Blue Highways: North Zulch, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWilliam Least Heat-Moon's (LHM) passage through North Zulch, Texas occasions my musings on what constitutes our U.S. archeology.  I conclude that it's ghost towns.  We can't claim what the Native cultures left us, and we're a young country.  North Zulch is an artifact that has as much archeological value as anything our United States and its culture has to offer as an archeological treasure.  Click on the map thumbnail to see where North Zulch is located.

Book Quote

"I left and went through North Zulch..."

Blue Highways: Chapter 4, Part 1

Old gas station in North Zulch. Photo by Sam Starkey. Click on photo to go to host site.

North Zulch, Texas

In a past post conceived as I read about LHM's travels through Indiana, I wrote about ghost towns.  These towns, remnants of commerce and lives long past which saw their establishment and high times come and go in the life-cycle of things, litter the landscape, especially in the west.  But what caused these towns to fade from existence?  Sometimes their fates were tied to a specific natural resource, usually a mineral like gold or silver, copper, turquoise or another valuable commodity.  Some were lumber towns that died when the merchantable timber had been tapped out.

But sometimes it was more simple.  Sometimes towns died because technology literally passed them by.  In many cases in the west, that technological marvel was known as the railroad.  The creation of railroads was a function of business.  Railroad companies saw potential in establishing these two thin slivers of rail through various places, but like any business, it took capital to build them places.  Railroads had to acquire right of ways.  When crossing public lands, they had to persuade federal, state and local governments to grant them a right-of-way - a strip of land equal to the railbed on each side of the tracks - upon which they would be given the right to put the tracks down.  This right-of-way was often granted in perpetuity.  When crossing private land, the railroad companies negotiated right-of-way terms with the owners of the land. 

Like any business, railroads would go where it was economically most feasible, not necessarily always the most commonsense places.  Railroad companies wanted to have their rail lines go through populous business centers, but they were less concerned about whether they hit small towns.  If a railroad went through a small town, it could automatically increase the business in that town.  But railroads missed a lot of small towns either by chance or design depending on market economics, and those towns that were missed often withered and died on the prairie, or in the shadow of the valley that was not chosen for the railbed.

But some towns, like North Zulch, came about because a railroad missed the town.  It is the testament to the determination of a people to not let their town die to which North Zulch, Texas owes its existence today.  North Zulch came into existence because the original town of Zulch was bypassed by a railroad.  In 1907 many citizens of Zulch, named for the founder of the town Julius Zulch, moved their homes and businesses two miles north to where the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railroad had laid its tracks.  By doing so North Zulch prospered, as small towns go, especially when a branch of another railroad, the Houston and Texas Central, was surveyed through the region.  In 1931 the town peaked at 1000 residents.  But, like the railroads themselves, the town dwindled, until now today it too spends its quiet waning moments as an unincorporated community along a vanished railroad line.

In a young country like the United States, the remnants of towns like Zulch and North Zulch are our archeological legacy.  We don't sport the ruins of Rome, or the wonders of the ancient monuments of Greece.  We have no great pyramids.  We have no mediaeval walled cities or towns.  We cannot point toward the Caddo Mounds or the ruins of Chaco Canyon or the cliff dwellings of the Southwest as products of our culture, even though they are within the United States.  We have our living cities and towns, which must move beyond their usefulness before they become artifacts of our civilization.  And unfortunately, we'll have long joined the dust before our gleaming buildings and our soaring monuments become archeological discoveries of a future age.

But, we have our ghost towns, sitting silent on prairies, in deserts and in the long evening shadows of valleys that once rang with the shouts of children, the metal-upon-metal ring of industry, the call of livestock, and the rise and swell of voices bartering, buying, selling, commercing, conversing, laughing, loving...living.  We have small places, once larger and more prosperous, reduced like North Zulch to a sleepy remnant of their pasts along a railroad line that once was a conduit of wealth and plenty and a road to those faraway places only read about.  These are our legacy, our artifacts, and the archeological treasures that represent us.

