ATHENS, TEXAS

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Athens: Where the hamburger was invented

(From "East Texas Sunday Drives" by Bob Bowman)
Here's a Sunday Drive that will clear up the origin of the hamburger, carry you through a countryside that is half-East Texas and half-Central Texas, and enable you to visit several communties with interesting histories. For good measure, we've thrown in a couple of excellent Mexican food restaurants.

Start your tour in Athens, home of the hamburger and the world-famous black-eyed festival.

The hamburger had its beginning on Athens' interesting courthouse square in the l880s when Fletcher Davis, who owned a downtown cafe, invented the sandwich. The delicacy was so popular that in l904 a group of Athens businessmen raised enough money to send the inventor to the St. Louis World's Fair, where the hamburger was introduced to the world.

For many years, the growing, processing, canning and eating of black-eyed peas was a major part of life in Athens--so much so that Athens became the black-eyed pea capitol of the world, eventually spawing an annual jamboree each July.

Athens, the seat of Henderson County, was founded in l850, four years after Texas was annexed as a state by the U.S. The county was named for J. Pickney Henderson, the first governor of Texas, and Athens was named for the Grecian capital by the step-daugher of one of the town's founders in the hope that it could become the cultural center of Henderson County.

There are a number of things to see in Athens, including....more

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Athens Landmarks/Attractions/Images

The brick and concrete Henderson County jail
was completed in 1925 and used until 1991.
Photo courtesy Terry Jeanson, February 2006
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