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| | Former
store in Hovey
Photo courtesy ErikWhetstone, April 2006 |
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Hovey
is here thanks to former resident, Barbara Kipgen, who wrote us. Her letter follows
the brief history.
Brief History
Hovey is another of the many Texas towns that is
named after a railroad official. In this case it was the Kansas City, Mexico and
Orient Railway, the year was 1913 and the official was G.B. Hovey. They got their
post office the same year, but it was closed by the 1930s.
Hovey only
had an estimated 25 residents and one business in the early 30s. We were unable
to find it on the TxDoT County Map for Brewster County. Barbara explains that
the reason for this is that the entire townsite is now on private property and
is not accessible. The good news is that the Hovey
School - the town's pride - is permanently on display on the Fort
Stockon grounds. |
| | An
old house in Hovey
Photo courtesy ErikWhetstone, April 2006 |
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| | The
Hovey School shortly after becoming a Texas
Historic Landmark
Photo Courtesy Barbara Kipgen |
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| In
addition to sending us the photo of the Hovey
School House, Barbara Kipgen included a description of life on a West Texas
ranch. Her mother Edith and Grandmother Lilah Smith are both shown in the photo
shortly after the school was dedicated a Texas Historic Landmark. - editor |
RANCH LIFE IN BREWSTER COUNTYSweeping
the yard was the easy part
A typical day
of Lilah Smith and Edith Kipgen
As told by themselves and Barbara Kipgen
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"Both
women have recorded on paper a lot of their experiences on the ranch back in the
30s and 40s. Lilah, doing spring house cleaning [which included] carrying all
the mattresses out into a day's sun; washing/ drying all the sheets, etc. and
then getting side-tracked by two kids who had "horse trouble." After spending
hours finding and retrieving the horse [she came back to] a mess because a rain/wind
storm had wiped out the morning's work."
"When Edith was about 10 years
old, she began helping her father with ranch work. In her teens, she "broke"
and trained about 20 young horses for a neighboring rancher over a six year period."
"Living on a large ranch in those days was not easy. Everything was done
the old pioneer way. Although there were cars and trucks - the work was done with
horses and wagons. We cooked with a wood fire and had no running water. The water
was hauled in barrels on a wagon pulled by mules. We dipped buckets of water and
carried them into the house. We had no electricity.
We lived in a clean
4-room house with a fence. The yard was dirt with no grass or shrubs since there
was no way to water them. It was swept with a broom about once a week."
"Lilah was a schoolteacher before marrying my grandfather, in Corsicana, Texas.
She really missed the trees and vegetation when they first moved to what was the
E.L. Ranch in the early 30s.
"There was one scraggly mesquite tree near
our bedroom window. At first it was ugly and I wanted it dug up and moved out.
No one had time to do that. As time went by, I loved that old tree. It was the
only living plant in that yard and it became beautiful."
The
Old Schoolhouse - next page |
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| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories, and vintage/historic
photos of their town, please contact
us. |
| This
site for Hovey, Texas sponsored by: Barbara Kipgen 7/01
$50. |
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