West, TX RoadyGoat

West, Texas, isn’t just another dot on the I-35 map, though that interstate is undeniably key to its story. The town sits on a slight rise, a little bump in the Blackland Prairie, high enough that you notice the change from the pancake-flat fields surrounding it. That little bit of elevation made it a good spot for a railroad stop back in the late 19th century, and when the tracks went in, a town named for surveyor T.M. West sprang up around it. But what really makes West special is what the Czech immigrants brought with them. They came for the promise of fertile land, watered by aquifers like the Woodbine beneath their feet, and they built a community around agriculture. They also brought their traditions, and none is more famous than the kolache. It's more than just a pastry here; it's a symbol of heritage, a taste of home. You can find kolaches all over Texas now, but folks will tell you the ones in West are the real deal. People stop for the kolaches, sure, but they stay because West feels like a place where time moves a little slower, where community still matters, and where the past is always present, even in the face of tragedy like the fertilizer plant explosion a decade ago.

11.0 mi away

West, TX RoadyGoat

West, Texas, might look like a blur to folks speeding down I-35, but there's a lot more to this place than meets the eye. It's a town built on hard work, where agriculture feeds families and the Woodbine Aquifer keeps the taps flowing. We're proud of our Czech heritage, and you can't visit without trying a kolache – it’s practically a requirement. But beyond the fields and bakeries, West has also nurtured some real talent.

11.0 mi away

West, TX RoadyGoat

West, Texas, wasn't always here, you know. It sprang up almost overnight when the railroad came through in 1892, named for T.M. West, who surveyed the land. Before that, this was just rolling prairie, dotted with post oak and blackjack oak, a part of the Blackland Prairie where the soil is rich and dark. The slight rise in elevation, six hundred and seventy-three feet above sea level, gave it an advantage, a little bit of breathing room above the flatlands. The Woodbine Aquifer runs beneath it all, a life-giving source that made farming possible. For decades, West has been a crossroads, a place where Czech heritage meets classic Texas. You can taste it in the kolaches, a culinary tradition that runs deep. Interstate 35, that ribbon of concrete, now slices through, bringing travelers and commerce. But West is more than just a stop on the highway. The fertilizer plant explosion in 2013 was a tragedy that shook the town to its core, a scar that will never fully heal. Still, the community endures, rooted in the land and its history, a testament to the resilience of small-town Texas.

11.0 mi away

Aquilla, TX

1840

Aquilla is on Farm Road 933 twelve miles southwest of Hillsboro in southwestern Hill County. Settlers, attracted to the site because it was the nearest point to Hillsboro, where timber could be found, began moving into the area in the 1840s. The original settlement, near the site of present Aquilla, was called Mudtown. The community of Aquilla and nearby Aquilla Creek were probably named for early settler Aquilla Jones. The town received a post office in 1859. Twenty years later the tracks of the Texas Central Railroad crossed southwestern Hill County, passing within a few miles of the timber settlement. Shortly thereafter, businesses and residents moved a few miles south to the rail line. The community's population was 175 in 1886 and 100 in 1892. A series of illnesses resulted from drinking creek water, so a well was dug in 1897 to provide fresh water. One of the state's first chartered banks opened at Aquilla in 1905, when the town also had a health spa. In 1910 the population surpassed 200. By 1914 it had a population of over 500 and thirteen retail stores, three hotels, four churches, a school, a newspaper, a bank, and a thriving lumber company. By the late 1950s there were 250 residents and ten businesses in Aquilla. In 2000 there were thirteen businesses and 136 residents.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.0 mi away

Aquilla

1879

Named for Aquilla (from the Spanish word for "Eagle") Creek. The townsite was surveyed, 1879, when the Texas Central Railroad was built through Hill County. As businessmen and citizens moved here, Aquilla grew to be a main shipping point. At one time, it had 13 retail stores, 3 hotels, a health spa, 4 churches, a school and other businesses. One of the earliest chartered state banks in Texas opened here in 1905. At the town's peak (1910-1920), ranchers, farmers, and drummers (traveling salesmen) filled the streets. Presently, a sound farming economy prevails.

Historical Marker → · 3.1 mi away

Prairie Valley Community

1850

In former Waco Indian region. First land grants were to Elisha Dennis, Manuel Madrigal, and Dr. Levi Jones, physician to Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas. First settlers (1850s) included Jesse Hayes, P. P. Whitehead, E. P. Wade. In 1857 Hill County's First Church of Christ congregation was organized here. Settlers by 1870 were families named Burks, Collins, Cranfil, Darden, Edwards, Harris, McIntosh, Page, Walling, and Wilson. Post office, Masonic lodge, school (Hill County Common District 1), and cemetery opened in 1870s. In 1872 the Missionary Baptist Church was organized.

Historical Marker → · 4.8 mi away

Whitney - Battle of the Benches

1949

In 1949 the women of Whitney, Texas, tried to have the cedar benches on Main Street moved to an alley because of the spitting, whittling, and cussing of the men who sat on them. The dispute went to an election. The men won. Life magazine covered the story. The refurbished benches now sit on the porch of the Lake Whitney Museum at 303 North Brazos Street.

