No preview available
HomeMy WebLinkAboutA Ridge Between Two Rivers h . -' S64.16.-&- Dear David, Here is the first installment of A Ridge Between Two Rivers - -- - - -. As we have discussed, it has taken a bit longer than anticipated but the end is in sight. Here are a few explanatory notes on what you have. Somewhere along the line I decided to treat it like a 4 -act play, with changes in stage setting and players at each intermission. To me, it makes sense. Our ridge has experienced many changes since it was created during the Pleistocene period. Each change has brought new people on stage and people are, after all, what history is about. Some of the changes you will notice are dramatic. Some are subtle and most folks look at the result and wonder how or why it came about. I use the "Intermissions" to try to put what has happened in the last act and what will happen in the next act in perspective with the world around us. History does not happen in a vacuum. We are a part of, not apart from, what goes on around us. I also decided to call this a "popular" or "folk" history for several reasons. In the first place, you told me that you wanted me to do this in my accustomed style (if you can call the way I write a "style "). Popular or folk history is what I do and in place of footnotes and other academic impedimenta I take a personal narrative approach. Frequently I use personal pronouns and write in the first person, as if we were sitting on the porch watching the sun set and discussing what I think happened here on our ridge. There will be those who find fault with all of that because this is an "academic" community. For them, there are the very good "academic" histories of Brazos County, College Station and A &M. If you had wanted that type of - writing, you wouldn't have come to me. Another reason is because the story of College Station IS a story of people, lots of people, over 2,000 generations of people in sequence living their lives on our ridge. Some of them are bad; most are good; all of them left tracks on the land. These folks made our history and I would rather not dehumanize them. Finally, perhaps, is the fact that "oral history" IS "folk history". Stories told by people, whether they participated in them or only heard them from friends and family, are subject to human perspectives and can't be tied to "exact" fact. Lawyers can't agree on what happened at a particular time in a particular street intersection so how can anyone expect the memories of people stretched over fifty or more years to agree. This will raise howls of anguish but, to the oral historian, "TRUTH" is both subjective and relative. If a person believes something to be true then, for that person, it is true, and he or she will act upon that "truth ". Bottom -line, don't expect to find total agreement between stories and don't expect someone's "truth" to always coincide with yours. Some readers will immediately respond to almost every sentence with, "But that's just not true. I remember (or) my daddy told me (or) that's not what it said in that other book." Sorry about that. That's what makes "folk history" what it is. itA.?4- l" ( UP y d Ca In our original discussions we decided to cut this book off in 1941, at the beginning of WW II. That seemed logical to me at the time but, as I learn more about our subject I think it would make a bit more sense to break it in 1938 when College Station incorporated as a real, honest -to- goodness city. It makes more sense to me to break it there with a grand finale' of a local nature rather than something that happened elsewhere. After all, the whole book has led up to the point where CS and its people have a legal and recognized existence, rather than being a suburb of Bryan. This would also give the next book, whenever it happens, a good place to start — and it will start with the monumental "bang" of WW II. Another problem with what is in this package is that, so far, it doesn't make as much use of what was collected in the nature of oral history as some folks will want. There are several reasons for this. Perhaps the most important is that, as I calculate it, about 75% of the material collected covers the time period since 1938. Let's face it. Most of the folks who came out to record their memories didn't come here until after the war. Of those whose memories go back further than that there is a lot of redundancy. Farms are farms; cows are cows; students are students and there is not a great deal of variety. About 2/3 of today's College Station was still woods and pastures 25 years ago. Here's how I plan to handle the rest of the book. The material you fool collected is divided into geographic sections: North Gate, East Gate, South te, etc. These didn't really grow together until after our cut -off date so I want to handle them as separate communities that only, somewhat reluctantly, came together in 1938 to stop encroachment from Bryan. I laid the foundation for this approach in the last "Intermission" when I described the next act as taking place on a revolving stage with the University at its center. That way, I can discuss the development of each of these areas separately and better utilize the limited material I have. Each area will have at least two chapters so that I can generalize in one and pick out assorted "human interest" topics for at least one more. "West Gate" may have only one because that is still a part of A &M. "North Gate" and "South Gate" will have more than "East Gate" because the North/South travel corridor brought more development there quicker. I can't tell until I get there but there may be as many as ten more chapters in addition to what you have here. Jeff Carroll 10/01/99 it it Eves. HEY, P~STO! - ' A ~DGE IS BORN collide, more until we mostly This in th~ Not to ofoil fell strllCRt~ from up more and salt Gulf of filled with that cell For the they wh/ch Waco drain The Rio how very In tell groups of With did new and very also climate spine the and W©I~, Both rivers eleven art in the the and of or is a' A t soci~ is called a "cultural