2016-10-22: A Train Depot, an Old Fort, and Dinner With Other Geocachers!

Hello again and welcome back to another day in our Geocaching Adventures. Today we're heading down to San Angelo for a Geocaching Event hosted by a cacher named mommio. Though it started with brunch, we didn't make it in time for that. We grabbed a few caches on the way and then cached around San Angelo before meeting up with everyone at dinner. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our first stop of course was the Starbucks in Odessa. Then on to Midland taking the TX158 exit east over to US-87 south towards San Angelo.

Our first Geocache was at the Water Valley Cemetery (GC13P18). The small community of Water Valley, TX dates back to the mid-1800's. The oldest marked graves date to the 1890's, though there are more than a dozen unknown grave sites.

A few miles down the road there's a historical marker and our next cache (GC1XXZ6). In 1911, the Texas Legislature passed a law calling for the establishment of state institutions for the treatment of tuberculosis. Across the street from the historical marker was the first such establishment. Opening in 1912, the Anti-Tuberculosis Colony No. 1 began with facilities for 57 patients on a 330 acre tract of land. The tuberculosis nursing school was founded here in 1915, and by 1961 had graduated more than 500 nurses. It was renamed the State Sanatorium in 1919. Because of the advances in medicine, it eventually closed in 1971 after treating 50,000 adults and 5,000 children.

Not too far away is the small town of Carlsbad, TX. The town began in 1907 and soon began growing. But between a three year drought followed by the lengthy depression, the population declined. Our next Geocache (GC1XY0W) brought us to this old bank building, probably built in the early 1920's. It would be interesting to see this structure restored. The walls seemed pretty sound. The roof and interior have fallen apart. But to leave the look of the exterior, upgrade and modernize the interior and you'd have a cool looking house.

We finally made it to mommio's house and the other cachers have already scattered about town to do some local Geocaching. We found the rather LARGE geocache on the front porch (GC1F8K8) before moving on around town ourselves.

The next few caches were a couple of fun simple gadget caches. Pinball Wizard (GC217N6) was one that we've found several of before. Think like pulling the plunger on a pinball machine to get the ball (cache) to shoot out. That was followed by Puff the Magic Dragon (GC214PD) where you had to blow into a tube to get the cache to pop out the top. Three Blind Mice (GC6Q2Q5) was up next followed by Twist and Shout (GC33RDA).

From there we drove over to The Cowboy (GC4RW35). It was a statue honoring the hard working ranchers in West Texas. We never did find the cache. Turns out it was missing.

We also spotted these wonderful murals on the side of a building highlighting early public transportation in San Angelo.

I finally decided to go over to get the cache located at the San Angelo Visitors Bureau (GC101N0). I figured while there we could also find out some of the more interesting and historical places in town. There we picked up some information on the train depot and the old fort. Since the train depot was closest, we headed over there first.

Train service first arrived in San Angelo in 1888 by the Gulf & Colorado Railroad, which was soon after purchased by the Santa Fe Railroad. But in 1900, the Kansas City, Mexico, & Orient Railroad also built a line through San Angelo. The depot here is the KCM&O depot built in 1910 and serves today as the Railroad Museum.
With the two competing railroads, San Angelo became the most important sheep, goat, and cattle shipping station in the country. The Santa Fe Railroad Company bought the KCM&O in 1928 after the oil boom. But in the 1950's passenger rail service began to dry up with the construction of new roads and highways. And on June 20, 1965, the last train departed from the depot.

After touring the train depot and viewing all the displays, we drove over to Fort Concho. The center of a line of forts extending from the northeastern border of Texas to El Paso, Fort Concho was also the northern point of southern chain of forts extending to the Rio Grande. Established in 1867 (at the junction of the Butterfield Trail, Goodnight Trail, and the road to San Antonio) by 4th Calvary under Captain George G. Huntt to protect the frontier.

