Stories from the Tree - John Henry Boyd - The Sheriff stories

The previous Story from the Tree featured one of the more notable members of the family, John Henry Boyd. Shortly after arriving in Texas John H. began a life of civil service, first as Justice of the Peace, and then as sheriff of Johnson County.

The family stories about Sheriff John Henry Boyd have been repeated and no doubt embellished over the years. I'm sure there's an element of truth and historical fact in each of them, but as Galadriel said in Lord of the Rings, "History became legend, and legend became myth."

These stories were gathered by Thomas Boyd, a nephew of John Henry, and handed down to granddaughter, Barbara Boyd Moore, who wrote a monograph about John H. entitled, "The Life and Times of a Central Texas Lawman," which is the source of this post.

In the early years of his term as sheriff, the jail was in the old court house on the ground floor. On the second floor was the living quarters for the sheriff and his family. Of course, the sheriff's wife fed the prisoners when she fed her family and many of the younger prisoners were taken under her wing. They called her "Aunt Lizzie."

Later, John and Lizzie moved to a house in town, but when there were prisoners in the jail the sheriff or his deputy stayed and slept in the jail. Thomas Boyd remembered staying in the jail "many a night" to keep the sheriff or his deputy company and many of these stories were related from those visits. Some of the stories came from a deputy who was taken in at a very young age and given some responsibility and place to live while he grew up. The deputy, whose name has been lost, loved the sheriff and considered "Aunt Lizzie" his second Mom. Years later, this deputy shared many of these with Barbara's father.

 One night the deputy heard a commotion at the Santa Fe switch yard after dark and went to investigate. He saw a gang of hooded men about to hang a Negro man on the cross arm at the train crossing just off Main Street. The deputy "hot-footed" it to the sheriff's house and caught him just getting up from a late supper, John Henry directly saddled his "ole gray horse" and rode for the rail yard.

Sure enough, about ten hooded men had caught a strange Negro man in the town after dark and were about to hang him off the back of a wagon. The tale goes on that the horse walked through the crowd and slowly pushed each man aside with his nose. As he rode past these men, tJohn Henry called them by name or made a personal comment to each man. Then he rode right up to the wagon, pulled out his Case pocket knife and cut the rope. He placed the man on the back of the gray and rode slowly up Anglin street toward the Fort Worth highway. His parting comment was, "You boys can go home now."

We were told that the man came by train searching for some long lost relatives and when he heard they were not in Cleburne he was trapped in town after dark. The sheriff gave the man train fare to Fort Worth, along with a kind warning to stay out of these small towns at night, and wished him "good luck" in finding his relatives.

He was once called to the home of an elderly widow lady that was keeping the two young children of her daughter, who was involved in the divorce of a brutal, abusive man. While the daughter was away consulting an attorney, the man came out to her farm and told the widow to get the children ready to go. Apparently, the man had persuaded the judge to award the children to him and he would be back out tomorrow to pick them up.

The sheriff got word the next morning that someone had come in the night and murdered the children by cutting their throats. When John Henry went to investigate, he saw that the children were dressed in their best clothes and they were laid out with some care. He also noted some bloody clothes hidden under the front steps and fresh marks on the stove pipe where someone had sharpened a butcher knife.

The sheriff sat down with the widow and consoled her on her loss. It was evident that she was heartbroken to lose the children. He asked her what happened and she said she didn't know, someone just killed them. He said," Ma’am, why don't you tell me what really happened, I'm sure we will all understand." She then broke down crying that she had killed the children to keep them from having to go back to their abusive father. The sheriff promised to get her son from Ellis County to come and handle things and that she would be able to attend the funeral. She did attend and then she was taken to an asylum for treatment and care.

One of the favorite stories of his exploits begins with the news brought to Cleburne that the bank at Glen Rose had been robbed by three masked men. They had escaped after a shooting, headed southeast toward the river. John Henry questioned the messenger and found that two of the men were riding a matched pair of shiny bright red roan horses. The sheriff immediately remembered a farmer who owned a grist mill on the Nolan River south of Glen Rose and raised red roan horses.

