Sherman, Texas

We hadn’t been on a weekend road trip in weeks. Holidays led to some crazy Texas weather and just wasn’t conducive to travel. I scheduled a weekend trip to San Diego to visit my mom and a trip never could get traction. Finally, on a dreary, cold, rainy and windy day, we loaded up the Rogue, booted up Patty and made our way to the town of Howe, Texas.


We did it on a lark after Dianna had read a magazine article on a self-made chef, Robert Morf, who had established a restaurant in Howe to bring high-end cuisine to North Texas. In short, we failed. Well, we did find it but it was Sunday and wasn’t opened. Wyoming’s Restaurant Wyoming’s Restaurant - cuisine at 110 East Haning Street was dark and no “Open” sign blinking its siren song.

So, we made a pass or two through  Howe, a small town first settled around the time of the Texas Revolution in 1836. In 1843, it is said, the last Indian battle in Grayson County was fought in the area. Originally surrounded by grain farmers and developed around the Houston and Texas Central Railway railroad track. A weird factoid is that, originally called “Summit” because, at 810 feet above sea level, it was supposed to be the highest point between the Red River and the Gulf of Mexico. Kind of gives you a sense of how relatively flat this land is.

There was a cool Victorian style 1893 First Christian Church of Howe. The last (and quite fragile) example of four similarly built First Christian Churches in Howe. It is now closed and in serious need of restoration. But looking at the state of the town, that may not be in the future for this historic “fish-scale” sheathed structure. Next-door was the memorial for Mame Roberts who was a life-long resident of Howe and was instrumental in leading the charge to “beautify “ Texas. Her efforts were covered by Life Magazine and Reader’s Digest in the 40’s. Not able to eat at Wyoming’s or find anything else going on in town, we headed up the U.S. 75 to Sherman, Texas.

The city of Sherman, Texas is the County Seat of Grayson County which shores up the Red River and provides the border between Texas and Oklahoma. The original settlement was actually a pioneer way station on the Red River for trading and commerce along the river in 1846. It moved south to the location of the first wood framed Courthouse in 1847 about five miles west of the current County Seat where a new log cabin style Courthouse was built in 1848. It was said that it was customary for Juries trying cases to retire to the shade of the old Pecan tree then standing on the public square to consider their verdict.

There were a total of five Courthouses built until the majestic Courthouse of 1876 was built in the Courthouse Square. Sherman's 1876 courthouse was burned to the ground by arson in the Sherman Riot of 1930 (May 9th, 1930), during the trial of an African American man, George Hughes. During the riot, Hughes was locked in the vault of that courthouse and died in the fire. Unfortunately, this story repeated itself in a least three other similar lynchings at Honey Grove, Texas, at Benchley in Brazos County, and at Chickasha, Oklahoma. Many felt the onset of the depression had a profound effect on small communities like Sherman, for some reason, fostered this style of vigilante justice in many communities throughout the South.

A black farm hand named George Hughes, was accused of raping a young woman. Hughes had come to the farm on May 3rd, 1930, in search of the woman's husband, who owed him wages. Hughes left when the woman said that her husband was in Sherman but soon returned with a shotgun, demanded his wages, and raped the woman. He shot at unarmed pursuers and at the patrol car of the deputy sheriff who later arrived. He then surrendered.

On Monday, May 5th, Hughes was indicted. The trial date for Friday, May 9th. In the days preceding the trial, rumors spread about the case, among them, that Hughes had mutilated the woman and that she was not expected to live. Medical examination of both of them showed the rumors to be false. Officers removed Hughes from the jail to an undisclosed location as a precaution against mob violence, but rumors persisted that he was still there. A few people were even taken through the jail to show that he was not there, but an unconvinced mob gathered anyway.

In the early morning of Friday, May 9th, the famous Capt. Frank Hamer of the Texas Rangers, assisted by two other rangers and one police sergeant, escorted Hughes to the county courthouse. The Sheriff and deputies stood on duty in the courtroom and corridors. Only those connected to the case were allowed to attend the proceedings. Nevertheless, a crowd from all over the region gathered outside the building and filled the corridors from the main entrance to the courtroom doors.