By March 1, 1870, the fort buildings were a commissary and quartermaster storehouse, hospital, five officers quarters, a magazine and two barracks; all built of sandstone. On June 20, 1889, the fort was abandoned and the property passed into private ownership.

We toured through all the restored buildings and looked at the displays. One of the officers quarters was even made into a telephone museum where they had just about every type of phone ever made! There were also two caches there, well supposed to be two caches there. We found one (GC46FQX) but not the other (GCKX8T).

By now it was time to meet up with the group at the restaurant for dinner and talk of our Geocaching tales of the day. We had a good time meeting a lot of new cachers as well as seeing some familiar faces from other events.

There's a lot more to see around San Angelo, but as usual they'll have to wait another day. We just need to retire early! Until next time, see you back here or out on the caching trails.

2016-02-20: Geocaching Through New Counties, Cemeteries, Bridges and More

Today is Geocaching Day! Or as most people call it: Saturday. Since we found out this week that work may be transferring us out of the area soon, we set out today to try and get a few more new Texas counties for our Geocaching map.

We took off towards the southeast down US-84 to the town of Post. There we turned eastbound on US-380. Grabbing two caches in Garza county and along the way we passed by these few long abandoned and deteriorated houses. They were miles apart and we've seen plenty of these over the last few weeks, but these just had a certain character and we had to stop for photos.

Soon we pulled into the small town of Clairemont. Clairemont was established in 1892 to coincide with the organization of Kent County with the understanding that it would serve as the county's seat of government. The new town was located on land owned by local rancher R.L. Rhomberg, who named the new town after his niece, Claire Becker. In 1895 a sandstone courthouse and matching jail (GC55ZBW) were constructed. By that time the town had several stores, a bank, a newspaper, and a hotel. Although the Stamford and Northwestern Railway had bypassed Clairemont to the east by 1909, the town continued to prosper. Cotton and cattle ranching dominated the economy, and oil later became important. By the 1930s the population exceeded 200. By the 1950s, however, the town had begun a steady decline and by 1954 had lost its title as county seat to nearby Jayton. The Clairemont courthouse burned shortly after the records were transferred to Jayton, but the bottom story was preserved as a community center. The remaining citizens soon began to move away, and the population dwindled to about 15 by the 2000s.

Candy locked me up!

The old gas station.

We then stopped over at the Clairemont Cemetery (GC5HGVD) for our next cache. Buried there is Judge AW Landers, who in March 1893 was on his way by horseback to take tax money to a bank in Snyder, 32 miles away. He was waylaid by robbers, and the money taken. His body was found a short period of time and brought back to the cemetery. The party arrived at night and the body was buried by lantern light. The next morning, the burial party discovered they had run the grave southeast by northwest, instead of east and west, as was tradition. The widow was consulted and she said just leave it. When she passed away, she was buried beside him in the same direction. So, there are two graves in the cemetery that are oriented a little differently than the rest of them.

After the Clairemont Cemetery, we also found caches in the Jayton Cemetery (GCQ5H2) established in 1890 and another at the Oriana Cemetery (GC1EMN0). But at one of them, we saw this headstone which had been knocked over and under a bush of an infant which died at birth back in 1898.

Our next cache was located high above the Salt Fork Brazos River (GC1EMMQ). The older bridge is the one closest to the camera and is now closed since the newer one was built to replace it. Even though it was an out-of-the-way drive to get to this cache, it was well worth it for the views.

Continuing on down the road, we arrived in what's left of a small town called Peacock (GCKA0X). Despite having been almost completely leveled by a tornado in 1914, the citizens had rebuilt the town within 10 years. Though there's not much left here today. But those that remain are "Proud as a Peacock."

