ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game

[MaineWriter]

Wizard Wells, TX

Originally the town was named Old Vineyard for local resident G. W. Vineyard.

In the 1880s Vineyard discovered that sore on his legs were cured by spring waters. The healing powers of the waters attracted a lot of attention and so the place was dubbed "Wizard Wells." The town never prospered to the extent of other mineral springs, probably because it was lacking a railroad link. The population was close to 200 from the 1920s until the 1940s. Postwar mobility drained off its share of the townsfolk and now its down to the reported estimate of 70.

Leslie

[Meryl]

San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico

[jpwagoneer1964]

Oyster Creek, Tx

OYSTER CREEK, TEXAS. A second Oyster Creek, an incorporated industrial community, is located twelve miles southeast of Angleton on State Highway 523 and the Missouri Pacific line in southeast Brazoria County. The community was established in an area first settled by Sam Hudgins and other cattlemen and later developed into cotton and sugar plantations. A Methodist mission church and a one-room schoolhouse served the area by the 1880s. The community grew between 1890 and 1894 when two brothers, known only as Horn and Horn, formed a promotion company and offered as a bonus one lot in Velasco for the purchase of five lots in the prairie along Oyster Creek. The company failed when the government prosecuted the brothers for embezzlement through the mails, sending one to prison and leading the other to cut his throat. A 1915 flood reduced the size of the community. By 1936 a church, a factory, and numerous dwellings remained at the townsite. In 1944 Oyster Creek became part of the Brazosport industrial and port area. In 1956 the town had 574 residents, six businesses, and ten churches; the population grew to 700 by 1966, but by then all the businesses had closed. The population was 600 in 1970 and 912 in 1990.

You can stay at the Oyster Creek RV Park pictured below.

Mark

[Fran]

Krum, TX

[MaineWriter]

Manhattan, TX

Manhattan was a planned town to be situated at the mouth of Caney Creek on East Matagorda Bay. The junction of the Matagorda Peninsula with the mainland once appeared on maps as Manhattan Bay.

The early years of settlement in Matagorda and Brazoria counties and the heady optimism of Texas independence created a boom of speculation with many trying to predict the next Brazoria or Quintana. Manhattan never developed - despite its optimistic name.

A local newspaper - the Matagorda Bulletin anounced plans for The Manhattan Academy to be established there. The trustees included such notables as Anson Jones, Mirabeau Lamar and William H. Wharton. The academy was intended to be a draw to the planned town, but the trustees were busy with other projects.

In 1838 the Caney Navigation Company listed three of the company's officers with having a Manhattan residence. In 1843 papers incorporating the Matagorda Caney Navigation Company referred to a place "commonly called the town of Manhattan."

The Matagorda Bulletin reported in 1838 that weekly trips between Matagorda and the town of Manhattan would be made by a sloop - also named Manhattan.


Leslie

[jpwagoneer1964]

North Cleveland, Tx

NORTH CLEVELAND, TEXAS. North Cleveland, an incorporated residential subdivision on Farm Road 2025 on the northern edge of Cleveland in extreme northwestern Liberty County, was incorporated in the 1960s, when residents chose to deannex themselves to avoid paying city taxes. The population, first recorded in 1966 at 425, reached a high of 471 in 1978, and was last recorded in 1990 at 176. At that time a church was in the community, but no business establishments were in operation.

Mark

[Meryl]

Dunlap, TX

[MaineWriter]

Portland, TX

 John G. Willacy, purchased 1,920 acres of land from the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company in 1891. Willacy had formed an investment company by uniting the New England Land Company of Portland, Maine and the Portland Harbor and Improvement Company of Wichita, Kansas.

A post office was granted in March of 1891and lots went on sale that July. Potential buyers were brought across the bay by a chartered boat to a hotel built especially for the occasion. Others arrived by train from San Antonio. By the following year the population had reached 500 and a 1,200-foot wharf was built.

Boom times disappeared with the panic of 1893 and the now vacant hotel was converted into Bay View College - an institution that operated until it was destroyed in a 1916 hurricane.

Since Portland had no water supply of its own, water was piped in from a well in Taft.

In 1911 Willacy tried again by negotiating with the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company for the land that it had repossessed.

Competetion from the Rio Grande Valley (for agriculture) and the hurricanes of 1916 and 1919 dashed Portland's dreams of becoming a port.

Portland's growth since then has been from an overflow from Corpus Christi. The city limits of Portland now extend into Nueces County.


Leslie
MaineWriter, who works in Portland, Maine!

[jpwagoneer1964]

Dayton, Wy

Dayton was named in 1882 after Joe Dayton Thorne, one of the founding fathers of the community. The town has the distinction of electing the first female mayor in Wyoming, Susan Wissler. In the early 1890's Dayton held Wyoming's first rodeo. Famous artist, Hans Kleiber, known as the "Etcher Laureate of the Big Horns" made Dayton his home. His studio cabin has been preserved and relocated by the Dayton community to a Main Street location. Another main street location, the Dayton Mercantile is a landmark to the romance of the Frontier West. Pull up next to the hitching rail, step out onto the sidewalk and suddenly you are a part of a by-gone era.

[belbbmfan]

Nobleford, Alberta