ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game

[Meryl]

White Shed, TX

[jpwagoneer1964]

Diana, Texas

DIANA, TEXAS. Diana, also known as New Diana, is at the junction of State Highway 154 and U.S. Highway 259, eleven miles east of Gilmer in eastern Upshur County. New Diana was established in the 1930s by residents of Diana (also known as Old Diana) after oil was discovered three miles south of the old town. In the mid-1930s New Diana had a school, a church, a store, and a number of houses. The town continued to prosper after World War II,qv and by the mid-1960s, when it was generally referred to as Diana, it included two churches, a school, and three or four stores. In 1990 Diana was a commercial center for area farmers and ranchers; at that time it had an estimated 200 residents and a dozen or so businesses. In 2000 the population was 585 with fifty-two businesses.


 Diana Motors Company of St. Louis, Missouri was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Moon Motor Car Company. The company never dwelled on the fact their car was named after a Roman mythology goddess of the Moon. The radiator shell was a carbon copy of the Belgian Minerva car. In late May of 1925, the new car and company was announced by Steward Macdonald (the president of Moon and Diana). When the Diana car arrived June 25th it was very well received. The company referred to it as the "the easiest steering car in America," "the only car built entirely for balloon tires," and "a car for women drivers." The Moon Company had projected that they would sell 7,000 Diana in the first year of production. The car's engine was a 72hp Continental straight-eight, hydraulic four-wheel brakes, and as well as the Lancaster Vibration Damper, both progressive features of its time. It got about 15 to 18 miles per gallon, with a maximum speed of 70mph. The price was around $2,000.00, but had to pay extra for wire wheels and radiator in bronze, which was the fancy sports roadsters. A town car at $5,000.00 was another limited production model. With some early structural problems in the car itself, and unfortunately the public never did forget - the Diana just faded away. Though the 1928 models were announced, it never produced one and the Diana became a Moon Aerotype 8-80 model for 1928. The Diana still has one the loveliest radiator mascots on an American car.


Mark

[MaineWriter]

Aguilares, TX

Aguilares dates from the 1870s and was named after first settlers and ranchers José, Locario, Francisco, Próspero, and Librado Aguilar. It became a stop on the Texas-Mexican Railroad in 1881 and was granted a post office nine years later. The population (thought to be a huge exaggeration) was given as 1,500 in 1910 - but four years later it was reportedly a mere 300. The Aguilar family owned a store - one of the town's two businesses.

Oil was discovered nearby in OIlton and for a short time the town seemed to have a future - but although (or because) it was on a railroad - it lost population to the nearby county seat of Laredo. In the 1930s the post office was discontinued and in 1939 Aquilares' population was given as 10.

It rose to 25 by 1945 but the 1990 census again reported ten residents. Aguilares modest claim to fame was being the birthplace of television and movie character actor Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez.

Here is a picture of the family store, circa 1911:



Leslie

[Fran]

Stirling, AB

Agricore United's grain elevator in Stirling

Stirling is a village in southern Alberta, Canada.  The village is one square mile in area and has a population of almost 900.  It is situated on a major highway between Lethbridge and the United States-Canada border.

[memento]

Groesbeck, Texas

You want history? Groesbeck's got history. Originally the settlement of Springfield (five miles north of town on Hwy 14) was the county seat. It had to be - for years it was the only town in the county. It died shortly after the Houston and Texas Central railroad came through and bypassed the town in favor of Groesbeck. To add insult to injury, Groesbeck was named after a director of the railroad.

Today a cemetery alongside the road to Fort Parker State Park is all that remains of Springfield.

The Parker Family Saga >
If you're not familiar with the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, then you haven't been in Texas long. Kidnapped at nine by Comanches at a Fort Parker, she gave birth to the "last of the great Comanche Chiefs" Quanah Parker. Cynthia was reunited with her original people some 24 years later. She and her young daughter died shortly thereafter. Quanah grew up to go wolf hunting with Teddy Roosevelt and Burk Burnett up on the Red River. He built a fine two-story house complete with veranda up in Oklahoma.

Quanah nearly died - not in combat - but by blowing out the gas light in a white-man's hotel. His companion did die, but the unconscious Quanah was revived.

[jpwagoneer1964]

Keene, Tx

KEENE, TEXAS. Keene is on U.S. Highway 67, Farm Road 2280, and the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad five miles northeast of Cleburne in central Johnson County. The first settlers to reach the area, Jeremiah Easterwood and his family, arrived in 1852. Easterwood built a Methodist church, which also served as a school. Eventually the community became known as Elm Grove. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built into the area about 1890. A general store was established by Charlie Moore in 1893. In 1894 the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists opened a school to train ministers on 836 acres in the community. The assembly hall was built on the campus of Southwestern Union College that year, and a post office opened. Postal Service officials selected the name Keene. The local post office closes on Saturdays rather than Sundays.

In 1896 Southwestern Union College, originally a high school, became a twelve-grade academy. New buildings were constructed, and the campus's original structure became part of an industrial training complex, which included a cannery, a laundry, and a broom factory. By 1900 Keene had a population of 500. In 1915 two additional years of education were added to the college's curriculum, and the institution became Southwestern Junior College. Keene had a population of 420 in 1926 and thirteen businesses in 1936. By the mid-1940s the town had 350 residents and sixteen businesses. Ten years later the population was the same, but the businesses had increased to twenty-six. Keene's proximity to Cleburne and Fort Worth contributed to rapid growth. By 1960 the population had reached 1,532. In 1966 it was 1,700. In 1963 Southwestern Junior College became Southwestern Adventist College, a four-year college. The college's operation is financed by Southwestern Diversified Industries, a collection of campus industries that produces a variety of goods, including furniture, brooms, and baked goods and operates a car wash, a motel, and a graphics company. In 1970 the population of Keene reached 2,440, and by 1976 the town had 3,150 residents and forty-nine businesses. In 2000 Keene had a population of 5,003 and eighty-eight businesses.

