A Preface – November 2018
When I began this adventure in February 2018, I was just going out to “see Texas”, using the county seats and courthouses as an organizing principle. I was just going to take a photo of myself and the “bike du jour” in front of the courthouse, and that would be it. My oldest son Kimball urged me to add some text to the photos so as to flesh out the adventures. And so was born this blog, though not until the second or third trip.
This is a rewrite of the first trip, in an effort to kind of put it on par with all the trips that followed. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on your point of view, but considering that this thing could wind up being the final record of my late-life adventures, I’d like to tidy it up as much as I can. Looking back now on the whole adventure, the first trip was a spectacular “proof of concept”, and I felt it deserved better than it got when the blog was retro-fitted onto this trip.
So…the first trip on the 254 county adventure was to the South of Texas, the idea being to get down to the Valley before it got too hot. That largely succeeded, except that heat was substituted by gusting winds, drizzle, mist, rain, and cold. Much of the time I could not even photograph it because I was wearing too much gear to get on and off without it being a production, though this was just a light warm-up compared to what came later in the Panhandle.
Here’s a happy, naive me just before launching on the 254 county adventure:
And here is the circuit for Trip 1, Day 1 – Wimberley to Kingsville:
As the adventure unfolded over 9 months of 2018, I had occasion to visit a LOT of isolated, even desolated places. So I guess it was somehow fitting that the adventure would begin in little Karnes City, which seemed more like an incipient ghost town than a county seat. This is the very first photograph of the entire trip.
The courthouse, though is – or will be– a beautiful one. It was fenced off for reconstruction, and I had not yet acquired the presence of mind to close up my luggage before shooting my courthouse picture, but every journey begins with a single step…
After photographing the courthouse, I spoke to the man with the hose, who was just outside of the courthouse photo. He told me that what I saw was the remains of the Karnes County jail. I remarked that there would probably be a lot of people happy to see it go. “Not really,”, he said. “They are building a bigger one…”
From Karnes City, I headed south to Beeville, county seat of Bee County. named for a Secretary of State during the brief period (1836-1846) that Texas was an independent country. In case you were thinking to get lost, this double-decker out in the brush will keep you headed the right way…
On the way into town you encounter the Patio Cantina, AKA the 19th Hole. I’m not sure where the other 18 are, but maybe it doesn’t matter in Beeville…
The same man who designed the courthouse designed the (now out of business) Rialto theater – this was the first of several closed Rialtos on this trip.
From Beeville, due west to George West, seat of Live Oak County, and “Storytelling Capital of Texas”, no doubt due in part to the fact that the legendary folklorist and friend of Lyndon Johnson, J. Frank Dobie, was born near George West. George West himself was a local cattle rancher who built the courthouse at his own expense.
From George West I headed Southeast toward Sinton, seat of San Patricio county and full-scale onto the Texas Gulf Coast. Before Texas became independent, there had been a sizeable influx of Irish settlers – they fled during the Texas revolution, but when they returned after the war, the county was established and named San Patricio, Spanish for the Saint Patrick beloved of the Irish.
From Sinton I headed down to the port of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), seat of Nueces county. Corpus was visited in 1519 by a Spanish explorer who gave the place its interesting name, though it was not really settled until the 1840’s. Corpus is now a big highwayed city, and one of the gateways to the infinitely long Padre Island coastal playground.
Corpus has produced a lot of notable people, including the legendary wide receiver of my youth, Ray Berry, partner of Johnny Unitas; Farah Fawcett; NASCAR racers Terry and Bobby Labonte; Eva Longoria; and Lou Diamond Phillips.
In what became my standard modus operandi for the metropolitan areas, I scurried in, found the courthouse, did my business, and headed back to the open road.
The Corpus courthouse looks vaguely like a hotel in Bamako, Mali… 😀
From Corpus I headed due west to Alice, seat of Jim Wells county. Alice is named for a daughter of Richard King, who established the famous King Ranch, about which more later…
In 1948, an incident involving Lyndon B. Johnson’s bid for the U.S. Senate took place at Alice’s Precinct 13 where 202 ballots were cast in alphabetical order,and all just at the close of polling in favor of Johnson. Johnson won the election against Coke Stevenson by 87 votes. Amazing! Actually in other elections some of LBJ’s voters were alleged to have voted from the graveyard, so present-day concerns about voting irregularities aren’t something recent in Texas…
Alice is also known as the birthplace of Tejano music, and two Nobel-winning scientists are from Alice.
Eleven miles further west from Alice is the little town of San Diego, seat of Duval county.
I lucked out while in San Diego – the circus was in town, and provided just about all the local color that there was to be had in that tired little town.
From San Diego, I headed southeast again to Kingsville, dragging in at dark just in time to find a motel and something to eat. First night on the road on the 254 county adventure…
Trip 1, Day 2 – Kingsville to Laredo:
I was up and out early, as this part of Texas is famous for the King Ranch, which was at one time greater than one million acres in size.
Also, of near equivalent import, Jim Morrison of The Doors did part of his elementary school education in Kingsville.
