2019-03-08: A Packed Geocaching Roadtrip Returning from Minnesota to Texas: Day 2 in MN, SD, NE, and KS

Hey everyone! I'm glad you made it back to check in on our progress. If you're just joining us, I had a fly in / fly out business trip and turned it into a week long geocaching roadtrip! I recruited my friend and fellow geocacher CuteLittleFuzzyMonkey (CLFM) to go along for the ride. He also did the cache planning and route navigating for the trip.

To catch up to where we are now:

Day 1: Texas to Minnesota in TX & OK

Day 2: Texas to Minnesota in OK, KS, & MO

Day 3: Texas to Minnesota in NE, IA, & MN

Day 1: Minnesota to Texas still in MN

So today we started out in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Checking out of the hotel at sunrise, our first stop was the parking lot to grab a simple LPC (GC62YJN).

Driving southbound, we stopped in Willmar, MN for our next cache to claim a find in Kandiyohi County. It was the Point Lake Travel Bug Hotel geocache (GCXZ87). This was one cache that I'm glad we're here in the winter with sub-freezing temperatures. While the geocache was hidden among the trees on the bank of the lake, the lake itself was frozen over with ice and snow! Being a Floridian / Texan, this was finally an opportunity to "walk on water." We took turns walking out onto the frozen lake and taking a photo.

Next up was a quick park & grab geocache (GC7AEPM) in Clara City, MN to claim a find in Chippewa County.

Then there was the Tri-State tri-corner virtual geocache (GC8809). Even though this monument sits on the corner of Minnesota, South Dakota, and Iowa, technically the coordinates are in South Dakota. This was my second tri-state cache in already this year! This one was much colder. Stepping out from the warm GeoJeep, I didn't feel like putting my heavy jacket back on. There was also a traditional cache placed there as well (GC41H35). So it was a 2fer location!

Our next geocache and another virtual (GCFBF1) was along US-18 on the eastside of Canton, SD. There are three roadside historical markers concerning this area. The one the cache focuses on was about the Norwegian immigrants and skiing. Since I don't want to give away the answers, I'll tell you what one of the other historical markers says: The Hiawatha Asylum For Insane Indians.

"Receiving Congressional appropriations in 1899, the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians was the second federal mental hospital and the first dedicated to American Indians. The first patient arrived in 1902, and through 1934, more than 370 patients –ages two to eighty, from fifty tribes nationwide – lived here. Patients did domestic and agricultural work onsite, were occasionally shown to paying visitors, and underwent treatment with methods later deemed outdated and dehumanizing. From 1929 to 1933, federal inspectors found intolerable conditions, inadequate staffing, several sane patients kept by force, and numerous other abuses. In 1933, John Collier, the newly appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, ordered the asylum closed. G. J. Moen, with the Canton Chamber of Commerce, filed an injunction to keep the asylum open, but it was overturned in federal court. Many patients were discharged and those who still needed care were sent to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C. The major buildings used by the asylum have since been demolished. The Hiawatha Asylum cemetery, where at least 121 patients were buried in unmarked graves, is located between the 4th and 5th fairways of the Hiawatha Golf Club. In 1998, the cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Making our way down to Lincoln, Nebraska, our next two virtual geocaches (GCC963, GCB88C) were located at the Wyuka Cemetery. One cache was to recognize Albert Gordon MacRae (1921 – 1986) was an American actor, singer and radio / television host, who appeared in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma!

The other virtual was for an infamous 1950's serial killer. Inspiring the films "The Sadist" (1963), "Badlands" (1973), "Kalifornia" (1993), "Natural Born Killers" (1994), and "Starkweather" (2004). "A Case Study of Two Savages," a 1962 episode of the TV series Naked City, was also inspired by the Starkweather killings. More recently a "Criminal Minds" episode portrayed a newlywed killing spree very similar to the crimes of 19 year old Starkweather and his 14 year old girlfriend Fugate.

Also in Lincoln, NE was another virtual cache at the Lincoln Children's Zoo (GCGJQ1). The cache is highlights the Dakota Age Sandstone which is said to be 130 million years old.

