Nineteen Years Ago Today - Texas Library Association Conference

Nineteen years ago, Mark went with me to the 2007 Texas Library Association Conference, held April 11-14 that year in San Antonio, Texas.  The only picture I have of the two of us together on this trip is this one, from the University of North Texas School of Library and Information Science (now the College of Information) Alumni dinner at the Tower of the Americas observation deck on April 12:

Above: Amanda Pape and Mark Gresham at the Tower of the Americas, San Antonio, Texas, April 12, 2007.  Photo by Poom Sunhachawi-Taylor, used with permission.

As I wrote in my (online)  LiveJournal, 

I had to work Tuesday night [April 10] and did not get home until 10:30 PM, so Breathless and I did not leave until 10 AM. ... The trip down (mostly on US 281) was lovely – lots of bluebonnets and other flowers. We met Mom and Dad for lunch in Marble Falls at the famous Blue Bonnet Café.

Breathless and I shared the Wednesday special, which was meat loaf. Not as good as my Mom’s, but pretty good. Shoulda gotten the pot roast that Dad had. Mom & Dad shared a piece of coconut pie (with whipped cream topping, as the meringues are HUGE at this restaurant), and Breathless and I shared a piece of peanut butter pie drizzled with chocolate sauce. Yum.

Above:  Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape, Amanda Pape, Frederick Henry Pape, outside the Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, Texas, April 11, 2007.  Photo by Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

We got into San Antonio about four, so we stopped by the convention center first (parking - $8 – ouch!) to pick up our badges and other registration material. Registration would close at 4 and the badge was needed to ride the shuttle bus to the Welcome Party at 6:30 PM at the San Antonio Museum of Art, built in the old Lone Star Brewery. This was VERY nice. It had a fiesta theme and of course Tex-Mex food – chips and queso sauce, taco shells to make your own with beans, beef, guacamole, and salsa, and real tamales in corn husks. Piñatas and other colorful decorations hung from the live oaks and pecan trees on the grounds, and you could eat there or in the courtyard. A string ensemble played in the latter, and a samba band was inside along with Mexican dulces (desserts). The best part was having the run of the museum – we were only able to spend time in parts of the American and Latin American collections, which were awesome. Definitely a place to revisit.

Between stopping by the convention center and the Welcome Party, we of course checked into our hotel, La Mansion Del Rio, and a room with a River Walk view.

I attended a lot of sessions the next day, April 12.  I'm not quite sure what Mark did all day, but I wrote in my LiveJournal,

From 11:30 to 2, we did some more trolling through the exhibits and had lunch at Casa Rio on the River Walk (more Mexican food ... we ate here because Breathless was STARVING and he gets cranky when he is hungry, and it was the first restaurant we came to while walking from the convention center).

And...

Breathless met me in the Exhibit Hall for the "Rush Hour" from 4-5 pm, when the exhibitors also foot the bill for some snacks. ... this year all I could find was Fritos and peanuts, but some very yummy fudge brownies and blonde brownies [aka blondies] too. We bought a few books ... [and went to the] Alumni Dinner ... at 6:30 PM.

On Friday the 13th, I think Mark mostly hung around the hotel, while I went to lots of conference sessions.  But ...

Breathless and I had lunch at a restaurant just off the River Walk, in Rivercenter Mall, called Steers & Beers. We shared a hamburger and fries that was actually quite good and reasonably priced. We wandered around the mall a bit, buying some new CDs.

We had dinner with Breathless’ son [Drew] and son’s girlfriend [now wife Carolyn] at Joe’s Crab Shack on the River Walk. Yeah, a chain, but said son loves king crab legs, and the mojitos come in little plastic garbage cans. It was starting to sprinkle as we left the restaurant and walked back to the hotel, and son & girlfriend got away just before a big thunderstorm cut loose.

The conference ended Saturday April 14 at noon.  

[We] went to eat at the restaurant in the hotel, Las Canarias. We ate outside under a bright yellow umbrella and shared a bowl of their signature squash blossom roasted corn huitlacoche soup with crème fraiche (very good!), and some so-so quesadillas. Then it was off to Canyon Lake.

We stayed at the Rockin’ MJ Ranch Bed & Breakfast [now called Moe and Jo's Haus], a place we had originally planned to stay during our Spring Break vacation in March before Breathless got sick. It’s on the north side of Canyon Lake, not far from the Marina of the same name where Breathless’ son has moored the 22’ Catalina sailboat Breathless and I used to sail 25+ years ago in Corpus Christi. The plan was to go sailing on Sunday.

