My first entry on this blog is for Alvin, Tx.
I'll be honest, it was unexpected. My husband and I were in Galveston (a completely different blog entry) and on our last day he looked at me and said, "Let's go to Alvin."
Huh?
Well, I can go with the flow. I've never been to Alvin. In fact, I'd never even heard of Alvin until Nolan Ryan came to pitch for the Texas Rangers back in the '90's.
So, a little bit of info:
Alvin is about 32 miles north of Galveston. You take I-45 and then exit 19, except exit 19 was closed due to construction on the highway. No worries. We took the next exit and Waze re-routed us through League City.
Alvin is considered a suburb of Houston in Brazoria County. About 27K people live there. It was established in the mid-19th century when the Santa Fe Railroad moved into that area. it was named for Alvin Morgan, a Santa Fe employee. The original name of the town was Morgan but then changed to Alvin when it was realized that a Morgan, Tx already existed. It was established in 1893.
Downtown Alvin.
This is the Alvin Historical Museum. As I mentioned, this was just a boogie ride so we didn't actually go in the museum. I wish we had. Next time. But, the website of the museum says that they have a whole Nolan Ryan Exhibit. He is their claim to fame. They also have war memorabilia and exhibits on the history of the Alvin area.
Apparently, Nolan moved here with his family in 1947 when he was a baby. There is a Nolan Ryan Museum on the campus of the Alvin Community College. I didn't realize that when I was there.
The historical museum is housed in the old US Post Office building. It was originally built in 1940. I'm not sure when the post office moved. As a side note, Alvin does have one other claim to fame. This is also the home town of the pitcher for the 2023 World Champion Texas Rangers, Nathan Eovaldi!
This is the smallest Bucc'ees I've ever seen. Most have about 30 gas pumps, a large store with tons of bathrooms. I thought this might have been the first one, you know, to see how it was accepted. Nope. It's just a small one. We should have stopped just to in and check it out.
Stanton's Meats has been in the meat business since 1922. As we drove around, I thought this might be
THE grocery store but it's not. There's also a small HEB as well.
This is St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. On their website, it says that in 1879, Miss Frances Hill married Jess Bruner and they moved to Alvin. Their only neighbor was Alvin Morgan (for whom the town was named). Frances would attend church in Galveston, where she was from, with her mother. When her mother passed, she had no one to attend church with (her husband was not Catholic). Jess was a good guy and agreed to go to church with her. He later converted. There were several traveling priests that came through town and a mission was started. This church was built in 1954.
This lovely prayer garden is behind the church. Each side is a different image of the Virgin Mary and there are small statues of praying children. It's really pretty.
Well, that was our first trip on the scenic route.
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