Lometa, Texas

LOMETA, TEXAS - 1973 It's damp, dark, and dreary, but this is the earliest photo I've ever taken of Lometa. You can barely make out the school way down at the end of the street. At this intersection was the town's only blinking red stop light. There were also four stop signs, as well, in case you couldn't figure out what the blinking red light was for.

MAIN STREET LOMETA, TEXAS - 2008 What a bustling community this is, huh? This particular portion of town hasn't changed a whole lot since I was a kid, with the exception of a lot more businesses closed down or changed. Oh, and the traffic signal is definitely different. In the old days, it was just a blinking red light with 4-way stop signs. This new one was installed in 2003. Now you can see the schoolhouse way down at the end of the street.

LOMETA TRAIN DEPOT - 1970s Lometa's “Standard No. 9” depot was built in 1911 and was a 24’ X 160.5’ wood frame building with drop siding, built to 1906 GC&SF standard depot blueprints. When first constructed, the depot had a “White” waiting room on the eastern end, but that was later removed. This is what the depot looked like in its later years. You can see the bay window there by the pole for the signaling device. I took this during my black-and-white period on one of my trips to visit my grandfather.

LOMETA TRAIN DEPOT - 2008 I remember how sad I was the first time I came through Lometa and noticed the old train depot was gone, replaced by a tin building, the symbol of our modern culture. Then I read about Lometa on the Texas Escapes Online Magazine and it said that the depot had been moved to the north end of town and was awaiting restoration. That was written in 2000. Well, this time through I finally located the old building and it is still awaiting restoration. I do wish they'd get on with it before the place falls apart.

LOMETA TRAIN DEPOT - 2008 As you can see, it's still in fairly good shape overall. I was able to crawl in through that open window and have a look around and it seemed solid enough. I wonder what they plan to do with it when they're done -- visitor center, train museum, dance hall? We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. I understand, though, that due to its age, historical value, and dried-out condition, it was moved away from the tracks to keep sparks from passing trains from setting it alight. That was good thinking!

BAY WINDOW CLOSEUP - 2008 This was a clever idea, putting in a bay window so you could see down the track even in the rain and not get wet.

TRAIN DEPOT INTERIOR - 2008 I can't believe that in all my years of visiting my grandparents during the summers, I never once popped in and had a look around when it was in operation. What a shame!

LOMETA HIGH SCHOOL - 1940 Finally we have a photo of the Lometa School back when it was a red brick building. Imagine my surprise when this surfaced in Mom and Dad's photo collection.

LOMETA SCHOOL FROM THE PUMPHOUSE HILL - 1959 Even though trees are partially hiding it, you can still see that the school now has its limestone facade it wears today. Gone are the red bricks.

THE LOMETA SCHOOL - 2008 When this school was built in 1909, it was a red brick, two-story affair. I'm not sure when this incarnation of it came about, but it's been like this since at least the 1950s. It looks like it's even gotten a face lift since I was hanging out here.

LOMETA SCHOOL DOORWAY - 2008 Indeed it has had a face lift, as gone are the wooden casements and door frames. I took this shot mainly because of an old family photo I have of my Aunt Nell and Uncle Sonny standing right on those doorsteps when they were kids. Notice the mascot, the hornet, up above the schoolbell.

ON THE SCHOOLHOUSE STEPS - 1941 And here are Sonny and Nell Moore standing on the very steps you saw in the preceding picture. Okay, so the school has looked like this since at least the 40s.

THE FOOTBALL FIELD - 2008 One of the things I meant to do when I was in town is to get a t-shirt or ballcap with a hornet on it. I never have had one. I used to love to come here and watch football games when we'd visit my grandparents on the weekends. Sadly, I found that this football field is the only recreational outlet still around that I remember, although the cinder block bleachers have been replaced. The rodeo arena is now a baseball field and the monster playground equipment I spent so many hours on is long gone. Too bad.

DANNY MACK ADAMS MEMORIAL PLAQUE - 2008 I never really knew Danny Mack all that well, but I do remember when he was killed in a motorcycle accident. The whole town mourned. This memorial is down by the football field.

THE FEED STORE - 2008 Lometa's primary industries are agriculture and stock raising, and most of that generates from here. A fellow named W.L. Wittenburg brought Delaine sheep into the area in 1879 and his -- or rather his descendants' -- wool is still very much in demand.

