Name: Big Sandy, Texas
Address: Big Sandy, TX

Gilmer, TX RoadyGoat

Gilmer, Texas. It's a name that might not ring a bell for everyone, but around here, it's synonymous with Friday night lights and sweet potato pie. You can feel the small-town charm just driving in, past the piney woods and rolling hills that rise up from the East Texas Timberlands. It was named for a Secretary of the Navy way back in '46, and while it's remained a quiet place in many ways, Gilmer has produced a few folks who've gone on to make a real name for themselves.

13.9 mi away

Gilmer, TX RoadyGoat

Gilmer, nestled in the East Texas Timberlands, feels like a place where time slows down a bit. Founded back in 1846 and named for Thomas Gilmer, the Secretary of the Navy, its story is etched in the gentle rolling hills and pine forests that surround it. Agriculture has always been at its heart, and even today, sweet potatoes remain a major part of the local economy. You can almost taste the history in every bite. But Gilmer is more than just farming. The echoes of the past resonate in the local legends of buried Confederate gold, said to be hidden somewhere nearby. Later, the tragic plane crash that took the life of country music star Jim Reeves just outside of town left a lasting mark. More recently, the roar of the crowd at Buckeye Stadium after state football championships in 2004, 2009, and 2014, brought a different kind of excitement. It's a town proud of its past, but always looking ahead, holding onto that small-town charm and sense of community that makes it so special.

13.9 mi away

Gilmer, TX RoadyGoat

Gilmer is more than just another dot on the East Texas map; it's a place where the land and a little bit of luck conspired to create something special. The rolling hills, part of what they call the Timberlands, aren't just pretty to look at; that sandy loam soil is perfect for growing sweet potatoes. Agriculture took root early here, and that's been a steady hand guiding the town’s economy for generations. Of course, there's Lake Gilmer, too, drawing folks who love to fish and boat. It's hard to say exactly why this particular spot became a hub, but the confluence of good soil, access to water, and the timber industry certainly helped. Nowadays, you might hear about the Buckeyes winning state championships – that's big news around here. Some come hoping to find that buried Confederate gold they say is hidden somewhere nearby. But ask any local, and they’ll tell you the real reason people end up here, and why they stay, is the community. It’s that small-town charm everyone talks about, where neighbors still look out for each other. It's a place where history runs deep, from Secretary Gilmer to Jim Reeves, and where the future is still being written, one sweet potato and Friday night football game at a time.

13.9 mi away

Fowler, Homer Thomas Wilson [Wick]

1943

Homer T. (Wick) Fowler, reporter and producer of Wick Fowler's Two-Alarm Chili, was born in Big Sandy, Texas, in 1909, the son of Isaac Dudley and Lola Viola (Glass) Fowler. He was reared in Victoria, attended the University of Texas, and began his career in 1932 as a crime reporter for the Austin Statesman ( see AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN ). He worked as a Capitol correspondent for the International News Service and the Austin American before turning to employment as a city detective and highway patrolman. He also spent three years as an investigator for the Senate Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1943 Fowler joined the Dallas Morning News and became the first Texas reporter to go overseas in World War II . His assignment was to cover Texans, but his role extended to that of goodwill ambassador, and he was occasionally called in to give the troops a laugh. He traveled to Italy and France and followed Gen. George S. Patton into Germany. In Italy, Fowler worked with Ernie Pyle at Anzio and received a Purple Heart when the press building was bombed. He also followed the Pacific island fighting to Japan and was one of the first journalists to enter Hiroshima after the United States bombed that city. After he returned to the Dallas Morning News , his editor asked him for an expense account. Fowler reluctantly obliged after several months. On the back of an envelope, he wrote, `Covering war-$2,000.' The editor paid him. When the war ended, Fowler was in great demand as a speaker, making an estimated 282 speeches in one year. He loved to be in the public eye, a characteristic that served him well when he was leader of the Chili Appreciation Society International. During the decade after the war he worked as a roving correspondent for the News , as executive assistant to Governor Allan Shivers , as administrative assistant to Senator William Blakley, and as managing editor of the Midland Reporter Telegram . In 1954 Fowler started his own newspaper, called the State Journal , which reported legislative news. That year the masthead included the modest subheading, "Published at the State Capitol by Wick Fowler." The next year, the subhead read, "Published in the interest of sound, conservative government." The war in Vietnam brought Fowler back to wartime reporting. In 1965 he asked the editor of the Denton Record-Chronicle to send him to Vietnam, thus ending publication of his weekly News Digest , which had seen only forty-three issues. He came back from Vietnam feeling that too many Americans thought of the war as a false alarm. He dubbed himself the military-affairs editor of the Denton paper. On his next trip to Vietnam in 1969, he took with him several cases of chili mix, which put him in the position to start the Da Nang Branch of the Chili Appreciation Society International. During his second trip he syndicated his stories to fifteen newspapers to get greater circulation for his articles, but the motive was hardly financial. One daily offered him fifteen dollars per article, but Fowler said, "Based on your circulation, you have no business paying that much. Make it $10." In 1970 Fowler was back in Vietnam, this time with Texas businessman H. Ross Perot , to seek the release of American prisoners of war. In 1971 he ran for Place Five on the Austin City Council on a law-and-order platform and placed second in a run-off election. In 1964 Fowler started his chili company, called Wick Fowler's Two-Alarm Chili. The renowned chili competition at Terlingua began in 1967 when a humorist from Mount Kisco, New York, named H. Allen Smith, challenged Francis Tolbert of the Dallas Morning News to a cook-off. Smith claimed that no one in Texas could make proper chili. A reader suggested that Fowler answer the challenge, which he did. Two-hundred fifty persons attended the first contest, which ended in a tie. Fowler was in his element at an event like this; he arrived wearing a huge sombrero and carrying his chili secrets in a crumpled pap

