Name: Golden, Texas
Address: Golden, TX

Golden, TX RoadyGoat

Golden, Texas. It's a small place, tucked away in Wood County, but it's punched above its weight for a long time. You wouldn't know it just driving through, but this little spot has been home to some serious talent. Take R.C. Slocum, for example.

The Only Rock You're Allowed to Eat RoadyGoat

Look down. Somewhere under Grand Saline is the only rock human beings actually eat. Table salt is the mineral halite, and in its raw form it really is rock, mined in solid chunks just like coal or marble. But unlike every other rock on Earth, you put this one in your body on purpose, every single day. You have to. The sodium and chloride in salt run your nervous system, fire your muscles, and keep the fluid balance in every cell. Sodium and potassium act like a tiny chemical battery that powers every nerve signal and heartbeat you have. Too little, and you get dizzy, confused, even seizures. So while we say 'don't eat rocks,' there's exactly one exception, and a whole town is built on top of it.

9.3 mi away

The Town Named for the Mountain of Salt Beneath It RoadyGoat

900

Here's a town that's exactly what it says on the label. Grand Saline means 'great salt marsh' in French, and it sits on top of one of the largest, purest salt deposits in North America. Caddo people were boiling salt from these brine springs as far back as nine hundred A.D., long before any town existed. Early settlers called the spot Jordan's Saline, but when the Texas and Pacific Railway laid track through in 1873, the new depot was christened Grand Saline, and the name stuck to the whole town. Morton Salt bought up the local salt works around 1920 and sank a deep mine into the dome by 1931. Nearly a century later, they're still digging the same salt. The name isn't a metaphor. It's a geology report.

9.4 mi away

Reneau Building

1913

In 1913, Golden School trustees conveyed this property to Ella T. (Greer) Reneau. E. L. Foster contracted to build a home for Golden Masonic Lodge #1093, A.F. & A.M., who met here until merging with the Mineola Lodge in 1938. Ella’s husband, I. N. Reneau, opened a general merchandise store on the first floor in 1916. He was also the Golden postmaster, and the post office was housed here from about 1925 until his death in 1941. Ella died two months later. This two-story brick building with arched windows, expansive storefront glass and a cantilevered canopy entry is important in the commercial and social history of Golden.

Historical Marker →

Sand Springs Cemetery

1860

Originally known as the Big Spring Cemetery, this burial ground first served pioneer settlers of the surrounding rural community. It was formally set aside for burials in 1860 when Matthew Cartwright, a prominent landowner from San Augustine County, conveyed seven acres at this site to the Big Spring Baptist Church. The grounds were later enlarged through additional donations and purchases of land. Although many of the earliest gravesites here are unmarked, they include those of individuals associated with the church, the community school, which closed in 1913, and the San Springs Masonic Lodge No. 365, which was organized in 1873 and disbanded in 1892. Among the oldest marked graves is that of pioneer settler Thomas Ship (1796-1863), who served as an early trustee of the cemetery operation. In 1927 the burial ground was deeded to the Big Spring Cemetery Association by John Harris, a trustee of the church, which had disbanded two years earlier. Sometime later the association and cemetery were renamed Sand Springs. Still used, the burial ground contained over 1000 graves. The site of an annual June homecoming, it now serves as a reminder of the area's rich heritage. (1982)

Historical Marker → · 3.2 mi away

William Jesse McDonald

1873

(September 28, 1852 - January 15, 1918) Born in Mississippi, "Bill" McDonald moved with his family to Rusk County, Texas, about 1866. During Reconstruction, McDonald was tried for treason after a conflict with Union authorities but was acquitted. He established W. J. McDonald and Co., one of the first mercantile firms in Mineola, by 1873. McDonald became friends with James Stephen Hogg, who introduced him to Rhoda Carter; she and McDonald were married in 1876. By 1877 they were operating McDonald Hall opera house, a prominent local cultural center. When Hogg became county attorney in 1878, he prosecuted McDonald and others for carrying weapons in the increasingly violent streets of Mineola. McDonald later became a deputy sheriff of Wood County, and his reputation for boldness and marksmanship began with his role in bringing order to Mineola. During the 1880s McDonald started cattle ranches in Wichita and Hardeman counties and became a deputy sheriff in Hardeman County. He also was appointed deputy to the U. S. Marshal of the Northern District of Texas. Governor James Hogg made McDonald a captain in the Texas Rangers in 1891. He was an exemplary administrator and investigator for the Texas Rangers until 1907, when Governor Thomas Campbell appointed him state revenue agent. He later served as a bodyguard to President Woodrow Wilson, who in April 1913 appointed him Marshal of the Northern District of Texas, a post he held until his death. Most celebrated for his years as a Texas Ranger, McDonald was considered a fine tracker, an excellent criminal investigator, and an efficient controller of mobs. He died of pneumonia in 1918 and was interred at Quanah. (1999)

