Glen Rose and Granbury, TX. Dinosaur Valley. Berlin Airlift. St. Lawrence Seaway. Cargo Trailer. “Binkie”.

For “Travel Tuesday”:

Glen Rose, pretty name for a city, isn’t it?

“Glen Rose is the county seat of Somervell County. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 2,444. Glen Rose is part of the Granbury micropolitan area.   The Granbury Micropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of two counties anchored by the city of Granbury.”

Let’s start at Granbury:

Granbury History

“Founded in 1825, Granbury started as a square and log cabin court house. It is generally considered to be a suburb of the Fort Worth. Many of the buildings on the square are now registered historic landmarks, including the Granbury Opera House, which still hosts Broadway productions.

 

The city name originated from the Confederate General Hiram B. Granberry. Some scholars, to explain why the city name is spelled differently, believe the name Grandberry was misread on a document, but recent findings have concluded that Granberry chose to spell his name Granbury. Recent expansion of the city was made possible by the damming of the Brazos River in 1969, which formed Lake Granbury, a long, narrow lake which flows through the city.

Granbury and Hood County are rich in Texas history. David (Davy) Crockett's wife, Elizabeth, settled in Hood County following the Texas Revolution against Mexico. Crockett, as well as other Alamo participants, received land grants. The Crockett family received land in what is now Hood County. Elizabeth Crockett is buried in Acton State Historic Site, the smallest state park in Texas. A large statue of Elizabeth Crockett marks her grave site. Several of Crockett's descendants still reside in Hood County.

John Wilkes Booth, according to Granbury legend, moved to Hood County and assumed the name of John St. Helen. There is a store on the historic town square that is still called St. Helen's.

English actor Peter Mayhew, who portrayed the wookie Chewbacca in four of the six Star Wars movies, resides in Granbury.”

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Glen Rose History,   19th century:

“The area was first settled in 1849 by Charles Barnard, who opened a trading post near Comanche Peak. After the region became a federal Indian reservation in 1855, Barnard moved his business to Fort Belknap. Circa 1859 when the reservation was abolished, he returned to the area and built the first store on what is now the site of Glen Rose.

A three-story stone gristmill was constructed along the Paluxy River and the town that grew up around it became known as Barnard's Mill.

The mill was sold to T.C. Jordan of Dallas in 1871 for $65,000. Jordan's wife, a native of Scotland, decided to rename the town Rose Glen to reflect the area's natural surroundings.  The citizens later voted to call the community Glen Rose. A post office opened in 1874.

When Somervell County was formed on March 15, 1875, Glen Rose was designated as its county seat.  A courthouse around Glen Rose's town square was completed around 1892, but burned down a year later. A newly built Romanesque Revival style courthouse was constructed soon after with locally quarried limestone. That building sustained damage in a 1902 tornado that also damaged part of the town square.

20th century

Throughout the period from the 1900s to the 1920s, Glen Rose was home to approximately 1,000 people. The area's mineral springs attracted numerous doctors and self-styled healers to the community. During Prohibition, the area was a center of moonshining and Glen Rose became known as the "whiskey woods capital of the state." The population remained steady during the Great Depression, although unemployment rates in both Glen Rose and Somervell County increased.  Three low-water dams on the Paluxy River, several local school buildings, and a canning plant were built with Works Projects Administration (WPA) money.

During the post-war years, the population of Somervell County declined from 3,071 in 1940 to 2,542 in 1950 as many residents moved in search of greater employment opportunities. At the same time, Glen Rose grew from 1,050 residents in 1940 to 1,248 in 1950. The construction of the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant in the mid-1970s brought financial advantages and new residents to the Glen Rose area. The city experienced a 34 percent increase in population between 1970 and 1980. The nuclear plant came to dominate the local economy. Other chief industries include farming, ranching, and tourism.”

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Area attractions

“Big Rocks Park in Glen Rose Texas has been a popular hangout for a long time. As the name says, there are big rocks, result of some geologic event thousands of years ago. What makes it interesting is that the Paluxy River flows by the rocks and the river bed is rock. The unusual rock forms and the river make for an interesting place to hang out for a little bit. Wading in the water is a popular pastime here in the early summer when there’s still water in the Paluxy.

 

 

 

 

Even when it’s not Summer, this is a fun place. Climbing on the rocks and hanging out is great fun.

In a dry winter you can walk down the river bed. Last year they built a walk way from the Paluxy Heritage Park to Big Rocks Park. So, now you can walk from Big Rocks over to Paluxy Heritage Park.

For another swimming option in Glen Rose, you might consider Oakdale Park. Oakdale has a big pool that was built in 1925 but that’s still a great swimming place today.”

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“Fossil Rim Wildlife Center is an 1,800-acre (7.3 km) wildlife preserve open to the public. It features many different species of animals.  The facility was built in 1984 to protect the wildlife of Texas and the world. In fact it is an endangered species research and conservation facility. They have over 1,000 animals from more than 50 species. The park is set up for visitors to drive through the park. It is possible to feed the animals from the cars, as one drives along.” Read more: http://www.city-data.com/articles/Fossil-Rim-Wildlife-Center-Glen-Rose-TX.html#ixzz1yqxXewSP

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Dinosaur Valley State Park

 “Dinosaur Valley State Park contains some of the best preserved dinosaur tracks in the world. The dinosaur tracks are located in the riverbed, so please call ahead to check on river conditions.

 

 

 

There are two fiberglass models, a 70-foot Apatosaurus and a 45-foot Tyrannosaurus Rex. They were built, under commission of the Sinclair Oil Company, for New York World's Fair Dinosaur Exhibit of 1964 - 1965.