The following morning, the crowd began to stone the courthouse. An American flag was carried around the grounds to incite the men to action. The first witness had begun testimony when the crowd forced the doors to the courtroom corridor, whereupon the rangers fired three warning shots. The jury was sent from the room, and Hughes was taken to the district court vault (bad idea) as the rangers used tear gas to disperse the mob. A few minutes before one o'clock the mob started toward the courtroom again, and again the rangers resorted to tear gas. The District Judge declared that he would likely order a change of venue (really?). Captain Hamer told him that he did not believe that the trial could be held in Sherman without bloodshed.

About 2:30 P.M., two youths threw an open can of gasoline into the county tax collector's office through a broken window. A fire started and quickly spread through the building. It was said that when the deputies guarding Hughes offered to escort him out, he chose to remain locked in the vault (another bad idea). Rangers attempted to rescue him but were cut off by flames. The mob held the firemen back and cut their hoses. By 4:00 only the walls of the building and the fireproof vault remained. To get to Hughes, mob members tried to tear down the walls of the vault. They also drove a small detachment of militia from the courthouse grounds to the county jail.

At about 6:30 P.M., they engaged in a pitched battle with national guardsmen sent by Governor Dan Moody at the request of Sherman officials. The mob forced the guardsmen to retreat to the county jail. Some guardsmen were injured by projectiles, and some members of the crowd were wounded by gunshots. Intent on getting to Hughes, the mob used dynamite and acetylene torches on the vault. The leaders of the mob worked on it until they opened it just before midnight. More than 5,000 people filled the courthouse yard and lined an adjacent street. The militia was gone. Hughes's body was thrown from the vault, then dragged behind a car to the front of a drugstore in the black business section, where it was hanged from a tree. Can you believe it? On May 24th , Governor Moody lifted martial law.

At its peak, about 430 national guardsmen and nine Texas Rangers were brought in to end the violence. Of the fourteen men ultimately indicted for that crime spree, of the estimated 5,000 people involved in the riot, only two had been convicted by October 1931, one for rioting and the other for arson. Both received two-year sentences. Wow.

Walking around the “new” Moderne (yes, with an “e”), austere, concrete and limestone 1936 Courthouse found several historic plaques and some atypical monuments found around most Texas Courthouses.

A prime example of how you can over do the official historic plaque dilemma is what many historians call, the “Washington Slept Here” syndrome. In the northeast corner was a plaque commemorating a visit and speech given by former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. He was on his way to a “Rough Rider” reunion and spoke for 15 minutes. He then hopped on a train for the ride south to Dallas on his way to the reunion in San Antonio.

Sherman was also a significant destination and distribution point on the Butterfield Overland Mail Route, which passed through our former home in San Diego and ultimately terminated in San Francisco.

There is the obligatory obelisk to the memory of Confederate soldiers who served in the Civil War (TWONA). This one is of more interest in that it is the first such memorial erected by the Dixie Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy #0035 (now the United Daughters of the Confederacy ) dedicated on April 3rd, 1896. Two significant fighting forces assembled in North Texas were the Texas 7th Cavalry (7th Regiment, Texas Cavalry (Mounted Volunteers)) and 11th Texas Cavalry (company "B" of the Eleventh Texas Cavalry Regiment).

The 7th spent the beginning of the war wresting control of North Texas and the Oklahoma territories from the Native Americans then moved to Louisiana where they fought and ended their participation in 1865. The 11th also spent the early years of the war fighting Indians and ended up in Arkansas, dismounted in 1862 as part of the Army of Tennessee, remounted and ended the war in North Carolina.