Historical Marker → · 6.3 mi away

Post, Wiley Hardeman

1931

Wiley Hardeman Post, aviator, fourth son of William Francis and Mae (Quinlan) Post, was born near Grand Saline in Van Zandt County, Texas, on November 22, 1898. Before his death in a plane crash in 1935, Post became one of the best-known fliers in the world, mainly because of a flight around the world with navigator Harold Gatty in 1931 and a similar solo flight in 1933. In addition, he was known for his pioneer work in high altitude flight, particularly his role in developing an early pressure suit. His achievements in early aviation, more than two decades before the establishment of a United States space program, earned him a reputation as a pioneer in space flight. The airplane in which he made such contributions is today displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., along with his pressure suit. Born a few years before the advent of manned flight, Post spent his early years in northeast Texas before his farm family moved west and settled near Abilene in Taylor County in 1902. Around 1907 the family moved to southwestern Oklahoma. Although Post lived outside the state the rest of his life, he traveled and worked in Texas while in the employ of Oklahoma oilmen and later married a Texas woman. Post had little interest in farm work or school. He received an elementary education and later took a seven-month course at the Sweeney Auto School in Kansas City, Missouri. He saw his first airplane at a county fair near Lawton, Oklahoma, in 1913 and quickly determined that he wanted to fly. He later turned to oilfield work in Oklahoma and began to dabble in "barnstorming" soon after the end of World War I , first as a parachute-jumper and later, after a few lessons, as a pilot. Thus began a career that would later carry him into the annals of aviation history. Eager to acquire his own airplane, Post returned to oilfield work to earn the necessary funds, but he was injured while working near Seminole, Oklahoma, on October 1, 1926. He lost his left eye in the accident and later received about $1,700 in workman's compensation. He continued to barnstorm in a plane bought with the proceeds, and, while on a tour of Texas, met Mae Laine of Sweetwater. They eloped in his plane on June 27, 1927, and were married in Oklahoma. No children resulted from this marriage. Sometime after his marriage, Post wrecked his plane and was unable to afford repairs. Now in need of steady employment, Post became a private pilot for oilmen Powell Briscoe and F. C. Hall, flying an open-cockpit Travel-Air biplane. He later acquired a pilot's license (number 3259) from the Aeronautics Branch of the United States Department of Commerce after flying a probationary period of about 700 hours. His physical handicap thus proved no barrier. Hall later gained an interest in the colorful world of aviation so aptly portrayed by Lindbergh's famous flight to Paris in 1927. In 1928 Hall acquired a Lockheed Vega aircraft, which he named after his daughter, Winnie Mae. In 1930 Hall bought a new Lockheed Vega also named Winnie Mae . It was this plane, made of plywood and designated 105W, that later made Post famous. He would fly it around the world twice and later into the stratosphere. Post's first venture into high visibility aviation came in 1930 when he won the air derby between Los Angeles and Chicago, a special event of the 1930 National Air Races. After consulting with Harold Gatty about a flight plan, he completed the flight in a little more than nine hours, achieving an average speed of nearly 200 miles per hour. The feat earned Post $7,500 and national recognition. His next flight would bring even more accolades. This time he hoped to complete a flight around the world-a distance of more than 15,000 miles in the northern latitudes in which he chose to travel. The route took Post, accompanied again by Gatty, from New York to Newfoundland, England, and Germany, and then across Russia to Alaska (via Siberia) and back to New York City. They departed on

Tsha Handbook → · 9.3 mi away

Hogg, Ima

1913

Ima Hogg, philanthropist and patron of the arts, daughter of Sarah Ann (Stinson) and Governor James Stephen Hogg , was born in Mineola, Texas, on July 10, 1882. She had three brothers, William Clifford Hogg , born in 1875; Michael, born in 1885; and Thomas Elisha Hogg, born in 1887. According to family history, Ima was named for the heroine of a Civil War poem written by her uncle Thomas Elisha. Her name became a part of Texas folklore, along with the myth of a fictitious sister supposedly named Ura. Ima Hogg was affectionately known as Miss Ima for most of her long life. She was eight years old when her father was elected governor; she spent much of her early life in Austin. After her mother died of tuberculosis in 1895, Ima attended the Coronal Institute in San Marcos, and in 1899 she entered the University of Texas. She started playing the piano at age three and in 1901 went to New York to study music. Her father's illness drew her back to Texas in 1905. After his death in 1906 she continued her music studies in Berlin and Vienna from 1907 to 1909. She then moved to Houston, where she gave piano lessons to a select group of pupils and helped found the Houston Symphony Orchestra , which played its first concert in June 1913. Miss Ima served as the first vice president of the Houston Symphony Society and became president in 1917. She became ill in late 1918 and spent the next two years in Philadelphia under the care of a specialist in mental and nervous disorders. She did not return to Houston to live until 1923. In the meantime, oil had been struck on the Hogg property near West Columbia, Texas, and by the late 1920s Miss Ima was involved in a wide range of philanthropic projects. In 1929 she founded the Houston Child Guidance Center, an agency to provide therapy and counseling for disturbed children and their families. In 1940, with a bequest from her brother Will, who had died in 1930, she established the Hogg Foundation for Mental Hygiene, which later became the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas. In 1943 Miss Hogg, a lifelong Democrat, won an election to the Houston school board, where she worked to establish symphony concerts for schoolchildren, to get equal pay for teachers regardless of sex or race, and to set up a painting-to-music program in the public schools. In 1946 she again became president of the Houston Symphony Society, a post she held until 1956, and in 1948 she became the first woman president of the Philosophical Society of Texas . Since the 1920s she had been studying and collecting early American art and antiques, and in 1966 she presented her collection and Bayou Bend, the River Oaks mansion she and her brothers had built in 1927, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The Bayou Bend Collection, recognized as one of the finest of its kind, draws thousands of visitors each year. In the 1950s Miss Ima restored the Hogg family home at Varner Plantation near West Columbia, and in 1958 she presented it to the state of Texas. It became Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historical Site . In the 1960s she restored the Winedale Inn, a nineteenth-century stagecoach stop at Round Top, Texas, which she gave to the University of Texas. The Winedale Historical Center now serves as a center for the study of Texas history and is also the site of a widely acclaimed annual fine arts festival. Miss Hogg also restored her parents' home at Quitman, Texas, and in 1969 the town of Quitman established the Ima Hogg Museum in her honor. In 1953 Governor Allan Shivers appointed her to the Texas State Historical Survey Committee (later the Texas Historical Commission ), and in 1967 that body gave her an award for "meritorious service in historic preservation." In 1960 she served on a committee appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the planning of the National Cultural Center (now Kennedy Center) in Washington, D.C. In 1962, at the request of Jacqueline Kennedy, Ima Hogg served on an advisory panel t

