I like to take small road trips to towns in my area. On Palm Sunday, my husband, Dick, and I went to Abbott, Texas. Abbott is a very small town, but has a lot of history. A number of businesses have been closed up, but they have a police department, fire department, city hall, several churches and a big school. Abbott is the childhood home of Willy Nelson.
We first went to Abbott when we moved to Ft. Worth in 2003. My dad’s cousin, Stubby, lived in Hillsboro. Hillsboro is just a hop, skip and a jump from Abbott. We called Stubby and said we wanted to see a cotton field…could he take us to one? Sure. So he took us to a field, and then on to Abbott. He had spent a lot of time there, when he was growing up. He described how it had been a pretty hopping town, when he was young, due to being a stop on the railroad. Then I-35 was built, and Abbott gradually got smaller. Currently, Abbott has a population of about 375 people. I looked up the statistics, and it said that about 75% of the population is between 30 and 55 years of age. That makes it a nice place to live, and drivable to Hillsboro, Ft. Worth and Waco for jobs. The homes were well-kept.
Stubby also showed us where Willy Nelson grew up, at his Grandparent’s house. I didn’t get a photo of that, but it had a tree outside where they sometimes tied Willy up, because he was just hard to control. LOL I DID get a photo of the house that Willy bought recently. It appears to be getting some repairs in places.
Another place that Stubby showed us was the Cotton Gin. Stubby used to be a part owner or a manager there. As a daughter of a Kansas wheat farmer, I’m still fascinated by cotton fields and cotton gins. This particular one doesn’t get the use that it once did.
The Catholic church looked to be thriving. The Baptist church looked so inviting. And a big sign in the middle of town celebrated the first birthday of one of the kids in town.
It appeared the only place to eat was along the highway, at Still Smoking BBQ. The food was very good, and there was a lot of character in the decor. You could even buy a shirt from them.
My great-grandmother is buried in the Abbott cemetery. After her husband died, she travelled with all of her children and other family members by wagon train to Abbott. They stopped and picked cotton on their way. When they arrived, she got the flu and died. All of the children, except one, were packed up and transported back to Missouri to live with other relatives. Stubby’s father, my great-uncle Cecil Stubblefield, hid because he didn’t want to leave. So he was raised in Abbott. We visited my Great Grandmother’s grave and looked at a lot of the graves. Most were very old. The saddest graves were three little markers that just said ‘unknown’. The cemetery looked like a prairie cemetery, with only two trees.
On the way back, via I-35, we stopped at a rest stop. I thought I’d share photos with you of this stop. It’s rather unique in its design. It is designed like a barn and silo. Inside the rest stop (barn), were several iron designs of cattle and wagons. The silo had extra bathrooms.
All in all, it was fun to visit Abbott. I feel a sense of roots there. Where do you find your roots?
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