If you will recall, I was originally planning on driving toward Bastrop, a town about 40 miles north-east of Kingbury, on Tuesday. I came down I-10 and took FM2438 to Kingsbury, planning on picking up Highway 90 and heading east. The fire that has been raging in Bastrop is now said to be the worst wild fire ever in Texas history, and I was going to take some photos of the smoke and haze hanging over the land.
When I stopped at the intersection of Highway 90 and FM 2438, I spotted this train. It was stopped in Kingsbury, though it's engine was idling loudly. There were actually some wild flowers blooming, which is very rare due to the severe drought, so I parked my car on the side of the road and got my camera out.
If you follow the cars to the background on the left side of the photo, you can see the haze caused by the smoke from Bastrop. Also, note how the blue sky is all washed out. That is not typical for a cloudless day in Texas.
Anyhow, I digress. I wanted to share a little of the history of Kingsbury with regard to the rail road.
William Guilliam Kingsbury (1823-1896) was born in New York and became a dentist. In 1846, one year after Texas had become a state, he immigrated to Texas. After accompanying a Texas Ranger to Mexico during the Mexican war, he eventually settled in San Antonio in 1851. He wrote about Texas, and his writings caught the attention of the governor, who appointed him the commissioner of immigration. He represented several rail roads and wrote pamphlets which were distributed to people in Europe, encouraging them to immigrate to Texas.
Here is a quote from one of his pamphlets in which he describes Texas:
"I only propose in this paper to glance at the topography and some of the many inducements I am prepared to offer to parties who will settle in that country. These are rich and fertile lands, so cheap that the laboring man may get his board and ten acres for an honest month's work, and the rich man find large profits from his investments. A climate so healthful, that the death rate, taken from official sources, reaches but ten and a half to the thousand. An atmosphere so pure that fresh meat exposed to a free circulation will cure without tainting, and people may sleep out of doors the year round without the slightest risk of fevers.
A country in which law and order is strictly maintained and crime speedily punished; religion respected and churches supported, and a school fund that will give free education to it's children forever. A country in which the agriculturist reaches the highest returns from the least labour and the stock-raiser is furnished the food on which to rear his flocks and herds as free as the water they drink, or the air they breath."1
After reading that, who wouldn't want to come to Texas! Well, due to his efforts, many people immigrated to Texas. This is the man for whom the town of Kingsbury was named.
More of Kingbsbury's story to follow....
1 September 7,2011. http://books.google.com/books. Re: Konecny, Lawrence and Machann, Clinton. Perilous voyages: Czech and English immigrants to Texas in the 1870s, p.20.
No comments:
Post a Comment