South of Lincoln out in very rural Odell, NE is our next virtual geocache called "Oketo Cut Off" (GC8CCE). I'll give you much of the description from the historical marker without giving away the answers for the cache. During the 1860's, stagecoaches passed near here along the Oketo Cutoff. The cutoff diverged from the Ft Leavenworth to Ft Kearney Military Road northeast of Marysville, Kansas angled northwest to cross the Big Blue River near Oketo, KS and passed through the Otoe Indian Reservation just south of Odell. The cutoff rejoined the main trail between Steele City and Dillar, NE.

The stagecoach company owner, who had the government contract to carry mail and passengers from the Missouri River to California, ordered the cutoff laid out producing a shorter, better road and bypassing Marysville after the town refused to improve the Military Road. Although his coaches used the Oketo cutoff, freighters and other travelers continued to follow the Military Road which had been popular since the 1840's. After only a few months he abandoned the cutoff.

This metal sculpture was there along with the historical marker to recognize this historical trail. Kinda hard to see as it was already dark by the time we arrived.

Well it's late and it's dark out. However even if we wanted to call it a day and stop geocaching, we're out in the middle of nowhere and there's no hotel to be found anyway! So we keep going and have now dropped down into Kansas.

Just north of Concordia, KS, is our next target at the "Kansas POW Camp" virtual cache (GC4CAF). During World War II, 300,000 German Prisoners of War were interred in the United States. Three larger camps were located in Kansas, near Salina (Camp Phillips), at Fort Riley, and just outside Concordia, Kansas. Construction of Camp Concordia began in February, 1943 and the POW camp was turned over to the US Army on May 1, 1943. At its peak Camp Concordia had 4,027 Prisoners, over 800 soldiers and 179 civilian Employees.

Camp Concordia had 304 buildings including a 177 bed hospital, fire department, warehouses, cold storage, and officers club, and barracks, mess halls & administrative buildings for both the German POWs and American soldiers. All of the prisoners at Camp Concordia were members of the German Army. Most were captured in Africa, and the first POWs came from Rommel's Afrika Korps. Only the enlisted POWs worked, most of them on farms, but some worked on the railroad or in the ice plant.

Camp Concordia officially closed on November 8, 1945. Many of the buildings were torn down and others were moved. Some are still serving as homes in Concordia. The only structures remaining at the original location are Guard Post 20, a ware house, some stone walls, the officers club, a few foundations, and the tower which once supported a 100,000 gallon water tank. A two story stone guard tower has been reconstructed and pictured below.

There was one more virtual geocache we got that night before calling it quits. It was for the "Boston Corbett Dugout" (GCFF36). Along this rural Kansas road you will find a small monument which has been erected as a historical marker near the location of a Dugout once owned by Boston Corbett. Boston Corbett was an Army Sergeant who was with a detachment of soldiers searching for John Wilkes Booth. When they caught up with Booth, Corbett was credited and later discharged from the Army for the shot that killed Booth. It seems that Corbett made a spectacular shot through a crack in some barn siding, however Corbett was discharged for failing to follow orders in the shooting.

After being discharged, Corbett homesteaded in Kansas and made this dugout his home for awhile. The eccentric man had a run in with the local sheriff (after showing some local children the business end of his pistol) and through some sympathetic friends he landed a job at the state capital. After an incident where he displayed his 38 at the capital he was sent to the state insane asylum, which he quickly escaped from. He made his way to a friends house and was last seen jumping a train. There is no record of what happened to him after that.

Now getting to and from this last geocache was an adventure of its own! This rural Kansas farmland dirt road was now slushy mud with the melting snow. We were in 4x4 mode for several miles slipping and sliding. It was pitch black with no lights anywhere in site on the horizon. We had limited cell phone service and running low on gas. All we could see was the path before us from the headlights. I was doing my best to stay down the center of the road cause I wasn't sure if under the clean snow on the sides was a ditch. I knew that for the most part, my tires were spinning faster than we were moving! Traction was coming and going at best. I just knew that as long as I was moving forward, I did NOT want to ease off the gas.

After about 20-30 minutes at a slow pace, we finally made it out to a paved road. Now we can finally stop worrying about get stranded out in the middle of nowhere! We made our way to US-24 and followed it to Clay Center, KS. There we finally found a gas station and was able to take a look at the Jeep. I thought it would be covered in mud more than it was. I guess being the wet slushed snow blew off the last 15 or miles.