John Henry suspected that the wild teenage sons of this farmer had probably been coerced into a robbery by some hardened criminal. When he formed his posse he told them that these boys were just young kids and if they found them he didn't want any shooting till it was absolutely necessary. No one was to shoot without his order. The posse rode at night and arrived at the farmer's home before dawn. They left their horses at the road and crept quietly down to the house. Sure enough, there were the two red roan horses and a large saddle worn mount tied outside the house. John Henry decided not to enter the house for fear innocent persons might be hurt and he instructed the posse to wait and see if the outlaw came out first. If he did they were to try to take him without shooting.

Predictably, shortly after they smelled coffee, the dawn came and out came the bank robber. He threw the saddlebags of stolen money over his horse and stepped up into the saddle. John Henry was standing about 40 yards away behind a big hickory tree; he was wearing a long cowhide coat, the kind with the hair on the outside. When he stepped out from behind the tree, the gunman saw him at once. John Henry said, “Drop your rifle or I will shoot your head off." The man raised his rifle and fired two or three bullets while the sheriff leveled his gun and fired once. Witnesses said the horse ran out from under the man like he had been "pole axed." The single bullet hit him in the forehead and John Henry had two holes in his new coat.

Later he entered the house and arrested the boys; their father and mother were grateful that they weren't killed. At the trial the Sheriff spoke to the judge, getting them sentenced in a boy's reformatory instead of prison. For many years after the incident, the widows of Sheriff Boyd's family received large bags of ground corn several times a year.

Another time the ole gray horse saved his life when a notorious killer attempted to ambush and shoot the sheriff. The story goes that the assassin waited behind a huge oak tree on the south side of the old road to Glen Rose. Hidden there in the dark, the tired and sleepy sheriff dozing as he returned to Cleburne would never have seen the man in time to defend himself if not for the alertness of the old horse. The gray smelled the man and sensing the danger, stopped dead in the road. The snort of the horse put the rider on instant alert and gave him time to pull his hand gun.

Three things happened at once; two flashes of gunfire blazed from under the tree, the sheriff raised his gun and fired one shot at the shadowy figure and the horse responded to the rider's command and bolted for town at a dead run. That night, his wife noted two bullet holes under the right arm of the coat. The next morning, under the oak tree, his deputy found a dead man, gun in each hand with a single bullet straight through his heart. They say the ole gray horse got extra oats and corn for the rest of his days. [Barbara Moore says,]  know this is true because my own grandpaw told me so. He inherited this horse to ride to school, it was said that he still snorted when he passed by that tree.

Probably the most often told story from his deputy is the one where John H. and another deputy got word that a known killer and "all around bad man" was drinking in the saloon at Alvarado, bragging about his exploits which included train robbery. Since Alvarado is in the jurisdiction of the Johnson County sheriff, John Henry did not feel that he had time to wait for help from the Tarrant County sheriff or the Texas Rangers.

Fearing the bandit might escape, he and his deputy rode to Alvarado, arriving quite well after dark. After casing the saloon and the environs of same, they saw the bandit sitting in an armchair leaning against the far wall of the bar, facing the door with a double barreled shot gun in his lap. His foul mood was quite evident. He was drinking, chewing, spitting and snarling all at once. The deputy thought he looked generally quite dangerous.

 John Henry figured that if he and the deputy came in with guns out and tried to arrest him, someone would surely get shot. So, devising a plan, he and the deputy dirtied their clothes, messed their hair, took off their guns and pretended to be drunk. They entered the saloon singing arm-in-arm, as some drunks will do. They ignored the gunman and went straight to the bar where they ordered drinks and began an argument about whose wife was the meanest. In time the argument got louder and more comical as they both seemed to the gunman to be 'stinking drunk."

 In the midst of the argument, shoving started and the deputy pushed John Henry at the gunman, who was so busy laughing at their antics that he didn't raise his gun in time to keep the sheriff from pinning the gun and the bandit to the chair. The sheriff then took a gun from his boot and arrested the criminal.

