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Pontotoc Texas

Northwest of Llano on state highway 71 is the small crossroads village of Pontotoc. It has a few inhabitants, a winery which is the sole major business and a group of spectacular ruins from the nineteenth century. Besides the ruins there are many other interesting artifacts in the area to see and photograph. Fortunately the current residents are tolerant of strangers poking around.

The major ruins in the village are of the San Fernando Academy founded in 1882. It was short lived as a private academy but continued as a public school until around 1927. The area prospered for a few years at the beginning of the twentieth century. Then in the late 1940s a fire which started in the local movie theatre destroyed most of the commercial buildings in the town. Pontotoc never recovered.

There are ruins of residential buildings constructed of beautiful native stone just a hundred yards from the academy. They may have been occupied by school staff members. Within a couple of miles there are also historic cemeteries that are worth exploring. On good years the spring wildflower bloom is spectacular for fifty miles or more around the village. In winter the rolling hills reveal the richness that enticed many settlers to this country.

Pontotoc is well off the tourist track so you have to make an effort to get there. Seeing the well preserved ruins is an interesting day trip.

Golden

Hill Country General Store and Post Office

The climate of the Southwest preserves remnants of our past long enough for them to become alien to our modern selves. Less than a hundred years ago there was a thriving community of farmers and ranchers who depended on this general store and post office. They knew one another in ways that are uncommon in the modern urban world we live in. They were connected through generations of family ties.

Today the land is mostly empty. Sold and resold into larger parcels for factory farming or simply left fallow. A new generation of weekend gentleman ranchers has also returned to use the land for recreation. Unfortunately not in time to meet their neighbors at the general store.

It is tempting to romanticize the old Southwest. We should remember that people were not forced off the land. Instead they chose a better life for themselves with more opportunities for their children. These are simply the bleached bones left behind by progress.

Old Steel

Heavy vehicles manufactured in Detroit once dominated roads in every part of the world. A few managed to avoid the wrecking yard and now sleep in pastures or beside rural lanes. They have become a kind of nostalgic industrial sculpture to be photographed and remembered. As someone with personal experience of the mid twentieth century I say let them sleep. We of a certain age often insist that our industrial past was a national high water mark. The tools of the past don’t fit the talented hands of the present. Those hands will shape new tools for their world.