A swing around Sherman saw a distinct lack of activity around the Courthouse Square so no places to eat. Dejectedly we drove back south on the US 75 for the quiet ride back to Frisco. On the way I recalled an Italian restaurant we had passed by several times before but had not tried, the Italian Villa 904 S. Central Expressway #212, Anna, Texas. Turns out they have a place closer to our home, in  Allen, Texas as well. Great food, I had the Chicken Piccata and Dianna had the sausage Calzone. The meal came with some awesome baked bread and they had a tomatoee house dressing that was great on the salad but just as good as dip for the bread. They actually provided a pasta-twirling spoon for the angel hair pasta that came with my chicken. Nice touch, my Dad would have been proud.

So, just ahead of another band of rain showers, we made our way home with a promise to get out on a Saturday and find Chef Morf and his Wyoming’s restaurant to try out his cuisine.

The Dallas Zoo

The weather in North Texas has been grueling. Within the month of February, we started with mild temperatures in the 60’s, it snowed, overnight lows in the teens, wind-chill down to single digits. Then an ice storm layered two inches of ice on top of crunchy snow leading everybody to slip and slide their way to work and school. It warmed up a little, allowing the ice and snow to melt and freeze again. Then another week of icy streets and sidewalks.

 

 

This part of the world doesn’t get enough snow to invest in plows so they throw copious amounts of treated sand and ice-melt onto the major roadways. They discovered a little too late that the ice-melt they were using would only work down to 10 degrees. Apparently, nobody knew this. They could have used cheaper and reliable salt but didn’t. At one point, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) had to bring in plows they had in the panhandle (where it snows a lot more) to get the commercial traffic moving and get people back to work.

Thus, we have not been going on our sojourns of late. At the end of February, it was Dianna’s birthday and a break in the weather allowed us to go to the Dallas Zoo. Now I grant you, the weather was still kind of nippy and it threatened to rain but I had promised her a trip to the zoo. Dianna is a big fan of zoos and had voiced a desire to go for some time.

I decided to go that weekend for a couple of reasons. The first was that I had heard the Dallas Zoo was not a very big and sophisticated zoo. Second was that it was the last winter hour weekend and it was only five bucks per person, normally $15 dollars a person (OK…I’m a cheap bastard too). It’s about 106 acres housing about 1,800 animals, which does make it the biggest zoological park in Texas, but not up to the standards we had experienced coming from San Diego. OK, you naysayer natives. We are not Zoo snobs. Hey, one of the coolest little zoos we ever went to was the 2.5-acre Big Bear Zoo in the city of Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles.

The Dallas Zoo was established in 1888 and though not as old as the Dallas Zoo, San Diego (1916) has been blessed with better funding and stewardship. San Diego Zoo is 100-acres and is home to over 4,000 rare and endangered animals. The Dallas Zoo also runs an aquarium in Fair Park where the State Fair of Texas is conducted. San Diego has a second park, the 1,800-acre Safari Park (formerly the Wild Animal Park) an expansive wildlife sanctuary that is home to more than 3,500 animals.

Environment has to be mentioned here. Clearly San Diego has an advantage in year-round weather and location. It’s hard to exhibit animals that are primarily from warmer climates in a place where temperatures can swing wildly. Dallas has tried to make accommodations with some indoor exhibits but they can be rather restrictive for the animals and not as much fun for the visitor.

That said, Dallas recognized this and has been in the midst of a redevelopment of the park with an all new southern side of the park which has more modern enclosures and a nifty monorail tour which takes you quietly over the enclosures where you can see the animals wherever they are in the enclosures (ala Safari Park). They even have an iPhone app to keep up with the goings-on at the park.

The Zoo was originally a City run function within its old City Park which is part of Dallas Heritage Park. It then moved to Fair Park in 1910 then to its current location in Marsalis Park in the Oak Cliff suburb in the 1920s. A Zoo commission was created and federal Works Progress Administration money helped develop the original “Zoo North” that exists today. By the fifties, a Zoological Society came into being and took over administration of the Zoo from the City of Dallas.  In 1991, they opened the "Wilds of Africa" exhibit and monorail. In 1996, The Dallas Area Rapid Transit District (DART) opened a station for it's electric rail train system. In 2010, the Zoo expanded to include the Giants of the Savannah exhibit.