Later, the deputy told all who would listen that they put the man on his horse and marched him back to Cleburne to the jail. This "big bad bandit" was so furious at having been tricked that he cussed them with every step his horse took all the way from Alvarado to Cleburne. He was known to be still cussing when the Sheriff from Tarrant county and the railroad detectives came to escort him to jail in Fort Worth. The deputy said you could still his swear words echoing as the train pulled away.

Next, Lawman turns Legislator turns Warden.

Monday Meanderings - 4.25.2016

My almost new 5-month old coffee maker quit on me one evening this past week. I loaded the coffee, filled it with water, turned it on and it just sat there. looked at me and said, "No coffee for you, sucker." Since one simply must have coffee, I made a quick trip to Walmart and got a new unit. Yes, I did. Don't judge me; you would have done the same thing.

The next day I called Mr Coffee and requested a refund for my in-warranty but-now-defunct coffee maker. The polite person on the phone said, "We don't refund them, we don't repair them, we just replace them. Where would you like your new coffee maker sent?" Can one have too many coffee makers? I think not.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way. According to a recent list compiled by personal finance company SmartAsset, Austin is the No. 7 best city for “coffee fanatics” in the U.S. In ranking the best coffee cities the company considered factors like the average price of a cup of coffee, its availability throughout the city and how many coffee roasters and high-end coffee shops it boasts. The general level of coffee enthusiasm was measured by Google searches, as well. Austinites also searched for coffee 44 percent more than was the national average. Here's the link to the study by SmartAsset if you would like the details.

Although Austin did well in most of the categories it, of course, didn’t out-roast Seattle, Washington (ranked first), or its sister city of sorts, Portland, Oregon, which ranked No. 3. Three California cities also topped Austin’s coffee scene: San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego, which ranked No. 4, 5 and 6 respectively. Austin was the only Texas city to rank among the top 25 cities for coffee lovers.

By the way, I think I was deceived regarding my new coffee maker. This was the picture on the box:

 But when I opened the packaging, there were no cookies inside. Really bummed about that, because next to coffee... I think I have a case for false advertising, but I suspect if I call customer service I won't get new (or old) cookies, either.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go brew a pot of coffee.

Stories from the Tree - John Henry Boyd - The early years

You may recall that my aunt Lou Amma referred to Sheriff John Henry Boyd in her memoirs and Della Boyd Culbertson briefly referred to John H. Boyd in her diary.  John Henry was a 1st great granduncle to both these ladies, therefore a 2nd great granduncle to me.  

John Henry had a varied and interesting life; soldier, sniper, POW, mechanic, home-builder, farmer, grocer, sheriff, statesman, warden and rancher.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Curtis and John Henry Boyd

Born in Laurens, South Carolina in 1846, son of David Young  Boyd, one of three brothers operating the then-prosperous Boyd's Mill, John Henry was comfortably enrolled in military school until the outbreak of the Civil War. He ran away from school at fourteen years of age and enlisted in the Confederate army as a private in the Third South Carolina regiment.

He was later transferred to Company "C" of the Fourteenth South Carolina regiment - which formed part of “Stonewall" Jackson's old Corp - and was  attached to a battalion of sharpshooters until captured, along with his Captain, at the battle of Petersburg, Virginia and transported as a prisoner of war to Hart's Island, New York.

Upon his release after the surrender of the Confederate forces, and only 19 years old, he made his way back home to South Carolina and hired on as a mechanic's apprentice. About a year later, in August of 1866, he married his cousin, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Curtis.

After the war, however, the South was in turmoil, and the Boyd Clan was searching for a better environment. "Gone to Texas" was the slogan of the day. and several of the Boyd family headed out, including John Henry's parents - David and Tabitha Boyd. John and Lizzie joined the exodus and started out to Texas in a mule-drawn wagon, accompanied by two "faithful family servants."

Travel by wagon proved too difficult for the then-pregnant Elizabeth, so when they reached Atlanta, John sold the mules and wagon, gave the servants $25 each, and he and Lizzie took a train to New Orleans. They booked passage on a boat to Galveston, and now Lizzie was both pregnant and seasick.

