Month: July 2019

About 70 miles north of San Antonio, along I-10, lies the town of Kerrville, home of the fighting Tivy Antlers High School.

“Kerrville is named after James Kerr, a major in the Texas Revolution, and friend of settler-founder Joshua Brown [see wall mural,] who settled in the area to start a shingle-making camp.”

“Archeological evidence suggests that humans dwelled in the area known as Kerrville as early as 10,000 years ago. The early modern residents were successful shinglemakers whose mercantile business became a hub that served the middle and upper Hill Country area in the late 1840s. One of the earliest shinglemakers was Joshua D. Brown. With his family, Joshua Brown had led several other families on an exploration of the Guadalupe Valley. These early pioneers organized their settlements near a bluff just north of the Guadalupe River in the eastern half of today’s county. The settlement was referred to as “Brownsborough”, but after the area was formally platted in 1856 by James Kerr, a major in the Texas Revolution, the settlement was formally known as “Kerrville” and maintained a county seat with Texas.”

“Starting in 1857, a German master-miller named Christian Dietert and millwright Balthasar Lich started a large grist and saw mill on the bluff. This mill established a permanent source of power and protection from floods, and became the most extensive operation of its kind in the Hill Country area west of New Braunfels and San Antonio. ” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerrville,_Texas

Using this link, learn more about the history of Kerrville through the city’s very extensive murals celebrating that history.

Street art from the Wiregrass Region of Alabama

The Wiregrass Region—or Wiregrass Country—is an area of the Southern United States encompassing parts of southern Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. The region is named for the native Aristida stricta, commonly known as wiregrass due to its texture.

The region stretches approximately from just below Macon, Georgia and follows the Fall Line west to Montgomery, Alabama. From there it turns south and runs to approximately Washington County, Florida in the northern panhandle. From there it runs east, roughly making its southern boundary along Interstate 10 to Lake City, Florida. From there it turns north, roughly following the Suwannee River back into Georgia and along the western fringes of the Okefenokee Swamp. From here it runs due north back to Macon.

The region includes Fort Rucker, a U.S. Army post located mostly in Dale County, Alabama. The post is the primary flight training base for Army Aviation and is home to the United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence (USAACE) and the United States Army Aviation Museum, as well as Moody Air Force Base located in Lowndes and Lanier County, Georgia. Moody AFB is the home of the 23d Wing. The wing executes worldwide close air support, force protection, and combat search and rescue operations (CSAR) in support of humanitarian interests, United States national security and the global war on terrorism (GWOT). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiregrass_Region

One of the murals photographed in the area was of the Boll Weevil, where there is a statue honoring the little critter. If it hadn’t been for the destructiveness of this insect on the cotton industry, the peanut industry may have started later than 1919.