Still no hotel worth staying at, we continued east over to Manhattan, Kansas. There we were able to find a decent place to finally call it a day about 11 PM, a LONGGGGGG DAY!

Come back tomorrow and see how far we get. Do we make it back home to Texas or not? What other sights to we bring to you? You'll just have to wait and see.

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2018-03-25: Geocaching Through Ghost Towns, Old Schoolhouses, Cemeteries, a FTF and More!

So on today's 360+ mile drive from Killeen to West Texas, I visit a few cemeteries, a couple of ghost towns, two old school buildings, I spot an old Jeep rusting away, and I get a First-to-Find! So let's get started...

Driving westbound on US-190 into San Saba County, my first geocache was a quick roadside stop called "Me and My JJ" (GC28F72). Soon after that was a "Westbound Picnic Cache" (GC28RQF) at a roadside picnic area. Comanches used to use the hill location of the picnic area for smoke signals to communicate long distance in the pre-settlement times up until the 1870's.

Entering the town of San Sabo, I turn into the Mill Pond Park and head towards the "Armadillo Travel Bug Hotel" (GC6Y53J). A travel bug hotel is just a geocache big enough to hold travel bugs. Some cachers create very elaborate "hotels" that look like actual hotels inside which are really cool. This particular one was just a larger sized container. Oh, and for those new to geocaching, a travel bug is an item with a trackable number on it. The purpose is to retrieve and place from cache to cache so the sender can follow its travels.

My next geocache is located on the north side of town in the San Saba Cemetery and is called "Edge of Eternity" (GC7284N). From the historical marker: San Saba Cemetery, previously the Odd Fellows Cemetery, is located on 17 acres of land about 800 yards north of old town San Saba. On April 18, 1883, the San Saba Chapter of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) purchased 10 acres of this land from JJ Stockbridge to establish a cemetery, which they maintained for 45 years. On April 3, 1929, the newly incorporated San Saba Cemetery Association purchased the cemetery for $1.00 and an additional 7 acres from Mrs. May Holman also for $1.00. In 1935 burials from San Saba's earliest city cemetery, now Rogan Field, were reinterred here. The cemetery reflects San Saba's earliest times and is a continuing record of the lives and culture of its changing people. (2008)

Continuing westbound on US-190, I entered the town of Richland Springs. Jackson J. Brown and his family settled near the springs on Richland Creek in December 1854. The Brown School was constructed in 1868 and named for the neighborhood's original settler. The area attracted settlers through the 1870's, and in 1877 a Richland Springs post office opened in the store of Samuel E. Hays. By 1890 local production of cotton, grains, and livestock supported a settlement of 150 residents, including a justice of the peace precinct, a constabulary, and several commercial and craft businesses. A local newspaper, the Eye-Witness, began publication in 1905. Not long after, the First State Bank was organized, and in 1911 completion of a trunk line for the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway linked the town with the main line between Galveston and Amarillo. Richland Springs incorporated in 1932. With a population nearing 500 and as many as forty businesses, the town prospered until the onset of the Great Depression. A three-year drought in the mid-1950's crippled the local economy again. The town's only bank failed, and within a decade its residential and business populations had fallen by nearly half.

Anna B. Davenport (9/18/1882 -- 11/24/1882), was the first person buried here at the Richland Springs Cemetery. To help you find her gravesite look for a historical marker by her headstone. There are over 2200 internments here. And there was one that kinda stood out from the rest and the reason I placed the geocache there (GC7M2M5). John Henry Hart (1873-1946) and his wife Katy Abbie Hart (1877-1956) have a rather unique border surrounding their family plots. And I just happened to have a container that blends in perfectly.

The next little town down the road was Rochelle. Even though there wasn't a cache here, I stopped by the cemetery anyway. From the Historical Marker: E. E. Willoughby (1853-1935), a cattleman from Tarrant County, moved to Rochelle (then about 1.5 miles SE) in 1883. He acquired land here in 1886 along the Brady-San Saba Road. In 1889 he donated two acres near this site for the community's school and church building, moved here from its original 1886 site about 1 mile south. When Willoughby's 19-month old son Ernest Eckie died in 1894, he buried the infant near the school. In 1896, Willoughby deeded one acre here as the cemetery. A new school was built here in 1899.