6.0 mi away

Duncan, Thomas Elmer [Tommy]

1932

Thomas (Tommy) Elmer Duncan, singer and songwriter, was born on January 11, 1911, in Whitney, Texas, into a large and impoverished family of truck farmers. He was the son of Jackson Limuel Byrd Duncan and Edna Nash (Powers) Duncan. On the farm he worked with African Americans who indelibly marked his singing style and repertoire. He was influenced, according to his sister Corrine Andrews, "by the records of colored people and by the recordings of Jimmie Rodgers" ( James Charles Rodgers ). When he was seventeen he left home and moved in with a cousin near Hedley, where residents remembered that Duncan sang Jimmie Rodgers songs as he drove along in an "old stripped-down car." He evidently went broke on a farm he had leased in Hedley and in the early 1930s was still broke, out of work, and living in Fort Worth. But the show-business bug had bitten him, and he was determined to have a career as a singer. Clifton "Sleepy" Johnson, an early member of the Light Crust Doughboys , recalled first seeing Duncan playing a little cheap guitar "about a foot and a half long" and singing at the Ace High root beer stand for tips. In 1932 Duncan won an audition against sixty-six other singers to join bandleader James Robert (Bob) Wills as the vocalist for the Light Crust Doughboys. He was versatile in his singing style and repertoire, had a fine voice and range, and was ideal for the kind of dance music Wills performed. In his earliest recording sessions for Wills, he sang everything from ballads and folk to pop, Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and cowboy songs. Even in songs with sad lyrics he maintained a touch of fun. Duncan had "soul" in his singing like black blues singers, not the sentimentality of some country singers. His versatility was well-suited to the western swing music that he and Wills pioneered. When Wills left the Light Crust Doughboys in August 1933 to form the Texas Playboys, Duncan went with him. Alton Stricklin , a member of the group, observed that Duncan remembered the lyrics to more than 4,000 songs and could learn the words to a new song within fifteen minutes. The song that made the Texas Playboys famous was a folk-rooted pop song that Irving Berlin heard Wills play as a fiddle instrumental and published in 1940. Since Berlin wanted lyrics for the selection, Wills asked Duncan and several other band members to help him write words for the fiddle tune. Wills called it "New San Antonio Rose." In 1940 Wills recorded it in Dallas. That recording, with the brilliant Duncan vocals, sold three million copies for Columbia Records (now CBS Records). Bing Crosby then recorded it and won his second gold record. Tommy Duncan was the first member of Wills's band to volunteer for the armed services after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He rejoined Wills in 1944 as the war neared its end and as Bob Wills was becoming even more famous in music and the movies. Duncan appeared with Wills in several movies, including Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (1944), Rhythm Roundup (1945), Blazing the Western Trail (1945), Lawless Empire (1945), and Frontier Frolic (1946). He became not only a movie star but the most famous singer in all of western swing. His voice matured in the middle to late 1940s, and he became a star in his own right, second only to Wills himself in the Texas Playboy band. Duncan, who could also play piano and guitar, joined Wills in writing several numbers, including "New Spanish Two Step" (1945), "Stay a Little Longer" (1945), "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (1946), and "Sally Goodin" (1947). For various reasons, including Wills's periodic drinking and Duncan's own ego and ambition to strike out on his own, Duncan left the Texas Playboys in 1948. He organized one of the best western swing bands ever assembled, Tommy Duncan and His Western All Stars. Although the band was technically perfect, and Duncan's singing was excellent, the band lacked the spark that had made Wills's group exciting. The band had only minor success with such recordings as "

Tsha Handbook → · 6.0 mi away

McMullan, Francis

1865

Francis McMullan, the leader of a group of Texans who moved to Brazil rather than remain under a Reconstruction government, the son of Hugh Milton and Nancy (Dyer) McMullan, was born in Walker County, Georgia, in 1835. His father was an early landowner, lawyer, and stockman in Hill County, Texas. Frank attended McKenzie College in Clarksville from 1858 to 1860. He was described by a contemporary as "a man of cool courage...and undaunted resolution" who served as an officer under William Walker in the unsuccessful 1857–58 campaign to capture Nicaragua. After serving the Confederacy in Mexico during the Civil War , McMullan joined William Bowen in a plan to take advantage of liberal Brazilian immigration terms and take a colony of 154 from north central Texas to South America. McMullan and Bowen left for Brazil in late 1865 to locate lands and decided on fifty square leagues on the headwaters of the São Lourenço River south of São Paulo. McMullan returned to Texas in June 1866. After harassment by port authorities in New Orleans and Galveston, the colonists sailed on the brig Derby on January 25, 1867. A mutiny occurred when it became known that the ship's captain had been a party to the delays in sailing and illegal fines of colony leaders. A tropical storm resulted in shipwreck on the coast of Cuba on February 9, 1867. McMullan subsequently led his charges to New York, where they boarded the steamer North America on April 22, then sailed for Rio de Janeiro. McMullan guided the emigrants to colony lands before becoming terminally ill with tuberculosis. His colony is credited with introducing the moldboard plow and modern agriculture to Brazil. In addition, colony members established a Baptist church there and made major contributions to Brazil's educational system. Frank McMullan was active in politics in Hill County before the Civil War and served as a delegate to the Texas Democratic convention in Galveston in 1860. He never married. He was a Mason and Methodist. He died at Iguape, Brazil, on September 29, 1867.

Tsha Handbook → · 9.6 mi away

Abbott, Texas

Music in Abbott

Songs About Abbott

Artists From Abbott

Rivers & Roads in Song near Abbott

History of Abbott

West, TX RoadyGoat

West, TX RoadyGoat

West, TX RoadyGoat

Aquilla, TX

Aquilla

Prairie Valley Community

Whitney - Battle of the Benches

Duncan, Thomas Elmer [Tommy]

McMullan, Francis

Things to Do in Abbott

Everything Near Abbott