By coach, they went to Houston, where they purchased a wagon, mules and supplies for the trip to Washington county, where they met up with friends and relatives from South Carolina. The family stayed in Washington County for 4 years, John parlaying his mill and lumber experience into a thriving business as a building contractor.

Plague-ridden Washington County was a disaster for the Boyds at large, so John Henry and others of the Boyd family moved to Grand View, Johnson County, where his parents had ended up, and there he farmed and worked in the family grocery business. By 1876, most of the Boyd Clan had relocated in Johnson County, so John Henry had no difficulty being elected justice of the peace of that precinct.

Johnson county and the county seat, Cleburne, was booming. The  Santa Fe railroad  moved their repair shops into this town. Improved roads and modern farming methods increased the cotton production, cattle and horse production was on the rise, banks, businesses and saloons were springing up everywhere. All of this prosperity meant money and money meant a lawless element soon began to intrude into the county. It was time for a new sheriff in town.

Because of his war experience, his excellent record as Justice of the Peace, his standing in the community, the excellent reputation of his father, David Young Boyd, and more relatives than you could shake a stick at, John Henry was urged  to seek the office, and he was elected - by a huge margin - as the Sheriff of Johnson county on November, 1882.

Evidently the constituents (and family) thought he did a good job, because he was re-elected sheriff for 4 more terms. In 1890, at the expiration of his fourth term as sheriff, John was elected mayor of the city of Cleburne, but he must not have liked the job, as he declined re-election.

In the next section, we will hear some tales (perhaps "tall") about John Henry's experiences as sheriff of Johnson County, Texas,

Monday Meanderings - 4.18.2016

I was looking up some air fares the other evening, but I didn't find any as good as this one:

Yes. That's $9.78 for the fare from Fort Worth to Austin.  And was no baggage fee. Still, flying was expensive. Consider the return trip, by rail.

Since I currently live in one of the fastest growing areas in the country, surrounded by some 2 million fellow Austinites, those lists that float by on the Internet that say, "You know you are from a small town when..." typically catch my eye. Here's a combination of a few that I've seen lately.

• You might be from a small town if...
• You know what 4H, FHA and FFA is, and more than likely you were a member.
• You've been to a party in a pasture, barn or gravel pit.
• You dated a friend's ex-girlfriend/boyfriend  and thought it was normal.
• Your teachers remembered when they taught  your parents, let alone your older brothers and sisters.
• You recognized every car in town.
• Local gas stations sold live bait.
• You called the wrong number and you knew the person who answered, and they knew the number of the person you wanted to call.
• You could name every person in your graduating class. Actually, you knew everybody in your high school. And their families.
• You never carried a key for your house because it was always unlocked.
• You charged things at businesses without a credit card (and the clerk knew who to charge it to without asking for your name).
• Store owners left their doors unlocked with a sign that said “gone to the bank, be right back.”
• It was cool to hang out with or date someone from a neighboring school, except during football season when they were considered enemies.
• Everybody knew where you went to church.
• Your entire town shut down every Friday night for the local football game.
• You shopped at a Piggly-Wiggly.
• The only traffic jams your town ever experienced was when a house mover drove through town.
• Your parents purchased live chickens for the dinner table.
• You relate all too well to the show Friday Night Lights.
• There was only one barbershop in town, and only two beauty shops.
• You went to elementary, junior high and high school with the same people.
• If a new boy/girl moved to town, there was a stampede to date him/her.
• You and your friends just drove a continuous loop through town from the drive-in to the Dairy Queen because after the movie, there wasn't anything else to do.

Any thing you would add to the list?

Stories from the Tree - The Boyd Clan

In the genealogical record of our family there are more than 300 individuals with the Boyd surname. It's an important branch of the family tree; my great grandmother was a Boyd and the line stretches back to Ireland. The Find A Grave website lists more than 230 Boyds buried in Laurens County, South Carolina and 137 Boyds buried in Johnson County Texas graveyards. There is also a Boyd Cemetery in Washington County Texas. The city of Cleburne, Texas was (and still is) full of Boyds. While not all of these are relatives, the Boyd line is a big part of the family history.

