Randomness around downtown Nac

That's some graffiti/artwork on the Banita Creek Bridge, built in 1941 under the Work Projects Administration. But more about the bridge later.

Q. & A. with Diedrich Rulfs

The local newspaper, The Daily Sentinel (subscription only), yesterday conducted a question and answer with Diedrich Rulfs (the Master Architect of Nacogdoches). The "interview" was conceived by Sarah O'Brien of the Nacogdoches Main Street organization, and appears to have been conducted with local Rulfs expert, Dr. Jere Jackson. I got a plug:

Q. What book are you reading now?

A. The most complete accounting of Rulfs' projects still standing is an electronic book by Nacogdoches resident Chris Adams titled "Diedrich Rulfs; Master Architect of Nacogdoches." It has contemporary photos of all the Rulfs structures identified so far. It is viewable online at: http://exquisitelyboredinnacogdoches.blogspot.com/2009/06/diedrich-rulfs-master-architect-of.html.

Art in a small town

Nacogdoches has come unstuck in time

For anyone who happened to make it by the Hotel Fredonia in Nacogdoches this past weekend, it was very easy to imagine what it would have been like when the hotel opened back in 1955. And guess who went over, early, to photograph the scene and pretend as if there was nothing unusual about having a parking lot full of cars from a vanished time?

The post wherein Miss Havisham meets Judge Stephen W. Blount

The 1897 Judge Stephen W. Blount House in Nacogdoches
In her autobiography, A Kind of Magic (1963), Edna Ferber compared Galveston, Texas, to wealthy spinster Miss Havisham, the "gray, mournful abandoned bride of Dickens' Great Expectations."

The need for neon

That "SIMON" neon sign in April 2008....

The "Mil cut"

Well, I feel like a real local now. I finally managed to make it over to Milford's Barber Shop to get what, once upon a time, the college kids supposedly called a "Mil cut."

Main Street at midday

Main square at dawn

This is Dón Antonio Gil y' Barbo, known of as being "the father of Nacogdoches." The statue is located near the spot where y' Barbo's home, the Stone House/Stone Fort, once stood. I could easily imagine him really standing there on his front porch, as he might have many times on similar, cold early mornings, master of all he surveyed.

Overlooked Nacogdoches (part one)

1020 Durst Street, c. 1890s, Victorian

It's beginning to look a lot like...

What is old is new again

So, the great old Mize Department Store (openened in downtown Nac in 1925, moved to its last location in 1961) has been closed for over three years now. Nonetheless, I was distressed (to say the least) to drive by it on North Street about a month ago to see this sign being dismantled and taken down, leaving an ugly, plain scarred brick wall:


I nearly turned around to take a picture of the workmen taking it down, but I was so sickened and horrified by the scene, I thought f*ck it, nobody else cares, so why should I? It seemed like just another bit of old Nacogdoches being thrown onto the scrapheap of forgotten history.

But I was slightly relieved when, upon a Sunday walk downtown, I went by the storefront and saw the very same sign hanging on the wall inside. So, I thought, at least, it's still around! Perhaps I could even go inside someday what is a soon-to-be-open insurance company, which moved into the empty department store and ask them to let me take a picture of it.

Well, imagine then my pleasant shock when, upon an evening run in the same area this past weekend, I see this:
Holy sh*t! And what is weird, is the old sign (the one which was dismantled and taken down) is still hanging on a wall inside the soon-to-open insurance company. So, they went to the trouble to not only carefully remove the old sign (which had broken neon tubing), but they also completely created an authentic replica. I may just have to give those people some business! I.....I love them. Sniff.

Oak Grove Cemetery

Originally called "American Cemetery," Oak Grove Cemetery is located on the 1826 land grant of Empresario Haden Edwards. The leader of the 1826 Fredonian Rebellion, Edwards is interred here. The earliest marked burial on this site is that of Franklin J. Starr (d. 1837), a native of New Hartford, Connecticut, and a local realtor.

Many graves from the early Spanish cemetery of Nacogdoches were relocated to this site when the county courthouse was erected on the Spanish cemetery grounds in 1912. The earliest grave from that burial ground is marked, "Father Mendoza," 1718.

Oak Grove Cemetery is filled with historical figures important both to Nacogdoches County and the State of Texas. Perhaps the most famous is Thomas Jefferson Rusk, judge, statesman and Sam Houston's secretary of war. Like Rusk, Charles Stanfield Taylor, John S. Roberts and William Clark , Jr., signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Other statesmen and soldiers interred here include Captain Haden Arnold and Elias E. Hamilton, veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto; Jacob Lewis; James Harper Starr; General Kelsey H. Douglass; George F. Ingraham; Nicholas Adolphus Sterne; Captain Frederick Voigt; and Dr. Robert A. Irion, who also was Sam Houston's personal physician.

