ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game

[Meryl]

Dakoming, WY

So named because it sits on the Dakota-Wyoming border in Weston County



Reconstruction and realignment of 4.6 miles of WYO 451 in eastern Wyoming

[memento]

Grapevine, TX

[twistedude]

El Fuerte, MX

[jpwagoneer1964]

Edinburg, Tx

 

EDINBURG, TEXAS. Edinburg, the Hidalgo county seat, is on U.S. Highway 281 and State Highway 107 in the south central part of the county. It is part of the McAllen, Pharr, Edinburg metropolitan area. Hidalgo, on the Rio Grande, was the original county seat. John Closnerqv and William Briggs, who had land-development projects in the vicinity of Chapin, seventeen miles north of Hidalgo, made Chapin county seat. The townsite was named after Dennis B. Chapin, another of its promoters. Chapin's involvement in a homicide caused a change of name in 1911 to Edinburg, in honor of the birthplace in Scotland of John Young. The town grew slowly to some 800 inhabitants by 1915 and remained unincorporated until 1919. During its early years it served a ranching community, but the arrival of irrigationqv in 1915 initiated an agricultural economy. Edinburg quickly became a center for buying and processing cotton, grain, and citrus produce. Other economic developments before World War IIqv included vegetable, sorghum, corn, sugarcane, and poultry (eggs) industries. After the war the economy diversified further to include peach and melon production, food-processing plants, cabinetry, oilfield equipment, concrete products, agricultural chemicals, and corrugated boxes. In the 1970s tourism increased significantly.

The first railroad service in 1909 was a spur line of eight miles, extending from the one connecting Brownsville and San Juan. Seventeen years later the city received direct rail connections with Corpus Christi and San Antonio. After highways and trucks replaced rail service, Edinburg benefitted from its location on a major highway intersection. By the 1980s the city's trucking industry numbered six commercial freight lines and two bus lines. The city has been named the "gateway city" to the Rio Grande valley.

Edinburg's first radio station started in 1947 and by 1960 served both a Spanish and English listening audience. In the 1970s and 1980s three more stations were established. An influx of people from both Mexico and various parts of the United States has given the city an ethnic and religious mix. Hispanics constitute 80 percent of the population, and well over two-thirds of them are Catholic. The Protestant influx made its first appearance with the founding of the First Baptist Church in 1912. Other Protestant denominations arrived later and included the Disciples of Christ, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Pentecostals, Christian Scientists, Seventh-day Adventists, and the First Foursquare Church. In 1946 the Rio Grande Bible Institute started its work of training Protestant ministers for Latin America. The first Catholic church, Sacred Heart church, did not open until around 1926. Two others were added later to serve the growing Catholic population.

By tradition, Edinburg is a Democratic stronghold that reflects county politics. The governing body consists of five commissioners, including the mayor, who administers through a city manager. State institutions and agency offices in Edinburg include the Texas Department of Human Services,qv a Texas National Guardqv company, the Evins Regional Juvenile Center, the Texas Employment Commission,qv and the Texas Rehabilitation Commission.qv In 1976 the city became the home of the South Texas Symphony Association, which sponsors the Valley Symphony Orchestra, the Valley Symphony Chorale, and the South Texas Chamber Orchestra. The University of Texas–Pan American, founded in 1927 as a junior college, is in Edinburg. It had an enrollment of some 12,200 students during the academic year 1990-91, and offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. Also located in the city are Region One Educational Service Center and Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District.

The major historical landmark of Edinburg is its former city hall, erected in 1909 and located near the northwest corner of Hidalgo Plaza in front of the county courthouse. The plaza has a bust of the Mexican independence leader Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla,qv after whom the county is named. The building, originally the county jail, has a trap door for hanging that has been used only once. Later the building became a city hall, and in 2005 it housed the county historical museum. During the late twentieth century Edinburg had an annual population growth of 3.4 percent. The 2000 population was 48,465.

Mark

[twistedude]

What was wrong with El Fuerte?

Oh YEAH--it ENDS with an E, too...oh well, we can't all have marbles...thanks, Meryl, for your attention to the intellectually challenged who are playing this game!