It feels vast down here – not quite like the vastness of the Panhandle and Llano Estacado, but there’s a touch of infinity to it. Heading south, you have to turn off the main highway and meander into the tiny little townlet of Sarita, seat of Kenedy county and a beautiful, serene little place. Sarita is the only settlement in the county, with a population of 238. “Business Insider” ranked Sarita as the most politically liberal town in Texas. Now there’s a game-changer for you!
From the serenity of Sarita west to Falfurrias, seat of Brooks County. Falfurrias is an odd word and its etymology seems uncertain. The founder of the town claimed it was a Lipan Apache word meaning “the land of heart’s delight”, but it could also be a mis-spelling of the Mexican Spanish word “filfarrias”, asserted by Wikipedia to mean “dirty and untidy”.
Brooks county is, however, certainly named for James Brooks, a Texas Ranger.
Falfurrias was once famous for a Creamery based around a herd of Jersey milk cattle that had been brought in by the town founder. That establishment is supposed to no longer be operational, but the signs are there.
From Falfurrias I made my way due south against a strong, gusty wind to Raymondville, seat of Willacy County. Raymondville is distinguished by having three private prisons, all adjacent to each other.
From Raymondville proceeded a near-military onslaught – due to the winds – to get to Brownsville, seat of Cameron County, and location of the border crossing to Matamoros where I and my surfing buddies consumed excessive quantities of cheap rum. That’s not Brownsville’s fault, though.
Brownsville is an interesting city, with the appeal of the Anglo-Hispanic mix that pervades the entire Rio Grande border. Several months after this trip, on a different adventure, I had one of the best Mexican food meals EVER in Brownsville.
Cameron county is also interesting – named after Captain Ewen Cameron who was involved in what was basically a renegade Texian effort – the “Mier Expedition” – to wreak havoc on the Mexican army in 1842. That backfired big-time and they were all captured and an enraged General Santa Anna (who had been defeated at San Jacinto in 1836) ordered all the captives killed. After US diplomatic interventions, Santa Anna relented and decided that only 1 out of 10 of the captives would be executed. A pot was filled with white and black beans, and captives were forced to draw a bean – the 17 black bean holders were executed. Captain Cameron had drawn a white bean, and was spared, but Santa Anna later decided to execute him anyway.
The Drawing of the Black Bean – by Frederic RemingtonBy 1848 the remains of the black bean holders, and others who died in prison or otherwise, were brought back to Fayette County (La Grange), from where most of them had been recruited, and buried in a mass grave at a place called Monument Hill. My grandparents took me there when I was a little boy, and I had a little souvenir of that place for years and years, though I never understood what it was about. Now I know…
From Brownsville I headed west on an Interstate across what seemed like an endless sea of convenience stores, bail bond shops, muffler and tire stores, and every nondescript and indistinguishable component of modern American low-rent suburban neighborhoods. It was cold and windy and the Interstate was no place to stop for taking bad photos, so that segment has only courthouses, the first of which was Edinburg, seat of Hidalgo County.
Atypically for Texas courthouses, the Edinburg courthouse was made nearly impregnable by a huge fence around it, but I lucked out and got the above photo of it!
From Edinburg, I got back on the Interstate and continued west to Rio Grande City, seat of Starr County. A tired but kind of charming little border town, with a quite imposing courthouse.
I had family in McAllen when growing up, and my memories are of citrus orchards, scrub brush, rattlesnakes, and the bull horns my grandparents bought me in Reynosa. Now the border area is crawling with Border Security 4×4’s, and there are frequent checkpoints – just like the South of Thailand. One would have to assume that all of this stuff will remain in place, for employment and law enforcement purposes, even after Trump gets his wall that will most certainly NOT get paid for by Mexico…
I had lunch in Rio Grande City, and then followed the Rio Grande northwest up to Zapata, seat of the county of the same name. Zapata has a beautiful courthouse – of seemingly recent vintage, since the original town of Zapata was submerged when the Rio Grande was dammed to make Falcon Lake.
Zapata – county and town – are NOT named for Emiliano Zapata, around whom the 1952 Anthony Quinn/Marlon Brando movie “Viva Zapata” was based.
Northeast from Zapata through the scrub brush to Hebbronville, seat of Jim Hogg County. James (Jim) Hogg was a governor of Texas – the first one, in fact, to have been born in Texas. He was famous to me because when I grew up in Houston, the Hogg family was famous there for various reasons – including the fact that he named – cruelly, it seems to me – one of his daughters Ima. Ima Hogg, get it? We always believed that he named his other daughter Ura, but that his not true because he did not have a second daughter. My guess is that she WOULD have been called Ura, but we’ll never know…
This area is really out in the scrub country, but it has great roads with very little on them. However I did learn that the citizens use their cell phones to report motorcyclists traveling at high speed. Luckily the cop who stopped me was from Houston, and he did not get radar on me, and we had a very enjoyable roadside conversation that only resulted in a warning ticket. I’d have had to sell the bike to pay the ticket and get out of jail, otherwise…
From Hebbronville I made the last leg of the day to Laredo, seat of Webb County, getting in, as usual, just before dark. I was expecting kind of a wild border town experience, but it pretty much closed down at sunset. So much for Marty Robbins’ “Streets of Laredo”.