LOMETA POOL HALL - 2009 Grandpa used to run this place, but I don't ever remember him ever having a set schedule. I also don't remember it being a stone building, either, but rather a wooden one. Hmm. The pool tables were lit by a single bare 60-watt light bulb hanging from a drop-down cord. Talk about your classic atmosphere. I'd give anything for an old picture of a game being played in here.

WHITEHEAD'S VARIETY (ONCE UPON A TIME) - 2008 Here was one of my absolute favorite hangouts when I was a kid -- the former Whitehead's Variety. A lot of allowance money was spent in this place. I later came to find out that the Whiteheads were actually relatives of ours.

DOMINO HALL - 2008 The white-faced storefront used to be the old domino hall, where Grandpa and his cronies would get into some furious slap-'em-on-the-table domino games. I'll tell you, they almost raised the game of dominoes to a full contact sport. Just to the left is what used to be the Horne Cafe, but is now known as Helen's Wagon Wheel. If you're into chicken-fried steak, as I am, this is definitely the place for you. The best I've had in a long time.

LOMETA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH - 2008 None of the family ever really went to church, except for special occasions, but this is the church where my father Leonard Duncan's memorial gathering was held in 2003. For some reason, no one got a shot of it at the time, that I know of. It's now been added into the Duncan/Mather Family photo gallery in the appropriate spot.

LOMETA CEMETERY - 2008 As you can see by my heavily-laden truck on the left, this is a shot I took on one of my long treks between Texas and Maine, back when I was a seasonal worker for the Park Service. I don't do that now that I'm a permanent worker at Big Bend National Park. This was actually my last such trip. The Lometa Cemetery is where a lot of my Moore and Smith relations are buried.

THE MOORE HOME - January 1973 Well, it's not the best photo I've ever taken (the slide was very underexposed and a lot of doctoring was involved), but at least it's a picture of the place. I was beginning to worry that I'd never find one, but I did. In some ways, the underexposure and attendant loss of apparent focus actually lend a certain quality to it.

THE MOORE HOME - January 1973 I wonder whatever became of that old peach tree in front of the east porch (on the left) that used to provide us with such big, juicy, sweet peaches when I was a kid? What a shame it's gone!

THE MOORE HOME - January 1973 A nice close-up view of the place. Gone also are the prickly pear cactus and agave under the front room window on the right. Wow. How did I not ever notice that before?

THE MOORE HOME - January 1973 The back of the house, showing Grandpa's bedroom (the two windows on the far left, as well as the one to the right of the back door), the bathroom window (above the old washtub that was always hanging there), and the screened-in back porch. I'm so glad these photos resurfaced.

WHERE THE HOUSE WAS - 2008 We're looking straight at where Nano and Grandpa's house (the home of Stella and William Dee Moore, my mother's parents) once stood. The stump in the middle of the clump of trees to the right behind the tall, skinny tree used to be our old climbing tree, a monstrous live oak.

THE FISH POND - 2008 The Moore Homeplace, Lometa, Texas Boy, do I have some memories of this thing, from getting paid a dollar to clean it of moss and scum -- a nasty chore -- to contests to see who could jump completely across it. It was a rite of passage that every kid in the family would have to fall in at one point in their lives. (If they were not capable of falling in on their own, there was always someone around who would gladly "help" them, so they wouldn't feel left out.) Apparently, now that the house has been razed and the fence has been taken down, the neighbor's goats can now roam the property freely, so someone decided to knock out the wall so any kids that hopped in could hop out again. What a tragedy. They could've just covered it over with something.

MAMO'S HOUSE - 1983 This is how I remember the house of Beulah and Shannon Dean, my paternal grandmother and her husband, Shannon Dean, with those big white columns and the criss-cross tar shingles. Those metal patio chairs on the porch had been there forever.

BEULAH'S HOUSE - 2008 Here's a recent photo of the house. It's now owned by someone outside the family and has been remodeled. The large white columns on the front porch have been replaced with more slender models and a tin roof has been added. The new owners still have the smokehouse in the back.

CORA SMITH'S HOME This is the home of Cora Smith, my great-grandmother on my mother's side. We never spent much time here, as she could be a holy terror when the mood struck, which was quite often.

SMITH HOME - 2010 This rock house sits at the corner of Highway 190 and either county road 2461 or 2463, which leads up to the Chadwick Cemetery. Land on either side of this county road used to belong to Joseph S B Smith, my great-great-grandfather, and this house was built to replace the wooden house that burned down. The property is now owned by the Wittenburg family.