Reader Cary Wright from Lake Brownwood sent me a thought-provoking email last week. Mentioned were some details about the history of local travel, in particular the old railway lines that used to serve as public transportation, a topic that I find endlessly fascinating. This email was so good, I’m sharing part of Wright’s note with you, and writing some myself about the subject.
“I recently read information on the shortest railroad that was from Brownwood to Rising Star back in the day. Nothing left but the signs of Owens and May that are now along the new highway of 183. … as I travel to Brownwood on these broken pieces of the Old May highway, I see old bridges in the ranch area that was once the only travel by wagon to these communities and wonder how these areas survived during those harsh times. How did they get the goods necessary for survival of food and hardware? Today we get on Amazon, and it’s delivered the next day,” Wright wrote.
My son just left for school a few minutes ago. He’ll travel 20 miles and be in Brownwood for class in about as many minutes. He can stop and get anything he needs along the way, and probably never imagines that this was not always the case. Train travel, the successor of the stagecoach method, a sort of bridge between cars and a horse and wagon, was probably the cheapest and easiest way to get from Brownwood to surrounding areas in the early 20th century. The trains stopped daily in small towns like Blanket and May, and for a few coins you could ride into Brownwood and shop, see a show or visit family, and ride back again the same day. In 1909, this is just what Blanket resident Alice Smith and her family frequently did.
We know this because Smith kept a diary (published in installments by Joshua Furry of Blanket on the Facebook group Blanket TX – History in Pictures) that chronicled her daily life. In it are many mentions of taking the train to Brownwood. Here are a few of these references:
Monday April 14
Some colder…Mrs Moore left on the afternoon train for Brownwood…We talked to sister long distance after Billie & Mrs Moore left for the train…I got the washing going & finished two weeks washing by 5:30…Went to preaching…Bro Curry of Ballinger done the preaching…We went down to see Mal & Barney.
December 10th
Awfully cold terrible cold night…papa came home on 8 am train…letter from Lillie Cox…far??? better finished my rug
December 12th
Very nice day…sunshine & warm…I baked bread & churned…Bill went over to Brownwood on late afternoon train
Monday May 19
Cloudy & rainy all day…Dear papa got up at 4 o’clock & milked & got ready to go to Bwood on 5 o’clock train to court for Mrs. Langston…This is the third or fourth time he has gone on the same case…I hope it will be the last…Went to society, only three out…we had a good Bible lesson…I don’t like to live?? Alone.
I probably included a few more entries than necessary, but the whole manuscript is a great read, and it’s hard to stop. It seems the railroad came into Blanket in 1891, as an article in Brownwood News, published in 2018 by Frank Hilton and Clay Riley, says: “When the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railroad was extended from Comanche to Brownwood in 1891, Blanket was moved from its former site to its present location.” Frank Hilton, in his History of the Railroads in Brown County, recorded the end of the line for the passenger phase of railroad transportation. “There were three known named trains that came through Brownwood at one time or another. They were the California Special,” the “Texan,” and “The Angelo.”. On July 20, 1968, the “last passenger train to stop in Brownwood pulled out at 6:10 a.m. Saturday. Only a handful of people were at the depot to see an era end with the last train’s departure […} By then, passenger service had dwindled to one train a day.”
While travel today is easier and faster than ever, it’s fascinating to think about the various ways people once got around out here. I like to imagine Mrs. Alice Smith walking into the old depot office in Blanket, heading to Brownwood for the day. She might be going shopping, maybe she’ll stop and see family and friends or, as she once wrote, catch a show at the Lyric Theater. You can almost hear the click of her heeled boots in the foggy cold of a November day, see her gloved hand reach out and take a ticket, a feathered hat bobbing on the fancy going to town outfit. It was a different time, with different values. People and communities were more interwoven and dependent on each other for survival, and I’m sure a lot of talk happened on these short train rides that doesn’t happen so much anymore. The passenger trains are a thing of the past, and some of us are maybe more isolated in this day. Even so, there are some things I hope won’t ever change, things that haven’t changed much since the old days out here. Wright wrote later in the email some thoughts that sort of sum it up for me: “You lived day by day with faith. Loved one another and were kind to your closest neighbor because that was your only source of help if needed. Faith played a major role in your survival.” May that still be.
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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns appear Thursdays on BrownwoodNews.com. Comments regarding her columns can be emailed to [email protected].
