TEXANA, TEXAS.
In 1832 Dr. Francis F. Wells and his sister-in-law, Pamelia McNutt Porter, founded a community in south central Jackson County that later developed into Texana. The village was originally named Santa Anna after Antonio López de Santa Anna, at the time a popular Mexican liberal, soldier, and politician. In 1835, however, after Santa Anna had proven himself an enemy of republican government, the residents of the settlement changed the name to Texana. During the Texas Revolution of 1835-36, Texana served as a port of entry and training camp for many volunteers from the United States. Dr. Jack Shackelford's company of Alabama Red Rovers camped around Texana for about two weeks before joining James W. Fannin's command at Goliad. In the spring of 1836 the citizens of Texana joined the Runaway Scrape. "Uncle" Jeff Parson, a slave during the Runaway Scrape, told how the "old town of Texana was abandoned, not an individual was left on Jackson County soil, all were in flight-where they were going no one knew."
After the battle of San Jacinto, when republic officials organized the surrounding area into Jackson County, Texana-one of the oldest American settlements-served as county seat. In the summer of 1836 the Army of the Republic of Texas established Camp Independence on acreage belonging to Sylvanus Hatch about four or five miles from Texana. The next year Camp Independence was the site of the famous duel between Felix Huston and Albert Sidney Johnston. That year also saw a public sale of town lots that encouraged settlement. In 1840 Texana incorporated as a municipality. By 1880 the town had acquired regular steamboat service, mail and stage routes, a booming business section, and its own newspaper, the Clarion. As late as 1882 Texana was a thriving port with as many as twenty ships docking each week. In 1883, however, the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway bypassed the settlement, precipitating a sharp decline. Shortly thereafter county voters elected to make Edna the county seat, and by 1884 Texana was a virtual ghost town.
From "Handbook of Texas Online- Texana, TX"
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/TT/hvt22.html
And now, they built a lake over Texana, and called it Lake Texana. I thought that bit of our history interesting.
I participated in a blog-a-rama type thing a while back, named "Where in the Bloomin' World are You?" This was my response, my ideas about where we live, and the place we now call home. This was back in early spring for us-(maybe the end of January)-thus the cool weather vegetables.
Where in the Bloomin' World are You?
Why, I'm in Texas! The only place for me!
We are in Jackson County, Texas, with Edna being the County Seat, and a hub of activity. We are in the Gulf Coast area, about 90 miles north of Corpus Christi, 100 miles south of Houston, and we can't go much farther east. We are in zone 9a, about 35 miles from Victoria, Texas. This is "Texas Revolution country", and Jackson County was one of the original 23 counties formed in Texas.
We garden year 'round. I am growing veggies right now- cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, onions... Brussels sprouts.....(I hate eating these vegetables, if they are cooked, but I love to watch them grow). I have lots of flower seedlings; Poppy, snapdragon, calendula, sweet peas, viola, pansy, and dianthus are all showing their pretty new foliage. Things are leafing out and putting on buds- a dangerous thing. Peaches for one, are budding, and if we get a freeze, which we could (easily),we will not have fruit this year. My confederate roses are leafing out and they are just gorgeous. I just wish they would wait awhile. Hibiscus is also leafing out. That might die if it gets cold, unless I protect it.
We have nasty black gumbo for soil, but we can grow anything in it. It is among the most fertile of soils, just doesn't have much air in it. Slick when it is wet. Hard like a brick when it is dry. I figure I am going to use some of it to throw some bowls one of these days. Our primary problem with our soil is that it is very alkaline. That is hard to fix.
We have a nice Master Gardener group here, and I am involved in that. We are always doing some project or another. Right now, we are working on a Native Plant garden, with a Rain garden incorporated into it, in partnership with the 4-H kids. It is going to be fun, planting this. Collecting our plants will be fun too.
This is a very rural environment. Even in town, it is 'country'. We don't live in Edna, but in a small community about 10 miles away, if you take the back roads. We do have a post office, where we live, but no mail delivery. We have to go to the post office to collect our mail. It is o.k.
In Edna, we have a WalMart, an HEB grocery store, several florist, Mexican restaurants, Pizza Hut, LOTS of attorneys, about 5 banks, and goodness knows how many churches! Maybe 8 churches? or more. We have a hospital and 3 nursing homes in the county, I think. A lot of doctors (Specialists) come in on a regular basis from Victoria or Houston, or wherever. Beauty shops and barbers, furniture stores, and dentists. We have it all.
Important to me, we have a good hardware/lumber yard that will usually give the big BOX stores a run for their money. I love to buy lumber, and hardware, paint, glue, whatever.....
We are actually almost on the bay, but the way things are laid out, we have to go around about 17 miles to get to the salt water to fish or whatever. That is fine with me. We also have hurricanes around here, too, sometimes, so a little space between us and the water is a good thing.
Lots of ranching, and farming here, so we have good feed stores.
Our county is very generous to us. They maintain a brush site, where we can haul all kinds of refuse, and they grind it up for mulch, which eventually turns into compost that they will load for us, free of charge. We also have a cotton gin close to where I live, (a few blocks) where I can get all the cotton gin trash that my little heart desires. It has been composting there for years, and is BEEutiful!
This is a good place to live. I invite y'all to visit, when you can.
~Janie
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Thanks, Linda, Peggy, Jackie, and Sonja!