Tsha Handbook → · 7.2 mi away

Rhodes, Andrew Jackson [Jack]

1940

Jack Rhodes, songwriter, sound engineer, and producer, was born Andrew Jackson Rhodes in 1908 in Van Zandt County. Reportedly, he dropped out of school. During World War II , Rhodes worked in the shipyards in Houston. A back injury on the job permanently sidelined him from his work, and Rhodes, almost forty, decided to embark on a career in music. In the late 1940s he organized his own band, Jack Rhodes and His Rhythm Boys (also later known as the Lone Star Buddies), which sometimes included his stepbrother, songwriter and Bob Wills Texas Playboy Leon Payne . Rhodes performed on Louisiana Hayride as well as at clubs throughout Louisiana and East Texas. About 1953 he stopped performing and operated a small motel called the Trail 80 Motor Courts in Mineola, Texas. At some point he divorced his first wife, and in 1955 he married Loretta Williams. They had one son. At his motel, Rhodes built a small studio and focused his efforts on songwriting and recording. He penned, individually and with others, a remarkable list of country and rockabilly songs destined to stand as classics in their respective genres. He wrote (with Joe “Red” Hayes) “A Satisfied Mind” which became a Number 1 hit on the country charts for Porter Wagoner. Red and Betty Foley, Jean Shepard, Roy Drusky, Bob Dylan, and the Byrds also covered the song. Hank Snow recorded his song “Conscience I’m Guilty” as well as “Beautiful Lies.” With Dick Reynolds, he wrote “The Waltz of the Angels,” performed by Wynn Stewart in 1956 and later by George Jones and Margie Singleton. With Reynolds, Rhodes wrote another classic, “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” which became a hit for the Springfields in 1962. Rhodes signed a deal with publisher Central Songs which gave him access to have his material pitched to Capital Records. Consequently, such country artists as Sonny James, Ferlin Husky, Wanda Jackson, Jean Shepard, and Faron Young recorded his songs. During the mid-to-late 1950s, Rhodes also played a highly significant role in the development of rockabilly and in the writing of some of that genre’s most quintessential songs. Rhodes wrote and/or co-wrote two of rockabilly’s most enduring anthems—“Action Packed” and (with Elroy Dietzel) “Rockin’ Bones.” He recorded budding rockabilly star Johnny Dollar in his Mineola studio and subsequently produced him in Dallas. Though the recordings were not released at the time, eventually rockabilly artist Ronnie Dawson had success with “Rockin’ Bones” and “Action Packed.” Rhodes also wrote and first recorded “Woman Love” at his studio, and the song was eventually covered by early rocker and Capitol artist Gene Vincent. Subsequently, Vincent recorded more of Rhodes’s songs. Rhodes established his own record label, National Sounds, and continued to record musicians at his Mineola studio in the 1960s. Some of the recordings were released on other small labels and have since been highly-prized by collectors. Other material was not released. Rhodes died in October 1968. In 1972 he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He also received a BMI award for “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” which boasted more than one million radio broadcasts. For his groundbreaking and influential songwriting and promotion in rockabilly, he was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2009. The Mineola Historical Museum also had an exhibit on Rhodes. Thirty of his studio recordings, many of them unreleased, can be heard on the compilation, Gene Vincent Cut Our Songs: Primitive Texas Rockabilly & Honky Tonk .

Tsha Handbook → · 7.2 mi away

Golden, Texas

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