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Columbus
discovered America in 1492 but I discovered Beattie in July of 1936.
My Dad had previously contracted to top-work some pecan trees for
John Scott and his brother Pink Scott. Their native pecan timber was
located on Copperas Creek about two or three miles north of Beattie.
Daddy had started the contract work on these large native pecan trees
the previous winter. He and Thomas January had topped or "dehorned"
these trees with a cedar ax and a one-man cross cut saw. The larger
trees did not have any limbs small enough to put buds on the first
spring. After they were topped, young sprouts would put out and start
growing all over the trees. By late July or early August these sprouts
had grown enough to be thinned out and budded with "bud-wood" from
some paper-shell pecan trees. At that time, we used mostly Burket,
Mayhan and Delmus varieties. Daddy, Thomas January and I were on our
way to the Scott place to do some summer budding when I got my first
view of Beattie.
At that time we lived at Bend,
Texas, and since it would take two or three days to do this phase
of the job, we had packed our tools, bud-wood and camping equipment
on Daddy's pick-up truck. That pick up was only a couple of years
old but they were not too well built then. The back half of both rear
fenders had already vibrated off, leaving the rear wheels almost totally
exposed. It didn't bother much until you got in the mud. Then it would
sling mud high into the air and it would fall all over the cab, bed
and hood. That was the dirtiest truck in Comanche County at that time
and there was very little pavement. We were lucky that it was not
raining at that time or everything we had in the back of the truck
would have been covered in mud.
As we drove through Comanche
that afternoon, I saw some things that I remembered when I had visited
Grandpa and Grandma Moore in previous years. We drove north on a street
that Grandma and Seth and Raymond used to peddle fruits and vegetables
on. We drove on north on a dirt road. In places there were dried ruts
through the clay as a reminder of previous rains. After the ground
had dried the cars started straddling the old dried ruts and made
a new set of tracks that were not so rough. This worked fine until
you met a car from the opposite direction in the same set of tracks
and both vehicles had to move over. This was a slow but rough process
when it was dry. Some times it was almost impossible to move over
out of the ruts when it was wet and raining. The road ran in a north
or west direction most of the time with many sharp turns and corners
as it made its way by the many sandy land farms. In some places the
road went through some deep blow sand and even the most experienced
drivers would have problems driving through dry sand. We crossed Sweet
water Creek and went by the old Sweetwater Store. We then worked our
way north and west and went by Taylor's Chapel and Concord Cemetery.
We crossed Martin Branch and went by the Louis Nelson place and on
up to another corner where Bert Frazier lived. We passed by Will Frazier's
house at the top of a rise. We then went down a slope by four or five
dwelling houses and two church houses. We crossed a branch on a culvert
made of bridge planks and found ourselves sitting in downtown Beattie.
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©
Harland Moore
July 24, 2005
Anyone wishing to share photos, stories, memories of Beattie, Texas,
or comment on Mr. Moore's recollections, please contact
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