However, said son [Drew] had taken the boat out a couple weeks before and busted the outboard motor. He told us Friday night that was in pieces in his apartment, but he should be able to get it fixed in time. Alas, he called us Saturday night and that did not happen. Probably just as well, as it was too windy to sail on Saturday afternoon, and there was no wind AT ALL on Sunday, so we’ll have to try another time.

We ate dinner at Papa-Docks at the marina; the food and the view were marvelous ... The B&B ... location was really pretty ... we walked up to the pens to look at the baby Boer goats the owners raise, and were treated to a golf-cart ride over some of the 200+ acres to the top of 1000-foot Mount Baldy, which had an impressive view of the lake. 

There was also a nice patch of bluebonnets ... :

Above: Amanda Pape by a patch of bluebonnets outside Moe and Jo's Haus at Canyon Lake, Texas, April 15, 2007.  Photo by Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

© Amanda Pape - 2026 - e-mail me!

W. W. Browning House, Chappell Hill, Texas - 1936, c1971, 1977, 1983

Nineteen years ago today was a Saturday, the first full day of Spring Break with my employer, Tarleton State University, and I had a vacation planned for that week.  I wanted to show my husband Mark a couple of my favorite areas in the state, and we were also supposed to meet his son Drew at Canyon Lake to go sailing.  Unfortunately, it was cedar fever season, and Mark's allergies were really acting up, so we had to return home after our first night (in the Texas Hill Country) and cancel the rest of the vacation.

The last stop on our trip was going to be the Browning Plantation just outside Chappell Hill, in Washington, County, Texas, then being operated as a bed and breakfast.  I'm sorry we missed this, as I'd first seen this house in near ruins back in 1977, when it had just been purchased by the Browning Plantation Foundation, Inc., for restoration, and I wanted to see how it looked inside.

Here is some information on the history of the W. W. Browning House and Plantation, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (in January 1972), and is also a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (in 1983).

The historic marker on the house reads as follows:  

A native of South Carolina, William Westcoat* Browning (1808-1871) moved to Texas in the 1850s with his wife, Elizabeth (Gilmer), and their children. This Greek Revival plantation home was built for them in 1856-58. The house is a fine example of the architectural style brought by early Texas planters from their former homes in the southern states. Outstanding features include the false graining on the interior woodwork, the widow's walk, and the two-story porches.

( * In other documents, the middle name is spelled Westcott.)

The original house had eight main rooms, four each on the first and second floors, each about 20 feet by 20 feet, with tall ceilings, four windows, and a fireplace, and they all opened onto a 16 foot by 44 foot central hall on each of the floors.  There was also a small room in the attic (or third floor) where one could access the widow's walk. 

The house was documented about 1936 as part of the nation's Historic American Buildings Survey, when it was owned by W. W. Browning's grandson, having stayed in the family since its construction 80 years before.  Architectural drawings available online include a site plan, floor plans, elevations (south, east, and west), cross sections, and various feature details.  The house was described as being in fair condition about the time it was surveyed, and was photographed by Harry L. Starnes:

Above:  1. Historic American Buildings Survey, Harry L. Starnes, Photographer, May 18, 1936 FRONT ELEVATION. - Colonel William W. Browning House, Farm Roads 1155 & 1371, Chappell Hill, Washington County, TX. Photo from Survey HABS TX-265.  From Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (HABS No. TX-265; https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.tx0229.photos/?sp=1 accessed March 10, 2026).

Below:  2. Historic American Buildings Survey, Harry L. Starnes, Photographer, May 18, 1936 REAR ELEVATION. - Colonel William W. Browning House, Farm Roads 1155 & 1371, Chappell Hill, Washington County, TX. Photo from Survey HABS TX-265.  From Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (HABS No. TX-265; https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.tx0229.photos/?sp=2 accessed March 10, 2026).

In 1971, the house was nominated for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.  Browning's great-grandson owned the house then, but it went out of the family shortly afterward.  Here are some photos from the nomination (where the house was described as being in deteriorated but unaltered condition on its original site), plus two other undated photos from Texas Historical Commission files that appear to be from about the same time (before June 23, 1971, when the nomination was submitted by the State of Texas).

