RSS 2.0 NEWS FEEDSUSS TEXAS
Posted 09.21.06 at 3:21 PMThanks to Claude (Chet) Hilyer and Mary Hilyer, who attended the commissioning ceremony of the USS Texas (SSN 775) in Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 9 and brought me the colorful program book for the archives.
According to this beautifully illustrated book, building of the submarine began with the shaping of steel in 1999. Her christening was celebrated on July 31, 2004, in Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipyard when First Lady Laura Bush broke the traditional bottle of champagne on the ship’s bow, but she didn’t become waterborne until she was launched on April 9, 2005, commencing her in-water testing.
She completed her successful Sea Trials in May, 2006, and was delivered to the Navy on June 20. From this date, it says, the crew continued to train and focus on the real mission of the Texas as a front line warship in the Navy.
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Posted 09.14.06 at 3:41 PMThanks to Jo Ricketson, who brought a significant gift to the archives this week: School Districts of Lamar County, Texas, printed in Paris, Texas, Oct. 20, 1905.
J.W. Love was the County Judge, and J.A. Monroe, the County Superintendent. Commissioners were T.D. Cabiniss, Prec. 1, B.B. Brashears, Prec. 2, W.M. Gantt, Prec. 3, and Chas. Wilson, Prec. 4. 108 small school districts are listed by number and community, as well as the independent districts of Roxton, West Paris, and East Paris.
Here is an example: Bethel - (District No. 8) “Beginning on Mulberry creek at the s. b. line of J. Houndshell survey, thence north up Mulberry creek to a point due east of J.D. Martin’s s. e. corner in John V. Cherry survey, thence west to said s. e. corner and with the s. b. line of said Martin’s tract to his s. w. corner ...”
A few of the school districts listed and described by metes and bounds are Hindeman, Craddock, Red Oak, Faulkner, Pine Creek, and Milton, to name but a few.
Thanks to Jo for sharing this information with researchers in this area.
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Posted 09.01.06 at 12:04 PMReading of the Blossom Homecoming to be held on Saturday, Sept. 2, reminded me of some of the best times I’ve had in my life. I’m essentially a Parisian, born and bred, but my dad was from Montague County, Texas, and remained in contact with his childhood friends throughout his life. For a number of years, we lived in Bowie, Texas, and he practiced law in Forestburg, Montague, Nocona, Bowie, Saint Jo, Bridgeport, and even Fort Worth, Texas. The little story about the Blossom Homecoming made me homesick, though.
He had gone to school in the little community of Uz, Texas, (find it in the Bible) and we never missed the annual homecoming of these students who gathered on the creek, where absolutely nothing is left of the buildings. My grandparents once had a general store at Uz. This summer during the family homecoming many of us made a pilgrimage to Uz. We dutifully gazed down into the old public well, which has been shored up and restored by the historical society.
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Posted 08.31.06 at 10:25 AMAikin Regional Archives has a wonderful collection of Paris High School Owls, which Ben Fowzer keeps up to date with the very latest volumes. Our collection begins in 1913. This volume is dedicated to J.G. Wooten.
It tells us that the public schools of Paris were organized in 1884 by Prof. J.C. Brooks, who served as superintendent for two years. During these first years there were no students higher than the eighth grade!
The next two years were overseen by Prof. C.A. Bryant, who perfected the lower grades and added the ninth and tenth grades.
In the fifth year, Prof. D.C. Culley took over and served five years. The High School assumed a greater status, the eleventh grade was added, and the first regular class graduated. The High School now consisted of three grades: ninth, tenth, and eleventh.
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Posted 08.25.06 at 8:48 AMIs anybody out there from Ragtown? Do you know how it got its name?
I was filing and stopped to read an old Frank X. Tolbert column from the Dallas Morning News (May 22, 1983) which attributed the community’s name to a passing traveller who, noting “well-worn clothes” hanging to dry on “willow pods,” stated that the town must be so poor that its citizens dressed in rags, hence “Ragtown.”
He also remembered an interesting old gentleman he’d met in the area on a trip in 1955, Rodolphus (Doll) McFrazier, known locally as “the Angel Gabriel of the Red River Valley.” In his 80s at the time, Doll was running a mule-drawn sugar cane mill. Possessed of a long, homemade steel trumpet, he would climb the nearest rise, when someone in the community died, and blow the trumpet, which could be heard far away.
Farmers would stop their plowing, and housewives would pause in their work, knowing that someone of their acquaintance had passed away. Doll refused to blow the trumpet for Tolbert, saying if he blew it, people would think the worst. Sadly, when Doll passed away, so did the trumpet, apparently removed by someone for a “keepsake.”
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