Noack, TX to Lexington, TX

This past week I took some vacation time. Not having anything better to do I decided to drive out to Noack on Farm to Market 112. FM112 was designated in 1944 and runs from Taylor to Lexington. It's a pleasant drive with a lot of straight sections and a few curves here and there. The road alternates between having big stretches of farm and ranch land and being lined with tall trees. One day I'll get a GoPro or something to actually record these road trips because it's hard to stop and take pictures when there's no shoulders and the roads are a bit narrow. Not that it was particularly busy, especially on a Tuesday.




At some point you'll come to a church that was organized in 1891. It's still active today, it seems.

Further on  there's a three way intersection where a bar grill sits. I don't know what the building originally was, but it's been at least two bars. It may have always been a bar. Anyway, it looked like a nice place but it wasn't open when I got there. 

I think I could live this way. Away from the crowds in what some people might consider "the middle of nowhere" with a local watering hole to go to. Maybe people would even acknowledge my existence. Greet me when I show up. That would be nice.

There's another building nearby but I couldn't make out what it used to be. One day I'll be old enough to not give a crap and just go and poke around.

As I usually do, I wondered what it was, what it did, who owns it now, and do they know they own it? I understand that a lot of people would probably look at buildings like this as a dangerous eyesore for the community, but I'm thankful that they're left standing. I would love to poke around and see if there's anything left inside that gave some kind of hint as to what daily life was like.

I took my pictures and with a lack of locals threatening me with shotguns headed back onto the road to Lexington.

Lexington was originally name String Prairie. The name was changed in 1850. It's a small place with a population of about 1,200. It's the only town I've been to where I was greeted and welcomed by a town official. I don't know what she did, exactly, but she worked for the town. In any case, it was nice.

I wish I could live in a small town.

Smithwick, Texas

     Smithwick. I love the name. It sounds old-timey. Smithwick, though, has been a thorn in my sides for years. I've always wondered where the actual 'town' part of it was, if it still existed. Generally, Smithwick is on FM 1431, one of my favorite roads between Lago Vista and Marble Falls. Once you see the sign for Smithwick, though, you don't see much else besides a church, a graveyard, and the Smithwick Store, which was open and then closed and is now open again. I would pore over Google Maps looking around the county roads hoping to see something that looked like it might have structures.
     Recently, while going over the map again I thought I would take a Street View tour down one road because it came off a road that branches off of 1431 and is labelled on Google Maps as "Farm To Market 1431 Business." It's funny because there are no businesses there. At least, there isn't now. There might have been one situated on the island created by the "1431 business" and FM1431. There are a couple of old buildings, a stone sign, a fire pit, and steps that lead to nowhere.
     Near the center of 1431 'business' is county road 344 that heads south for quite a ways. It's a really nice drive if you like narrow roads with curves, hills, and some really nice views of the hills that remind you of why this area is called the Hill Country. I imagine at night it would be pretty scary if Camp of the Hills wasn't located back there. When you get to the end of it there are a couple of buildings that comprise at least part of what Smithwick was.

     It turns out it's a Freemason Lodge. It's been one since 1876, not long after the building was erected. There was a store on the first floor so I'm guessing this was probably "Smithwick" itself. It's still active, too.
     More pictures can be found here.

Deadman's Hole

     Dead Man's Hole is in Marble Falls, TX. On the outskirts. Well, I say 'outskirts' but sometimes I think these towns (cities) take up a whole lot more space than is generally recorded. Anyway, getting to Deadman's Hole isn't all that difficult: take 281 south out of town, make a left onto RM 2147, make a right onto Shovel Mountain (county road 401), and then make a left onto Deadmans Hole. It's the sign right up at the top of this post.
     Going by oral histories, this hole in the ground was used as a hanging and body disposal spot used against people with sympathies to the Union. The Daily Trib has an article on it. While once a dark and looming pit it is now a hole in the ground with a steel cover.

You can no longer "bring your own"

     If you made it here, though, you may as well see the rest of Marble Falls. There are quite a few places to eat and you can always stop in at The Blue Bonnet and take home a pie with about a mile of meringue topping it.

[Addendum] I shouldn't have been so short with this one. I have a few questions about this place and I don't see any place that answers them. For instance, the hole wasn't explored until the 1950s but there's no mention of if anything was found in it. I would expect that there would be remains of some kind down there so for that to not be mentioned is a little odd. Are there remains still down there? Personal effects? There is a hole in the steel cover so if someone had the equipment (small camera, a light, and a way to lower them down) I suppose it would be possible to get a look at something down there now. I kind of wish I had something to do that with.

Adamsville, TX

     Since there wasn't much to see in Izoro (at least, not from where I was; I didn't drive around the roads there) I decided it was high time to head back home. Maybe get some lunch. I meandered down FM 1690 (or is it RM?) and zoomed past a sign pointing to Adamsville. I remembered that there's a building in Adamsville with a plaque stuck on it, sighed in resignation, did a quick turn around, and headed up FM 581. Then I cheered up a bit because I wouldn't have to try and convince the navicomp lady that there is, indeed, an Adamsville.

It's right there

     It didn't take long to get there and when I got to the intersection I had to stop. There was a stop sign. But I would have stopped anyway because it wasn't what I was expecting. In front of me were a few buildings, three old pick-up trucks, and a lot of antique knick-knacks belonging to the Down Unda Trading Post. I then realized that there was actually another car behind me so I drove across the street and parked.
     The first thing I did was to walk past all the antiques and find the building that had the plaque in front of it.

Twice monthly fiddling jam sessions 

Bluegrass Played Here

     Then I went to see about the Down Unda Trading Post. The signs  outside promised genuine Australian meat pies and, by God, I was going to have one. I opened the door and was greeted by a very Australian sounding 'hello' and that's always a good sign.

Down Unda Trading Post

     The meat pies were excellent and I'm very glad I stopped in to have lunch. The inside has more knick-knacks and antiques. And a giant Terminator statue. And the walls are covered with writing from other visitors that have stopped. The proprietor is very nice and welcoming, as is her partner who, I believe, also fixes up the vehicles.

     If you ever happen to be going up US 281, stop and have a go at one of those pies.

Slightly more photos [HERE]

Izoro, TX

     I am guilty of being a "One More..." type of person. That is, I'll always play "Just one more round" of Civilization. Or have "Just one more" Dorito. Then, after six hours have passed and the Doritos are all gone I'll realize that I have "one more" timed myself into a sleepless night with orange fingers. So it was when I left Briggs I thought I'd just go another mile or so up the road. You know. Just to see if there was anything there.
     After twenty one more miles I ended up Lampasas. Lampasas is not a ghost town, although it has a sort of old timey look to it in the down town area, so I won't be going into much about it. Except that a couple of the early settlers in the area were brothers named Moses and Nimrod. Moses is a name you still see used every now and again. Nimrod, on the other hand, seems to be largely forgotten as something to name your child. Like Butch. After doing some research on Nimrod I'm a little surprised that anyone would name their kid Nimrod, as he sort of rebelled against God. But this isn't about Nimrod, or Butch, so let's move on.
     Lampasas brought me to an HEB parking lot where I stopped and decided to see how far away I was from Izoro. Once again, I got into a kerfuffle with the lady that lives in my GPS. I looked in the Cities list to see if it was there. It was not. I went to the Point Of Interest menu. It was not there. That wasn't surprising. I could put "Sea World" in there and it would list every Sea World in the USA, except for the one in San Antonio. Just to spite me.
     Being a man of livers, I used my phone and Google maps. It turns out it was another 20 miles up the road. I thought about not going, but, welllllll, I had already driven twenty miles from Briggs. What's another twenty? With that decided, how was I going to get there? I could use the phone GPS but it's easier to use the car's.  Luckily, there's an option to use a place on the map as a destination.
     I knew I had to take U.S. Route 281. According to Wikipedia, U.S. Route 281 is the longest, continuous, three digit U.S. Route. If you look at it on the map it basically bisects the country, starting about two miles from the border of Mexico and ends in North Dakota at the Canadian Border. None of that matters, though, because I wasn't going to be on it for quite that long. No, I'd be turning off on to FM 1690 and rolling through the scenery until I reached Izoro.

Scenery

Pattern matching

     One would think that was good enough, but I wanted it on the GPS so I poked at the screen going up 281 and tried to match the roads on the phone to the roads on the GPS. It wasn't working. Now, I know I'm an intelligent person. The problem here, it turned out, was that on the phone North was up. On the GPS, up is whichever direction the car is facing. So, while I was swiping to go up on the phone, I was actually poking to go south on the car GPS. Again. Intelligent. Just not too smart, sometimes. Anyway, after I got that straightened out, I realized that the highway numbers on the car GPS didn't match up with the numbers on Google Maps.
   
Much cursing and threatening ensued until I finally found the intersection I was looking for. By shape, if you believe it.
     TSHA doesn't have a lot of info about Izoro. There doesn't seem to be a lot there. Texas Escapes has a bit more info which, boiled down, would be that there was once a Romeo & Juliet thing going on that resulted in a gunfight, boll weevils invaded the cotton crop, and there was a woman who delivered the mail and assassinated questionable looking flowers.

No gas for you!

     But, as they say, it's about the journey -- not the destination. Unless you need gas.

     I wonder if this is the same Izoro Gillam. She would have been 13 when the town was renamed from Higgens Gap.

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].

Norman's Crossing, TX

     At the intersection of FM 3349 and FM 1660 lies Norman's Crossing. Going here was kind of unintentional. You see, I don't actually just get in the car and drive around and miraculously come across old buildings or whatever. I generally pore over Google Maps and look for something out of the ordinary, like Dime Box, or just happen upon something that catches my attention. Then I look it up on Wikipedia or the TSHA site. After that I use Street View to see if there's anything interesting nearby.

St. John's Church, built 1925

     Norman's Crossing didn't really get my attention. What I saw in Street View was, basically, an historical marker set into the ground. I decided, then, to give it a pass and just drive around in the hopes I found something interesting. Shopping had to be done and I didn't want to take up a lot of time, anyway. Also, it looked like it would rain.
     So I fired up the Red Head and took a drive. I found a church at a cross roads and stopped to see if, maybe, it had a marker on it and maybe find out when it was built. That could take a few minutes of my time. Sure enough, it did. I took some pictures which, I swear, were straight when I took them.
     Turning, I looked across the street to see if there was anything over there. That's when I saw this:

It was fate!

     Really. What were the odds of the random left and right turns I took to eventually end up at the place I had decided not to bother with? I won't say it was a wasted trip. It was actually quite nice. And I didn't travel too far from home. And I saw this lovely couple who were eyeing me suspiciously.

"You just keep right on movin'..."

   

They feature live music

 There's also a bar nestled back here call R Brushy Creek Bar. It wasn't open, I think, when I went past. I'd be curious to know what it's like when it is open. Is it busy? Do a lot of people stop by? I had always hoped that when I got to this place in life that I'm at that I'd have a small house next door to a bar like this.
     I'm not sure why; I don't actually drink much these days. I guess it would just be nice to be around a group of people who go on about their lives doing living people kind of things.

Walburg, TX

     There are times in a new relationship where you begin to realize that things might get a little rocky. That's fine, you know. Every relationship needs to have a little give and take here and there. It can be rough, though, when the other party just won't listen to reason.
     The trip to Walburg, for instance, was when I realized that I and my new GPS weren't going to see eye-to-eye on things. Like, for example, the existence of Walburg, TX. I knew it existed. It's on Google Maps. There are signs that point to it. There's a restaurant there called The Walburg Restaurant. There's even been UFO sightings near there. My GPS, however, refused to believe me so I was forced to somewhat manually navigate.
     After I returned from The Grove, my friend wanted to go to lunch. I needed an excuse to go to Walburg. Going to the Walburg Restaurant seemed like a good idea. I picked her up and, after fighting with the Red Head's GPS, we mosied on up there.