Other activities include camping, picnicking, hiking, mountain biking, equestrian use in a separate 100-acre area, river swimming and fishing, and wildlife observation.”

 

 

 

 

Dinosaur Valley State Park features a large number of dinosaur footprints, the Glen Rose Formation, in the bed of the Paluxy River. The park is one of the top local tourist attractions.

Eastward-dipping limestones, sandstones, and mudstones of the Glen Rose Formation were deposited during the early Cretaceous Period approximately 113 million years ago along the shorelines of an ancient sea, and form the geological setting for the park area. Over the last million years or so, these layered formations have been eroded, dissected and sculpted by the Paluxy River which, in many places, has cut down to resistant beds and planed off sizable exposures of rock in the river bottom.”

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Creation Evidence Museum, displaying purported evidence for creationism. The museum sponsors continuing paleontological and archaeological excavations among other research projects, including a hunt for living pterodactyls in Papua New Guinea, and expeditions to Israel. Materials from the museum have been recommended by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, but the NCBCPS curriculum has been deemed "unfit for use in public school classrooms."

The first hyperbaric biosphere

One of the museum's research projects is a "hyperbaric biosphere", a chamber designed to reproduce atmospheric conditions that the researchers postulate for Earth before the Great Flood. This allows experiments designed to test the effect of such conditions on lifespan and physical size. It is claimed to have tripled the lifespan of fruit-flies, and detoxified copperhead snakes.”

“Tourism is big business in Glen Rose and most of the credit has to go to dinosaurs that trekked through the area 113 million years ago.”

From me: There sure is a lot to see and do in Granbury and Glen Rose, TX, and enjoy seeing this great state with y’all.

 

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On This Day:

U.S. and British begin Berlin Airlift, Jun 26, 1948:

“On this day in 1948, U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade.

When World War II ended in 1945, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation. The city of Berlin, though located within the Soviet zone of occupation, was also split into four sectors, with the Allies taking the western part of the city and the Soviets the eastern. In June 1948, Josef Stalin's government attempted to consolidate control of the city by cutting off all land and sea routes to West Berlin in order to pressure the Allies to evacuate. As a result, beginning on June 24 the western section of Berlin and its 2 million people were deprived of food, heating fuel and other crucial supplies.

By July 15, an average of 2,500 tons of supplies was being flown into the city every day. The massive scale of the airlift made it a huge logistical challenge and at times a great risk. With planes landing at Tempelhof Airport every four minutes, round the clock, pilots were being asked to fly two or more round-trip flights every day, in World War II planes that were sometimes in need of repair.”

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St. Lawrence Seaway opened, Jun 26, 1959:

“In a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, the St. Lawrence Seaway is officially opened, creating a navigational channel from the Atlantic Ocean to all the Great Lakes. The seaway, made up of a system of canals, locks, and dredged waterways, extends a distance of nearly 2,500 miles, from the Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior.

Work on the massive project was initiated by a joint U.S.-Canadian commission in 1954, and five years later, in April 1959, the icebreaker D'Iberville began the first transit of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Since its official opening, more than two billion tons of cargo, with an estimated worth of more than $300 billion, have moved along its canals and channels.”

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Yesterday:

Ray and I tackled quite a few jobs.   First, I showed him what I feed Misty and Prime, as you never know!  If I got “hit by a Mack truck” Misty would go to her late Dad’s former girlfriend, and Prime would go to my SPCA boss, as she is a foster.  But they would have to fed before they got there.  Though Prime doesn’t know she is a foster, she thinks I am her real ‘Mom’.

Then Ray got the little 2-step ladder in here, and we did a few high up things that I wouldn’t do when I am on my own.  I had bought a little doggie mom with 2 pups figurine thing that is made to sit on a corner, so he put it up on the trim to one of my doors. I had also bought some shower curtain rings that were in the shapes of different fish, so he installed them.  My winter comforter had already been washed and was put in a plastic case up in the top linen cupboard.

Then we went outside to the cargo trailer to see if the latest batch of brass hasps that I had bought would work on the bed base for storing it when the trailer is in toyhauler mode.  We found one that will work, but at the time the store didn’t have the swivel lock kind, so I need to exchange it for one of those.  We attached the one for the table base.  We also started to clean up the inside of “Pugsy”, my vintage motor home.  We had used it for storing the lumber taken out of the cargo trailer, nearly all of it was re-used in the rebuild of the insides. We were looking for one special piece as we need to install one more cabinet door in the cargo trailer.

Then we attacked the hedge, with all the rain it had grown up again.  But when Ray and I do it, we weed inside and outside the fence, too. So that took up the rest of the morning until it was time to quit for lunch.

As I was eating my lunch, Jay called, asking for the number for Animal Control.  He said he had caught ‘something’.  Usually he would have said it was a cat.  If it had been an armadillo, possum or raccoon, he would have taken it down to the lake, and turned it loose.  So I cross-examined him and found out that he had trapped ‘Binkie’, the little black Chihuahua whose ‘Dad’ lets roam the streets. The Dad also has a white male Chihuahua, and Binkie had 7 babies not too long ago, all gone now.  I said to Jay, “You can’t send Binkie to the pound”, and Jay said that the Dad had gone to Minnesota to work for a year.  The Dad’s room mate was rude to Jay when he told her that she shouldn’t leave Binkie out in 100°heat, and she said that she didn’t want the dog.

So Misty and I went down there with a carrier and I have Binkie in my grooming room.  For once she didn’t have to go around the neighborhood begging for scraps, as she had a good dog food meal here.  I don’t know what to do with her yet, but I couldn’t let her be picked up by the pound. She is a very timid little dog, but she sure is enjoying all the extra attention that she hasn’t had for many a day.