Above:  Texas Historical Commission. [W.W. Browning House, {north elevation (front)}], photograph, date unknown {before 23 June 1971}; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth675223/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.  This photograph also appears in the same source as the photo below, pages 9-10.

Below:  Texas Historical Commission. [W.W. Browning House, {south (rear) elevation}], photograph, date unknown {probably before 23 June 1971}; (https://atlas.thc.texas.gov/NR/pdfs/72001376/72001376.pdf, pages 11-12: accessed March 10, 2026).

Above:  Texas Historical Commission. [W.W. Browning House, {entrance way, north elevation (front)}], photograph, date unknown {before 23 June 1971}; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth672437/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.  This photograph also appears in https://atlas.thc.texas.gov/NR/pdfs/72001376/72001376.pdf, pages 13-14: accessed March 10, 2026.

Below:  Texas Historical Commission. [W.W. Browning House, {entrance way, north elevation (front)}], photograph, date unknown {before 23 June 1971}; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth672223/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.

Below:  Texas Historical Commission. [W.W. Browning House, {west side elevation}], photograph, date unknown {likely before 23 June 1971}; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth675223/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission. Note the pole supporting the porch roof on the right - it matches the same pole on the photo earlier in this post of the rear elevation.

In the summer of 1977, I was working as an interpretive park ranger at nearby Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site (then part of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and managed by them until Septe,ber 1, 2019, when operational control was transferred to the Texas Historical Commission).  I spent a lot of my days off exploring other historic places nearby, primarily in Washington County.

One day in June, I drove a bit south to Chappell Hill, and stopped at the historic Farmers State Bank.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, the bank president, Nath Winfield Jr. (1925-2001), was also the town historian.  He and his wife Judy (1924-2009, who I also met that day), wrote All Our Yesterdays:  A Brief History of Chappell Hill (Texian Press: Waco, 1969), and Nath gave me an autographed copy.  He took me to a number of historic buildings in town - Stagecoach Inn, the Methodist Church, the J. R. Routt House, the Tunstall-Sledge House (Nath knew the owner, so I also got to see the inside), and the W. W. Browning House.  Below are two photos I took at the Browning House that day:

Above:  1856 Browning House front, Chappell Hill, Texas, June 1977 / Amanda Pape /       CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Below:  Nath Winfield Jr. by the staircase on the first floor inside the 1856 Browning House, Chappell Hill, Texas, June 1977 / Amanda Pape / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Shortly after this, in December 1977, the house was acquired by the Browning Plantation Foundation Inc. (which I bet Nath was a member of), with the intention of restoring the house.  Originally they were going to use it as a museum, but it was sold to a private owner in 1980, who applied for a Texas historical marker in 1983 and submitted the photographs below.  Somewhere in the time frame, a one story addition was made on the east side of the house (where one of two single doors existed on the first floor), to add a kitchen (as the original kitchen had been a separate building).  Otherwise, though, it appears the restoration mostly followed the plans recorded about 1936 (although bathrooms were also added):

Above:  [W. W. Browning House Photograph #3 {north (front) elevation}], postcard, 1983; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth495146/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.

Below:  [W. W. Browning House Photograph #1 {south (rear) elevation}], postcard, 1983; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth495147/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.

Above:  [W. W. Browning House Photograph #4 {west (side) elevation}], postcard, 1983; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth495024/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.

Below:  [W. W. Browning House Photograph #2 {east (side) elevation}], postcard, 1983; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth495047/: accessed March 10, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.

The house has changed hands a few more times since then, but was no longer operated as a bed and breakfast after September 2007 - which was why we never had the opportunity to go back.  The $3 million, 5 bedroom, 5.5 bath, 5,288 square foot home is not on the market, but some photos can be viewed on realtors' sites.

Interestingly, the owner of the property from 1980 to 1997 allowed his son-in-law to build the two-mile live steam model Browning Railroad on the property, which operated from January 1988 to January 1998.  Fitting, because W. W. Browning was an organizer and stockholder of the Washington County Railroad.  That was sold to the Houston and Texas Central Railroad in 1869, which eventually became part of the Southern Pacific Railroad, who ultimately abandoned the former Washington County Railroad in 1961-62.

© Amanda Pape - 2026 - e-mail me!