[Meryl]

Goose Egg, WY



A Close Call on the C.Y. Cattle Trail
by Rick Bonander

It was a cool crisp morning in early October 1877. George and Gilbert Searight had just brought up 27,000 longhorns from Texas. These cows were almost as wild as the buffalo on the open range that they were replacing. The Searight brothers were stocking the Goose Egg Ranch that they had just started. That spring a couple of the cowboys had found a nest full of Canadian Goose eggs and brought them back to camp for the cook to fry up for breakfast. They all thought that Goose Egg Ranch would be a good and fitting name for the new spread.

These wild longhorns had a tendency to wander far and wide over the range and it was a full time job for all of the ranch hands to keep them near the ranch boundaries. George Searight had gotten an early start and found two stray steers almost ten miles up the North Platte River from the ranch house. He was driving them back toward home along the C.Y. ranch house and just up from the river stood a huge old solitary buffalo bull blocking the trail. Ownership of that particular part of the trail was certainly in question. The bison charged the oncoming longhorns and the lone cowboy. It was only a matter of luck and of course good riding that no one was killed or maimed and all made it back home sagely. Yup, just another day in the life of a Wyoming cowboy.

This story certainly could be true, if not, it ought to be.

[MaineWriter]

Granny's Neck, TX

 The community was named - not after a grandmother's anatomical feature - but a "neck" of land that jutted into the South Sulphur River. Granny was Mary "Granny" Sinclair, matriarch of a settler family that raised goats on this neck of land. Hence Granny's Neck.

Granny's Neck was a crossing on the once important Bonham-Jefferson road. Brigidier DeSpain, and his wife, Narcissa, arrived in 1846 to claim land that had been awarded to a relative who had been killed at Goliad. Since their grant included both sides of the river, they built a bridge and made a living charging people to cross.

A flood destroyed the bridge in the 1870s and the crossing was then named after the state appointed tollkeeper - G. W. Harper. After enough tolls were collected to pay off the bridge, the tollkeeper was relieved of duties and the bordering counties maintained the bridge. As the population dwindled, the road was closed.

Granny's Neck once had a school, but was later moved to nearby Pecan Grove.

Leslie

[jpwagoneer1964]

Channelview, Tx

CHANNELVIEW, TEXAS. Channelview (Channel View), an oil refinery suburb of metropolitan Houston, is at the site where the San Jacinto River forms Old River, south of Interstate Highway 10 and the Missouri Pacific Railroad and eight miles southeast of Houston in eastern Harris County. It was named for its location on the northeastern curve of the Houston Ship Channelqv and was populated by blue-collar oil refinery workers and their families after oil discoveries in the area in 1916. After 1910, schools for both black and white students opened as ship channel industries grew. Beginning sometime before 1916 and continuing as late as 1942, the McGhee School served black students. The local white school had thirty-one pupils in 1925. A post office was established at the community in 1933, and the 1936 county highway map showed a sawmill, a school, several businesses, and multiple dwellings at the site. By 1938 the Channelview school district covered twenty square miles and employed one black teacher and seven white. Channelview reported a population of fifty and two businesses in 1940, and grew to 700 residents and twenty-three businesses by 1947. In 1967 a new Sinclair Petrochemical plant began production of isophthalic acid and metaxylene near the ship channel. At that time the town had a population of 7,860 and seventy-five businesses. Its population was 8,227 in the mid-1970s. In 1985 Channelview had 347 businesses. In the early 1990s it had a population of 26,115 and 385 businesses. In 2000 the population was 29,685 with 659 businesses.

You can own this lively home in Channeview for $145,000.

Mark

[memento]

Whitehouse, Texas

Whitehouse is a city in Smith County, in the Tyler metro area.
The latitude of Whitehouse is 32.226N. The longitude is -95.225W. It is in the Central Standard time zone. Elevation is 476 feet.

The estimated population, in 2003, was 6,582.

[Meryl]

Posters, we have another SIDE TRIP opportunity!  Since Mark posted a letter that did not follow the post before his and Sandy has already posted according to his answer, rather than have them edit, I am declaring a SIDE TRIP.

The next poster can start with any letter of their choosing!