If you want to know more about North Zulch

TexasEscapes.com: North Zulch
Texas State Historical Association: North Zulch
Wikipedia: North Zulch

Next up: College Station, Texas

Blue Highways: Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapToday's post is a contemplation of time and space, brought about by William Least Heat-Moon's (LHM) own musings as he continues through Texas in Blue Highways.  As he says, Black Elk looked from a great height and understood more than he saw, but LHM says he sees more than he understands.  We all feel like that sometimes.  Click on the thumbnail of the map to see, if not understand, our place in time, space and our own mental geography as we continue our journey.

Book Quote

"The sky turned the color of chimney soot. A massive, squared mound, quite unlike the surrounding hills, rose from a level valley; it had been the central element in a Caddoan Indian village a thousand years ago....

"....The aura of time the mound gave off seemed to mock any comprehension of its change and process - how it had grown from baskets of shoveled soil to the high center of Caddoan affairs to a hilly patch of blackberries. My rambling metaphysics was getting caught in the trap of reducing experience to coherence and meaning, letting the perplexity of things disrupt the joy in their mystery. To insist that diligent thought would bring an understanding of change was to limit life to the comprehensible.

"A raw scorch of lightning - fire from the thunderbird's eye - struck at the black clouds. A long peal. Before the rumble stopped, raindrops bashed the blackberry blossoms, and I ran for Ghost Dancing. Warm and dry, I watched the storm batter the old mound as it worked to wash the hill level again."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 1

A Caddo burial mound at Caddo Mounds State Historic Site near Alto, Texas. Did William Least Heat-Moon contemplate this mound? Photo by Dana Goolsby at http://www.texasescapes.com. Click on photo to go to host site.

Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, Texas

Time is always a mystery to me.  It's a dimension that seems to mock my comprehension of the universe and how I understand it.  We live with time.  Time moves constantly, forward without stopping, and we are all subject to it.

I understand, at least on an intuitive level, space.  I don't exactly know what constitutes space, but I realize that we exist within space.  I spread my arms and realize that I take up space.  I understand that even where I seem solid, I really am a collection of cells and molecules and atoms.  There is space between my constituent building blocks that can be penetrated by particles that are small enough, and so space permeates me.

I understand movement within space.  I remember my basic physics that tells me that an object in motion will stay in motion until it encounters friction from other objects.  I understand that everything moves within space, from the galaxies, stars and worlds to the basic atomic structures that form everything that we know.

But time is incomprehensible to me.  Don't misunderstand, I don't spend a lot of energy worrying about time.  But every once in a while, such as when I'm presented with a musing or some other reason to contemplate time, I still come back to the same questions.  What really is time?  Why does it constantly move forward?  Can anything stop time?  Is there one time, or are there many times moving in parallel?  Once a certain time has come and gone, is it completely over, or does all time exist at once and do we only comprehend our own experience of it?  Why is it that physics seem to indicate that time travel, or something approximating it, is only possible to the future but not to the past?  I understand that there are paradoxes if one were to go back in time, the "if you kill your own grandfather would you cease to exist?" problem.  But why does the past sometimes seem as if we can almost touch it, and the yet the future is always such a mystery?

I often wonder if, in large or small ways, I affect time, or if it is simply a machine set in motion and I am nothing to it.  When I sit down to watch a football game and things start going bad for my team, I wonder if events might have been different had I not watched at all.  In other words, was there a time and event crossroad occasioned by my choice to sit and watch the football game, or did it matter at all?  Do my choices intermingle with others' choices and if so, do some have more influential choices than me that affect future time and events?  Or are future events set and we careen toward them with no chance of altering them even if we knew what they were?

I have stood in historic spots like the Caddo Mounds that, as LHM says above, give off "an aura of time."  I have stood in those spots and felt the past surround me and permeate me.  I have even felt a connection with the past.  A year or so ago, I was standing outside a Norbertine retreat center near Albuquerque, in the desert on the gentle slopes of a mesa near the Rio Grande.  The silence was overwhelming, except when an occasional breeze rustled the native grasses.  Suddenly, I felt a distinct thump.  I'm not sure why there was a thump - maybe I had startled a rabbit and it had thumped a warning or, maybe it was something more metaphysical.  The sound startled me to attention, and I looked around.  There, just about a body length away from me, was a potsherd.  It was the fragment of a pot used by the Indian dwellers of the area in a time long past.  There was no telling how old it was.  It sat there, white with a small section of the pot's design painted and still seemingly vibrant and alive.  I bent down and picked it up and examined it, feeling its texture and marveling at the bit of design.  For a moment, I felt connected to that past.  I wondered if, in that same spot some unknown number of centuries ago, someone using that pot also heard a thump, looked around, and felt my future presence.

