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Bright and Early Coffee and Teaby
Bob Bowman | |
Once
upon a time, Bright & Early Coffee and Tea signs, usually painted on the sides
of barns and country stores, could be found in most Southern states, including
Texas.
Today, finding a Bright & Early
sign is as hard to find as a Model-T Ford. Both have vanished from the American
landscape.
The only Bright & Early sign I know of in East
Texas is painted on the side of a small grocery store in the crossroads settlement
of Bugscuffle beside Highway 84, a few miles west of Mount Enterprise in Rusk
County. |
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One of the few Bright & Early signs is found on the site of an abandoned store
in the community of Bugscuffle, east of Mount Enterprise in Rusk County. Photo
courtesy Bob Bowman. |
Admittedly, I may
have missed others, and I will probably get some telephone calls or e-mail messages
about other Bright & Early signs. At least, I hope so.
The store at Bugscuffle
closed years ago and the faded Bright & Early sign is almost obscured by trees,
vines and bushes. But people regularly stop and shoot photographs of the sign.
Incidentally, there are a lot of small Texas
communities named Bugscuffle. Some of them are often confused with Bug Tussel
in Fannin County.
Ancel Nunn, a remarkable Palestine
artist, made Bright & Early Coffee and Tea famous, but not for their taste.
Nunn
created a number of paintings of Bright & Early signs and, today, they’re cherished
by art lovers.
Another Bright & Early sign stood for years at Smithville
in Bastrop County, but it wasn’t a real ad. It was painted for a movie, “Hope
Floats,” which was filmed in the Smithville
area.
Movie makers often created fake signs as background movie sets,
but they seldom lasted as long as the real signs did. |
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I
am told there
were “real” Bright and Early signs on the sides of buildings at Hico,
Hamilton County, in the Texas Hill Country, and at Junction
in Kimble County.
Bright & Early Coffee isn’t entirely dead. In the Heights
area of Houston, there’s a Bright &
Early Coffee stand, but I suspect it doesn’t serve the original brand, but something
more akin to Star Bucks.
And I doubt they serve Bright and Early Tea.
Bob
Bowman's East Texas
February 16, 2009 Column
A
weekly column syndicated in 70 East Texas newspapers
Copyright Bob Bowman |
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