The population of Laredo is supposed to be in excess of 95%, which explains why it feels more like Mexico than the US. In a very good way, I would add.
Trip 1, Day 3 – Laredo to Wimberley:
Morning in Laredo began with light rain. I knew I was in for it. The rain increased through the morning, while the temperature dropped. It was one of those days that you WILL get sooner or later if you take a bike on the road. Unfortunately for me, my road was on Interstate 35 headed due north to Cotulla – along with all the 18-wheel traffic and billowing clouds of rain and spray. But I did finally make it to Cotulla, cold and wet…
Cotulla, which sounds Hispanic, is actually Polish, and was the name of the Silesian Pole who founded the town. While it is pretty much out in the way-beyond, it has attracted a number of interesting people, such as George Strait, who has a ranch there; Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world, has a 25,000 acre spread there; O’Henry lived on a sheep ranch there in the 1880’s.
The weather slowly began to improve as I headed west from Cotulla toward Carrizo Springs, seat of Dimmit County. Artesian wells in the area produce very pure water, which is exported for use as holy water.
A quick run north, still in the rain, from Carrizo Springs to Crystal City, seat of Zavala County. (You can see that my pants are wet.)
In Crystal City a nice-looking woman came scurrying out of the courthouse to offer to take my picture, but I told her I already had it under control. The conversation was like out of those old black and white movies, where the local girl gives the impression that she’d run off with just about ANYbody to get the hell out of there… But then she revealed that she had a bike of her own (Harley), so I guess that if she’d felt that strongly about it, she had a recourse… In addition to which some 70 year-old dude is probably just about down on the bottom of the “ANYbody” food chain… 😀
From Crystal City, due west again, back to the Rio Grande city of Eagle Pass, seat of Maverick County. Eagle Pass was the first American settlement on the Rio Grande, and was named after some fanciful geographic formation. The rancher and gunfighter named King Fisher lived in Eagle Pass (until he was ambushed and killed in San Antonio in 1884).
It’s apparently a hotbed of modern-day corruption, with various scandals currently running rampant. Those border towns… Eagle Pass was another charming little border town that seemed to have a lot of the best of Mexico and only a little of the worst of the US.
Due north from Eagle Pass back out into the scrub country, this time to Brackettville, seat of Kinney County.
An astonishingly attractive courthouse for a county with less than 4,000 inhabitants.
From Brackettville and its “old Texas” feel, due east to Uvalde, seat of the county of the same name. Uvalde is considered to be the entry point back to the Hill Country, or, alternatively, the northernmost point of South Texas.
I barely got the photo of Uvalde. It had a 4-lane busy street in front of the courthouse, with no place to park. After a couple of near misses sticking the tripod out into traffic with the timer on, I decided to cross the street, fire the tripod-mounted camera, and race across 4 lanes of traffic to get in the photo. Every time I did it, a truck would pass in front and I only got the side of the truck. A gentleman came out of the courthouse – I expected him to tell me that I had 10 seconds to get down the road before the police arrived, but it turned out to be the County Judge! Who offered to help! So this photo was taken by the County Judge, and is here in place of an action photo of me getting splutted by a moving vehicle in front of the Uvalde County courthouse.
Lots of interesting people come from this equally interesting place: “Cactus Jack” Garner, a VP of the US; Matthew McConaughey; and Dale Evans (partner of Roy Rogers).
From Uvalde, north on one of Texas’ greatest roads to the little town of Leakey, seat of Real County, and my “home away from home” during my youth.
During my boyhood, my grandfather had a deer hunting lease outside of Leakey, and we would come here twice a year – once in the summer, to overhaul the cabin and roam the 1,000 acre lease, and once after Christmas to hunt deer and turkey. This is about as good as the Texas Hill Country can get.
The sun heading down, the temperature dropping with it, I made the magical ride from Leakey to Bandera, with not another vehicle on the road.
Bandera calls itself the “Cowboy Capital of the World” – and it also attracts huge numbers of modern-day “cowboys”, AKA bikers.
Bandera was also established by Polish immigrants, and apparently the name of the town is a happy coincidence because “bandera” means “flag” in both Spanish and Polish.
And finally, as the shadows grew long (actually, it got almost dark), I made it to the last stop of this epic trip, Boerne, seat of Kendall County.
Boerne came into being as an offshoot of the Texas Hill Country Free Thinker Latin Settlements, resulting from the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. Those who came were intellectual liberal abolitionists who enjoyed conversing in Latin and who believed in utopian ideals that guaranteed basic human rights to all. They reveled in passionate conversations about science, philosophy, literature, and music. Boy, those were the days…
Nowadays Boerne is basically a bedroom community of San Antonio, though it retains much charm and still has the advantage of being situated on the beautiful Medina River.
After shooting the Kendall County picture, I drove an hour to my home in the dark and near-freezing cold. It was a GREAT first outing on the 254 County adventure.
At the end of this trip, I had visited my first 26 counties (10%!) and covered 1,264 miles. Here’s the status map:
