First Christian Church - Center, Texas

Formed in 1856 the congregation of the First Christian Church in Center, Texas, was one of the first in Shelby County.  Services were held in a private home until a building could be erected in 1886.  The current sanctuary was build in 1905 and moved to its present site in 1930.

Munzesheimer Manor - Mineola, Texas

A sweet little picket fence borders the Munzesheimer Manor, built at the turn of the century by a German immigrant for his new bride in Mineola, Texas.  Gustav Munzesheimer was part of a large family who settled in the area shortly after the Civil War.  The family was prominent in the community and several members served as city aldermen.  Today the family home, built entirely of pine and cedar, is a popular bed and breakfast in this quaint little town of 4,500 residents 80 miles west of Dallas.

Joining with other fence fanatics in Friday Fences. 

Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier

The historic Pleasure Pier opened in Galveston in 1943 and stood until it was destroyed by Hurricane Carla in 1961.  It was replaced by an over-the-water hotel, the Flagship, in 1965, which was then demolished by Hurricane Ike in 2008.  At that time plans were made to reestablish the Pleasure Pier and the carnival/recreation facility reopened the summer of 2012

Justice

Justice reigns over the gravesite of William Wright Morris (1805-1883) in Henderson, Texas, City Cemetery.  Judge Morris, for whom Morris County, Texas, was named, was an esteemed jurist in this area.  He was instrumental is promoting the first railroad in this part of the state.

The Weekend in Black and White

First National Bank, Stephenville, Texas

Seventy miles southwest of Fort Worth is the small town of Stephenville.  One of the prominent buildings on the courthouse square is the First National Bank built in 1889 and designed by J. Riely Gordon, a talented architect who designed approximately 18 of Texas' historic courthouses.  The triangular shaped building is constructed of white stone and is presently occupied by a firm of attorneys.

A Texas state historical marker describes the building as follows:  Built in 1889 to house the city's first bank, this is the earliest of three structures on the town square designed by prominent San Antonio architect J. Riely Gordon.  It features elaborate stonework and large arches typical of Romanesque revival architecture and a Queen Anne style tower and pedimented entrance.   The bank, organized by C.J. Shapard and with assets in excess of $158,000 by 1893, merged with Farmers National Bank in 1925 due to depressed oil and cattle prices.

Noble Manor - Mineola, Texas

Wrought iron fences are my favorite, especially those that have beautiful greenery like this one which surrounds the grounds of the Noble Manor in Mineola, Texas.

This gorgeous Greek Revival home was built in 1913 for Dr. Samuel Cloud Noble and his family.  Dr. Noble was a local dentist in the small town of Mineola.  Today the home is a popular bed and breakfast destination.  It has nine room with private baths and several cottages on the grounds.

Check out of the photos of other fence fanatics at

FRIDAY FENCES

Hillsboro City Library

Built in 1912, the former U.S. Post was deeded to the City of Hillsboro, Texas, in 1968 and plans were then made to refurbish the building and dedicate it as the Hillsboro City Library.   The design features a tiled roof, an ornate arched entrance arcade and elaborate detailing of terra cotta and stone.

Gargoyles enhance the front corners of the library.

This wonderful bronze sculpture in front of the library steps of a man reading to his daughter  

was donated by the Friends of the Library in 2011.

Old Nacogdoches University

Located just north of what is now Main Street in the heart of town is the Old Nacogdoches University Building.  Chartered by the Republic of Texas in 1845, it opened its doors in 1859 as the first nonsectarian university in Texas.  Of Greek Revival architecture made popular in the US in the 1800s, it is one of three oldest school buildings in the state.  Today it is home to a museum dedicated to education in Texas during the 19th century and items from a Confederate hospital, which was housed in the structure during the Civil War. 

Note:  Nacogdoches is recognized as the oldest town in Texas and has historical markers on practically every corner, even some in between!

Ginocchio Home ~ Marshall, Texas

Italian-American business leader Charles Ginocchio (1844-98) and wife Roxana settled in Marshall, Texas, in 1871 and built this home in 1886. The Ginocchios operated the Ginocchio Hotel which was just down the street from their home.  The hotel was next to the railroad station and Marshall was therefore a hub of activity in East Texas both before and after the Civil War.  You can still catch the Texas Eagle, in Marshall, Amtrak passenger service traveling daily between Chicago and San Antonio, taking you through Austin and Dallas.  Connecting service between San Antonio and Los Angeles is available three times a week via the Sunset Limited.  A study is currently being made as to the viability of adding a spur between Marshall and Shreveport, Louisiana, to help ease what is expected to be congested automobile traffic between Shreveport and Dallas in the years to come.

Guardian Angel

City Cemetery

San Augustine, Texas

Columbus Cartwright (1837-1901), his wife Sallie Lane Cartwright, and their son Clinton Cartwright are buried beneath the Angel in the San Augustine City Cemetery.