If you want a sense of the past and the present colliding, go to Rome.  It is a living museum of the past, and you cannot walk into the Colosseum, with the sounds of Rome's traffic swirling around you, and not be instantly transported back to ancient Rome.  You can almost see, vivid and vibrant in front of you, a newly constructed Colosseum, its benches filled with spectators watching a fight between a tiger and a prisoner, or a mock sea battle being staged on the flooded arena floor.  At a gladiatorial contest, might a Roman patron suddenly sense the presence of an Ohio tourist in our present day standing beside him at the entrance to the arena, both observing what they can see and imagine, just for a moment before the feeling vanishes and the patron hurries to his seat to see the next battle and the tourist hurries to catch his wife who is already moving toward the Forum?

I think much more about time now that I am in my middle age.  I wonder when my life will end and time will stop for me.  I think of civilizations that have come and gone and will rise and fall.  I wonder if time will eventually run down and stop, like a slowing watch that needs to be wound.  Does the eventual end of the universe, whether that constitutes a big collapse or instead, the speeding of matter into a dispersed nothingness, mean that time itself will finally meet its end?  I sit and wonder, and in that moment of wonder I am connected through time and space with all that was, is and will be.  I am connected with all of those before and after me who have sat and will sit in wonder and contemplate the same mystery.

Then, like LHM, I go and resume my own journey through time and space as I comprehend them.

If you want to know more about Caddo Mounds

Texas Escapes: Caddo Mounds
Texas Historical Commission: Caddo Mounds
Texas State Historical Association: Caddoan Mounds
Where in the Hell Am I blog: Caddo Mounds
Wikipedia: Caddoan Mounds State Historic Site

Next up:  North Zulch, Texas

Blue Highways: Alto, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWe're still riding with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) through small towns in East Texas.  Not much verbiage from me about the town or the dusty Texas plains today, but a good video is provided in the post below. To see where we are in our journey, click on the thumbnail of the map at right.

Book Quote

"Alto, on Texas 21 and about an hour west of the great line, was a pure Western town: streets broad and at right angles, canopies over sidewalks, false-front stores, the commercial section a single long street rather than a cluster around a confluence of streets. And the businesses tended in one manner or another toward ranching and lumbering."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 1

Mural in Alto, Texas. Photo by wildstar84, on Flickr. Click on photo to go to host site.

Alto, Texas

I don't have much to say about Alto, Texas today.  This is probably due to a few reasons.  One is that I don't know much about Alto.  I know, Littourati, that lack of knowledge usually doesn't stop me, but in this case, I'm not feeling very creative.  Besides, my hometown was very similar - a small place devoted to lumbering with a wide main street bordered by false front buildings along a single long commercial district.

If there's one thing to say, it's that once you get past the Mississippi, or past that invisible line that demarcates East from West in the United States, pretty much most semblance of European city construction disappears.  Towns stretch out.  People are individual in their outlooks and characters and do not necessarily congregate together in a town square.  There are exceptions to this.  Cities in Texas that were founded by the Spanish or Mexicans tend to still have this type of European layout, with a central square in the middle of the town or city usually fronted by a church or cathedral.  But anything founded by Anglo settlers looks and feels different.  In those towns, the emphasis is on individuality.  One goes to town to get what one needs, not necessarily to spend a lot of time hanging around, so commercial districts are emphasized and are elongated along at least a mile of street.