Other burials of interest include those of former slaves Mitchell Thorn, Lawrence Sleet and Eliza Walker. Frost Thorn was among Texas' early millionaires; Diedrich Anton Wilhelm Rulfs, Nacogdoches' master architect, designed Zion Hill Baptist Church on the north side of the cemetery. Richard William Haltom founded and edited Nacogdoches' The Daily Sentinel, and poet Karle Wilson Baker was the third person named a fellow to the Texas Institute of Letters. (Texas Historical Commission historical marker)



"The monuments in Oak Grove Cemetery remind the visitor of the Romance and Remembrance of Old Nacogdoches." (source)

This quote in turn reminded me of another:

"As a young person during that period, I had felt Nacogdoches' enchantment, had worn its mantle of romance as I listened to ghost-voices of the past echoing from hill to stream and reechoing through narrow, winding streets. For me, light summer rain revived the scent of antiquity that permeated the main square like lingering musk..." (From Old Nacogdoches in the Jazz Age, by Martha Anne Turner)

Let's listen to a few of those "ghost-voices of the past," shall we?

W.P. Mims

Upright and just he was
in all his ways,
A bright example in
degenerate days.

His words were kindness
his deeds were love,
His spirit humble,
he rests above.

Dr. W.L. Denman

A minister of the primitive
Baptist Church, Charitable
to the poor and widows.

Marcus G. Mims

OUR DARLING BOY



M.L.A. Haltom


Pierie L. Manning

OUR MOTHER



Mrs. John P. Davidson

Gone but not forgotten

A precious one from us has gone
A voice we loved is stilled:
A place is vacant in our home
Which never can be filled.
God in His wisdom has recalled,
The boon his love had given,
And though the body slumbers here
The soul is safe in heaven.

Angel Monument



Arthur, Leslie, and Teddy Pierce

Arthur:

OH DEATH THOU HAST ROBBED US
OF ONE THAT HAS GONE
WHERE PAIN AND DEATH COMES
NO MORE
OF WHICH WE ARE RECONCILED

Leslie:


FOR GOD SO LOVED THE
WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS
ONLY BEGOTTEN SON THAT
LESLIE L. PIERCE WHO
BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD
NOT PERISH BUT HAVE
EVERLASTING LIFE.

Teddy (who died in Angers, France, in 1918):

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN
THAN THIS, THAT A MAN LAY
DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS.

Hollis T. Mast and Kate Bridwell


D.A.W. Rulfs







"Mother, thou hast from us flown
To the regions far above;
We to thee erect this stone,
Consecrated by our love."





Eliza Walker

OUR MOTHER
SWEETLY SLEEP IN JESUS.

Born in 1817 (damn!) and a former slave

Franklin Jefferson Starr

Oldest marked grave (1837) in the cemetery

Chas. H. Mitchell

Farewell my wife and
children all
From you a Father Chr
ist doth call.

Little Mary


William Purvis Spradley


The Bakers


The Monks


Susan H. Thorn

Spouse of Frost Thorn, one of Texas' earliest millionaires

Frost Thorn







Oscar Lemon Holmes

"I give and bequeathe the residue
of my property to the State of
Texas, to aid in the maintenance
and support of persons wounded
and maimed in our defense in
the present struggle of our Con-
federacy against the United
States Government; those from
Nacogdoches County, Texas, to
have preference."

Extract from the last will and tes-
tament of O. L. Holmes.

Anna Mary Taylor Shindler

Her last words:

"I am one of nature's children
I love to look at the green trees."


Time takes all but memories

Laura Blount

The gift of God is
eternal life.
She died just as this house (designed by Diedrich Rulfs) was being completed for her by her father, who was among the founding members of Commercial National Bank. It is said that Laura died in her first childbirth, and her husband sold the house and moved from Nacogdoches.

Mary Palmer Dana Shindler

Flee as a bird to your
mountain, Thou who art sick
of sin. Go to the clean
flowing fountain Where you
may wash and be clean.

Rev. R.D. Shindler

Blessed are the pure is heart
for they shall see God.

Dr. Robert Anderson Irion

Husband of Anna Raguet and personal physician to Sam Houston

Mary Bruton

Gentle one, may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have.
After thy short earthly tour:
Sweet rest seize thee evermore.

Little Rosa Tucker


Elizabeth Holloway


Adolphus Sterne

Merchant, public servant, and a financier of the Texas Revolution

The monument was erected by Henry and Marcia A. Raguet in memory of their two children Mary and Condy Raguet who lost their lives on the steamboat America during a storm on the Ohio River December 5, 1868.


SACRED
TO THE
MEMORY OF
MARY H.
DAUGHTER OF
HENRY & MARCIA A.
RAGUET.
WHO WAS LOST ON STEAMBOAT
AMERICA ON OHIO RIVER
DECEMBER 5, 1868
SHE WAS AN AFFECTIONATE
DAUGHTER SISTER & FRIEND

"How inscrutable are thy ways Oh God"