To Texarkana and all places in between!

One of our new pastimes is to "stop and smell the roses" or in travel speak, "stop in the towns you go through to get somewhere else". Once upon a time, we drove to Little Rock and we passed through Texarkana. So, we decided to make that a destination city.

But, in keeping with our theme, we stopped along the way.

Our first stop, about 100 miles northwest of Dallas, was Mount Vernon. With about 2,500 people, it's the county seat of Franklin County. 

Established in 1849, Mount Vernon was voted the county seat of Franklin County when it was established in 1875. In 1912, the county courthouse was completed. The town is kind of cool. There's a town square, on one side of which is the courthouse. Across the way is the public library and then there are other buildings as well.  Some of them are vacant.

The red building at the end of this block was built in 1910 after a fire destroyed the original. It was the Merchants & Planters National Bank, which was organized in 1905. It merged with the First National Bank in 1932 and moved into that building (which currently houses the Franklin County Library, also in the square). This building was renovated in 2005 and is the home of the First National Bank Financial Services. The building next to it was built in 1916 and housed a General Store called M.L. Edwards. That building now houses a restaurant.

This is the old Firehouse Museum. So I learned something that everyone else probably already knows. And that is that universally, most museums are closed on Mondays. Of course our day in Mt. Vernon was Monday. And in that town, most everything was closed. If I were in the area again, not on a Monday, I'd like to go in to the museum. They have an exhibit of Don Meredith memorabilia. He was from there, you know.

Here we are in front of a lovely gazebo in the town square of Mt. Vernon. In the back you can see the Franklin County Courthouse.

Our next destination was spur of the moment. Instead of continuing on I-30, we headed north on SH 37 to Clarksville. (Who says we aren't spontaneous?) Clarksville is the county seat of Red River County, which was one of the original counties of the Texas Republic. Only about 2,800 people live here. The courthouse, built in 1884, was the fourth courthouse for the county, which was established in 1837. It's named for the Red River, which is the northern border of the county.

This is the old jail museum. Built in 1889, it was the second jail for the county. While the signage says "museum", I believe it's a work in progress. With it being Monday, it probably wouldn't have been open anyway. Once again, if I ever wander this way again, I'd be happy to check out the museum.

By the time we got to Clarksville, it was lunch time. So, this is a very small town. They had a McDonald's, a Sonic and that was about it for national chains. They didn't even have a Wal-Mart here. (The hell you say!) It's true! The closest one was in Paris which was 45 miles away. Anyway, we found this cool little Mexican restaurant. Las Chabelitas. It was busy. Not Chik-Fil-A busy but busy for small town Texas. And good! If you are ever in Clarksville, you should check this place out.

After lunch, we went back to the town square to look around. This is a small town screaming for revitalization. Most of the buildings around the square were vacant. The buildings on this side of the square were really nice but they were all empty. Hopefully someone will have mercy on this historic little town and invest some money in it.

Another 47 miles off the beaten path on US 271, we headed to Mount Pleasant, which is the county seat of Titus County. (Are you seeing a theme here?) It's the largest city in Titus County with 16,000 people. The courthouse was built in 1895. In 1940, they remodeled it to look like this. Then in 1962, someone got the bright idea to remodel again and it looked like a bomb shelter. Luckily, that person went away and, in 1992, it was remodeled again to look like it did in 1940. But, it's still the same basic structure that was erected in 1895!

Of the three town squares visited thus far, this one was the most rehabilitated. Country music was blaring from speakers attached to the courthouse (I'm not sure why) and several of the buildings around the square were occupied with businesses. The square was bustling.

As we were driving around, I saw this old building. You can barely see the painted company name across the top of the brick building but it says "Borden's". It's an old Borden's milk plant. And that was all I could find on the internet. Seriously?  I wish there were some kind of documentation on what all the preserved old buildings that these town squares have.

So a couple of little factoids about Mt. Pleasant before we move on. One, when you're googling things to do in Mt. Pleasant, be sure you put TX by that or you'll get lots of cool things to do in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. Our Mt. Pleasant's claim to fame is that it was the location for the first Wal-Mart in Texas. And, it also has the largest Dr. Pepper mural. Apparently back in the day, this building housed a grocery store on the first floor and a masonic lodge on the second.

On to Texarkana! The whole thing with Texarkana is that it's two different cities: Texarkana, Tx and Texarkana, Ar. The state line runs straight through the middle of this federal courthouse/post office. This is THE most photographed building. John has one foot in each state. There are 36,000 people in Texarkana, Texas. Texarkana Arkansas is a completely different (twin) city. When checking out some history, John noted that the fire department on the Texas side was prohibited from assisting on a fire on the Arkansas side even though it might have been across the street!