The community and schoolhouse were moved in 1903 about 2 miles northwest to the new Fort Worth & Rio Grande Railroad. This cemetery continued to serve the new community, first named Crothers but soon renamed Rochelle. The tombstones here of Rev. and Mrs C. W. Jones indicate that she died in Crothers (1906) and he died in Rochelle (1910), though they both died at their home in the same town. Willoughby deeded another acre to this cemetery in 1910, but he was ultimately buried in Brady at Live Oak Cemetery. The rock fence here was built in 1935, and four more acres were purchased in 1943. The cemetery contains almost 500 graves, of which 105 are unmarked. An association founded in 1972 cares for the grounds.

Continuing west on US-87 closer to San Angelo, I come to the ghost town of Vick, TX (GC18HAF). Vick is at the junction of Farm Road 381 and U.S. Highway 87, four miles south of Eola in west central Concho County. In 1963 the community had a post office, a motel, and two other businesses. A 1984 map showed a cluster of buildings at the site. In 2000 the population was twenty. Now only a few homes remain and the ruins of numerous buildings. The old gas station has been turned into a private home.

Driving a few miles north to Eola was my next geocaches. The community has had a post office since 1901, when it was known as Jordan. In 1902 the name was changed to Eola, reportedly after a small local creek named for Aeolus, Greek god of the winds. In the middle to late 1890's public school lands in the county were put up for sale at fifty cents an acre. Spurred on by railroad promotion, a land boom resulted in the area of Lipan Flat, a section that stretched east from San Angelo to the Colorado River. Eola was one of the communities created during this boom, which included many immigrants from central and eastern Europe. In 1920 more than 100 people in the vicinity of Eola were reported to be of Czech descent. The first family to settle in the area was that of Asher L. and Lizzie Leona (Hollman) Lollar, who established themselves at a site 3½ miles southeast of Eola in 1898. Both Asher and Lizzie are buried in the Eola Cemetery (GC18H8M).

Scrolling through the Find-A-Grave website to see what the oldest grave may be at the cemetery, I found something odd. There was a listing for a Lydia Lillath White 1806-1807, long before the Lollars arrived. Looking closely at the headstone, it looks like the engraver flipped the number "9" around for the day and year. That confused the person entering it into the website. But based on the history of the community and the other graves listed, I'd say the first buried there in the cemetery was M M Schooler in 1902.

By 1902, when the first local store was built, the community numbered four families. Within the next two years a Baptist church was erected. The first school was conducted in a church on the Will Stephenson ranch. A two-story, two-room schoolhouse was built in 1906. In 1908 the community had a windmill and an Odd Fellows lodge. By 1914 Eola had a drugstore, a general store, and a population of twenty-five. In 1940 the community had a population of 250. A nine-teacher school taught elementary and high school classes. The school has long been closed. There is a geocache there though (GC11BBQ). According to the TexasEscapes website, the school building has been purchased and the new owner is slowly restoring it. The original school is the white building and now contains a restaurant and micro-brewery. The brick section was added in the 1930's along with the gym which is on the backside. You can see the domed top sticking up from behind.

Between Eola and San Angelo I arrive at another old schoolhouse and my next geocache (GC1CHVX). The cache page or any research I've done in preparing for this blog has given me any information on this old school. Some of the possibilities is that the town of Wall, TX, a few miles to the south, used to be called "Lipan School" and then "Little School." Perhaps from that pre-1906 era?

Having passed through San Angelo and still on US-87, I arrived in Sterling City. I remembered a new geocache published there a few days earlier and had yet to be found. So I dropped down Hwy 163 for "overlooking Sterling City" (GC7KR29) to find a nice blank logsheet! WOHOO!! Always good to get those First-to-Finds!

Down the road in Garden City I found a few more caches. The first one wasn't all that exciting except for the finding another cache is always a good thing. But what I found next to it was more interesting. The "Butane4Life" (GC3AJ2N) geocache is a quick roadside cache hidden near a huge butane storage container. But off to the side of where it sits are some old abandoned tanks and other equipment. And then there this old Jeep just rusting away. Oh if I only had the time and money to do something with it, I'd be tracking down the owner to see if they'd sell it!

After a quick stop by the Glasscock County Courthouse cache (GC17W82), I proceeded south of town to the "Graves Graves" cache (GC1PEVW) at the Garden City Cemetery. From the historical marker: The Garden City community has been using this burial ground as early as 1886. That year, a child of county commissioner Sullivan Hill and his wife, Lucy, was buried here. Four years later, a sibling was buried at the same spot; the two graves share a single stone.

