The Piney Woods of East Texas!

Since our retirement, we've talked about just getting in the car and going. We really want to explore the Great State of Texas but as I'm sure you're aware, it's big. I can drive for eight hours in almost any direction and still be in Texas. So, we have to take small bite size trips and this week we did. We decided to explore East Texas a little bit. Our two little bites for this trip were Longview and Marshall.

First was Marshall. Based on oral histories compiled in the 1930’s, Boogie Woogie piano originated in the Piney Woods of northeast Texas. Who knew? The music emerged in the 1870’s, in close proximity to the Texas & Pacific Railroad, which established its headquarters in Marshall in 1872. More on that later.

Marshall is the county seat of Harrison County which was created in 1839. Peter Whetstone offered land for a courthouse, a church and a school. He is considered the founder of Marshall, Tx. The town was named for Chief Justice John Marshall and in 1842, it became the county seat of Harrison County.

The Old Harrison County Courthouse which was built in 1901 and served as the courthouse until 2000. It's now the Harrison County Historical Museum. It's free. It's one of five museums in the city.

The staircase inside the courthouse that leads up to the courtroom. I thought it was beautiful. The museum does a nice job of giving the history of the county. There's also a room that tells you about famous people from Harrison County.

Anyone remember this guy? Robert Newsome was from Hallsville, another small town in Harrison Co. There was also a write up on Lady Bird Johnson, who was from nearby Karnack and George Foreman (of grill and boxing fame) who was from Marshall.

It was a cool little museum. We spent about an hour or so wandering through the exhibits and reading all the plaques. You can go upstairs and look at the courtroom and the jury room. The third floor is roped off as they still use that space for offices. The new courthouse is across the street.

This is Telegraph Park, right across the street from the courthouse. Marshall was the first city in Texas to have a telegraph - in 1854. There was a telegraph connection from the local newspaper to New Orleans which gave them an advantage of having up to date national news. The statue commemorates the messenger boys that delivered the telegrams.

Of the five museums, only one charges admission and it's $5 a person. The others are by donation only. This is the Michelson Art Museum and it's by donation. It's about a block from the courthouse.

It's pretty small but they have a couple of exhibits. One was photographs. This one is called Mill Pond, Caddo Lake by David H. Gibson. I really liked this one. It's kind of misty and eerie, like a horror movie but I bet it's pretty there.

The other exhibit was paintings. The museum was originally set up to house the artwork of Leo Michelson. This is one of his pieces called Zinnias. We spent about thirty minutes or so here.

This is Memorial City Hall, the third of the museums in town. It's across the street from the county courthouse. I didn't know it was a museum until we got there. It's free if you're interested. Unfortunately, I didn't plan time for this one. 

After dinner we drove around a little and saw the courthouse all lit up. It's gorgeous!

One of the colleges in Marshall is Wiley College. It was established in 1873 and is the oldest predominantly Black College west of the Mississippi. It's a beautiful campus but we didn't see any people. I saw one guy walking around. This building is an old Carnegie Library.  Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Andrew Carnegie would give grants to towns trying to start up libraries. The deal was usually something like this: he provides the money for the building and the townspeople would have to provide the books and maintain everything. In this case, the college was granted $15,000 in 1907. It was a library up until 1967. Now it's an administration building. I love that they didn't tear it down.

The next museum we went to was the Starr Family Home ($5 entry fee). The house, called Maplecroft, was built in 1870. The owner, James Starr, was a land dealer, basically buying and selling land. He was instrumental in helping the railroad find the land they needed to expand the tracks. The family lived in this home until 1985. The house was donated to the Texas Historical Commission and opened in 1986 as a museum.

This is the kitchen, which is linked to the dining room by a covered breezeway. The house had a huge renovation to add an HVAC system (there were only window AC units used by the family!) and when they did that, the house was restored to what it would look like when it was first occupied. All the furniture is original to the family. 

So I just thought this was funny. In that kitchen they have a display of canned goods and one of the options was "Rabbit in Jelly". Yikes! That will put you on a diet real quick.

The last museum in Marshall was the Texas and Pacific Railroad Museum. It's in this old train depot. The museum is in the first and second floor. The basement floor is the actual depot because it's an active train station. The Amtrak train stops here a couple of times a day, I think. There's a tunnel that you go through to get to the station from the parking lot.

The part of the museum that focused on the railroad was pretty cool. They had all kinds of artifacts and interesting factoids about how having the railroad here in Marshall affected the town. For example, 1/3 of the workforce in Marshall worked for the railroad. The shop's steam whistle sounded at noon and five daily providing a reliable time clock for the whole town.