A very nice lady came out of the courthouse and offered to take our photo. I'm on the TX. side and John is on the AR side. We wanted to go in but you had to show id, blah blah blah so we didn't. According to the sign, each state had it's own post office until 1892. The 1892 site was razed in 1930 and rebuilt here. Inside, I think it's divided as well. It's cool though. If you're not paying attention, you can wander over Arkansas side and not even know it.

There's even a fountain at the back of the building. That gutter in the middle is the state line between Texas and Arkansas. AR on the left and TX on the right. As we drove around downtown, when we'd cross the state line, the car would say "Welcome to Arkansas" or "Welcome to Texas".  It was weird because you really couldn't tell which side you were on.

Lot's of cool churches. This is Beech Street Baptist Church, in AR.

St. Edward's Catholic Church, also in AR

This building was built between 1914 - 1923. Buhrman-Pharr Hardware was founded in 1880's by W. J. Burhman and F. E. Pharr. The wholesale business closed in 2001 and the retail side closed in 2003. The buildings now house lofts.

This was so fun! We met up with one of John's very good friends, Michael Skotnik. John went to school with Michael at St. Maria Goretti in Arlington. (We're talking grade school here, folks).

Michael lives in the Texarkana area and clerks for the federal judges here. He is so cool. He acts in some of the productions that are shown here in the Perot Theatre. (As in Ross Perot, native son.)

Downtown Texarkana - St. James Episcopal Church. The church was built in 1894.

The downtown First Baptist Church. Both of these churches are on the Texas side.

Originally called the Saenger Theatre, it was built in 1924. It houses the symphony orchestra and various productions. I was hoping you could tour the building but you could not. However, you could hear the musicians practicing, which was cool. It was renovated through donations from Ross Perot (he was from here, you know) and renamed the Perot Theatre in 1980.

The railroad is big in all the towns that we've been through so far and Texarkana is no exception. This is the Texarkana Union Station. It was opened in 1930. Today it serves the Amtrak train.

This is the Hotel McCartney. Built in 1929, the hotel was very popular due to it's location directly across from the train station. As air travel became more popular, the hotel went out of business in the 1970's. It's being renovated potentially for apartments.

This is the Regional History Museum. For $5 a person, you can get a glimpse into Texarkana's past. The building itself was built in 1879 as the Offenhauser Insurance building. It was originally used as a bank. The safe had been bricked up when the insurance company took over that floor. The building was donated to the historical society and they found the safe when they were renovating. What I really wish is that they had more information about the other buildings around them. Texarkana looks like it is at the beginning of a rehabilitation process, which it desperately needs. The museum is very cool.

There were other museums but they were all "temporarily closed". Not sure why. Renovation? I hope so. Though there was one museum called the Four State Auto Museum that has a bunch of classic cars but it's only open on the weekends. It was pretty slow downtown on both sides of the state line and it was Tuesday! They need a boost for sure. So many cool historic buildings...

Bringle Lake Park was recommended as a great place to take a walk. It was beautiful out there. Texarkana is not a big place. Our hotel was right next to the Central Mall. Needing some steps, we went walking about 9:30 in the mall with all the other old people. The mall itself did not open until 11 am. That's right, they slept in! And they closed at 8pm. Sheesh!

It was a short visit and on Wednesday, we were on our way home but not without stopping and checking stuff out.

Texarkana is in Bowie county (named for James Bowie) but it is not the county seat. Boston is the county seat but New Boston actually has the county courthouse. It's right off  of I-30 and has a statue of James Bowie right in front. The original courthouse was in Boston and was built in 1891. They decided to move the courthouse to New Boston, even though it wasn't the county seat. This is the result. The 1891 courthouse was burned down by an arsonist in 1987. Isn't that sad?

New Boston is about 20 miles from Texarkana and has about 4,500 people. 

Our next stop was Sulphur Springs, which is the county seat of Hopkins County. The town was originally named Bright Star, It was known for the healing springs and advertised as such. They changed the name to Sulphur Springs. It's about 85 miles northeast of Dallas. The town has about 16,000 people and the town square is the busiest of all the ones we visited. The original county courthouse burned in 1894. The current structure was built shortly there after.

They have the nicest, most amazing war memorial in the town square. All the names of those who died during any war are listed on these walls. In the pavilion to the right is a database where you can enter the name of the person you're looking for to find out which wall it's on.

They have a dairy museum and a historical museum. While it was Wednesday when we passed through, the historical museum wasn't open. It's only open Thursdays and Fridays. I just can't win, can I?

What a trip! We were only gone three days and we covered a lot of ground. While we drove through several other smaller towns, we couldn't stop in all of them or we'd never have gotten home. No matter if you're traveling for work or for fun, going home day is still the same.

Until next time...enjoy the ride.