William Blanton Boyd appears to be the immigrant ancestor of our Boyd clan in the United States, but the record is very sketchy about William. There are at least two different versions of who this man was, where he came from, and who he married. Family records favor the William Blanton who emigrated from Belfast Ireland on the ship Hopewell, arriving in 1772 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Apart from this we know little about William, but we do know more about his children, thanks to a 10-page single-spaced, typewritten document titled "Notes from Della Boyd Culbertson's Diary."  Mary Lou “Della” Boyd Culbertson, my first cousin (twice removed), was born on the banks of the Reedy River in Laurens County, South Carolina in 1862 and died in 1937 in Greenville County, South Carolina, just a few miles north of where she was born. She wrote the diary sometime after 1929, based on the oldest date included in the transcript.

I don't know if the original diary survives, or who typed up the "notes" document, but what was passed to me contains a wealth of information and insight into many of the individuals listed.

For instance, about William Blanton Boyd's oldest daughter Katie she writes:

“Katie married Mr. Pinson – had three small children. Her husband was not a good provider, she had a hard time. One day when he came in the house and his wife gave him a basket to go get chips to finish dinner, he walked out and she never saw or heard of him again She sewed and spun thread and wove cloth to make a living for the children.”

And she writes about a child of his oldest son James:

“William (Billie) Boyd, [was a] Baptist preacher. He married first, Miss Madden. His wife died and he married Cindy Paine. She was very wealthy. She died and he married Savilla Henderson, a widow who had two children. He became a drunkard for years, reformed before he married the third time. Became a devout christian before he died. One night he was feeling bad, went to his medicine chest, took a dose of medicine, and died in a short time – thought to have taken the wrong medicine."

But Della's story begins in earnest with William Blanton's sixth child, Samuel Boyd, her great grandfather and my three-great grandfather.

“Samuel Boyd married an Irish girl named Nancy Henry about 1812 and Samuel and Nancy bought land on the Reedy River, eleven miles west of the Court House in Laurens County, and with an abundance of water power there, built a mill and began grinding corn and wheat. They built a home on the east side of Reedy River, about a quarter mile from the mill and raised a family of eight children, five boys and three girls.”

Business was good, and the family enterprise eventually included a couple of grist mills, a saw mill, a cabinet shop for making furniture, and a thirty spindle carding and spinning plant. 

"All of his boys except one followed the same trade, and son David's three oldest sons, Nathan, Bradford and John Henry also worked there. In all, Samuel handed down his profession as miller and wood worker to at least four generations - sons, grandsons, great, and great great grandsons. "

Samuel seemed to have been a kind father and husband, and good neighbor, except for one thing – he was a drunkard. From the minutes of the Poplar Springs Baptist Church: 

"Brother Samuel was excluded from the church several times for the sin of drunkenness. He would be received back into the church by recantation and then several months later would be up before the church again."

"After Nancy died in 1850, he sold his business to his sons, David, Bradford, and Sanford, and to a son in law, John Puckett. He lived alone in a house joining the yard of the sawyer's house (a grandson) at Boyd's Mill, and was cared for by his family, preferring to live a solitary [if not sober] life until his death in 1861. His son Sanford bought his home, rebuilt the house and lived there all of his life except for a few years, raising a family of nine children there."

"In 1845, 'the dry year,' as we were taught to call it, nearly all the mills in the whole country around could grind scarcely any at all, because of a scarcity of water. When the water in old Reedy was low, they found a wonderful spring just below the dam. They prepared a race and ran all the water on the mill wheel. They ground corn and wheat day and night, and a few Sundays.   Men came from miles to get grinding done. Sometimes they would have to wait for days to get their grinding, so many would be waiting. That is why they ground on Sunday. Sanford Boyd was the miller at that time, but the others helped with it."