So, rather than bore you with things I don't know about Alto (you can look at the links below if you want to know more about this particular place), I will post a YouTube video featuring a song, "Stupid Texas Song," that captures Texas pride while poking fun at it.  The Austin Lounge Lizards are a Texas band that's versatile in folk, country and bluegrass.  They also have a lot of fun by writing and performing songs that make fun of virtually everything.  In this case, they take on the way that Texans perceive themselves.  Think of it as a kind of good natured, gentle riposte to Lyle Lovett's "That's Right, You're Not From Texas (But Texas Wants You Anyway)" that I included in a previous post.  One thing that Texas has, in abundance, is amazing musicians who create amazing music.  I hope to introduce you to some of them as we make our way across Texas with LHM.  Enjoy the Lizards - the video includes pictures that match the lyrics!

If you want to know more about Alto

Texas State Historical Association: Alto
Texas Escapes: Alto
Wikipedia: Alto

Next up: Caddo Mounds State Historical Park, Texas

Blue Highways: Nacogdoches, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWho knew that passing through Nacogdoches, we'd be passing through some of the most intense history in Texas?  Rebellions, rebellions, rebellions.  Here's where Texas gets its reputation for fierce independence.  Click on the map thumbnail to see where Nacogdoches is located.

Book Quote

"...old Nacogdoches (not to be confused with old Natchitoches, Louisiana; Nacogdoches sounds as it looks, but Natchitoches comes out NACK-uh-tesh)."

Blue Highways: Chapter 4, Part 1

Street scene in Nacogdoches. From the SkyscraperPage forum. Photo part of "photolitherland's" photo gallery. Click on photo to go to host site.

Nacogdoches, Texas

In my last post, I wrote about Texas exceptionalism.  Exceptionalism isn't uncommon - we all feel at times that the place we live or the country we inhabit is the best place on earth, for reasons that are obvious to us.  In the case of Texas, part of that feeling comes from the fact that Texans are known for having a rebellious and independent spirit.

The Alamo in San Antonio is often singled out as being the ultimate symbol of Texan independence.  In 1836, some 200-250 Texians fought Mexican General Santa Anna's army of 4000-5000 men for 13 days before succumbing, and through their act of sacrifice manage to inflame the rest of Texas which led to the defeat of the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto a few weeks later.

I would argue, if the Alamo is Exhibit 1, then Nacogdoches might be Exhibit 2.  Nacogdoches might not stir any recognition to the casual reader.  However, you've heard of the Six Flags over Texas (no, not the theme park!).  Texas as a territory has been subject to six different governments:  Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States of America, and the Confederate States of America.  But Nacogdoches claims nine different flags, and some of these flags were short-lived independent republics set up to challenge Spanish and Mexican sovereignty in the Texas before the Alamo became the ultimate Texan rebellion success story.

In 1812, a joint Mexican and American filibustering expedition of 130 men assembled in Nachitoches, Louisiana invaded Spanish Texas.  In this context, filibusters are men engaged in unauthorized military expeditions against a foreign government.  After the filibusters entered Texas, their number swelled to 300 and the expedition raised its flag over Nacogdoches and the rest of Northeast Texas, proclaiming what is now known as the Gutierrez-Magee Republic.  The small force fought winning battles twice, at Goliad and at Rosilla, and executed the Spanish governor.  However, despite a request for help to the United States government, the U.S. chose to not interfere, and the execution of the Spanish governor caused 100 Americans to quit the cause.  The rebels were defeated in a final decisive battle at Medina.

Seven years later, James Long led another rebellion of about 300 men against the Spanish and established the first Republic of Texas (also known as the Long Republic) at Nacogdoches.  Though Long established trading posts and the rebels began the first English language newspaper printed in Texas, the tiny republic lasted only one month.  Long tried to get assistance from the pirate Jean Lafitte, not realizing that Lafitte was a double agent for the Spanish.  The Spanish responded with a force of 500 men, forcing Long to withdraw back to Nachitoches, Louisiana.  He attempted to raise another expedition from Galveston, but faced difficulties when a group of 50 Americans were arrested by U.S. authorities as they tried to cross into Texas.  With a force of only 52 men, Long captured Presidio La Bahia at Goliad, but had to surrender four days later to Spanish troops.  He was taken back to Mexico City, where six months later he was killed by a guard reportedly bribed by his onetime comrade and future governor of Texas for the Mexican government, Jose Felix Trespalacios.