Our next Geocache was at the Double Mountain Cemetery (GC5ME01). Double mountain is an important regional landmarks, dating back at least to 1788, when Jose Mares opened a trail from San Antonio to Santa Fe; thereafter, the mountains were waymarkers "for every westward expedition and a rendezvous for buffalo hunters." They were also cited by the surveying party of Randolph B. Marcy in 1849. At one time, Comanche leader Quanah Parker and his band lived on or near the mountains, and according to one source, the mountains were once a sacred place to the Comanches. The town of Double Mountain once existed a few miles north of the hills. Established in 1886, the community featured a post office, sheriff, schoolhouse, and Methodist and Baptist churches for several years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but had become a ghost town by the 1980s.

The old Carney House in O'Brien, TX has seen better days (GC4AAKJ).

Our last cache for the day was located at the Brazos River Bridge (GC43B7K). Yes, another new bridge going over another section of that river. This bridge was constructed in 1938-39 to replace a 1901 bridge. A statewide historic bridge survey in the 1990's identified it as one of only five continuous through truss bridges in Texas built before WWII.

From the bridge, we saw the moon to the east...

... and the sunset to the west.

The day ended with a beautiful mural on the side of a building. Another day, another adventure. I have something special planned for tomorrow, so be sure to come back!

2015-11-29: Picking Up New Texas Counties, Viewing Murals, and a Hanging Tree

Hello again and welcome back! Today's Geocaching goal was to pick up some new Texas counties and we wanted to see another side of Texas landscaping. So from Beaumont, we headed west on I-10 to US-59 southbound.

The first stop was near a historical marker for the town of Kendleton which reads: "The site on which Kendleton now stands was originally a Mexican Land Grant to settler Elizabeth Powell, whose house was an early-day stage stop. During the Texas revolution, in 1836, Santa Anna's Mexican army camped near here. Later the settlements of Oak Hill and Humbolt existed briefly. Kendleton began during the Civil War reconstruction when Wm. E. Kendall sold land, for as little as 50 cents an acre, to assist freed negroes in starting their own farms. The rural village was named in his honor when the railroad came through in 1884."

A few more geocaches along the way and we soon pulled into the town of Wharton, TX. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Wharton was one of those town that had painted huge murals on the sides of their buildings. Here is a small sampling of those murals. One dedicated to the towns doctors, another of the different churches, and the last just some decorative artwork.

One of the towns geocaches was across the street from and brought our attention a TRUE tree frog. Literally! This frog statue located in a residents front yard, was the result of a skilled chainsaw sculptor.

Continuing south on US-59 and a couple more caches later, we came across another historical marker cache. "Here, in the 1890's, the celebrated Texas Cattleman A. H. "Shanghai" Pierce (1834-1900) platted the townsite of Pierce. "Shanghai" had hopes of it becoming the county seat. In 1894 he had 160 acres surveyed to become the Pierce Townsite. He built and named the streets, laid out a public square, courthouse square, academy square and a cemetery ground. A church was built and a two-story grocery store. He then decided to build a grand hotel, which would accommodate cattle buyers, traveling salesmen, etc. The spectacular structure, with open porches on two sides of both the first and second floors, would be a convenient stopover between Victoria and Houston. It was a three-story, 22-room mansion built in Steamboat Gothic style. The widow's walk on top provided a panoramic view of the whole countryside.The town of Pierce did not develop as "Shanghai" hoped it would. The magnificent hotel saw few, if any, overnight guests. Over the years the building gradually deteriorated and was demolished in 1980. The New England styled widow's walk and some of the railings have been restored on the original site."

A few more caches later, we eventually had to turn north on Hwy 111 up to US-77 north to loop back around heading towards Beaumont. In the little town of Hallettsville, we stopped to pick up a virtual cache. At the site of this old oak tree is a historical marker that reads: "Old Hanging Tree. Gallows used Sept. 12, 1879, at public hanging of 'Pocket', an Indian, killer of Englishman Leonard Hyde."

We ended the day with 19 geocaches and several new Texas counties. We also learned a lot of history and saw some great artwork. Overall another great adventure.