When Della was born, just a year after Samuel's death, her grandfather David was still active in the family business, as were most of her uncles and her father, Nathaniel, Davids oldest son. Unfortunately, she never knew her father. But let her tell the story:

“Nathaniel Fonzy Boyd, the oldest son, married Barbara E Godfrey Jan. 31, 1861.    Their home was on the Boyd's Mill property, on the east side of the river. He enlisted in the war between the states on July 11, 1861 at Hamilton's old field in Laurens County, left home August 11 to go to the camp of instruction at Camp Butler. He was mustered into service in Sept. 1861, and was ordered to Port Royal in December 1861. His only child, Della, was born Jan. 22, 1862."

"When she was two weeks old, her father got a furlough and came home, remaining there with his wife and baby for one month. This was the last time he came home and the only time that Della ever saw her father. When he went to war he had been married only six months. Elizabeth and the child went to the home of his father and stayed there, Nathan went to Richmond, Va. in May or June or 1862.   He was a member of S.C. Company C, 14th Regiment in Leeds army, and was in the seven days fight around Richmond, was wounded at Chancellorsville in May of 63, was taken to a hospital in Richmond Va. and died about 18 days later of blood poison. He is buried at Richmond, Va.”

Della had much more to say about members of the Boyd clan, and there's more to the Boyd Mill story. More to come.

Monday Meandersings - 4.11.2016

My wife, the bibliophile, expressed her love for Amazon the other evening. She said she particularly likes the part where - when you order a book - Amazon politely reminds you that you have already purchased said book. That makes me a fan of Amazon, too. I think.

Passed a restaurant reader board the other day that said, "Now Interviewing Dishwasher." How hard could that be? How many questions would you have to ask a prospective dishwasher? What questions would you ask a prospective dishwasher?

Noticed on Facebook that Harold Christian, owner of Harold's BBQ in Abilene passed away. Before Harold took it over, that BBQ place was run by and named for his father, Toby. I've eaten many meals there, between father and son. Years ago, Barb and I lived in Abilene and we made arrangements with Toby for a quantity of his famous chili for a class party.

Toby advertised his chili as "Hot" and "Dam Hot." It was a big party and we anticipated that a lot of chili would be consumed, so we ordered a lot of just "Hot" chili. I don't remember exactly how many servings we ordered, but when we picked up our order, there were two enormous pots of chili. I'm talking mess-hall-feed-the-army sized pots!

We had almost a full pot of chili left over, so we took it home after the party and poured it into every container we could get our hands on and put them all in our chest freezer. That stuff was so spicy it took two days for it to freeze! We ate chili, and we provided chili for our friends, and we took chili to church dinners, and we finally sold the rest of the chili to the Boy Scout troop at church and they had a chili supper fund raiser with what was left of Toby's chili! Rest in peace Harold, and Toby.

And I'll close with a dental care tip for you. Be sure you widely separate your tube of tooth paste and your tube of Preparation H. You're welcome.

V Mail - a small history lesson for my grandchildren

Digging through some old family albums recently, I discovered a couple of tiny little envelopes with tiny little letters in them. I was unsure what they were and wondered why anyone would make miniature copies of letters. I got out a magnifying glass and took a closer look and realized that I had two excellent examples of V-Mail - Victory Mail - a technique used for correspondence in World War II.

I don't know how large these images appear on your screen, but on mine they are just about actual size; the letter portion is 4 inches by 5 inches ; the envelope just over 4 by 4 1/2 inches.

V-Mail was a process used during the war to diminish the weight and bulk of  correspondence to and from members of the armed forces overseas. Standardized correspondence sheets would be   photographed by microfilm machines and the resulting film was routed through military postal service centers, where it would be printed in a smaller version of the original and delivered to the addressee.

According to the National Postal Museum, "V-mail ensured that thousands of tons of shipping space could be reserved for war materials. The 37 mail bags required to carry 150,000 one-page letters could be replaced by a single mail sack. The weight of that same amount of mail was reduced dramatically from 2,575 pounds to a mere 45." This saved considerable weight and bulk in a time in which both were hard to manage in a combat zone.