[MaineWriter]

Encinal, TX

 There had been a small community called Ancaster near or on the land that is now known as Encinal. About the time the International-Great Northern Railroad came through in the early 1880s - there was a stop called Burro. Encinal is Spanish for Oak Grove and this name was submitted for a post office (which was granted) in 1883.

After the railroad came to town - it became a shipping point for sheep and cattle. The first school was established in 1886 and the population was a healthy 900 by 1890. In 1931 the town had three public schools with a total of 363 students.

In 1933 Encinal had a population of 800 and it stayed about the same through the 1940s. After the war the population drifted away until there were only 650 people living there. By 1949 it had dropped to only 300.

Natural gas had been discovered in the area in the 70s. Encinal has doubled its population from 300 people in 1980 to over 600 in 1990.

Leslie

PS...I love it that Cynthia Parker and Chief Quanah Parker came up again, a few posts ago!

[memento]

Lolita, Texas

Philip Dimitt, one of the first Americans to enter Spanish Texas operated a horse-trading post two miles north of present day Lolita in 1830.

Development didn't get started until 1880 when the Mitchell Ranch was fenced with the first barbed wire used in Jackson County.

The town came into being in 1909 and was named after the granddaughter of Texas Revolution veteran Charles Keller Reese. The railroad installed a switch and the town got a post office that same year.

Nothing much ever happened in Lolita, but in 1959, a naughty novel by Russian-born writer Vladimir Nabokov raised a literary mushroom cloud over the American cultural scene. Soon the figurative radioactive dust began to drift down on Jackson County.

Most if not all of the good folks in Lolita not interested in reading a book about a grown man's romantic obsession with a pretty teenage girl, it took a while for the community to realize it suddenly shared a name rapidly becoming synonymous with forbidden behavior.

Perhaps having read about Nabokov's best-seller in some general-circulation publication while waiting for a haircut, Lolita church deacon R.T. Walker decided the name of his town had been besmirched. Starting with his fellow congregants at the First Baptist Church, Walker began circulating a petition asking the government to take decisive action in response to what he saw as a veritable nuclear attack against American morals as well as an affront to his town.

Though his campaign stopped short of mass book burnings, Walker's petition beseeched the U.S. Postmaster General to drop his town's suddenly infamous first name and replace it with a nice, respectable surname: Jackson, as in Jackson County.

"The people who live in this town are God fearing, church going and resent the fact that our town has been tied in with the title of a dirty, sex filled book that tells the nasty story of a middle aged man's love affair with a very young girl," Walker fumed. To Walker's way of thinking, the literary accident that Nabokov happened to name his female character Lolita stood as "the toughest break our little town ever had." And in Walker's view, it dishonored the town's namesake.

"Knowing what a lovely little girl Lolita Reese was, it makes me mad," he said in a news story distributed by the Associated Press and widely published.

Walker's assertion that Nabokov's book was Lolita, Texas' "toughest break" amounted to something of a stretch. After all, the town had survived hurricanes, the 1918 flu pandemic and the Great Depression.

Even so, the petition from Jackson County went to Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield. Whether to abide by the First Amendment or just because some bureaucratic rule had not been followed, the government took no action on the request for a name change.

What Lolita ended up losing was not its name but a fair number of residents. They didn't leave because of the town's suddenly racy city limits signs; they just left, as have the residents of scores of other small Texas towns.

[jpwagoneer1964]

Atascocita, Tx

Atascocita, Texas is one of the fastest growing areas in the Houston region of Texas. Located 6 miles east of Humble, Texas, Atascocita offers easy access to Humble’s beautiful Deerbrook Mall on FM 1960 at Highway 59 North. This small, but growing community is well established with over 15 neighborhoods including Eagle Springs, Walden on Lake Houston, The Oaks of Atascocita, Atascocita North and South, Atascocita West, Atascocita Trails and Timber Forest Subdivision, to name a few.

Also close by, Lake Houston, a 12,000-acre man-made lake, offers our residents fishing, boating and of course jet skiing opportunities. Enjoy the summer on Lake Houston while only a few minutes from home.

If you are considering buying or renting a home or apartment in the Atascocita area, you will find numerous forms of entertainment for your family. All of our golf courses (“for the avid golfer in the family”) welcome visitors, and new members. Atascocita Country Club, Walden Country Club, Tour 18, Kingwood Country Club and Deerwood Club all invite you to visit, tour and see the beauty of their clubs and courses.

For the travelers, Atascocita has the peace of the country while offering only a 15-minute drive to Houston’s extraordinary Intercontinental Airport. With its recent expansions and added features, the airport is exceptional, with all the comforts to make your travel plan a pleasant one.

Consider this an “Open Invitation” for you and your family to visit us at Atascocita, Texas. We are proud of our community and know you’ll appreciate the easy access to the mall, grocery and department store shopping, movies and other entertainment as much as we do. Friendly people and most of all the peacefulness and beauty of this area are awaiting you.

You’re sure to love Atascocita, and we WARN you…you may not ever want to leave!

[Fran]

Atikameg, AB