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Thomas, Henry [Ragtime Texas]

1874

Henry "Ragtime Texas" Thomas, an early exponent of country blues, was born in Big Sandy, Texas, in 1874, one of nine children of former slaves who sharecropped on a cotton plantation in the northeastern part of the state. Thomas learned to hate cotton farming at an early age and left home as soon as he could, around 1890, to pursue a career as an itinerant "songster." Derrick Stewart–Barker has commented that for his money Thomas was the best songster "that ever recorded." Thomas first taught himself to play the quills, a type of American panpipe made from cane reeds and similar to the Italian zampogna ; later, he picked up the guitar. On the twenty-three recordings he made from 1927 to 1929, he sings a variety of songs and accompanies himself on guitar and at times on the quills. His accompaniment work on guitar has been ranked "with the finest dance blues ever recorded." According to Stephen Calt, "its intricate simultaneous treble picking and drone bass would have posed a challenge to any blues guitarist of any era." The range of Thomas's work makes him something of a transitional figure between the early minstrel songs, spirituals, square dance tunes, hillbilly reels, waltzes, and rags and the rise of blues and jazz . Basically his repertoire, which mostly consists of dance pieces, was out of date by the turn of the century, when the blues began to grow in popularity. Thomas's nickname, "Ragtime Texas," is thought to have come to him because he played in fast tempos, which were synonymous for some musicians with ragtime. Five of Thomas's pieces have been characterized as "rag ditties," among them "Red River Blues," and such rag songs have been considered the immediate forerunners and early rivals of blues. Out of Thomas's twenty-three recorded pieces, only four are "bona fide blues," so that he has been looked upon as more of a predecessor rather than a blues singer as such. One commentator has claimed that Thomas's blues are original with him and that other musicians seem not to have performed his pieces. However, Thomas's "Bull Doze Blues" ends with the four bar "Take Me Back," a Texas standard of the World War I era, which Blind Lemon Jefferson had recorded around August 1926 as "Beggin' Back." It would seem, then, that Thomas's blues represent many traditional themes and vocal phrases. For example, Thomas's "Texas Easy Street Blues" contains the verse made famous by Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams in their 1930s to 1950s versions of the Basie-Rushing tune, "Goin' to Chicago." Another well known phrase found in this same Thomas piece is "blue as I can be." But perhaps most indicative of Thomas's transitional position between the early black music and jazz is his "Cottonfield Blues," which contains several standard blues themes: field labor, the desire for escape, and the role of the railroad in providing a freer lifestyle. Thomas took to the rails to escape from a life of farm work and made a living by singing along the Texas and Pacific and Katy lines that ran from Fort Worth and Dallas to Texarkana. In "Railroadin' Some," he supplies his itinerary, which includes such Texas towns as Rockwall, Greenville (with its infamous sign, "Land of the Blackest Earth and the Whitest People"), Denison, Grand Saline, Silver Lake, Mineola, Tyler (where Thomas was last active in the 1950s), Longview, Jefferson, Marshall, Little Sandy, and his birthplace, Big Sandy. Texas communities are not the only ones cited in this song, for Thomas traveled into the Indian Territory, as he still called it, to Muskogee, over to Missouri and Scott Joplin 's stomping grounds of Sedalia, and on up to Kansas City, then into Illinois: Springfield, Bloomington, Joliet, and Chicago, where he attended the 1893 Columbian Exposition, as did Joplin. William Barlow calls this piece the most "vivid and intense recollection of railroading" in all the early blues recorded in the 1920s. The cadences in this early rural blues "depict the restless lifestyle of the va