It. Is. On. The Map!

     Walburg is on FM 972 in the upper reaches of Georgetown and established sometime between 1881 and 1886. It was originally named Concordia. It's a pleasant place and isn't deserted. There are a number of buildings and houses, I think. There's actually two places to eat but I haven't had a chance to try Dale's Essenhaus. Yet.

Home to a contraption

     Like most small towns, it just runs down the main street. Had it gotten bigger it would have grown to take up more streets. Probably. I'm not an expert in the life cycle of a city.

     I don't write about the roads to get to these places as much as I'd like. I think I'm going to have to break down and buy a GoPro or something and mount it to the car so I can go back and review. Most of these roads are generally straight but with some wicked 90 degree turns. They're paved, for the most part. You may think I'm being facetious but I'm not; there are many roads that are still not paved. Especially (possibly only) county roads.

Stuff  you see on the back roads

I recommend stopping in and eating here

     The Walburg Restaurant, by the way, is pretty good. A lot of German food. They even have a biergarten in the back, which the social side of me would love to go to for an evening and see a bunch of people having fun. My friend assures me, though, that there'd be five people back there. They also have an arcade which I would say would be for the kids to enjoy while the parents were getting plastered, but I'd totally go in there.

What arcades in the 1800s looked like

I don't think it's a delivery truck

Additional photos are [here]

The Grove, TX

     I haven't been updating this blog as often as I should have. For personal reasons I've been a bit tethered in where I can go and when, but now I'm ready to get back out there on the road and do some explorin'. That the summer months are getting behind us and the weather should be getting cooler has nothing to do with it. I have, though, been doing some driving; I just haven't written about it. I'll try and get through the backlog of visited places.

     Sometimes I wake up in the morning and just feel like doing something. So I swing the camera case over my shoulder, and walk out the door. After I get down the three flights of stairs I check my camera and see that I forgot to put the SD card back in. Even though I have at least two of them, I only know where one is so I go back up the three flights of stairs, open the door, grab the SD card and walk out the door. Then I stop and try and remember if I locked the door. Then I check the door. Then I got all the way downstairs again and put the SD card in the camera.

     At this point I don't feel like going anywhere. But I'm dressed, I'm outside, and I'm ready to go. So I do. This particular day I chose to go to The Grove. There are, it turns out, two The Groves: one in Jefferson, TX and the other is near Fort Hood and Temple. I went to the Temple one since it was an actual town and not just a house.

     The Grove is kinda sorta famous. There's a video about it being auctioned off a few years ago.

     It's in private hands now. Technically, I don't think I should have been there but I didn't know that until I got very close to a very small sign that basically said to ask for permission before tromping around. Despite that, the woman who drove by me on the dirt rode did so very slowly so's not to raise up a lot of dust and ruin my pictures.

Game time! Find the dragonfly!

     The Grove was established in 1859 and named for the trees around it. Once prosperous, it was brung low by Highway 36 not going through it, Fort Hood needing some land, and the building of Belton Dam. It's on FM 1114 and not far from SH36. It's pretty easy to get to. It's also not far from Mother Nef State Park. Practically right across the street.

     The place has seen better days, I suppose. The new owners, I think, haven't decided what to do with the place.

Not much in the way of merchandise right now

     It's a pleasant drive, though. Except, of course, for the parts of I35 that I had to take. That's just a nightmare. I think it's certainly worth a look.

Soda Signs

     There's a sign for a Grapette soda on one of the buildings. I wondered if it were real since The Grove had been used to film some TV and movies and it's not unknown for the production people to put fake placements in. It turns out it is a real soda and it's still being sold. At Wal*Mart. Go figure.

     I'd like to mention at this point that I get a lot of information from Wikipedia, The Texas State Historical Association, and Texas Escapes. Without these sites I'd just be driving around in circles.