La Grange, Texas - Galveston, Texas

June 27 - 29, 2021:

The only thing I really know about La Grange is the ZZ-Top song called La Grange.  I was quite surprised to find a beautiful, clean town with massive Live Oak trees lining the streets.  I haven’t mentioned these trees yet, they are one of the most impressively shaped and massive trees in the country.  On trees, I suppose it’s the 100% humidity here, there are perhaps thousand’s of air plants growing in the trees here.  La Grange has a beautiful town square around the amazing Stone Fayette County Court House.  The surrounding streets also are lined with impressive stone building as this stone is readily available here.  La Grange and all the surrounding towns were mainly settled by German and Czech  immigrants.  These people had building skills, were hard working, industrialist and were driven to succeed in their new home land. This was very evident to me when I visited their Library which has an upstairs museum.  They have birth, marriage, property maps and genealogy records of the townspeople filed here.  They also had an excellent exhibit on a local photographer, Louis Melcher, who was amazing.  He took many photos of the area landscapes, houses, parades, social gatherings, street scenes and just ordinary people doing their work.  He was also a character who moved around the local area, started a movie theater, started a traveling movie show, made and sold bootleg liquor and much else but primarily was an incredible photographer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grange,_Texas

The Fayette County Courthouse

The amazing county jail

Amazing flowering shrubs

A crazy man !

  

Famous town tree

Louis Melker was great !

What a show!

Woodsman of the world had to be a great organization ?

The other amazing resident that I learned about was Heinrich Ludwig Kreische who was a trained stone mason from Germany who settled in La Grange where he started a beer brewery.  He constructed an amazing brewery and house that is now a state historical site.  It was all so well constructed and designed, you have to wonder how these these people did these things with mostly basic hand tools.  His beer was popular and was on par with Budweiser in its time.

The house

I could live here

The Brewery complex was huge for its day

   OK lets get to the good stuff, the Chicken Ranch story, it’s a classic and the source for the broadway show, “The best little whorehouse in Texas”. ZZ-Top also had a hit song with it and it’s all true.  I don’t think that La Grange is particularly thrilled about the publicity they garnered from all this, but a brochure in the museum gave a good account of the story.  It’s another story of an enterprising madam who was very benevolent to town causes, took good care of her girls, and was known about but tolerated by the powers to be.  You can't go there today, it's long gone.  A piece of the ZZ Top song lyrics below.

There is also an impressive, from the exterior, quilt museum in La Grange, but not open, I’m sure they have some amazing quilts.  On last thing, they have a couple of good bakeries with old world bakery items, the Kolach in particular were delicious.

The museum looks to be world class, wish it had been open

I took a side trip to Round Top, Texas which goes through several small towns and sights.  Round Top has something going on, not exactly sure, but there are real estate offices all over, a very impressive new shopping area and many large antique dealers for miles around town.  It seems to be a new great place to which people are flocking to.

I travel on route 71 east towards  El Campo, Texas, under dark threatening skies.  There isn’t much to see on this route until the town of Columbus, Texas where you find another great small town similar to LaGrange.  They also have a central square around an impressive Court House, the same ethic blend was settled here and they tend to build like it was back in the old country.  I also found the largest Live Oak tree in Texas according to the sign and I can’t imagine a larger one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,_Texas

Another great impressive court House

Another nice stone downtown square

I believe City Hall

The largest Oak Tree in Texas, that's saying something !

After a torrential downpour, I arrive in El Campo which I find a bit more on the depressed side.  The historic downtown area has several closures and looks like it’s in decline.  El Campo is surrounded by fields, it’s an agricultural area and in town are large grain storage facilities and an old building indicated it once was a Rice Mill.   I spend the night at the local Walmart.

In the morning, I head out on secondary roads through farm country through Bay City and Freeport, Texas.  This area is covered with oil refineries and Dow chemical plants.  It is quite a contrast with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and oil refineries and storage tanks on the other side.  The inter-coastal waterway cuts through here with large tanker ships on the horizon.  I decide to spend the balance of the day in the area.  It’s a weird place, only a few feet above sea level with all the house built on stilts, as during storms the sea moves in, I would not feel comfortable here at all.  Quintana is the original settlement and arrival point by ship for many of the original 300 Texas settlers.  They have an archeological site fenced in where the original fort once was situated.  This area is a Fishermans paradise, not so much of the party it up beach crowd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeport,_Texas 

A nice beach view

Everything has to built up on stilts

It has history with the arrival of early settlers

They Jetty is quite a walk, I was thinking about tidal waves the whole time

I parked for the night in the beach parking lot, but was ousted at about 11PM and directed to a beach area a few miles away.  I had no idea what the officer was directing me to, so I just headed towards Galveston, but sort of stumbled on the beach area he was recommending.  I turned the wrong way however and ended up in a boat ramp parking area which was also okay.  In the morning, as I left I saw the beach access road across the road and drove in to check it out.  It was great, you could drive on the beach and park anywhere, so I parked in and stayed for a few hours.

Another beautiful beach site

My van's Siren painting fits nicely in this frame

In the morning, I then drive into Galveston and headed directly to the Seaport Museum which is mainly the sailing ship Elissa docked in the harbor.  It is most scenic looking dock area with the sailing ship in front of a huge ocean cruise ship.  It seems that the cruise ship is set to go out shortly.  The Elissa is a sail powered steel ship that is fully outfitted and ready to sail.  It was updated years ago with a diesel engine to improve reliability and manuverability.  It had a incredible history which is outlined on several signs inside the ship documenting its travels around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston,_Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintana,_Texas

Enormous curse ship in the harbor

The Elissa

View looking out into the bay

Galveston has many such impressive downtown buildings

Afterwards I watched a short film on the colorful pirate or privateer Jean Lafitte, it being nice and cold in the theater.  It was then time to walk a few blocks away to the Railroad museum.  The museum is in the original train station which was saved from demolition by a wealthy women, Mary Moody Northen.  They claims to house the largest collection of rail rolling stock in the southeast and they do have a good collection.  The museum mostly is just the interior of the original train station which several railroad display items and memorabilia. 

https://texashighways.com/culture/history/galveston-legend-infamous-pirate-jean-lafitte/

Great locomotive display

Inside of the Rail Station

One of my campsite locator apps mentions a beach area across the inlet where overnight camping is allowed with a $10 permit.  There is also a free ferry boat that takes you across the inlet which worked out very well and is a scenic ride.  Once on the beach, it wasn’t exactly what I envisioned, it was more of a party scene.  The beach front was lined with cars, pickup trucks (todays hot rod vehicle)  and assorted beach buggies, etc and the big thrill seemed to be just drive up and down the beach, playing your music and of course the Trumper’s are there with all their flags flying.  This went on well into the night, but eventually everyone dispersed, only a few are actually camping overnight.  Did it become quiet, NO, there was another group about 1,000 feet away on the beach blasting their horrible music until about 3 AM, needless to say I didn’t get good rest.

 

This was in the early morning hours when it was peaceful

 

In the morning, I decide enough of Galveston, I don’t want to drive back in and forget about Houston, no way, I will head into straight towards Louisiana.

Next stop somewhere in Louisiana.