Old Hood County, Texas Records

My high school boyfriend is a landman, and he contacted me last week trying to locate a particular type of land-related record for my county of residence that could help him in a recent project he was assigned.  He was looking for what is sometimes called "Assessor's Abstracts of Land," and everyone he talked to in the Hood County Clerk's office and county Tax Assessor-Collector's office either had no idea of what he was talking about, or no idea where such records - going back to the establishment of the county (in November 1866, from portions of adjacent Johnson County) - were.  Other counties my landman friend had worked with typically had the records he was looking for in one of those two offices.

I used to manage the Regional Historical Resource Depository (RHRD) at Tarleton State University, and have some familiarity with records in old bindings like the ones pictured below.  I hadn't seen the type of record my friend was looking for among our holdings (counties decide which records, if any, they want the depositories to store), but I had a feeling that if they existed, they'd either be at the RHRD for Hood County (which is University of Texas at Arlington, which doesn't even have a listing online of what their holdings are), OR they'd be at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society.

Above and below:  The first and second shelves of volumes of Hood County Assessor's Abstracts of Land at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society headquarters at the Granbury Depot.

The local story goes that somewhere back in time - the late 1970s, I think - these old records were being thrown out at the courthouse.  Local people interested in genealogy and history rescued the volumes and papers from the dumpster, and in 1983, the local society was granted a lease of the old Granbury train depot, which is where the records are stored and are available for use most Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons.  That's where I went today.

Above:  The last four of the 25 volumes of the Hood County Assessor's Abstracts of Land at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society headquarters at the Granbury Depot.

Below:  Sample page from the first volume of the Hood County Assessor's Abstracts of Land at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society headquarters at the Granbury Depot.

I wasn't quite sure if I had the right records, so I took the photo just above and sent it to my friend, who verified I'd found them.  I then photographed all the records he needed from 1880 through 1972.

According to page 42 of Inventory of county records, Hood County Courthouse, Granbury, Texas, published in 1974, here is a description of these records:

"ASSESSOR'S ABSTRACTS OF LAND. 1880-current.  29 vols., 18" x 12" x 3".

Register of assessor's abstract of surveys showing abstract number; county; number of land certificate or land patent issued; class, character, and acreage of land; to whom issued; year rendered; by whom rendered; and value. Arranged by section number, thereunder by block number, and thereunder by year.  SPF-handwritten.   Not indexed."

To "render" property for taxation means to list it with the tax assessor-collector of the taxing district in question. The "by whom rendered" is generally the property owner.  SPF is an abbreviation for standard printed form - counties could purchase blank volumes with the appropriate headings for this type of record.  The standard printed forms have been filled out by hand as opposed to typewritten.

These types of records can help a landman run title in reverse (the chain of ownership) on a particular piece of property.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

North Beach Fire House, Corpus Christi, Texas - 1937 - c1980

The photograph below was recently posted in the "Corpus Christi, Texas History" group by John. L. Gower, the photographer, who took the photo around 1980.

North Beach Fire Station, Corpus Christi, Texas.  Photograph taken on Kodak slide film ABT 1980 by John L. Gower.  Used with his permission.

One can tell from its proximity to the Harbor Bridge that this is near the south end of the North Beach area in Corpus Christi.  Of course, I wanted to know exactly where it was, and when it was built.*

It doesn't appear on the January 1927 or 1931 Sanborn maps (the latter available through the TexShare databases).  It is listed in the 1940 Corpus Christi City Directory (available on Ancestry dot com) as Fire Station No. 4 at 213 Bessie Street, so that told me it was built between 1931 and 1940.

Newspaper articles in the 1937 Corpus Christi Times (available at Ancestry dot com and Newpapers dot com) indicate the building was constructed that year. (*If you look closely above the door on the right in John's photograph, the "37" is visible.)

There's a sketch of the North Beach Fire Station by architect Morris Levy, dated February 20, 1937, in the Corpus Christi Public Library Digital Archives.  There's also a 1985 photograph of the abandoned station in the Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi Repository.

Final confirmation of the location came from the May 1950 Sanborn maps (also available in the TexShare Texas Digital Sanborn Maps database, a part of Proquest Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970).  Below is a snip of the relevant section of Sheet 63 of that series of maps:

Bessie Street was the southernmost east-west street on North Beach, and is long gone, now part of the Texas State Aquarium grounds.  Hamilton Street has had numerous names over the years, known at various times as Avenue B, N. Water,  and today, Surfside (on the southern end of North Beach).  All of this area is now part of the Texas State Aquarium grounds.

