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Texas Trip


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Hi, all,

 

Last week, I had to take my dad from Mississippi to Rockwall, Tex. (about thirty miles east of Dallas). Being a fan of the older roads and having an appetite for long trips, I decided to only go 500 miles out of my way, by way of Austin. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked, and only some of those pictures were passable, but here they are:

 

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Dallas skyline from the Commerce Street Bridge over the Trinity River.

 

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The Commerce Street Viaduct in Dallas. Of course, my camera decided to focus on the car in the foreground.

 

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The Houston Street Bridge over the Trinity River. Dallas was amazingly empty south of downtown (on the surface streets, anyway).

 

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These pictures are near an old truss bridge on Old U.S. 81 between Temple and Belton, Tex.

 

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An old Texaco station in Georgetown, Tex. There was a nice Texaco sign that I missed, but..

 

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There was this old one in (I think) Waelder, Tex.

 

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This nice street scene (and vintage Western Auto sign) was in Flatonia, Tex.

 

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I don't think any old alignment post can be made without a picture of an old alignment. This section of old U.S. 90 is just east of Vidor, Tex.

 

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These two are of the western approach to the Huey P. Long Bridge, near Baton Rouge, La. It, of course, goes over the Mississippi River, and it carries U.S. 190.

 

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U.S. 190 also boasts this treasure between Baton Rouge and Denham Springs.

 

I hope I haven't bored you, and thanks for looking!

 

Tracy

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Cityboy1986,

 

Good to see you on the road again! And the pictures are hardly boring. They are great!

 

Dallas looked shut down. Were these taken very early or late, .....or what explains the absence of cars?

 

I cranked up the old map software to mark your route....you sure did detour!! How did you decide the route you took?

 

I like the small towns. You don’t see many Western Auto store signs anymore, not like once. And that has got to be an old Texaco sign. It looks like the ones I knew as a kid. I have seen a few restored in the last few years, but not one that is “virgin,” as yours appears.

 

I like the steel truss bridge. I saw one like it just north of Huntington, Oregon on the Old Oregon Trail Highway trip. I am bad at identifying when bridges were built but there is a site that attempts to inventory and describe them (http://bridgehunter.com).

 

As is often the case, in looking at the Bridgehunter URL, I just discovered that the Federal Highway Administration has the whole country’s bridge inventory on line. (Thanks Bridgehunter!) Apparently each entry includes, among much else, Latitude and Longitude, Route #, and year built. The URL follows:

 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/ascii.cfm?year=2006

 

I am going bridge hunting on the internet!

 

Thanks for the great road shots! Keep them coming!

 

Keep the Show On the Road!

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Great road trip Tracy. We all love to hear from people who have made a trip and write them up. Denny Gibson got me so wrapped up in this that I made up a web site just for my trips, few as they have been.

My daughter KC and I just finished one (I saw your comment on my Memphis Road Trip - so assume you also found my yankeetraveller web site) to Halls TN, up 51.

I've driven most of 51 between Decatur, IL (where I have friends) to Winona, MS (where KC was born). The last time KC and I were over 51 from Memphis to Winona, back about 3, 4 years ago, I was disappointed to see them widening it to 4-lane. Disappointed because just to the east is I-55. What a waste of money - no wonder the bridges are falling down.

Again, thanks for the great report. Y'all have a good one, and safe traveling.

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

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Hi,

 

Thanks for the replies!

 

Keep,

Dallas looked shut down. Were these taken very early or late, .....or what explains the absence of cars?

 

The Dallas pictures were taken at around 7:30 p.m. Downtown was somewhat busy, but it didn't become busy again until I got on the interstate at Illinois Avenue.

 

I cranked up the old map software to mark your route....you sure did detour!! How did you decide the route you took?

 

I've traveled I-35 between Dallas and Austin often, so I decided to see what I'd missed on the old highway. That is why I took U.S. 90 in the southern part of the state as well.

 

I like the small towns. You don’t see many Western Auto store signs anymore, not like once. And that has got to be an old Texaco sign. It looks like the ones I knew as a kid. I have seen a few restored in the last few years, but not one that is “virgin,” as yours appears.

 

For the full version of that picture, see this link. For the full versions of the rest of the pictures (and more), see this page.

 

Thanks for the links to bridge sites! As you can probably tell, old bridges are interesting to me. Unfortunately, the listing of all bridges doesn't include the bridges that Mississippi has bypassed, but it is a great, useful site.

 

Alex, is the widening of 51 between Southaven and Hernando (just south of Memphis)? If so, I think they are getting themselves ready for any population increase in that area. I agree that it is a waste, however. 55 is at most a mile away!

 

I have a Geocities web site at which I have posted a few road pictures, all of which have been featured on this site (if I recall correctly). The link is here.

 

G'day and take care,

Tracy

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Cityboy1986,

Thanks for the bonus shots! Now I have been across Lake Ponchartrain. That is one big pond!!

