Farm to Market Rd 4 - Antique Alley

  Ten years ago or so I drove to Tennessee to follow the 127 Garage Sale. I'd seen it on television on a show that featured great places to go Antiquing and looking for junk(which is more what I do).  So I planned and saved money and took my vacation to drive there and go down this highway that runs from Alabama to Indiana and all along during this one week are thousands of booths, makeshift stores, and garage sales. It is one of the most amazing things that I've ever done, besides wandering through booths and tables upon tables of items for sale all day long, I took my camping equipment and camped out in State Parks at night. I keep saying one day I'll go back and I'll do that again, and I may travel the 127 again one day. Although this weekend I found a new highway and and a new venue for getting the same experience of the 127 without having to drive a 1000 miles to get there. It's a small trek along F.M. 4 from Cleburne, Tx. to Grandview. This experience is less than 60 miles from where I live and I decided today to go check it out.

Marker at Parson's Station

I grabbed my camera and stopped Whataburger and grabbed a Jalapeno Chedder Bacon, Egg bisquit and cup of coffee and headed towards Weatherford. As I am breezing down the highway soon I see a historical marker....I have to stop. The marker says it was Parson's Station. Evidently in the 1850's and later it was a stop on the railway for the Train that traveled from Weatherford to Cleburne. Mainly for the Cattle ranchers in the area but evidently small settlement arose around it including a school and a store. Nothing left there now but the historical marker, it's a shame we didn't do more to save something from the place. Now all we have is the story and the marker.

Cresson, Tx

 Cresson is a strange little town between Fort Worth and Granbury, actually the way I was going it was a small town between Weatherford and Cleburne. Cresson has always intrugued me a bit, it has some really old buildings right on the corner of 171 and 377, that makes one think that at one time, it may have been a booming little place. As you drive on through and look at some of the buildings down the town roads it shows there may have been some wealth here at one time. Now though it's nothing more than a pit stop couple of convenience stores a couple of liquor stores and always some sort of Antique store in the old structures of the town.

One of the many treasures

Of course I breeze past Cresson pretty fast and soon I'm flying down the road and it wasn't long before I was turning onto the main drag in Cleburne. I didn't go more than 3 blocks before F.M. 4 merged with my road. I immediately started seeing garage sales in yards and booths in parking lots. It was already starting to remind me of the 127. Soon F.M. 4 turned back into a residential areal as I followed it there were more and more sales going on in yards and vacant lots..I almost stopped in town but I decided to go on outside of town first and see what kind of sale this was really going to be. As I went on out of town on F.M. 4 the traffic got heavy, and we were driving slower as every few feet there would be some gatherings of booths and people in the fields. This was exactly like the 127. I drove on past some that I knew I could walk back to and found a highway turnoff where I could park fairly close and walked back to F.M. 4 and started my first exploration of the sale. 

FM 4

I walked first on the side of the highway I was parked on and passed by several BarBQue cooks that were selling their wars...and it smelled good, but I waited and continued to browse. This was like the show American Pickers, only everything you were looking at was stuff they would have already have picked....so it was kinda like browsing their stash. There are always interesting booths, and interesting people at these type of sales. I crossed the highway and it was like I was at the Texas State Fair of garage sales. I was almost overwhelmed with the quantity and the really cool stuff for sale.

One of the many booths

 I just went to Canton a couple of months ago and this was so much better than that, hardly any booths with the new crap that comes from China. Mostly good old american junk. The kind you have to back your truck up to the booth to load.  I finally get to the end of this group of vendors and I feel a raindrop or two, I'm not far from where I parked the truck so I head back and as I get in...it starts pouring down raining. 

Ell's Place

I pull back out on F.M. 4 and drive in the rain, slowly following the line in front of me. It only rains a minute or two and then the sun's back out. I pull over and get out to investigate some other vendors. I find one really unusual booth with really odd and eclectic items and start talking to the people running and and find out they go to the 127 every year. Not hard to believe once you've seen their items. I hurriedly browse the other booths and go back to my truck, it's 1:00 and I have not eaten since breakfast so I head on into Sand Flat, because I heard there's a hamburger place there that you got to go to. Ell's Place. So I get into Sand Flat and there are vendors and booths everywhere, I am surprised to find a parking place right in front of Ell's Place. I pull in and go in..and there is a line of about 10 people waiting to be seated....I scan the place and see there are no tables. Luckily before I went in that door I noticed one at the rear of the building that said take out orders...so I enter there and after standing in line with people paying their bill I got to order. In reality they were pretty fast they were checking people out at the register constantly while I waited, never did the line get less than 5 people, all the time people were filing in the front door. There is no telling how much money this place makes during this sale. I get my hamburger and head to my truck and sit there and eat it while watching all the people.