The first attempt by Anglo settlers to secede from Mexico was centered around the creation of the Fredonia Republic near Nacogdoches in December of 1826, led by Haden Edwards.  Edwards was an empresario, or a person granted the right to settle on Texas land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for subsequent settlers.  Mexico's policy in Texas was to grant rights to settlers from the United States so that it could better control its sparsely populated regions.  Edwards was granted these rights, but appears to have misunderstood the extent of the powers granted to him.  He assumed that he could evaluate already existing land grants, demand proof of ownership, and expel those that couldn't prove their ownership so that he could then parcel the land out to people from the southern U.S.  The tension caused the Mexican government to revoke his land grant, which led to the rebellion.  Edwards gained the alliance of the Cherokee nation.  However, rather than rally other Texas settlers to his side, Edwards' actions alarmed other respected empresarios such as Stephen F. Austin (later to play a pivotal role in the Texas rebellion that gave Texas its independence).  Austin actually sent men to assist the Mexican forces in putting down the rebellion.  In January, 1827 as the Mexican forces approached Nacogdoches, Edwards fled back into the United States.  However, while short lived, the Fredonia Rebellion had lasting implications.  It fanned fears in the Mexican government that the United States was plotting to take over Texas, and thereafterward the Mexican government looked toward its Texas settlers with distrust.  Mexico began to restrict immigration from the United States into Texas, leading to settler anger.  It also made Nacogdoches instrumental in other Texian rebellions against Mexican authority right up to the Battle of the Alamo.

Overall, this spirit of independence and willingness to rebel against authority on the part of Texans, particularly Anglo settlers in Texas, has influenced a Texas worldview that seems to be part pride and part us-against-them.  I experienced it in academia in Texas, where American politics courses are required to teach Texas government courses.  Texas public schools must teach their students out of Texas government-approved textbooks - which means that textbook companies often make a general edition of their textbooks and a "Texas edition" of their textbooks. 

It can be heard in the occasional less than serious talk of secession by Texas public officials such as Governor Rick Perry.  In effect, these blusterings are merely what they are.  My liberal friends in other places respond with "let them go."  As a person who has lived in Texas, however, I know the real story.  Texas needs the United States.  It would not be able to afford the costs of being independent.  However, what my friends don't realize is the other thing I know...the United States needs Texas.  It needs Texas' natural resources, it needs its agriculture and it even needs its politicians, who for better AND worse have had significant impacts on the United States.  It is a fascinating place with a fascinating history, and is part of the fabric of our country and our story.  Texas history, since 1836, is United States history and as such, as complex and compelling as any we have to offer.

Sources:  Wikipedia, History.com, Texas State Library and Archives Commission Online, Texas A&M online

If you want to know more about Nacogdoches

Nacogdoches Convention & Visitors Bureau
Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel (newspaper)
Stephen F. Austin State University
Texas Blueberry Festival
Wikipedia: Nacogdoches

Next up: Alto, Texas

Blue Highways: Carthage and Mount Enterprise, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapNow in the Lone Star State, William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) drives Ghost Dancing into a state that has many interesting facets, not the least of which is a pride as big as all of Texas.  Mount Enterprise and Carthage are right at the beginning.  Click the thumbnail of the map at right, and you'll see where they line up along the trip.

Book Quote

"The true West differs from the East in one great, pervasive, influential and awesome way: space. The vast openness changes the roads, towns, houses, farms, crops, machinery, politics, economics, and, naturally, ways of thinking. How could it do otherwise?....

"....The long horizon gave a sense of flatness, but in truth, it was only a compression through distance of broad-topped hills....

"The towns: Carthage, Mount Enterprise..."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 1

See, everything is big in Texas! Photo taken by Amy Evans Streeter somewhere near Carthage, Texas. Click on photo to go to her site.

Carthage and Mount Enterprise, Texas

The magnificence of the sky over Texas is truly startling if you've never experienced it.  It may seem that Texans overblow things when one listens to how "the stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas."  In fact, if one listens, it might seem that everything in Texas is overblown.  How can people think so much of a particular place?

