|
|
HOVEY, TEXASWest Texas
Ghost Town
Brewster County
NE of Alpine
At the Pecos County Line
Population: 0
|
|
|
Former
store in Hovey
Photo courtesy ErikWhetstone, April 2006 |
| |
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.
July 2001 ©John Troesser |
|
|
An
old house in Hovey
Photo courtesy ErikWhetstone, April 2006 |
|
|
|
The
Hovey School shortly after becoming a Texas Historic Landmark
Photo Courtesy Barbara Kipgen |
|
| 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
|
"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 |
|
This site
for Hovey, Texas sponsored by: Barbara Kipgen
7/01 $50.
|
|
|