semblage , than a people the or Ids, Two its have a or a set This story of Based on the Clovis of you partners. the or it may and have a If ~and six one after the poim. could grubs in Texas, who used the ended. In Wel~ of stick beetle · of l;owrls on or In practical where the else to go. The in aS that bad Texas. wRr to the other 1868. which that the people fled White of Love but they militia militia and they of 1865 accident. troops were of 1864, leave march of or Each role 8,000 there easy. State, about at about attitude Hoxie were all arrived or in " rltal earliest there was a burials the WaS them on 0111' the By the that most knife the been spread the of ale ollF the In Act Two E BANNERS OF SPAIN fl'om was Galveston tO our companions the remm for all agreed that there was no good reason to Frenchman, Creek back to Canada Indian in men. authorized five Mexico that it Texas, water color. transposed the But~ and everyone, were north of road first portiOn of that There IS a poim to all ofthis discussion. You just have to stick v~4th me. the of but, as San aS This road tO It the O~ tO the the the not the futur~ In 1800, there was peace, and Yellow She "The them~ on and them find their the Neither take ~.lit. It had world Their was their ~that made decisions at their legs their the while women to small the in often much nude. had all the allows were skirt. In any they of are two that of the Tlrmt ~ of the process was the then so the band for the clothes for l~k n~d~ hut that was and they fought bodies of c~ge was F~ST EUROPEAN SE LERS ..-- sides he and New it on hard and roughly led add States then, then ~¥hen acres. acre at~r the the soil a until planted in it inside To on the our immediate as yet, the rivers were tO same home in Maria Scott, dated they ~tO eastern for in for to of 1832. l~e much acre On paper, canl~ war. 25 177- 420- be the went. Then - - AND WHAT THEY FOUND the and open good James Hail of the by the As far well what in the state that on the generally wooded." upon Carter then Texas once and Creek. the land assorted here, interests a most of the latter area many of the THE "F ~R" and won its and home for for the were warof and the ladies ~ich fail~ and wandcr~A mca 111 officers were the bases found and asked time, years old. rltx County School thc 1843 and stay "I couple asked At the house, over preacher. Harvey at not quite 30 in real tracks. In old State of for "WAR TIME COMIN' - - -" she really South. 215 to eligible to vote in 1861 voted old site and the alike would end 1861 band Wilson the lg62 the residents were gins, the Southern the from tax law tothe cars fiat again, tiny Texas the rode at didn't the fiat. . But, wagons and in the fields was and there and the Brooks anda he area and was of asa crossed den of share "Y I " el ow Jack and time the and there and deep, with a and enough O~ our 't of a b~ the and in with lots the will all all over ridge between the md on the other tO Wends, Lewis, of of thc and ~s ARcr the were back. Back in They all sides and out of and the Earl Turek and Hrdlicka Lubla by Texas and North and, to make wife and Cavitt, soil details today. It the cattle their ethic. attention. work the was there. of to the a address. the pay behave eV¢lltS, Mark Bryan, Texas". to seat of in the of the didn't for the who Joseph of "HOME SUC RS" behind need to peek a few land and control. order". lands of business older the status quo. took "Col. Antonio people into have least two progressive and one of' most far from like tried have smal~ churches, nutrients soil and had an area around over ~BBITS, ~ LERS, WO S AND NO WA~R and The throughout the involved. could be committee or have else. It hada the to build these, wore the w~fe would side of the College of assembled Students like at the Wg~ FEELS' 0/~' To cure anemh, "eat rabins three times a day." become "do not allow the mother to theCut in and and wrap don*t really will draw it boil it from Use coal oil area." Or, one Burns lead head On milk dried A w/Il cure a in grease could drink as take steps of last reso~ one could tie "a leather shoe horn w~th ants attache" around the baby's neck. half a Warm child a black and an upset on warm thc ear." was the their cheaL" of the with red small sack in haft in the room with the that was ~) Station feet in a was to, problem few and a "D~k nine swalloWs of water without taking a b~th." "~re the person by breaking a paper sack behind them." scissor~ to a string and then tongue and let it melt and slowly run arms as f you wee g ready the chew. For kidney trouble, one should, "D~k a tea made from egg shells." with the or under the bed in the cramp how to pair of this olle it under rind and rub the head, to o~e soak or afford to be onion, mix it with Roll out the turpenfine~ Place and Pour water over the fat, *'Bind of them. THE LO~ OF E CO N P CH Valley. only a it Divide the first sure to pick to mix the you the of this. front If the and family. while tlmt you are first If You see a rabbit cotton for above C0~tolI luck And, 0~ all O~ of ora 80%. a in fields which in the students James shade. Baylor" Florence, teenager, Sul danger. head. There was James in 1880. fathers sand the on top and there that in a and from hall to years. new grew "Old of In who had tribes. his Indian he the Third Texas for in and, Folks :of the and acuity, has for of the Board of is useless to know group was track teams. it was said that {)fan b~omcmo~ AT EOF O of is held buL in as its name BuL in the all. of' and arrived most a broad- pink and blue tied lace. quaint ~ven sm'ah and colors which which a dress of white, Mrs. and La list which mused 2. 3. 6. Wits bib black took 1868: and MRrcos, the and chene with and who for at 14 lbs. 1851 know and andat itinl of the Foster served school neither the in the the of The attend the Storm" it but the AMC where up. rio llam{~ on of me the who not have for a real Some In the edgea over Dates It's of that, since War. Civil hefty The human that OF the school with of these in myself act of this together the curtain is about to go up on our Ridge