Fentress, Texas, just a shell of a once thriving small town............(Part #1)

[Arkie John]

I really like visiting these old out-of-the-way places. They just seem to speak to me. I try to imagine what the place or building looked like when it was in its prime.

Thanks for sharing this one. I really like tagging along.

aj

 

[Rob/Windsor Ont.]

They remind me of that melancholy feeling we get around here just as the fall season sets in. For some reason I've always liked that. Some nice, early history as well. It's gotta be fun to stumble on these places when you're out and about on your bike. What a great way to spend some time. Thanks for sharing these trips Fred.....they truly are pretty neat to view !

 

[rascal7]

My father was born in Fentress and we took many trips there to visit my grandparents when i was a kid in the 50s and early 60s. The gas station is correct as is the grocery store. It used to have a rainbow bread sign on the swinging screen doors. The store smelled of fresh fruit and vegetables. Next to the store to the left was a drugstore owned by Dick Ward. He had a large dill pickle in a jar that was often a topic of conversation for anyone new who came in to the store. The building across the street you photographed was either the bank or the post office. Not pictured was the cotton gin that was to the left of the bank long since torn down. As you go down the road past the bank to the other side was where the skating rink was. Went there several times with my sister and cousins but was too young to skate. Had not been back for 10 years until this summer. There is a private campground there called Leisure Camp. I camped there overnight in a tent twice. this summer. Did some fishing too. Caught 1 catfish. Used to fish in the river 50 years ago. Expect to go back at least once a year now. Sleeping in a tent looking up at the stars, watching the fireflies, listening to the river as it went over the rocks on one part of the river ; sure brings back memories. Went to the old cemetery just before you come in to town. Took a look at the gravesite of my grandparents and other relatives. My grandparents were sharecroppers and their old house still stands just barely. Just past the bridge a road leads to a field where their house is. Went inside 10 years ago. Was much smaller than i remembered. Barbed wire keeps you out now. Just a small town in Texas where people lived and died and grew up and often times moved away.

 

[TexasCharley]

School consolidation & the loss of community schools started in Texas in 1948 with what's called the 'Gilmer-Akin school consolidation act.' It killed most of the one-room schools. Isolated places like Mentone still have a 1-room elementary, but Mentone Jr. Hi & Highschool students have to be bussed nearly 100 miles to go to school. Incidentally, Mentone is the county seat of Loving County, named for Oliver Loving of the Goodnigh-Loving trail. Mentone is the only town in the county. Fewer than 500 folks live in Loving County, which is bigger than Rhode Island.

Believe it or not, Fentress used t be a resort town. They had changing houses & everything, where you could bring your bathing suit, change clothes, & stow your belongings in a basket watched over by an employee of the resort. Swimming in the river is still vey popular there, though in recent years alligators have been seen not far from where the people swim.

 

[Bayrat76]

I hate seeing those little towns dying out like that, we here in Texas are losing a lot of them, would like to live some where out like that. Keep up the rides.

 

[TexasCharley]

When it comes to metal-detecting & treasure hunting in places like that, everything there is private property. Get on someone's property without permission & you'll meet either a deputy sheriff or a deputy constable, if not the business end of the landowner's shotgun. Texas has one of the strongest trespass laws in the nation--passed a few years back when the anti-hunting nuts started going on people's land & destroying deer stands & feeders. Leaving anything but tracks or taking anything but pictures can wind up being felony trespass. There's probably all kinds of stuff there, but unless you've got written permission from an absentee landowner in your pocket or verbal permission from the landowner on the property, if you go digging you're in real trouble in this state. Incidentally, a renter or lessee cannot give permission, it has to come from the legal owner of the property. I found that out years ago when I tried detecting on some property my dad leased--with Dad's permission. When the owner found out about it he raised Hell! If I hadn't known the sheriff for years I might well have wound up in jail.

Somebody--they wouldn't tell me who except he was from Dallas--was detecting on the site of old Fort Griffin Flat & dug up the barrel & action of an old Sharps buffalo gun. It was rusted solid & worth what it would bring as scrap iron, but he wound up looking out of the bars of the Throckmorton County Jail a while & his detector was seized as evidence. His lawyer got him off & he got his detector back but didn't get to keep the gun. He was quietly told he'd be wise to make himself very scarce in Throckmorton County from then until Hell froze solid.

 

[gayleab]

There were two groc stores in Fentress, one on each end of the block. Mr Dick's Ice Cream store was between them.
Across from the first one was the post office. The skating rink was south of the Post Office. The cotton gin was north of the post office and is still there. Then there was Dr. Locketts office

 

[gayleab]

There were two groc stores in Fentress, one on each end of the block. Mr Dick's Ice Cream store was between them.
Across from the first one was the post office. The skating rink was south of the Post Office. The cotton gin was north of the post office and is still there. Then there was Dr. Locketts office