ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game

[nova20194]

Harvie Heights, AB

Can you tell I have my Alberta map in front of me?  Actually,  I stayed in Harvie Heights last summer when I was working on the findingbrokeback.com website.  It's right next to Canmore, so those of you planning a trip to Alberta might want to look for accommodations in Harvie Heights as well as Canmore.

[belbbmfan]

San Leanna, Texas

SAN LEANNA, TEXAS. San Leanna is near Farm Road 1626 ten miles south of Austin in southern Travis County. It began as a subdivision of Austin in the 1950s but in 1970 was incorporated with its own mayor-alderman government. San Leanna reported a population of 200 in 1974; by 1988 the number of residents had increased to 297. In 1990 the population was 325.

[jpwagoneer1964]

Arcola,Tx

ARCOLA, TEXAS. Arcola is at the junction of Farm Road 521 and State Highway 6 and the intersection of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific railroads, twenty miles east of Richmond in southeastern Fort Bend County. The site is on part of the league granted in 1822 to David Fitzgerald,qv one of the Old Three Hundred.qv A large portion of the grant was sold to Jonathan Dawson Watersqv in the middle 1840s. By acquiring the whole league in 1850, Waters became the owner of one of the largest cotton and sugar plantations in Texas, which he called Arcola. The Houston Tap Railroad was built through the area of the plantation in 1858. After Waters' death the plantation lands were purchased by Col. T. W. Houseqv of Houston. The Arcola community was formed predominantly by freed slaves. A post office was established in 1869 and served off and on until 1920. Arcola became a railroad junction in 1878 when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe was built through the county. By 1884 the community had a sugar mill, two steam gristmill-cotton gins, two general stores, a Baptist church, and a school. In 1903 the Arcola school district had two schools serving forty-two white pupils and four schools serving 176 black pupils. In 1914 the community had an estimated fifty inhabitants and one general store. In 1940 Arcola had a church, a school, the Riceton-Arcola cemetery, and four businesses. Arcola's population slowly grew to 120 in 1949, 299 in 1968, and 661 in 1986, when the community incorporated. Some of its growth may be attributed to its proximity to Houston. Arcola had two churches, a school, and a number of scattered dwellings in 1980 and a population of 666 in 1990. The population grew to 1,048 in 2000.

[MaineWriter]

Arp, TX


The area was settled in the late 1860s, although things didn't really get going until the International-Great Northern Railroad came through in 1872 and made this stop on their line "Jarvis Switch." Growth was non-existant to slow until 1897 when truck farmer J. W. Melton relocated from Troup, Texas and started shipping tomatoes. A post office was granted in 1898 as "Strawberry, Texas" but this name only lasted a year. It was renamed for a newspaper editor named William Arp. By 1902 Arp had three churches, no fewer than five general stores, a drugstore and physician. Arp grew as a vegetable and fruit shipping point for area farmers and became the postal connection for Omen, Texas when their post office closed in 1906.

By 1914 the town had a population of nearly 400. Omen, Texas continued to decline and even their Masonic lodge moved to Arp. In 1931 oil was discovered and Arp became the headquarters for The McMurry Refining Company. The population reached it's high-water mark in the mid 1930s with 2,500 citizens but as the Great Depression wound down, so did the population - reaching about 1,000 by the end of the decade. It was still at that level in the 1960s, even though the number of businesses had declined by half. In 1989 there were just over 1,000 residents which declined to 812 by 1990.

Downtown Arp:



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[nova20194]

Pincher Creek, AB

Pincher Creek is a town in the southwest of Alberta, Canada. It is immediately to the east of the Rocky Mountains in the centre of ranching country.
The town received its name in 1868 when a group of prospectors lost a pincer in the small creek at this location. These pincers would have been used as a mechanism for trimming the feet of the horses and thus had some value to the group. It is alleged that for many years afterward, prospectors continued to search for the pincers whenever they passed through this area near the creek.
In 1906 the community on the banks of this creek was officially incorporated as a town and named Pincher Creek. For centuries before this area was settled, the Blackfoot, Peigan and Kootenai Nations lived in or frequented this region. Today the community is thriving. Many residents are descendants of the pioneer families who settled here over 100 years ago.
The town is in a particularly windy part of Alberta, because of the strong Chinook winds that blow off the mountains, and is said to have the highest average wind speed of any town in North America. The strong winds have given rise to a significant amount of wind farm development in the area, with the towers and blades of wind turbines being a characteristic of the scenery.
The town was severely affected by a flood that hit the area in 1995 as the peak stream flow discharge was 271 cubic meters per second
Notable Individuals: Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin was born in Pincher Creek, as was Stuart McDowall, Canadian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

[memento]