I haven't yet been able to determine exactly when the North Beach Fire Station ceased operations and was torn down.  According to commenters in the Corpus Christi Facebook group, it served as the city fire department's training facility at least from the late 1960s through early 1970s - jokingly called "NBU,"  for North Beach University.  The land for the Aquarium was cleared by the end of 1988.

The May 1950 Sanborn map also includes a filling (gas) station across Bessie from the fire station, at the corner with Hamilton.  I have to wonder if it is this one:

Gas Station [August 1980] / Jay Phagan / CC BY 2.0

According to photographer Jay Phagan, who took this image after Hurricane Allen in August 1980, it was "on the south end of Corpus Christi Beach (North Beach) - now part of the aquarium grounds."  There's a "319" painted on the column on the left in the photograph, but so far that hasn't helped me figure out where this was.  More research!

© Amanda Pape - 2023 - e-mail me!

My Parents' Grave

Today my siblings, our spouses, my son, and I were able to gather to finally have the Rite of Committal and bury the cremains of our parents, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017) and Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2019), at St. Mary's Memorial Garden Cemetery in Fredericksburg, Texas.  

My parents' cremains urns (pictured below) were placed in the vault (pictured above) before the Rite and burial.

Above, left to right:  Mark Pape and wife Nazli Rampi Mayer, Karen Pape, my husband Mark Gresham, Mary Pape, Brian Pape and wife Paige Frederick-Pape, my son Eric Bolme, me.

Originally we had planned to have a Celebration of Life with a larger number of family and friends in April 2020, but COVID caused it to be rescheduled twice and ultimately cancelled.  Some of my four siblings spend large parts of the year in other places (Turkey, Maine, and Colorado), and this was the first time we were all available since the last cancellation.  The weather kind of matched my mood. A cold front came through and it had rained all the night before, and was much cooler (in the 50s) than the previous day (sunny and in the 70s).

Their grave has a view of Cross Mountain (in the center background in the photo above), which was near their 1993-2013 Fredericksburg home after Dad retired.  I think they were happiest in this town.

© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!

Granbury's First Bridge

Earlier this month, I attended a presentation by some "old-timers" in Granbury (people who lived here prior to 1969, when the Brazos River was dammed to form Lake Granbury).  They shared their memories of growing up in Granbury, and some spoke about the first bridge that crossed the lake.

Thomas Ewell's 1895 Hood County History has this to say about the bridge (pages 144-145):

Not least among the great enterprises of our county is the mag­nificent tubular arch bridge, which spans the Brazos at Gran­bury, first constructed by private capital put forth in the form of a joint stock company in the year 1878, at a cost of, approximately, $25,000.  The principal men engaged in this undertaking were P. H. Thrash, the Nutt brothers, E. A. Hannaford and J. D. Baker. This bridge was originally built in three span arches, resting on four stone piers, and with its wooden approaches, had a total length of over six hundred feet.  In 1893 it was purchased by the county at $12,500, and bonds issued and negotiated for the amount.  In 1894, the river by reason of floods, so encroached upon the west side approaches, as to wash away a considerable portion, very greatly interrupting travel until the injury was repaired by the substitution of a fourth iron span upon iron pillars.  Other injuries have occurred during the year 1895, but no serious interruptions of travel, and again repairs are rendered necessary, and another iron span added. This bridge, so centrally located in our county, continued for 18 years to be the only wagon bridge across the Brazos above Waco, and has been the means of bringing thousands of immigrant wagons and travelers through our county, many of whom, pleased with its prospects, have remained to be permanent citizens.

A 1956 reprint of the book added the following information ("Hood County Today," page ii):

"The cost of the bridge was cared for by toll. ... Free traffic was opened in 1893. .... In 1932 a new bridge was built. The old bridge was torn down in 1937..."

I found an article about the bridge in the August 24, 1877, Galveston Daily News.  The article was reprinted from The Vidette, the newspaper in Granbury at that time.  This article said the bridge was four hundred feet long (which was probably the length of the iron arches):

cropped from The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 132, Ed. 1 Friday, August 24, 1877, newspaper, August 24, 1877; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth462488/m1/4/zoom/?q=%22tubular%20arch%20bridge%22&resolution=1&lat=806.3896458788859&lon=2854.7513022701564: accessed September 28, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Library Consortium.