Both of my V-Mail finds were letters from young men who were friends of my Aunt Ina. The writer of the letter above, Ken Rasco, was a family friend from Tyler who saw service in World War II as a left-waist gunner on a B-17.  He earned four Air Medals with four oak leaf clusters, and the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism during his 35 missions over Germany and France.

After the war, he taught English at Abilene Christian, and when I enrolled in ACU, was the Registrar who led me through the process.

Monday Meanderings - 4.4.2016

Bob and Barb's excellent wildflower adventure. Rains have summoned forth the wildflowers in abundance in the Central Texas area, so Barb and I set out mid-week to take in the vistas of fields of Bluebonnets, Indian Paint Brush and assorted Spring blooms.

In years gone by, we had often found these fields in the Johnson City area, near the LBJ State and National Parks. Fitting, since Lady Bird Johnson had done so much to promote the sowing of wildflowers along the state's highways. In prior years, this was an annual trek, visiting the public areas of the park, then proceeding on to Fredricksburg and Kerrville on our way to Leakey and a church-wide retreat.

It has been more than 15 years since we have visited that area in the Springtime, so Tuesday we packed a picnic lunch and headed south out 290 to see some wildflowers. We were amazed at how that corridor had filled with businesses and commerce. As it has done along the I-35 ASA corridor, Austin has spread out toward the Hill Country until there is almost no distinction between Austin and Dripping Springs.

Businesses, yes - but wildflowers, no. Oh, there were patches all along the way, but we were expecting the LBJ Ranch area to be flooded with color. To our disappointment that area simply did not have the showing this year that it is famous for.

We nevertheless ate our picnic in the pretty little TXDOT rest area, and a friendly attendant told us we should take the Willow City Loop tour if we wanted to see wildflowers this year, and gave us directions on getting there on the back roads from the rest area.

Okay. Either they were not complete directions, or I missed part of them, or we simply missed a turn (or two) and after a lengthy spell of driving down roads we had no idea existed, we reached... Fredricksburg - a few miles further down 290 from where we had started. Another bit of amazement followed: It is normal to see the downtown sidewalks of Fredricksburg crowded with visitors in the summertime, and autos with out-of-state licenses looking for a place to park, but this was Tuesday, in late March, for goodness sake, and the town was crawling with tourists. Like us.

But our goal was the Willow City Loop. Google Maps pointed out the loop, but wasn't much help in showing us how to get started, though the app did point us to Willow City, a few miles north, just off highway 16 on the way to Llano. and after a bit of casting about, we found the starting point. Or the ending point perhaps, since it is a loop.

The Willow City Loop is essentially a 13-mile long private road that services ranches in the area and is festooned prolifically with "NO TRESPASSING" and "NO PARKING" and "POSTED" signs. It starts, appro-priately, in Willow City and ultimately leads back to Highway 16 a couple of miles north of its start. And, like Fredericksburg, it was crowded with tourists. Like us.

 The Loop is a narrow winding path that meanders through classical, rugged Hill Country terrain. It follows one or more creeks in several areas, winds around to overlook scenic vistas, hugs towering bluffs, crosses several low-water culverts and countless cattle guards. Along the POSTED sign-laden fence rows, the bluebonnets and the paint brush and the thistles and small yellow and purple flowers whose names I don't know filled in the spaces between road and rock. There were a few areas of fields full of wildflowers - mostly off in the inaccessible distance, but for the most part its appeal was the flowering right-of-way.

Signs not withstanding, cars were parked every half-mile or so at any place wide enough to get somewhat out of the way of the other cars, and all of us were out snapping away on our phones and cameras. Traffic was fairly heavy, but no one was in a hurry, and we all patiently waited for each other to cross back over the road, or back up a few feet to get a good view, or simply to stop in the road to shoot pictures from out one's window.

It was raining by the time we got back to Austin - and just in time to join non-rush hour traffic through downtown Austin, but that just made us appreciate the wide-open spaces of the Hill Country all the more.