Kickapoo, TX

Kickapoo was on the east side of the Trinity River near the site of the present-day junction of U.S. Highway 190 and Farm Road 3152, ninety miles north of Houston in western Polk County. A community of settlers was there by 1846. They named the site for a group of Kickapoo Indians that often camped there on their treks from Northeast Texas to the Gulf of Mexico. The only group of Indians to actually settle permanently in the area were the Pakana Muskogees. Samuel Rowe and W. B. P. Gaines laid out the town in 1853. Their plot also included Patrick's Ferry, which had been operated by Isham T. Patrick and James Abbey as early as 1834. The community served as a Trinity River landing but lost much of its importance with the coming of the railroads to East Texas in the late 1870s. Although another community was established a mile away from the original settlement during the first quarter of the twentieth century, the Kickapoo post office, established in 1919, was discontinued sometime after 1930. The population dwindled from 100 in the early 1940s to an estimated forty by the latter part of that decade. Lists of towns dated 1949 do not include Kickapoo. The old townsite now lies under the waters of Lake Livingston, a man-made reservoir completed in 1968

[MaineWriter]

Old Moulton, TX



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[nova20194]

Nacmine, AB

The original name of the town was Monarch. It was later renamed after it founders, North American Collieries (NAC and Mine) and was situated four miles west of Drumheller on what was then the main highway between Calgary and Saskatoon and was the deepest mine in the Valley. As pretentious as its mine appeared to be, the townsite was even more so. It was a company town. The houses were attractive and painted in various colors. The houses were spread well apart with generous lots of over 100 feet being allowed for each house. Nearly every house was surrounded by a garden. Old time bunkhouses were eliminated. A two story hotel afforded accommodations for 160 single men. Children’s education was also provided in an up to date school building. The teachers lived in bungalows equipped with furnace, water, and electric lights. The village was entirely self-supporting having a post office, bank, two general stores, butcher shop, billiard room and an ice cream parlor. The company laid aside grounds for baseball, football, golf links, a skating rink, and a gymnasium. Things did go well until the depression of the 1930s. The mine kept operating until 1961 when it finally closed after 40 years. Today there are numerous abandoned buildings in Nacmine but some people decided to stay. Some day it undoubtedly will become part of the city of Drumheller.
H.B. Chenoweth

[jpwagoneer1964]

Erskine, Tx

ERSKINE, TEXAS. Erskine, on a site originally known as Kickapoo Springs, was near Kickapoo Creek twenty-eight miles southwest of Paint Rock in southwestern Concho County. The settlement was established in 1883 and acquired a post office the same year. In 1884 Erskine had a hotel, a general store, and a population of seventy. Local employment centered on the shipment of livestock and wool. Erskine apparently declined after the post office was moved to the nearby community of Vigo in 1887.

Also the name of a car produced by Studebaker from 1927-1930. her is the sad sory of rhe Erskine.

 was an American automobile brand produced by the Studebaker Corporation of South Bend, Indiana from 1927 to 1930. The brand was named for Albert Russel Erskine (1871–1933) who was the president of the Studebaker Corporation at the time.

During his term as Studebaker’s President, Erskine encouraged Studebaker engineers to develop advanced engines. As a result Studebaker began to amass not only numerous racing wins, but also began to claim more of the upper priced market. This left Studebaker without an entry level automobile in the United States, and Erskine, who had always been fascinated by smaller European vehicles saw market potential in a short wheel based, compact car, especially if it could expand Studebaker's presence in the European market.

When introduced in time for the 1927 model year, the car was named after its creator, and marketed as The Little Aristocrat. To make the Erskine affordable, Studebaker fitted the cars with a six-cylinder Continental engines rather than the more advanced Studebaker units and priced the cars at $995. Body design was by Ray Dietrich; the design proved to be quite a head-turner, and received numerous accolades from the British and French press. Initially, sales demand was promising. However, within a year Ford introduced its Model A and priced it at $525 dollars, undercutting the Erskine by $470.

To remedy this, Studebaker marketing suggested that the Erskine become a larger car, which when implemented grew the wheelbase from 108" to 114". The Erskine was no longer small, and became more like its Studebaker brethren. Ultimately, the Erskine was absorbed into Studebaker by May 1930. A little over a year later, Studebaker would try again with the 1931 Rockne brand automobile.

To his credit, Albert Erskine successfully strengthened Studebaker’s core automobile business and helped to guide the corporation toward technical advancements that eventually would help the company through the first few years of the depression.

However Erskine also encouraged the payment of stockholder dividends from Studebaker’s capital reserves as the depression deepened; this inflated the value of the stock, and eventually weakened the company. In addition to the two failed marques he created (Rockne and Erskine), Erskine also had purchased luxury car maker Pierce-Arrow during the high rolling 1920s, which had to be sold off to investors as a means of improving cash flow.

Rather than lose control of Studebaker, Albert R. Erskine committed suicide in 1933 on the grounds of Studebaker’s proving grounds (now Bendix Woods Park) outside of South Bend, Indiana.

[MaineWriter]

Eckert, TX

Once named Nebo, Texas after the local topogrphic feature called Mount Nebo, the town came into being when several families built around their Mount Zion church in the mid 1870s. When Wilhelm Rudolph Eckert applied for a post office, he modestly requested the name Eckert, Texas. His request was granted in 1903 and in just twenty-two years the population skyrocketed to 100. By 1933 it was down to a mere 15 people, but still the town held its ground. By the mid 1960s Eckert had a population of seven.