Along the highway

Grandview

After my lunch I just exited the truck and walked right next door to the restaurant and again there were hundreds of vendors to browse. I returned to the truck and drove on into Grandview which was about 2 miles.



Downtown Grandview was a sale upon itself. Booths lined the street. I parked and walked up and down it, browsed an actual Antique store on the corner and thoroughly enjoyed the whole interaction in that town. I returned to my truck and drove back down F.M. 4 towards Cleburne and I stopped a couple of times on my side of the highway for places that had looked interesting on the way back up. As I made it into Cleburne I was already reflecting on my day and I daydreamed all the way back home about just travelling in a motor home with a trailer and doing this for a living when I retire. No worries, new scenery all the time and interesting places and people to see at each stop. Then I think...those guys might daydream that they had what I had, a job they can count on and a salary that they can depend on. I guess it's about your outlook. 

First Stop Wizzard Wells

Wizzard Wells

Today started out as a lazy Sunday. I slept late, breezed through CBS Sunday Morning that was recorded, watched the first two segments of Texas Country Reporter and realized I have already seen this episode. I moved to the computer room and checked my email, made a couple of comments on Facebook and decided to take a shower. After a shower and shave, I was feeling adventurous and started thinking of somewhere close I take a road trip and see. I went back to the computer room and looked up State Parks...nothing really close that I have not been to...so I decided to just look at a map. I remember some interesting sounding names heading off of 199 whenever I would drive to Jacksboro, so I started looking around that area of the map and saw it immediately, Wizzard Wells. I was soon off with my camera to Wizzard Wells. 

I love traveling around Texas, for one, I never use a map.  I have done enough driving in Texas that I either have been on the road that I'm travelling or as long as I know what direction it is going, I can pretty well tell where I'll end up. From my house though Highway 199 is only about 2 miles, so I headed towards Springtown and decided to get a car wash along the way. 

After a quick stop in Springtown for my car wash and to stop and buy a cold drink, I headed West towards Jacksboro. It's late in August yet the temperature is 100 degrees and the sun is beating down on the truck as I crank the air to full blast. I turn up the music and get her up to 75mph. At this rate it really wont take long to get to my destination. As I file up the hills and speed down them you notice that the further west you get the more the land starts resembling West Texas instead of North Texas where you started out. It's not a really subtle change, but you notice the trees getting smaller, and fewer and more grouped around gullys and creekbeds where water accumulates. The soil goes from a light tan color to almost red, like the red clay of West Texas. Mesquite trees start popping up and soon there are more of them than the other scrubby oaks, elms and cedars. 

I get to my turn and notice how on this road it seems to be all Mesquites and prickly pear cactus plants. Every so often you'd see an old oil pump jack or some oil storage tanks, just enough to know at one time, there was oil here, probably still is. I cross the 380/114 intersection and I'm only 2 miles from Wizzard Wells. I notice a piece of land for sale and think, this wouldn't be a bad place to have a secluded place to live...like I want when I retire. In a minute I come around a bend in the road and here is Wizzard Wells. 

The Old Bathhouse

The Well

The houses are sparse and there is lot's of space in between them. I come to something that looks like a general store I stop and take a picture. I drive on through town...until there is none...turn around and come back. It's on the way back that I notice behind the General Store I took pictures of was a historical marker and a kind of rest stop of sorts. The historical marker told of how Kiowa indians had originally discovered the water here and had used it to cure things. The founder of the town was George Washington Vineyard. The original name of the town was Vineyard and at one time it had several hotels, churches, stores and a lumber mill. I find it funny that the Mineral Water here, seems to have been used similarly to the Mineral Water in Mineral Wells, Texas which is not all that far away. There must have been an mineral water stream underground or something. 

Meditation Labrynth ?

The town seemed to prosper until around  1898 when the railroad was routed  elsewhere, although the marker said that there were still excursions there from the railroad stop though. I would imagine that riding the train to Mineral Wells and staying in the Baker Hotel was more enoyable than going here and using the bathhouses. Although this was probably a cheaper alternative to the healing properties of the Mineral Water that was advertised by both places. Funny the name of Vineyard was changed to Wizzard Wells in 1915, and the town that got the railroad, named  Vineyard. 

Inside the Labrynth

Huge Cactus.

Now somewhere else I read someone called the big rock garden a meditation labrynth...and as I look at it I believe maybe that is what it was. I just know it was a huge round circle with all kinds of rocks and different objects inside of it comprising smaller circles. From inside the circle looking out I could see how some objects had been placed in line of sight of the main object on the outside of the circle. In any case someone or a whole lot of people have spent some time making this and it must mean something to someone, so I left it as undisturbed as possible, and just took  a few pictures. Now I don't know if you believe in the mineral water, and I don't even know if it still exists there but just take a gander at this huge cactus that was growing right next to the well....and make up your own mind on whether it has healthy attributes.