An earlier reference to the contract by the Granbury Bridge Company with S. E. [sic, should be Z.] King and Company of Cleveland, Ohio, appeared in the Galveston Daily News of August 10, 1877, in a column called "Texas News By Telegraph." 

cropped from The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 120, Ed. 1 Friday, August 10, 1877, newspaper, August 10, 1877; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth461238/m1/1/?q=%22tubular+arch+bridge%22: accessed September 28, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Library Consortium.

Why did this transaction occur in Courtney, a town about 200 miles southeast of Granbury?  Courtney was on the Brazos River and on the railroad in the far southwestern corner of Grimes County (near today's Luther Unit of the Texas state prison).  Apparently the Granbury Bridge Company's contract was signed about the same time as that of Courtney Bridge Company, according to an article in The Daily Banner of August 11, 1877, from nearby Brenham, Texas. 

The Granbury Bridge Company representative(s) might have traveled to Courtney down the Houston and Texas Central Railroad from Fort Worth or Waxahachie (the "From Waco" portion in the 1876-1883 map below had not been - and ultimately wasn't - constructed).  Click on the map below to view a larger version; Granbury and Courtney are outlined in fuchsia.  (The Courtney Bridge was undermined by high water and collapsed in 1890.)

cropped and edited from Houston & Texas Central Railway Company. Revised map of the State of Texas., map, [1876..1883]; Chicago, Illinois. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth190460/m1/1/: accessed September 28, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas at Arlington Library.

So just where was this Granbury bridge located?  Its first appearance is on an 1889 U.S. Geological Survey map that was based on a survey done in 1887.  By this time, the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway had been extended to Granbury.

cropped from Geological Survey (U.S.). Granbury Sheet, map, 1889 [surveyed in 1887]; Reston, Virginia. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth451417/m1/1/: accessed September 27, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

This map was the same (still using the 1887 survey) in 1949.  It clearly wasn't updated as a new bridge was built in 1932 and this one was torn down in 1937.  The bridge was gone by the 1963 map.  

The 1923 map below may be more accurate, as old-timers on the panel and another source place the bridge at the south end of Cleburne Street, on the northwest side of the Brazos River/Lake Granbury.  It joined up with Old Cleburne Road on the southeast side of the river/lake.  My house is two blocks from the north end of Cleburne Street.  I imagine remnants of the old bridge were still visible before the lake filled up.

cropped from Geological Survey (U.S.). Granbury 2-a Quadrangle, map, 1923; Reston, Virginia. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth455848/m1/1/: accessed September 27, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

What did this bridge look like?  Unfortunately, no photographs of it survive.*  However, in 1875, the King Bridge Company had completed another tubular arch bridge (aka "King patent tubular bowstring iron bridge") for the Army at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.  It was also 400 feet long with three arches, so the Granbury bridge was probably similar to it.  Here is a photo of it in 1906 (click on the image to make it larger):

Above:  cropped from National Archives Identifier 294477; "View showing Old Fort Laramie Military Bridge across North Platte River at Fort Laramie," 1906; Photograph albums, 1903 - 1972, Volume 1; Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, Record Group 115; National Archives and Records Administration–Rocky Mountain Region (Denver).

Below:  OLD ARMY BRIDGE - FORT LARAMIE 1875 (undated / c1950), P2006-47/6, Forts & Camps - Fort Laramie #3 of 5, Wyoming State Archives.  This  copy of the image from WY-B-0008, WaterArchives.org / CC BY-SA 2.0

The surface of the Granbury Bridge probably looked a lot like this undated photo of the Fort Laramie Bridge, taken sometime before the bridge's renovation, completed in April 1969, into a footbridge.  This bridge still stands and is part of Fort Laramie National Historic Site.

Above:  undated image (taken before April 1969) of the Fort Laramie Bridge, courtesy Fort Laramie National Historic Site.  Found on page 40 of Images of America: Fort Laramie by Stanley Talbott, 2010, Arcadia Publishing.

*ETA March 32, 2024 - I was recently contacted by Melinda Jo Ray, local historian and author of the recently-published Images of America: Granbury and Hood County (Arcadia Publishing, 2024).  She kindly provided the following photographs of the 1878 Granbury bridge, which are courtesy of the Hood County Historical and Genealogical Society.  In her accompanying text, Ray noted that the bridge "was wide enough for two wagons or carriages to pass each other with ease," and that after its demolition, "its limestone pillars are still there, under the waters of Lake Granbury."