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Jarvis Christian College

1904

In 1904 the Texas Negro Disciples of Christ joined with the Christian Women's Board of Missions (CWBM) to establish a school for Black youth. A campus, consisting of a 456-acre tract donated by Ida and J. J. Jarvis of Fort Worth in 1910 and 182 adjoining acres purchased by the CWBM, was created here in 1912. Jarvis Christian Institute opened in 1913 with 12 elementary students. It added courses for high school in 1914, junior college in 1927, senior college in 1937, and gained full accreditation in 1950. It remains affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). (1993)

Historical Marker → · 4.2 mi away

Walters' Bluff Ferry

1849

Located at a noted early-day crossing on Sabine River, this pioneer ferry carried settlers traveling north or south into Upshur or Smith counties. It was begun before 1849 by Robt. Walters, a Texas revolutionary veteran, and used until a bridge was built, 1903. Town of Florence was once situated near ferry on south bank of the Sabine. Ferriage rates in 1860 were 50 cents for a wagon drawn by two horses or oxen; 75 cents for a wagon and more than two animals. A pleasure carriage was charged 40 cents; a man and horse, 10 cents; loose livestock, 5 cents per head.

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Phelps Home, Ashley

1905

Big Sandy merchant J. B. Rowe and his wife Helen (Bray) built this home about 1905. In 1909 they sold it to Ashley W. and Ruth (Prothro) Phelps, who owned a local dry goods store. For many years after Ashley's death in 1922 Ruth operated it as a boardinghouse for area school teachers. She lived here until her death in 1961. A center of social activity during the Phelps' ownership, the house features influences of the Queen Anne and colonial revival styles. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982

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Big Sandy, TX

1870

Big Sandy, also known as Big Sandy Switch, at the junction of State Highway 155, U.S. Highway 80, and Farm Road 2911, fourteen miles southwest of Gilmer in extreme southwestern Upshur County, was established in the early 1870s. In 1873 the Texas and Pacific Railway was built through the area, and around 1880 the Tyler Tap, a narrow-gauge railroad, intersected the Texas and Pacific just south of Big Sandy Creek. A switch was constructed at the junction of the two railroads and came to be known as Big Sandy Switch, after the creek. By the early 1880s a small settlement, also known as Big Sandy Switch, began to grow up. A post office was established in 1875, and two merchants named Arenson and Yesner opened stores around the same time. By 1885 the community, now known as Big Sandy, had several stores and saloons, Baptist and Methodist churches, a school, and an estimated population of 500. Several hotels and restaurants opened by 1900, and by the eve of World War I Big Sandy had two banks, a weekly newspaper named the Times , and a cotton market. The town's principal products included lumber, cotton, potatoes, and livestock. The community incorporated on June 21, 1926. The estimated population was 850 in 1929. By 1933 the population had fallen to 579, and the community had twenty businesses, several churches and schools, and a large number of houses. After World War II Big Sandy again began to grow. The population increased from 609 in 1945 to over 1,000 by 1958, when the number of businesses was twenty-eight. In the mid-1960s Big Sandy had five or six churches, a high school, and twenty businesses. In 1990 the town was a regional commercial and shipping center with twenty-eight businesses and a population of 1,185. In 2000 the population was 1,288.

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Big Sandy, Texas

Music in Big Sandy

Songs About Big Sandy

Artists From Big Sandy

Rivers & Roads in Song near Big Sandy

History of Big Sandy

Gilmer, TX RoadyGoat

Gilmer, TX RoadyGoat

Gilmer, TX RoadyGoat

Fowler, Homer Thomas Wilson [Wick]

Thomas, Henry [Ragtime Texas]

Jarvis Christian College

Walters' Bluff Ferry

Phelps Home, Ashley

Big Sandy, TX

Things to Do in Big Sandy

Everything Near Big Sandy