John in the driver's seat of the locomotive that was outside the museum.

On the second floor of the railroad museum is the Boogie Woogie exhibit. So this is some rockin' piano music that originated here in Marshall (according to the museum). The Texas and Pacific Railroad had their headquarters here and there were several African Americans that worked for the railroad in the 1870's. "The workers would entertain themselves with a piano in "barrel houses". Not trained in classic piano, the workers began to play the piano almost like a drum...leading to the 8-beats-to-the-bar rhythm.". There was an older fella there that asked if we remembered boogie-woogie. The guy at the desk was like, "That's from the 1800's! None of us remember it!". It was kind of funny. In his defense, he was probably thinking of the more recent contributors.

Speaking of recent contributors, the museum had a little hall of fame of local guys and Floyd Dixon was on the wall. Also on the wall was Huddie "Ledbelly" Ledbetter, Omar Sharriff and Grady & Roy Gaines. That was a cool little museum as well. I thought we'd have the place to ourselves but, surprisingly, there were other people that came in after us.

On a whim, we took a little side trip to Karnack, Texas, home of Caddo Lake State Park. It's also the hometown of Lady Bird Johnson.

This is Saw Mill Pond. If you remember from the Michelson Museum, one of the photographers took photos out here. He was probably out on the water. You can rent a canoe and paddle around but we just wanted to take a look. It was beautiful in the dead of winter. I can only imagine how pretty it is in the spring when everything is green.

The requisite selfie of the trip.

On the way back from the lake, I saw this sign. It's hard to read in the photo but it say "Chicken Droppings" for sale. I guess people gotta make a living.

Our next stop was Longview, Texas. Longview is the county seat of Gregg County and was established in 1870 when O.H. Methvin offered the Railroad 100 acres of land for one dollar. (Sounds like a bet in "Trading Places"). The railroad accepted his offer and the town of Longview was established.

The rumor is that the town got is name when one of the engineers that came out to plan the city looked out from Mr. Methvin's porch and said, "What a long view!". John is the "I" in Longview.

This is the Gregg County Courthouse. It's not nearly as impressive as the one in Harrison County. This courthouse was built in 1932. In 1930, oil was discovered and the population in Longview increased significantly. The courthouse built in 1897 was deemed to small to serve the population so it was razed. That makes me cringe but I guess in 1932, people weren't thinking about historic preservation.

This is the Everett Building. It was built in 1910 and housed the Citizens National Bank. Now it houses the Gregg County Historical Museum. It's $5 to get in. It's a cool little museum that documents the history of the county. In the bank vault, there's an exhibit about Bill Dalton when he and his gang robbed a local bank. In 1894, Bill and his gang robbed the First National Bank and made off with $2,000. 

During the shootout, one Longview citizen was killed, one wounded and one was maimed for life. Jim Wallace, one of the gang members was shot and killed as well. Later that year, Bill Dalton was killed by a posse in Oklahoma.

In the exhibit, they had a picture of the corpse of Bill Dalton. That was a thing back then. When they shot John Dillinger, his corpse was photographed and printed in the paper. Odd. According to the write up, by the time they took the photo, "the body had been in the sun in the back of a wagon for several hours. The body had been drenched with water to keep it cool".  Crime doesn't pay, kids.

The museum had all kinds of artifacts but the accounting geek in me was particularly interested in this old 10-key. I wanted so badly to give it a try but the docents were everywhere. Check out the two phones. Sadly, I had a phone like that white one when I started my first accounting job. Luckily, my 10-key was a little more up to date.

This is the S.H. Kress building. It was built in 1939. I'm not sure who would remember these stores but it was a five and dime store. We had one in Florida when I was growing up called TG &Y but it was the same thing. Kress built all these cool buildings for their stores. The company started in 1896 and eventually closed in 1981. This building is now loft apartments in downtown Longview.

The Longview train depot. This one was completed in 1940 but it replaced one that had been built in 1874. If you remember, this is why Mr. Methvin sold his 100 acres of land. This is still an active train station. Like the one in Marshall, the Amtrak train stops here. One of these days I'd like to see where that train goes. Just hop on and take a ride...but not today. 

It was a very cool and interesting  trip. I'm a nut for historical markers and history in general. (Shocker, right?) John was my driver and partner in crime. We drove all over both of these towns just looking at historical markers and learning what happened in these places. This is a horrible photo but the only one I had of the actual piney woods of East Texas.

It was a fun couple of days. The weather was fantastic. It was a great experience.