Bevers / Huppler / Lena Huppler / McElhany

Day Eighteen: Lancaster to Hillsboro, Texas

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October 30, 2019

Retracing Lena Huppler Bevers’ Travel Log

Thurs. – Oct. 30.

Left Lancaster and had fine road for about 40 miles, and then we had rough roads.  Ate dinner in Hillsboro. Got 4 miles from town and a spring broke on McElhany’s car so we had to go back and stayed all night at Hillsboro. – Lena Bevers

My mother and I started our tour today in Lancaster, Texas, at the town’s lovely little town square.  In the center is the town well which is surrounded on four sides by small historic buildings.  A town clock and a walkway lined with trees invite shoppers to sit and rest awhile.

Town Well, Lancaster, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
Lancaster, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
(Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
A plaque on the wall in the historic town square of Lancaster, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
From The Official Automobile Blue Book 19201

From Lancaster, we set out on U. S. Highway 77 which approximately follows the route the Bevers family would have taken.  Florence recorded that they traveled through Red Oak, Waxahachie, Forreston, Italy and Milford on the way to Hillsboro.2  We stopped in Waxahachie, which is the county seat of Ellis County.  According to our AAA TourBook for Texas: “it is a town where the gingerbread of Victorian-era buildings sates even the most jaded architectural palate.  Twenty percent of the Texas buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places are in Waxahachie.  The 1895 Ellis County Courthouse, one of the most photographed structures in the state, is a red sandstone and granite edifice decorated with ornate capitals, carved by expert Italian artisans.”3

Ellis County Courthouse, Waxahachie, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
Memorial to honor those “who wore the gray” in the Civil War, Waxahachie, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
Penn Building, Waxahachie, Texas, dated 1894 (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
A well-maintained building on a corner across from the Ellis County Courthouse, dated 1889 (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)

After leaving Waxahachie, we didn’t see anything notable in the small towns along U. S. Highway 77, except a few buildings in Forreston.

Forreston, Texas is nearly a ghost town, but the shop on the left still operates a few days a week. (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
One of the businesses still in operation in Forreston, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
“Downtown” Forreston, Texas; take note of the green sign to the right of the wood building (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)

Our next stop was in Hillsboro, Texas, where we found another outstanding courthouse.  It isn’t the same one that was standing when Lena and Herbert traveled through Hillsboro.  “Just over a century after Hill County’s grand 1890 courthouse opened, it burned to the ground. A 1993 fire gutted the modified Second Empire-style edifice designed by noted architect W. C. Dodson. With help from native son and music legend Willie Nelson, the county rebuilt the three-story courthouse topped by a seven-story clock tower. Today it’s the heart of a vibrant downtown with an 1870s rock saloon, a Renaissance-Revival library and reportedly the oldest pharmacy in Texas. Nearby neighborhoods of Queen Anne homes testify to the 19th-century prosperity of this cotton and railroading town.”4

Hillsboro, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
Hillsboro, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
Hill County Courthouse, Hillsboro, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
The bell damaged in the Hill County Courthouse fire (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)
Constitutional Bicentennial Monument, Hillsboro, Texas (Photograph by MRW October 30, 2019)

Once again Mr. McElhany’s car had trouble, Lena wrote that a spring broke when they were four miles south of Hillsboro.  They turned around and found a place to stay in Hillsboro, so that is where we stayed also.  We arrived at our motel at 1:30 PM, ate lunch near the motel, then went to the historic district to take pictures.  The weather was unusually cold today, with rain and wind.  It was unpleasant each time I got out of the car to take pictures, and to fill the car with gas – but the cold weather didn’t stop us from getting our favorite dessert this evening: ice cream.

Notes:

  1. Automobile Blue Book Publishing Company, The Official Automobile Blue Book 1920, vol. 7 (New York: Automobile Blue Book Publishing Company, 1920): 656-57, https://ia601208.us.archive.org/26/items/case_gv1024_a92_1920_v_7/case_gv1024_a92_1920_v_7.pdf.
  2. B. Winkelmann, Our Trip to Texas [Transcription of Our Trip to Texas by Florence Bevers, 1919] (unpublished, n. d.): 4.
  3. American Automobile Association, AAA TourBook guide, Texas (Heathrow, Florida: AAA Publishing, 2018).
  4. Texas Historical Commission, Hillsboro (2019), https://texaslakestrail.com/plan-your-adventure/historic-sites-and-cities/cities/hillsboro.

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