Columbus was born in San Augustine August 23, 1837.  His father, Matthew Cartwright, at the time of his death in 1870 was one of the largest landowners in Texas. He had acquired extensive land holdings by riding horseback throughout the settled portions of the state. He owned a horse he claimed to have ridden over 20,000 miles. Others claimed he could spend the night anywhere in Texas and sleep on his own land. After serving in the Civil War Columbus returned to San Augustine, and because of his family’s vast land empire, he spent the rest of his career in real estate. A tall, slender man, he loved horses and was a respected horse breeder. He has 16 descendents buried in the cemetery. In 1897 he deeded an entire block within the City of San Augustine to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. This land gift contained one dominant provision—that a certain portion of the premises be set apart for hitching horses and standing room for buggies. To this day, on the southwest corner of the block, a 15-foot hitching rack is available to all who might come by horseback or by buggy. The angel was placed in the City Cemetery in 1898 prior to Columbus’ death. At the same time an identical angel was placed over the grave of his father, Matthew Cartwright, who died in 1870, in Terrell, Texas, which is near Dallas.  In 1943 the angel’s wing was broken when a tornado ripped through the town.  The broken wing section was preserved through the years and was repaired in 1992.  The obvious fracture is visual in the photograph.  I first photographed this beautiful angel three years ago and she was covered with mold, soot, and lichen.  I was pleasantly surprised upon my return to San Augustine recently to find that she has been cleaned and is now sparkling white. LINKING TO TAPHOPHILE TRAGICS

The Goodman Angel

This beautiful angel, towering over the treetops and the other headstones in the Tyler, Texas, Oakwood Cemetery, presides over the family plot of the Goodman family, pioneers in this area.  Their family home, built in 1859, is now a museum in the City of Tyler.

Linking to Taphophile Tragics.  

Visit for other grave markers/cemetery subjects from all over the world.

Door Knocker ~ Hardware No. 4

The Goodman Mansion (1853)

 Tyler, Texas

Post Office ~ Martinsville, Texas

In the 1850s Dr. John Martin, a native of Alabama, settled about 10 miles from where I live and established a large plantation.  Around 1857 he built a mill and for many years the community was known as Martin's Mill or Martin City.  When residents applied for a post office in 1867 under the name Martin's Mill, they were informed that there was already a community by that name, so the name was changed to Martinsville.  The post office operated from 1867 until 1988 when this new building was constructed.  I'm sure it's one of few log post offices in the country and I think it is absolutely delightful.  Although the Texas Historical Association only estimated Martinsville to have 126 residents in 2000 it is a crossroad of two major roads in this area and the Martinsville Independent School District serves many rural students in the area from K through 12.  Its girls' basketball team is always a major force in district and frequently statewide competition.

More Autumn Leaves

Fall debuts on the grounds of the Sterne-Hoya House in Nacogdoches, the second oldest house in Texas' oldest city (built in 1830).  The small building on the left houses an 1800s buggy, while the taller building with a chimney, now a storage building, once was a servants' quarters.  Sam Houston was baptized into the Catholic faith in the main house in order to be able to receive a Spanish land grant.  Adolphus Sterne, his host and owner of the home, was asked to be godfather, but Stern, a Jew, refused because it was Yom Kippur.

Red-Lander

Imogene's Cafe in San Augustine, Texas, is now the occupant of the building which once housed The Red-Lander, one of the more prominent newspapers in the Republic of Texas during the 1840s. Sam Houston maintained a law office across the street from the Red-Lander for during most of the years of The Red-Lander's existence.

Stephen F. Austin ~ The Father of Texas

Stephen F. Austin

1783 - 1836

Memorial on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University

Nacogdoches, Texas

Born in Wythe County, Virginia, Stephen F. Austin, known as the Father of Texas, led the second but first legal and ultimately successful colonization of Texas  in 1821 by bringing 300 families from the United States after receiving an empresario contract from the Mexican government.  Austin played key roles in the fight for independence from Mexico and later in the government of the Republic of Texas.  Only nine months after Texas successfully won its independence, Austin caught cold and died of pneumonia.  His last words were, "The independence of Texas is recognized! Don't you see it in the papers?"  The state capitol is named for him, and I dare say that almost every town in the entire state has a street called Austin.

Road Trip Day Two ~ Leaving New Mexico, Arriving Texas

 

Glenrio Texas/New Mexico Diner

Day Two finds me still on Interstate 40 with not many chances for photos.  I decided to take an exit right at the border to see what a little town called Glenrio had to offer.  My studies had told me that it sits on the Texas/New Mexico state line straddling old Route 66.  Although Glenrio is pretty much a ghost town these days (even though I did hear a dog bark while taking a few photos), it was the site of the "First Motel in Texas" and the "Last Motel in Texas."  I suppose the same could be said for New Mexico due to its strategic location.  The town (although I think that's a description which may be a misnomer) consists of the remains of the Courtyard Motel, the Texas Longhorn Cafe and Phillips 66 station, the post office, and a few other buildings, including an old diner and adjacent Texaco station, and even the old Route 66 roadbed which had something similar to a modern-day median down the center. 

