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Ninety
minutes out of Austin, the
passenger bus slowed as it moved west along Fredericksburg's
wide Main Street before lumbering up in front of the three-story Nimitz
Hotel.
The Kerrville Bus Lines coach would be there only briefly, but the
driver said we had time to stretch our legs if we wanted. Knowing
the trip to Amarillo
would take all night, I decided to go into the hotel for a quick cup
of coffee. Air hissed from the hydraulics as I stepped off the bus
into the chilly December night and walked into the lobby.
Back then, I didn't really know anything about the history of the
Nimitz. To me, it was just an old hotel that had clearly seen its
better days. I got the coffee I wanted, though I don't recall it being
particularly fresh. At least it had caffeine, which interested me
more than flavor. I was just an eighth grader, albeit somewhat older
than my years due to family circumstances.
Still, this would be the longest ground trip I had ever taken by myself
and I was both excited and a little apprehensive. I felt something
else that early winter night in 1962, something it took me years to
understand.
I realize now that in reaching the Nimitz I had come to the edge of
my familiar territory. We had only traveled 80 miles from the bus
station at 4th and Congress in Austin,
but Fredericksburg
was -- and in some ways still is -- the last stopping place before
the geography and, to some extent the culture, begins to change from
Central Texas
to West Texas. When that
bus pulled away from the Fredericksburg
station that night, I was riding into new country, bound for Amarillo
by morning to spend Christmas with my dad.
Of
course, I was far from the first person to experience Fredericksburg
as a landlocked port of last call. Indeed, from its founding in 1846,
nearly another 40 years would pass before any significant settlement
occurred between Gillespie
County and far-distant El
Paso. In mid-19th century Texas, the German settlement on Baron's
Creek lay on the raw edge of the frontier. And for years the Nimitz,
opened in 1852 with only four rooms to let, stood as the last traditional
hotel between Texas and California -- assuming your stagecoach made
it past the Comanches and Apaches.
Minus hostile Indians, bus travel in the early 1960s came about as
close as you could get to knowing how it must have been to journey
across Texas in a stagecoach. Sure, passenger buses had air-conditioning,
relatively soft seats and a bathroom, but it still took forever --
at least compared with automobile travel and certainly with flying
-- to get somewhere. The main reason was that back then, bus companies
still served small town Texas. Later that night, and into the pre-dawn
hours, our bus stopped at Brady,
San
Angelo, Big
Spring, Lubbock,
and Plainview before
rolling into Amarillo
around daybreak.
The man who would give the Nimitz its name, Charles H. Nimitz, knew
a thing or two about travel. A former sea captain, he came to Fredericksburg
in 1855 and purchased the three-year-old hotel. In addition to running
and expanding the property, he operated a brewery, saloon and general
store at the hotel. By the late 1880s, having made enough money to
indulge in a bit of whimsy, Nimitz oversaw construction of a new three-story
frame addition. The top of the hotel resembled the wheelhouse of a
steamship, complete with a flag pole. |
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The Old Nimitz
Hotel
Postcard courtesy www.rootsweb.com/ %7Etxpstcrd/ |
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In its prime,
the Nimitz saw numerous notable and a few infamous guests, including
future Confederate general Robert E. Lee, his later nemesis Ulysses
S. Grant, the outlaw Johnny Ringo, writer William
Sydney Porter (O. Henry), sculptress Elisabet
Ney and President Rutherford B. Hayes. In later years, future
President Lyndon B. Johnson met with constituents there. Another
person who spent a lot of time at the Nimitz was Charles Nimitz's
grandson, Chester.
In 1906, the old ship captain deeded the property to his son --
Chester's father -- and 20 years later the hotel sold to a group
of Fredericksburg
businessmen. Meanwhile, having inherited his granddad's love of
the sea, Chester Nimitz moved up the ranks after graduating from
the U.S. Naval Academy.
The hotel's new owners scuttled its distinctive nautical architecture
in favor of a three-story brick structure that looked about like
most small town hotels of the era. In other words, unimaginative
if functional.
I
didn't know any of this when I made that long-ago trip to Amarillo.
Nor did I know when I ventured inside for a cup of coffee that the
place was on its last legs. Less than nine months later, on Sept.
16, 1963, Fredericksburg
newspaper correspondent Emma Petmecky filed a story that began,
"For the first time since 1852, there is no desk clerk at the historic
Nimitz Hotel. It has ceased taking overnight guests."
The old hotel still had a few permanent guests, however. And, Mrs.
Petmecky reported, "The lobby is still active because a bus station
and cafe which operated in conjunction with the hotel are being
maintained."
The article went on to note that "tentative plans" existed to reopen
the hotel, but that never happened. At least, the Nimitz never again
accommodated overnight guests. The permanent residents moved on,
the bus station relocated and the cafe where I'd gotten that cup
of joe closed.
Six years later, in 1968, I returned to the Nimitz as a young newspaper
reporter. Thanks to a fund-raising effort that had begun in 1964,
with then Gov. John Connally giving the first donation, the Nimitz
had taken on a new life as a museum honoring the man who in World
War Two oversaw the defeat of the Japanese empire -- Fleet Admiral
Chester Nimitz.
Now, the restored Nimitz and all the new square-footage built to
house its many exhibits is daily visited by people from all across
the United States and around the world. But, for those whose westward
journey will continue from there, the Nimitz and Fredericksburg
remain a way point.
© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
- January 14, 2016 Column
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