College Station, Texas: Aggieland

In driving around Texas, we landed in College Station. I'd had friends that went to school in College Station but I'd never been there. In fact, I wasn't even sure where it was.

According to this map, you leave Dallas like you're going to Houston. Then around Madisonville, you hang a right. While driving there, it seemed very remote. Lots of farm land. I wasn't even sure that we were headed in the right direction but my GPS assured me that we were. Then we came out of the woods and landed in a town. A pretty big town, actually.

In 1860, The Houston and Texas Railroad came through here. Then in 1871, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was built. It was the first college in Texas. The name was eventually changed to Texas A&M. In 1877, a post office was opened near the train depot and it was called College Station. The town took it's name from the post office. Now the town is mostly the university. Here's a view of A&M from our hotel window. It's like a small city!

Initially, the town was very remote, despite the railroad. Most of the instructors at the college lived in housing provided by the university. By 1900, the town had electricity and a population of 351. In 1938, College Station was incorporated. Today it's part of the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area as well as part of an area called the Texas Triangle (Houston/Austin/Bryan-College Station).

As I mentioned, most of the businesses in the city cater to the students and their families. That's not to say there aren't houses and other businesses there. There are. This is the Dixie Chicken. It's a bar on University Drive, which is kind of the main drag. The Dixie Chicken is the oldest bar in the "Northgate" area. It got it's name from a song by the band Little Feat. We walked by but we were not the target audience.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites also on University Drive. There are tons of hotel options here. All the chains are represented. Our hotel was packed! There was some kind of swim meet going on and some of the teams were staying at our hotel.

Driving around the A&M Campus. So all colleges have a "saying", right? UT Austin is Hook 'em Horns. A&M is "Gig 'em".  I googled that and I still have no idea what that means. 

Kyle Field named for Edwin Jackson Kyle, who was the President of the General Athletics Association. He was also a graduate, class of 1899.  In 1904, he took land that was assigned to him for agriculture and fenced it off for a field. Then, using $650 of his own money, he bought a covered grandstand that sat about 500 people. I guess the University felt that was just pitiful and in 1929, they built a new stadium. This stadium holds about 120K people. Another fun fact, the game here in 1921 between the Aggies and their arch rivals, The University of Texas, was the first game in Texas to be broadcast live.

For us, the big draw to College Station (other than the fact we'd never been there) was the George Bush Presidential Library. It's on the A&M Campus and was opened in 1997.

Documenting the live of George H. W. Bush, the library has tons of information. There are photographs of Bush 41's life. (He was the 41st president). He lied about his age so he could enlist in the Navy during WWII. He was a pilot serving on the USS San Jacinto. During one raid, his plane was shot down. He was able to escape, though his team died. After the war, he enrolled at Yale and played baseball.

George H. W. and George W. are one of only two sets of father/son presidents, the other being John and John Quincy Adams. The senior Bush moved his family to Midland Tx where he got in the oil business. They eventually moved to Houston where Bush got into politics. He served as head of the CIA under President Gerald Ford.

George H. W. Bush's Oval Office. Bush was Vice President under Ronald Reagan for 8 years. Then President for 4. His VP was Dan Quayle. In my mind, Quayle will always be remembered as the guy who misspelled potato to a kid during a spelling bee causing the kid to lose.

Bush 41 was a one-term president. He lost to Bill Clinton. While I didn't vote for him, I thought he was a class act.

He and his wife, Barbara, and their daughter Robin are interred on the grounds of the library.

The graves of the Bush's. It's a very lovely and peaceful location, away from the library.

Today College Station has about 120K people. Their biggest employer, as you might imagine, is Texas A&M University. Other big employers are the Bryan Independent School District, St. Joseph Health Care and Sanderson Farms (it's a chicken processing plant). (A silo on the way out of College Station)

The city has all your standard fast food chains as well as all the big chain restaurants. Even with all of this, it still feels a bit remote. Having said that, A&M is the largest University in the country with 74,000 students that go here, including Lyle Lovett and Johnny Manziel, so there's something about this place...