I next ventured off the interstate in Vega, Texas, because it had a courthouse I wanted to photograph.  It was somewhat disappointing compared to all the other fabulous courthouses I had seen on this trip and I found this old bus stop much more interesting.  This area of Texas is called the Panhandle.  I've never understood the logic of that because if you look at the US map it is obvious that the Panhandle belongs to Oklahoma.  Oh, well, Texas has always been known to be overreaching I suppose. 

Mulkey Theater, Clarendon, Texas

Shortly after leaving Amarillo I was able to abandon the interstate and continue my travels across the Panhandle and Northern Texas through the little towns that I love so much to visit.  My first stop was in Clarendon,  which had a population of 1974 in the 2000 census.  I had lunch at the Dairy Queen (there seems to be a DQ in EVERY town in Texas!) and then went rambling where I found the Mulkey Theater.  After arriving safely back home and doing a little bit of Googling I discovered in an article from the Amarillo Globe-News last March that the community of Clarendon has managed to raise $11,000 toward a necessary $20,000 to get the Mulkey's marquee lights up and running again as a first step toward revitalization of the property.  The theater is on the Top Ten List of Most Endangered Properties by Preservation Texas, a private advocacy group that encourages support and funding for historic places, archives, and artifacts.  Maybe I'll have the opportunity in a couple of years to revisit this area and take in a flick at the Mulkey.

Arizona Road Trip ~ June 2011

One of my first stops on my trip to Arizona was in Palestine where I found Sacred Heart Catholic Church.  The following is a quick history of the church from texashistory.unt.edu.

   
Sacred Heart's predecessor, St. Joseph's, was destroyed by fire in 1890 and the present building was started. It was completed and dedicated on June 18th, 1893 and named Sacred Heart.
    
The Architect was Nicholas J. Clayton, who is also known for the Bishop's Palace in Galveston, TX. 675,000 bricks were molded by hand and baked on the site from mud brought by wagon from the Trinity River. The building has plastered interior walls, varnished oak, knotty pine and is of Victorian Gothic Style. The Stations of the Cross were hung between 1901 and 1915. The stained glass windows are from Italy and France. The church seats 500 comfortably and a maximum of 1,000.
    
On April 25, 1926 a new Pilcher pipe organ replaced the old reed organ at the cost of 5,000. This organ is still used today for special occasions.

Old Nacogdoches Opera House

The Old Nacogdoches Opera House is one of the prominent buildings on Main Street in Nacogdoches.  The entire downtown area is considered a historic district and almost all the buildings have plaques giving some of their history.  The plaques dedicated to the Opera House are on the side of the building (the white signs in the lower right).  One plaque gives the history of the building and the other is a brief biography of Diedrich Anton Wilhelm Rulfs who is frequently referred to as the Master Architect of Nacogdoches.

In about 1831 the Mitchell Hotel, a stagecoach inn, was constructed on the site.  In 1889 the property’s owner wanted a place for theatrical companies to stop over as they traveled between Shreveport and Houston and commissioned Rulfs to build an opera house.  The ground floor housed the ticket office and a general merchandise establishment and a confectionery shop.  The theater was located on the second floor.

The theater did host operatic performances, but the majority of the touring shows were plays, melodramas, occasional burlesques, and magic shows.  The Marx Brothers first developed their improvisational style of comedy here.  The plaque describes an event involving the Marx Brothers as follows:  “During their act around 1907, a disturbance on Main Street caused most of the audience to run to see what was happening.  Accounts differ, but either a runaway horse or mule kicked a cart to pieces and dragged it down the street.  The Marx Brothers, angered by the loss of their audience, began to race about the stage in a frenzy of comic behavior.  Their parody of their own burlesque and their antics on stage brought the audience back and launched a new direction in their comic careers.  According to Groucho Marx, this performance even spawned the first Groucho-ism:  ‘Nacogdoches is full of roaches.’  He and his brothers were also arrested shortly thereafter for playing euchre, a popular card game, on the porch of their hotel.” 

The building ceased to be a theater in 1923.  A new owner replaced the original red brick façade with one of less ornamentation and renamed the building the Cason Building.  Over the next 80 years it was home to several different retailers and professional offices.  In 2001 the D.K. Cason Estate donated the structure to Stephen F. Austin State University’s Real Estate Foundation for an art center and today it houses the Cole Art Center.  The Nacogdoches Photography Association holds its monthly meetings on the second floor. 

Sabine County Courthouse

Constructed in 1906, the Sabine County Courthouse, a beautiful three-story red brick Beaux-Arts Structure, is located in Hemphill, surrounded by the Sabine National Forest and on the banks of Toledo Bend Reservoir.  The first county courthouse was destroyed by fire and this structure, only three years after its completion, suffered a fire which destroyed the top two floors, along with the dome and clock tower which were never replaced.  Sabine County, situated on the western bank of the Sabine River, which creates the border between Texas and Louisiana, shares the same name as its adjacent sister county, Sabine Parish, in Louisiana.  There are only three other instances in the United States where two neighboring counties with the same name share a state border.