The Hill family plot, where Sullivan and Lucy are also buried, is one of many in the cemetery representing the early area settlers. Other early family names found throughout the burial ground are Hanson, Gooch, and Cox. Family plots are typically bordered by concrete curbing. Most gravestones are vertical, especially in the older section of the cemetery, which is indicated by the remaining decorative iron fencing. Some of the individual family plots also include original fencing.

In 1914, John Etheridge and Perneice Gore Lawler formally designated the originated one acre tract as a cemetery. Today, the county maintains the burial ground, to which three acres were later added. As the final resting place of many of the early settlers and their descendants, the cemetery is a significant link to community's history.

Already late in the afternoon, I had to get moving. I've still got an hour and a half drive ahead of me AND also need to stop by Walmart and get some groceries. So that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed todays adventure and learned some history. See you next week for more.

2017-12-02: Our Adventure to the Painted Churches in Schulenburg, Texas

WOW! What a day! Have we got a lot to show you today. We took a drive and visited some of the historical Painted Churches from the late 1800's around Schulenburg, Texas. The Painted Churches of Texas were built by the Eastern European pioneers who settled the area in the late 1800's and early 1900. Somewhat ordinary on the outside, but ornate, Gothic and colorful on the inside. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We had to take a drive down to Schulenburg for business matters, so of course the first thing I do is look up Geocaches along the way to find. That's when I discovered the Painted Church's and knew they were the perfect stops along the way.

Leaving Killeen, we headed south down Hwy 195 into Georgetown. Since we're there and it's close to lunch, we made our first stop to check out Plaka Greek Cafe. We're always in the mood for some good Greek food! And this turned out to be THE place! Candy got her go-to Greek salad with grilled chicken, although they cook the chicken on a rotisserie skewer just like the gyro meat. I ordered the sampler platter to get a taste of everything. It was excellent! The meat was seasoned perfectly and wasn't dry. The dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) was fresh without that bitter store bought taste. The spanakopita (spinach pie) was flaky with just the right amount of spinach and cheese filling. Everything right down to the pita bread was really good. We'll definitely be returning back to this place again. (Just a side note: while I try to write as if these adventures just happened, you can see by the date in the title and the blog post date that I am nearly two years behind. But the Plaka Greek Cafe in Georgetown, TX is so good that I want to mention we actually drive down the 30 miles to it just to eat as often as we can. We highly recommend this place if you ever find yourself in the area.)

OK, enough about food. Our first Geocache (GC3N74V) was located in an early settlement area a few miles south of Schulenburg at ghost town of Lyonsville, later shortened to just Lyons. An early town on land grant of Keziah Cryer, it was named for settler James Lyons.  By 1860's the town had stores, a school, a church and a Masonic lodge. During the Civil War, property was ruined and stock driven off. Settlers moved away to nearby towns and the town died off.

James Lyons moved his family to Texas from New York in 1820. While working outside his cabin on October 15, 1837, Lyons was killed by Comanches. His was the first grave in what became the Schulenburg City Cemetery (GC74XJB). His 12-year-old son was captured in the attack and held by the Indians for about 10 years before he was able to return home. In 1848 he married Lucy Boatright. They later settled in Johnson County, where he died in 1870. A stone erected here in 1931 states incorrectly that Warren Lyons, rather than his father James, was a victim of the 1937 raid.

Heading back north towards home we found the first of the Painted Churches on our route. The town of High Hill grew out of three smaller German settlements Blum Hill, Oldenburg, and Wursten. Blum Hill in the southern part was named after left-wing political activist Robert B. Blum, who was executed in Vienna in 1848 during Germany's Revolution. Oldenburg in the north was named after a German Province. And Wursten came from the name of a sausage from Anders Butcher Shop. In 1858, they all combined into one community and called it High Hill to remind them of the mountains they left behind. With the immigration of German and Austrian settlers the town began to flourish. But in 1874 fearing the railroad would ruin their tranquility and cultural community, they declined it's request to pass through town. The Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad built a few miles to the south in Schulenburg. Many of High Hills residents and businesses moved to the south as well causing High Hill to decline. Current population tends to hover around 100.