And, there is the story of the Giraffe at the entrance to the park, a metal sculpture over 67 ft. 6” tall just outside the zoo parking entrance. The Giraffe was promoted as the "Tallest Statue in Texas" when it was built in 1997. When the giant Sam Houston statue went up on U.S. I-45 in 1994, it was the tallest at that time at 67 feet. There has been an on-going battle of wills since, over which Texas statue is the tallest. The Giraffe went up and it was discovered to be just short of the Houston statue. Not to be out done, the Zoo had a blade of grass welded to the Giraffe’s tongue (kind of lame) to add another foot making it the tallest to gain the 'Tallest in Texas' title. The sculptor is award-winning St. Louis artist Bob Cassilly.

As you may know, General Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas. He served from 1836 to 1838. He was re-elected again as governor in 1857 to 1861. He was also governor of Tennessee from 1824 to 1827. He is the only governor in US history to be governor of two states. A Texas-sized tribute to General Sam Houston, this is the largest and tallest statue of an American hero built of 66,000 pounds of concrete and steel. The Giraffe is 67'6" from the ground up. The Houston statue itself is 66 feet tall, but it stands atop a 10-foot base. Thus the controversy (if you can have one over statues).

On a personal note, I first saw the Houston statue as we headed south on I-45 on our first trip to Galveston. It was a hazy day and there was a bank of low clouds just above the treetops. As we came around a sweeping curve in the road, the statue suddenly emerged from the mist and just filled the view ahead like an alien giant on the way to destroy Tokyo. It has to be seen to understand. Very impressive.

On to the Zoo. It was cold and windy and few animals chose to brave the elements. We did see some great bird exhibits including a small birdhouse you can walk through and handle the birds that land on you. That’s a cockatiel from the Australian Outback on Dianna’s shoulder. Many other beautiful and brightly colored birds were within easy reach for photographing.

Outside we passed the obligatory Flamingo exhibit. These are Chilean flamingos. As you all know, Flamingos are pink or orange or white depending on what they eat. Flamingos eat algae and crustaceans that contain pigments called carotenoids. For the most part, these pigments are found in the brine shrimp and blue-green algae that the birds eat. Enzymes in the liver break down the carotenoids into the pink and orange pigment molecules deposited in the feathers, bill, and legs of the flamingos.

Flamingos that eat mostly algae are more deeply colored than birds that eat the small animals that feed off algae. Captive Flamingos are fed a special diet that includes prawns (a pigmented crustacean) or additives such as beta-carotene or canthaxanthin, otherwise they would be white or pale pink. Young Flamingos have gray plumage that changes color according to their diet.

People eat foods containing carotenoids, too. Examples include beta-carotene in carrots and lycopene in watermelon, but luckily, most people don’t eat enough of these compounds to affect their skin color.

We did take the monorail train around the Wilds of Africa and had a really talented and monotone (kind of creepy like the voice of the guide at the Haunted House ride at Disneyland) guide who gave us a pretty informative tour of the exhibits. It was afternoon (and feeding time) then and some of the animals had made it out into the feeble sunlight.

We walked by the Rhino exhibit with its lone African Rhino. At that moment, the female keeper emerged with a bucket of carrots from the back of the enclosure. Rhinos are chronically near-sighted but he perked up as he could hear and smell the food go by. The keeper was well ahead of him and all the Rhino could do was trundle along paralleling her path along the fence to the visitor walkway where she rewarded him with some big fat carrots.

By the end of our trek, we were ready to go. We had eaten some Zoo food court food and were thinking of something more substantial. For her birthday, I had decided to take her to one of her favorite restaurants, Buca di Beppo back here in Frisco. I had Nicole and Billy meet us there for their family style dining. I have never had a bad meal there and there’s always lots of take home leftovers. Don’t forget to get the peach Bellini’s. A great cap to a meal and our day.