Below:  Cleburne Road Bridge, Granbury, Texas, 1902 photo by R. G.  (Dick) Kerr.

Above:  Mr. Brister in carriage on First Bridge over Brazos in Granbury, Texas.

Below:  The First Bridge - Automobiles Cross the Brazos in Granbury, Texas.

© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!

Alonzo Peyton Gordon House in Granbury

This past Saturday, I went to a presentation by the Bridge Street History Center about Alonzo Peyton (A. P.) Gordon (1847-1921), an early settler here in Granbury, and his 1882 house, which is one block south of the History Center (itself in the 1879 D. L. Nutt - Watkins House).  

Both of these places are just a couple blocks from my home.  The Gordon House is now part of the Dora Lee Langdon Cultural Center, which includes all the buildings and grounds on the entire block, and is owned and operated by the City of Granbury.

Here's how the Gordon House looked in December 2021:

Above:  A. P. Gordon House, Granbury, Texas, 22 December 2021 / Amanda Pape 

/ CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Below:  A. P. Gordon House, Granbury, Texas, undated, between July 1898 and 1956 

/ Dora Lee Langdon Cultural Center Facebook page

The presentation included a handout with an old photograph of the house dated 1924.  I don't have access to a good copy of that image, but the one above is similar.  The presenter remarked that "some of our preserved houses sure don't look like they used to!"

That got me wondering what Sanborn fire insurance maps might tell us about the changing footprint of the house.  Here's the house on the March 1893 Sanborn map, on the corner of Brazos and Pearl streets:

Above:  Granbury 1893 Sheet 2 (cropped).  Below:  Granbury 1898 Sheet 1 (cropped).  Both from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps - Texas (1877-1922), University of Texas at Austin.

The March 1893 Sanborn map doesn't make it very clear if the front porch (on the Pearl street side) is one story or two, but the July 1898 map (just above) does - it's two stories.

By the time the January 1905 Sanborn map was made, the front porch had been extended to wrap around the front and sides of the house, as shown below:

Above:  Granbury 1905 Sheet 4 (cropped).  Below:  Granbury 1910 Sheet 5 (cropped).  

Both from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps - Texas (1877-1922), University of Texas at Austin. 

By the time of the July 1910 Sanborn map (above), the two-story porch had been extended around almost the entire house.  The back wing that had the water tank had been removed, but the rest of that back wing had been extended to two stories.

The March 1945 Sanborn map (from the TexShare Proquest Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867–1970 database) shows the same configuration for the house.  In the article "Chrysalis Rings New Theme in Old House" by Ardyce Pfanstiel in the March/April 1984 issue of granbury! The Journal of the Historic Brazos River Valley (volume 1, number 2, pages 26-28), I learned that the two-story porch was removed in 1956, as was the rear two-story wing, and the existing one-story kitchen addition was constructed.

So based on all this information, the old photograph near the beginning of this post would have been dated after July 1898 (the last Sanborn map that shows only a smaller two-story front porch).

However, I would date the photograph below (also undated) as falling sometime between July 1898 and January 1905 (the first Sanborn to show a two-story front porch wrapping around the front and sides of the building.

Why?  Notice in the photograph below, you can see the projecting bay windows on the lower floor (as in the December 2021 picture at the beginning of this post).  Those bay windows do not appear on the July 1898 Sanborn.

Above:  A. P. Gordon House, Granbury, Texas, undated, between July 1898 and January 1905 / Dora Lee Langdon Cultural and Educational Center

Below:  Combination of Granbury 1905 Sheet 3 (cropped) and Granbury 1905 Sheet 4 (cropped).  Both from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps - Texas (1877-1922), University of Texas at Austin. 

Click on the image to make it larger.

Speaking of the bay windows, a descendant of Alonzo P. Gordon who was at the presentation told us a story about Alonzo, who owned a store on the square on the southwest corner of the intersection of Pearl and Crockett.  He said Alonzo used to walk home for his midday meal, and ate it sitting in one of the bay windows.  From there, he could see if someone entered his store, and then hurry down the street to help the customer.

The 1905 Sanborn map above shows the sight line from the westernmost bay window (hidden under the two-story porch) to Gordon's store on the corner.  I stepped into that window area while at the house, and sure enough, I could still see the building (formerly the Nutshell Bakery, now the Square Cafe, and St. Helens).

© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!