March 5, 2022
Today, Kristi and I once again visited some familiar roads, but also explored a few areas we have never been through before. We stopped at a few ghost towns along the way.
Well, to call them “ghost towns” is debatable. They were more like communities than towns. The fact is that at some point in the past, they were important to the people who lived there, but gradually faded away as the times changed.
The first part of our drive covered a portion of Cotton Road, in northern Grimes County, just outside of Bedias, Texas. We started on the eastern side of County Road 137 off of FM 1696. CR 137 loops back around and connects to FM 1696, just over a mile away. The dirt roads along this route are very well maintained and can be navigated by virtually any vehicle. Be careful going around blind curves, as there is more traffic out here than one might expect.
We headed north on CR 137, passing Lake Wayne to our west. The road turned to the west, and then we crossed the creek that flows from the Lake Wayne Dam.
Many of the areas that we explore in this region of Texas are a mix of pastureland and forest. This route is no exception. We turned right onto CR 136 and saw this beautiful tank (artificial lake typically used as a water source for cattle):
The community of Cotton was settled sometime in the 1830s. Like its name suggests, the primary industry of the area was raising cotton. Cotton was never a very large community. Its population was typically between 15 and 25 during the span of its existence. I have not been able to find information on whether any slaves lived in the area, but it is probably a good bet that they did, so the population was probably much larger.
A schoolhouse was built in the 1840s on nearby Simes Creek, and a cotton gin was built in 1890. A long time ago someone told me that a second cotton gin was built later. Cotton was taken to nearby Bedias, which had a station on the International and Great Northern (I-GN) branch line that ran from Navasota to Madisonville. Fortune turned to the worse for the community when one cotton gin burned down, shortly followed by the second. By the 1940s the community had ceased to exist in any significant form.
The photo below shows the approximate location of Cotton. Satellite maps show a building to the left, which I saw from the road 30+ years ago. I could not find it today. If it still stands, the trees have grown to block the sight of it.
There are several creeks in the area. They feed into the headwaters of nearby Bedias Creek, which in turn flows into the Trinity River.
The photo below shows bridges over two branches of Twisted Creek. It was in this area that the I-GN branch line ran. The I-GN built the branch in 1904. The Missouri Pacific Railroad bought the I-GN in 1925. As automobile traffic began to supplant rail traffic, the branch line became less and less profitable, leading to its closure in 1944. The rail was taken up for scrap. Parts of the old roadbed are still visible in some places. Unfortunately, I did not think to look for it.
We turned onto TX-90 and headed north into Madisonville, where we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Texas Legends Steakhouse.
After stuffing ourselves silly on a delicious lunch, we turned onto TX-21 and headed to Rattlesnake Ranch Pecans to stock up on treats. Then, we continued down TX-21 to FM 3275 in Houston County.
We recently explored FM 3275 and other roads in Houston County, but I wanted to go back along part of the route to look for some things that we missed the first time through. Some of these roads are rough and can be very muddy after a rain. I recommend a vehicle with a high ground clearance.
The map above does not show the full route of Chalk Cemetery Road because Google Maps does not recognize the portion between FM 230 and Cemetery Spur as a road.
Our first stop was the ghost town of Vistula. I could not find a lot of information about the town, other than what is reported in the Handbook of Texas. The only sign that the town ever existed, as far as we could see, is the Vistula Cemetery. By this time we were too tired and fat on steak and pecans to go explore the cemetery, so we decided to come back at a later date.
A short distance from the cemetery we turned left onto CR 3470, where we spotted this abandoned RV in the middle of a field. There was something about it–a sense of loneliness and lost history–that grabbed our attention.
Not far from the RV we crossed over Lost Creek.
We turned right onto CR 3475. There are several beautiful views from this high point that overlooks the Trinity River Valley.
Dirt road CR 3475 becomes paved road FM 2915. A short way from pavement change is Kellisons Creek. We spied what appears to be an old bridge abutment on the south side of the creek. (There is another on the north side, but it was very hard to photograph.) It’s easy to miss and might not be visible when the trees have their leaves out. The contour of the land on either side of the creek suggests that there was once a bridge in that location.
FM 2915 ended at FM 230. We turned north a short distance and then turned right onto CR 3555. Our next stop was Sorghumville, Texas. It is considered a “disperse rural community” now, but apparently had a larger population at some point in the past. I imagine that sorghum was grown in the area back in the early days. There wasn’t much to see, but the drive through the area was pretty.
CR 3555 ended at CR 3575 where we turned left. From there we went to CR 3610, and then down to Chalk Cemetery Road, which we have explored before.
We took FM 230 back to Trinity, stopped off at Tallent Sausage for some more goodies, then headed home. Kristi ended her journey with a nice, warm soak in the tub.