 

And Dallas doesn't look like it was deserted after all.

 

Any other road trips coming up?

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

 

Yes, Lake Pontchartrain can be scary if one is afraid of long bridges. I do have to drive to university sometime within the next two weeks. I hope to leave early enough in the day to take my time getting up there, so I can get some pictures.

 

BTW, if you decide to view the full list of bridges in Texas, make sure you have some time to spare, especially if you're on dialup! I might just let it load overnight and save it <g>.

 

G'day and take care,

Tracy

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Yes, Lake Pontchartrain can be scary if one is afraid of long bridges. I do have to drive to university sometime within the next two weeks. I hope to leave early enough in the day to take my time getting up there, so I can get some pictures.

 

BTW, if you decide to view the full list of bridges in Texas, make sure you have some time to spare, especially if you're on dialup! I might just let it load overnight and save it <g>.

 

G'day and take care,

Tracy

 

We'll look forward to yor report!

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Thanks for posting this! The steel truss bridge is really something.

 

Are those two old pumps at the Texaco station actually functional?

 

jim

 

I don't think they are. There is a curb to the right of the pumps, where the cars are parked.

 

Tracy

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I don't think they are. There is a curb to the right of the pumps, where the cars are parked.

 

Tracy

That curb's pretty obvious now that you've mentioned it but I completely missed it before and the rather new car made me think it just might be possible. Oh, well. It was too far to drive for a tank of Fire Chief anyway.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi City Boy...thanks for sharing your pics with us. You may not have realizd it at the time, but when you were in Dallas going under the RR overpass heading into the downtown area, you were on Commerce St. which was once the City/Business U.S. 80 route through town and as you headed south out of the downtown area over the Houston St. viaduct, you were on the old Bankhead Highway/Broadway of America/Dixie Oveland and original U.S. 80 routings through the area.

 

I'm envious of your trips through southern Texas...most of which I have never seen. Perhaps at your leisure, you could drop me a line at my bygonebyways.com website with some of your shots of those old gas stations/diners etc from your trip and I could then post them to the web (with your permission of course).

 

Cheers,

jeff in Tucson

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Jeff,

 

I remember your site, and a fine one it is! I think maybe DennyG put me on to it, or maybe I did a search. Anyway, my wife and I used it as a guide last winter in our ride along US 80.

 

Good to see you posting here!

 

(And I hope Cityboy is doing well in his studies! He has been pretty quiet for a month or so.)

 

As one who has benefited from your descriptions and photos, I hope you will show up here more often.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Jeff,

 

I'm glad you enjoyed the photos. Since I was carrying a 1957 road atlas, I knew the general routings of the old U.S. routes through Dallas and the rest of the state. I had a general idea of the older autoroutes, but I didn't know their exact routings.

 

Would you rather I leave the imperfections (like the crack in the windshield) in the pictures, or should I do my best to make them blend in with the rest of the pictures? My editing skills aren't the best, but I can at least try to make the crack less glaring. As always, I wish I had taken more and better pictures. Hindsight really is 20/20 or maybe 20/15.

 

Like Keep, I have seen your site before. U.S. 80 is one of my dream drives (I'm sure some here are wondering if any road isn't one of my dream drives); I'm only familiar with it in Mississippi and Alabama (somewhat--I went between Meridian, Miss., and Montgomery sometime between midnight and sunrise!). I've tried to make something similar to the U.S. 80 driving guide for U.S. 11.

 

Keep,

 

Thanks for your well-wishing. Amazing how classes and the work required take all the fun out of college <g>!

 

Sitting two miles from beautiful downtown Starkville, Mississippi, </announcer voice>

Tracy

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Keep,

 

Thanks for your well-wishing. Amazing how classes and the work required take all the fun out of college <g>!

 

Sitting two miles from beautiful downtown Starkville, Mississippi, </announcer voice>

Tracy

 

Cityboy1968,

 

I guess anything worth having takes an effort to get...including a college degree!

 

I taught college years ago, so I guess I'm "part of the problem." Economics and business were my subjects, not history. But you can inflict some serious "pain" with Economics :lol:

 

Also, now that I know where you are...Great Grandfather Keep and his cavalry unit did some shooting and getting shot at in Tupelo during the Civil War,.....not so far from Starkville.

 

Toss in a comment or two on the forum every so often so we don't have to send out the scouts. B)

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Keep,

 

You're right about that. Even eating takes money (well, most of the time <grin>).

 

I never have taken an Economics class, since I changed my major from business the semester before I would have taken one. Yes, I'm in the "I've changed my major at least twice group". With History, I have to write a twenty-five page paper for my BA, but at least I can write about a topic I like! I just hope the professor doesn't mind reading twenty-five pages of road talk.

 

My great-great grandfather did not fight in the Civil War; instead, he hid in the Honey Island Swamp between La. and Miss. Maybe that's a good thing, though, since my great grandfather was born in 1864.

 

Will try to keep more in touch than I have,

Tracy

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