The sky itself is the first indication that there may be something more to Texas.  It is not that the sky isn't brilliant and encompassing in other places.  I imagine that if you are standing in the flat farmland of North Dakota, the effect might be similar.  In these areas of Texas, the sky bends up and over one like a huge dome.  In the day, it seems to stretch on forever.  One can feel extremely lonely if one is in the middle of nowhere in Texas, or one can feel extremely connected to the universe.  It is not difficult to feel both things at the same time.  There are endless possibilities over the horizon, where more emptiness is just waiting for someone to come along and make something of it.

At night, the stars do burn bright.  How could they not in a state that has so many people, and yet so many open spaces that one can easily find places where ground light from the state's major cities does not interfere with one's enjoyment of the cosmos in its vast infiniteness?

If one takes LHM's contention that there is a boundary between the West and East in the United States, and that Texas stands on the West side of that boundary, then one will notice a change crossing into Texas.  The towns are more spread out, because they are not bound by geography or landscape.  Roads travel straight to the horizon, because they are not limited to the confining contours of an overabundance of hills.  People have the mindset that the land is a limitless resource to be exploited, not a limiting feature.  I'm not saying that all of Texas is like this - certainly the western side of Texas becomes desert and mountainous.   But for better or worse, if one sees Texas from this angle, it is easy to see, in part, why Texas has become what it is.

For better or worse, Texas exceptionalism grows out of these very features.  Many Texans are convinced that their state is different, and better.  It was built on the backs of independent and enterprising pioneers who came to the state to ranch, to grow, and later to drill and prospect.  Those who do well in Texas are those who do well for themselves.  Having lived in California and in the Midwest by the time I got to Texas, I could relate to both those who lived and breathed this ideal and those who criticized it.  After all, I grew up in a town made up of the same types of people, who felt that where they lived was exeptional.  But, also being a person who identified with those who had neither the means nor the resources to do well for themselves, I could relate to those who lamented the lack of social services and good public transportation.  Despite my misgivings (and I will admit that I moved to Texas with the conviction that I would hate it) I came to be fascinated by the state and literally shed tears when I moved away from San Antonio. 

Having lived all over the country now, I'm not sure that I can bring myself to say that Texas is better.  But I'm not a native Texan.  I still get angry especially when I hear some of the things that come out of Texas politics.  Those are feelings and beliefs, but not the essence of the state.  I gently chide my fellow liberal friends who think that Texas (along with the rest of the South) should be allowed to leave the United States. 

When I think of Texas, I think of people who in many ways are generous and kind, who have created some of the most moving music I have ever heard (see the link to the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame below), and who do live in a great state full of surprising cultural and geographical diversity.  I think of a state that encompasses one of the most wonderful places I have ever been, Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park.  I think of swimming with friends in the beautiful downtown retreat of Barton Springs, whose waters are maintained at a constant temperature that cools you down on a hot Texas day, or swimming with my wife in Balmorhea in a hole that draws recreational swimmers and people learning how to scuba dive.  I think of drinking a Shiner Bock made by Czech immigrants between San Antonio and Houston, in the German town of Fredericksburg and watching an African-American couple shop next to a Hispanic family not too far geographically from where the architect of the Great Society, Lyndon B. Johnson, was born and raised.

Lyle Lovett sang an anthem that manages to encompass both Texas exceptionalism and its welcoming attitude in the same breath.  The song says "that's right, you're not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway."  When I lived there, I felt that there was a space for me.

If you want to know more about Carthage and Mount Enterprise

Carthage, Texas Official Home Page
Panola College
Panola Watchman (newspaper)
Texas Country Music Hall of Fame
Texas Escapes: Carthage
Texas Escapes: Mount Enterprise
Texas State Historical Association: Carthage
Texas State Historical Association: Mount Enterprise
Wikipedia: Carthage
Wikipedia: Mount Enterprise
Wikipedia: Texas Country Music Hall of Fame

Next up: Nacogdoches, Texas