The main attraction is the St. Mary Catholic Church (GC12EJ3). The Parish played a significant role in the German and Catholic heritage of Texas. The Catholic State League was formed here, and many of the church's clergy and leadership were raised here. The first St Mary Church was built in 1869. A larger building was built in 1876, and the smaller building used a school. This newer building featured stain-glass windows donated by the people of the parish. When the current larger still church was constructed in 1906, the original stain-glass windows were moved into it. The church was painted in 1912. The St Mary Catholic Church of High Hill, Texas is known as the "Queen of the Painted Churches."

Traversing the back country roads to get to our next Painted Church in Dubina, Texas, we came upon this old single lane bridge crossing the East Navidad River. Built in 1885 by the King Bridge Company in Cleveland, Ohio, it has been given the name of Piano Bridge. Some say it's because of its musical sound as you drive over it. But leave it to engineers to ruin that and tell us its technically a "piano-wire" truss. It is one of the few remaining iron bridges in Fayette County. Whatever you want to call it, I call it one cool historical bridge! 

In November 1856 a group of Czech settlers found shelter from a strong north wind and hail under a grove of large oak trees. The community, originally called Navidad and then Bohemian Navidad after the nearby Navidad River, became the first Czech settlement in Texas. Augustine Haidusek, who learned English during the Civil War and became the first Czech lawyer in the United States, renamed the town Dubina which is Czech for "oak grove." The town flourished reaching 600 families around 1900 as favorable reports of Texas reached the old country back home, and new immigrants came through Dubina. Between the railroad bypassing Dubina in 1873, a hurricane in 1909, and a large fire in 1912 that swept through town, many settlers left the area. As of 2000 the population was listed as forty-four.

The first Saints Cyril and Methodius Church (GC12EJ7) here was constructed after the Civil War in 1877. Tom Lee, a freed slave and blacksmith, made an iron cross to mount atop the steeple. The hurricane in 1909 destroyed that church. After raising over $5500, the town rebuilt the church in 1912 which was nearly destroyed by the fire. That same iron cross which was salvaged from the previous church once again stood tall over the new church. There are no surviving records of who or when the walls were faux painted. But believe it or not, sometime in the 1950's the decorative walls and ceilings were whitewashed over. In the 1980's two longtime residents took on the task of painstakingly uncovering and restoring the original paintings. Taking a look inside and I'm glad they did. Truly a beautiful and historic church.

And just like it was back in the day, still no indoor plumbing. If you gotta go, then you gotta go outside!

Just a few miles to the north was our next church and geocache (GC746Z3). Ammannsville, Texas was settled by German and Czech immigrant farmers during the 1870's. Andrew Ammann, an architect and farmer, was the first settler arriving on March 12, 1870. The first business opened in 1876. And by 1879 a post office and school. By 1900 the town had grown to three stores and saloons, two blacksmith shops, one drugstore, one doctor, and two gins. The community had 800 residents at its peak. But the post office closed in 1906, and the school in 1909. The 2000 census had the population down in the forties.

The St John the Baptist Catholic Church first opened in 1890. It was also destroyed by the 1909 hurricane. The community rebuilt and dedicated the new church on November 24, 1910. However it was destroyed a short time later by fire and had to be rebuilt again.

As with the other Painted Churches, this one also had a graveyard which served the community. Trivia fact: a graveyard is a cemetery that's located next to a church.

Out there in the middle of nowhere was our next stop and a rather cute geocache. The Kaase Bubble Gum Post Travel Bug Hotel (GC5A9V2) was a nicely built cache to mimic a hotel large enough to host travel bugs. TB's are items with a trackable number on them. Geocachers place them in caches for other cachers to retrieve and move along from cache to cache. I've release TB's in Florida that have since traveled all over the world. And I've picked up TB's here in the states that began their journeys all over the globe.

Our final stop for the day was for the Wood's Fort Virtual Cache (GC7D5A). Virtual is fitting since there are no remains left of the actual fort. A fortified residence used by colonists of this vicinity as a protection against Indian attacks from 1828-1842. Mr. Woods was a veteran of the War of 1812, one of the old "three hundred" of Stephen F. Austin's colonists, and the oldest man killed in the Dawson Massacre on September 18, 1842.

That's it for today. I hope you have enjoyed our days journey. Hmmm where to next?