed in 1928 after a fire swept through the town. If you do some searching you can find real estate links showing that it is, or was, for sale. I'm not sure if it still is and I don't have the $200,000 to snap it up, although it would be pretty neat to worn.

The bank in Briggs

     There are a few buildings here that don't seem to be doing much. There was one that I found kind of odd because it looks like it has two exterior front walls. I didn't notice when I took the picture, but when I played around with it in Lightroom it looks like there was something written on what I guess is the inside exterior wall? I don't know. I'm not an architect so I don't know how these things work.
     I look down the row of buildings and wonder what life was like here, up until 1928. They got electricity and telephones in the early 1900s and I wonder how that happened.
     After the 1928 fire nobody rebuilt the burnt down buildings. I guess they moved away. I wonder what started it? I wonder if I should have asked that old man that wished me a good morning if he had been around back then. Something to think about for the future, I guess.

Looks like it says something to me

     There are more photographs [HERE].