Gig em, Aggies!

Bryan, Texas: The Good Life, Texas Style

On our tour of Texas, we had the opportunity to visit Bryan, Texas. The land around the town was originally part of the land grant given to Moses Austin by the Mexican government. Upon Moses' death, the land passed to his son, Stephen F. Austin.

The town was named for William Joel Bryan, Austin's nephew, when he donated the land for the town in 1859 due to the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. In 1866, it was voted as the county seat of Brazos County.

In 1892, the fourth courthouse was built. I found this photo on the internet. It's a beautiful structure. Unfortunately, in 1954, they (I assume the townspeople) decided it was too old fashioned and they demolished it only to rebuild a new one on the same site.

This is the "new" county courthouse. This is the only courthouse designed by this company. Personally, I find it boring. I liked the other courthouse better. The only thing that remains from the original courthouse is the cornerstone. I got this photo off the internet as well.

In 1902 the Carnegie Library of Bryan opened using funds donated by Andrew Carnegie. It is now the Carnegie History Center, open Mon - Fri 10 - 5. Unfortunately, we were here over a weekend and weren't able to go in.

In front of the library is this statue, which I think is pretty cool. It's called "Treasured Moments".

This was kind of the downtown Bryan Area. The red building with the green Howell Sign is the Howell building. It was built in 1904 by JW Howell for his wholesale grocery store. The upper floors were designed as office space with the top floor being home to the Brazos Cotton Exchange.  The building was sold and the first floor housed a furniture store until the '70's. It was vacant for a while until it was purchased by another firm that added in the modern conveniences like air conditioning. The first floor is now a Mexican restaurant. The upper floors were restored to their original grandeur and the upper floor is an event space called The Cotton Exchange.

The LaSalle Hotel opened in 1929 as the tallest building in Bryan. Travelers coming from the train station, mere steps away, would stay here or stop in the coffee shop for a bit of refreshment. It was built by Robert Wistar Howell (son of JW Howell). In 1934, the hotel became a home for Civil War survivors. In 1959, it became a nursing home. In 1975, it was an apartment building and then in 1980, it closed. In 1997, the hotel was purchased and restored to it's original glory and has been a hotel since.

The Queen Theater has reopened (after this photo was taken). It originally opened in 1939 premiering the movie "Fifth Avenue Girl" starring Ginger Rogers. The theater was owned by Edna Schulman and was the first theater west of the Mississippi to have air conditioning. It was reopened by the Schulman family in 2023.

The Palace Theater. The building was originally the town's city hall. In 1929, it was purchased by Morris Schulman (of Queen Theater fame) and converted to a theater that had live shows and motion pictures. The theater was in business for fifty years when a storm hit the town and caused severe structural damage to the theater. The Schulman family reopened the theater in 2023 as an open air amphitheater. Another part of Bryan history saved!

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church was a church in nearby Millican, Texas in 1864. In 1867, wave of yellow fever swept through the town prompting the members to relocate to Bryan. The first service held in this building was in 1914.

The Historic Hotel Bryan building on Main Street. I am assuming that this hotel was built back in the late 1800's or early 1900's for travelers that came to town by train or even for travelers that brought their cotton to the Cotton Exchange. It's located on Main Street very close to where the train depot would have been. I'm also assuming that the hotel is no more. There's a barber shop and two finance companies in the lobby. I would assume office space upstairs if it's even open. I scoured the internet for information but wasn't able to find anything.

Bryan, Texas still has that small town feel. It has tons of history. It has a population of about 65K and its main employers are Texas A&M University, Bryan ISD and A&M Health Science. The average income is about $31K. They have your standard fast food chains and a TON of Mexican restaurants and they all look really good. There's also a couple of WalMarts, an HEB and a Kroger for grocery shopping.

And finally, it's close enough to College Station for any of your big chain restaurants. Bryan seems off the beaten path but it's part of the Texas Triangle (Austin, Houston, Bryan-College Station). It's the good life, Texas style!