Zephyr and Brownwood ~ Arizona Road Trip Day One

Zephyr, Texas

Population 200 

Brown County Courthouse

Brownwood, Texas

Constructed in 1884 but totally remodeled in 1917

Note to Magpie:

The steps don't lead to the second floor on this one!

Leon River Bridge and the center of Texas ~ Arizona Road Trip, Day One Continued

The Leon River Bridge, a one-lane wooden/concrete truss bridge is located on the outskirts of Gatesville, a small town in Central Texas.  This 141-foot bridge was constructed in 1904 and has served as a major transportation link in Central Texas since that time.  I met several interesting characters while walking across this bridge, all residents who stopped to chat and surmise who the gray-haired lady stranger was who wore a weird-looking apparatus around her neck and occasionally pulled it up to her face in front of her eyes.

On one side of the bridge resides another truss system to escort a pipeline across the river.

Center City was proudly proclaimed to be the geographic center of the state of Texas in the 1870s.  It probably still is but there's not much left of it.  This old store and the windmill and a couple of rundown trailers is about all that's left.  There supposedly is an ancient oak tree which was planted right in the center of the biggest darned state in the union (at that time!) but maybe it died before I got there because I couldn't find it at the four-corner stop which represents Center City.

Waco Suspension Bridge ~ Arizona Road Trip

Suspension Bridge over the Brazos River in Waco, Texas.  Built in 1870, today it is a pedestrian bridge.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

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.

The Electrical Inspector ...

San Augustine, Texas

... was undoubtedly on vacation when this building was wired.

This photograph reinforces my thought that many buildings are much more interesting from the rear than from the front.  That thought also holds true for some humans.

Postscript:  I will be leaving tomorrow, June 23, on a road trip taking me back to Arizona for a visit.  I won't be able to visit you or post new photographs except sporadically for the next three weeks.  I promise upon my return to bring you more rust, more back views, more doors and windows, and plenty of sights encountered along the way.  Happy days, my friends!

Double Doors

Logansport, Louisiana

Back Doors ~ No. 5

Hemphill, Texas

Hibiscus

We have a whole flower bed dedicated to the Dinner Plate Hibiscus, and, yes, the blossoms are the size of dinner plates.  The ones we have are either pale pink, a medium pink like the one shown, and a dark red.  They are my mother's favorites of our flowers.  I personally like the smaller varieties with double blossoms, but I must admit these guys are the showiest of them all.  Whoever stops by oohs and aahs over them.  They are so big they are actually visible 50 yards up the road.  My mother picked this particular one and brought it inside and floated it in a bowl of water.  It made a very pretty and unique centerpiece.

Sheet Metal Art

Art is everywhere.  All you have to do is find it.

Old Train Car

Railroad Graveyard, Rusk Texas

What kind of car do you think this was in its heyday?  Dining Car?  Smoking Car?  Maybe a private car?

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. 

Back Doors ~ No. 4

Seen and photographed at San Augustine, Texas

This series is dedicated to back doors, which are invariably more interesting than front doors.  

Here some small purple morning glories dominate peeling paint and other weeds.

Daylily Farm

Yesterday I went to a nearby daylily farm.  

It is only open for one month during the summer and they have an estimated 50,000 daylilies.  

Here are a few that I thought were the most beautiful.

Even the spent blossoms had a certain beauty!

Milk Can ~ Flea Market Find