ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game

[Meryl]

East Tawakoni, TX

[MaineWriter]

Impact, TX

 Impact had been a 20 acre poultry farm owned by a family named Perkins. An additional purchase of land swelled the would-be town to 47 acres. Dallas Perkins, owner of the land became mayor and named the town after his advertising business.

Twenty-nine signatures incorporated the town in 1960, and the first order of business was to declare liquor sales legal. With Abilene “dry” and a large population of servicemen – it looked like a growth industry.

Two liquor stores opened (no waiting) and Abilene lawyers were immediately put to work filing motions to oppose the incorporation.

The courtroom fight went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court. The court upheld both Impact’s incorporation and the town’s right to sell liquor.

The population was sixty-one in 1970, but after Abilene legalized alcohol sales in the late 70’s, the liquor stores closed and Impact just blended into the larger city.

Impact wrote a chapter of it’s own in the history of dry-wet politics in Texas.

Leslie

[jpwagoneer1964]

Tipton, Wy

August 29, 1900: Union Pacific train robbed near Tipton, Wyoming. Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and Harvey Logan and others have been named as suspects.

Mark

[Fran]

Naples, TX

[MaineWriter]

Satin, TX

Settlement dates back to 1834. In 1872 a sawmill was built and the town started to develop. With the arrival of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway in the late 1880s, the town shifted its city limits to be near the railroad. First known as Laguna for the nearby lake, and then Cedar Point for the cedar trees shipped from the town, the current name is said to have come from an employee of the railroad.

It was the name submitted to the post office department when they granted a post office in 1917. With only ten residents in 1926, it swelled to nearly 200 by 1931.

But by 1935 it had shrunk back to ten Satinites. Somewhere along the line people started flooding into Satin and by 1958 it was estimated there were 138 people living there. It's a figure the town is comfortable with for it's been used as a population estimate ever since.

Leslie

[jpwagoneer1964]

Nocona,Tx

NOCONA, TEXAS. Nocona is on U.S. Highway 82 twelve miles north of Montague in north central Montague County. Settlement there began in the 1870s, when William Broaddus and D. C. Jordan moved 15,000 cattle into the region and established a ranch not far from the present townsite. In 1887 surveyors for the Gainesville, Henrietta and Western Railway arrived and were persuaded by Jordan to extend their rail line across his land. He pledged to donate land for a townsite, and soon thereafter construction of the railroad and the town began. At first the new community was called Jordanville; but when that name was rejected, a Texas Ranger suggested the name Nocona in memory of Peta Nocona,qv a chief of the Comanches and husband of Cynthia Ann Parker.qv In 1887 postal service began. That same year Herman J. Justinqv moved his boot factory to the town to take advantage of the shipping facilities. The first newspaper began weekly publication in 1889, and the town's first bank, chartered at $50,000 opened in 1890. On July 30, 1891, residents voted to incorporate. By 1900 Nocona had a population of 900. In 1910 it had a dozen cotton-purchasing companies. In 1919 a second leather-goods business opened, and in 1925, when Justin's two sons moved their late father's business to Fort Worth, Enid Justin, their sister, opened the Nocona Boot Company.qv At this time Nocona had 100 businesses, two banks, a high school, and twenty to thirty shallow oil wells operating nearby. By 1930 there were over 2,000 residents. More than 2,600 people lived at Nocona by the middle 1940s. Oil-equipment companies, clothing factories, and the success of Nocona Boots contributed to a growing economy. By the 1960s Nocona had 3,375 residents and 147 businesses. In the late 1980s it had 3,000 people and 100 businesses. In 1990 the population was 2,870.

[Fran]

Anna, TX

[MaineWriter]

Alanreed, TX

 Originally called Eldridge, the area was settled in the early 1880s on the stage line from old Mobeetie to Clarendon.

Town lots went on sale in 1884 and by 1886 a post office had been granted.

The area underwent a series of colorful names such as Springtown, Spring Tank, Prairie Dog Town, and Gouge Eye, for a memorable saloon scuffle.

The present site of Alanreed was laid out six miles south of Eldridge in 1900 by surveyors of the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Texas Railroad. The name came not from a man, but a partnership - the contracting company of Alan and Reed.

The site of old Eldridge is marked by the Eldridge cemetery.

In 1901 the first school was built with a larger two-story school built in 1912.

In 1902 the post office was moved from Eldridge and renamed Alanreed.

In 1903 the Rock Island line was completed and
In 1904 Alanreed was Gray County's largest town.

The population high-water mark was reportedly 500 in 1927 but The Depression, school consolidation and the closing of essential businesses, reduced it to an estimated 150 by 1933.

Leslie

[moremojo]

Damon, Texas

--small community in Brazoria County

[jpwagoneer1964]

Niederwald, Tx

Founded around 1900 by German colonists, the name is German and translates to "low brushy area" or "low forest". This name was chosen because of the low forest of mesquites in the area. Niederwald is located on the Hays-Caldwell County line in Texas. The dividing line for the two counties is El Camino Real, present day State Highway 21.