Posted on by Phil Strawn

Strawn, Texas, My Little Town


Strawn, Texas Depot, back when there was a train running

Strawn, Texas. Yep, same name as mine and a distant relative in the family food chain. We visited the town last Saturday for a day trip and lunch. Founded in the late 1800s and soon to be the gateway to our newest Texas state park, “Palo Pinto Mountains State Park.” A 5,400-acre rough and rustic layout that includes a lake, a river, a creek, mountains, trails, rocky escarpments as big as a house, and every kind of critter imaginable. The main entrance is through the town, which is in need of a shot in the arm to boost the economy. 80 percent of the downtown buildings are vacant. The Paramount Plus, Taylor Sherriden-driven television show “1883 The Bass Reeves Story” wrapped filming in the town last March and, at the request of the city fathers, left many of the sets and changes made to the abandoned 1800-style buildings. The little town has seen better days, but no one can remember when.

The Strawn Greyhounds are the winningest six-man football team in history, with numerous state championships. Mary’s Cafe, the famous eatery written up in food magazines and Texas Monthly for her large Chicken Fried Steaks, was left in its original condition because Mary and her gals fed the film crews good ole’ high-calorie Texas vittles; Chicken fried everything and topped off with gallons of white gravy, and to finish up, with a lot of sugary pie, iced tea, and coldbeer ( all one word in Texas).

Fake front movie set left by the 1883 crews
Old Hotel repurposed for the series

I’m no stranger to Strawn. My affiliation with the village goes back to 1958 when my father purchased a lot on Lake Tucker, the town’s source of drinking water and a beautiful small body of water formed by a creek when the dam was built by the PWA in the 1930s. The lot itself was steep and rocky, backing up to a massive hill and rock escarpment with boulders the size of a single-family home and a Buick. There was a dwelling of sorts, a small plywood one-room fishing shack with a tar paper roof. It had running water, a bathroom, a window unit, a hotplate for cooking a few cots, and a small dock. My mother was appalled but captive and had to rough it; she couldn’t walk out and darn sure couldn’t swim back to the dam. The place was crawling with Rattlesnakes, Copperheads, and Coral Snakes, and that was just the vicinity of the shack. Down at the dock, by our flat-bottom aluminum boat, the only transportation to the shack unless you could rock climb, the Water Moccasins were as thick as mosquitos. My mother, holding my baby sister in a parental death hug, damn near had a nervous breakdown as my father and I set about chopping the heads off of every venomous reptile we could find with a sharpshooter-shovel and a chunkable bolder. The Rattlers were the most fun; they would strike the shovel and break a fang before they were guillotined. I got to remove and keep the rattlers for later use in scaring the kids in my neighborhood. I could have been bitten many times over if I had thought about being scared, but I tackled the task with glee and abandon. I was a feral boy in my element.

The second night in the shack, during the wee hours before dawn, my mother heard something sniffing and clawing at the door. It could have been a Coyote, a Mountain Lion, a Bobcat, a Bear, or the dreaded Sasquatch. That was it for her, and we packed and left the next morning. She never went back.

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21 Replies to “Strawn, Texas, My Little Town”

  3. Get out! This is a terrific link to Texas heritage.You should resurrect the town and make yourself the first inaugural mayor of New Strawn, Texas.

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    1. Yeah, now that’s an idea; already got the name. I have a feeling this new state park will be a boom for the town, as well as filming 1883 series there.

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      1. You’ve got your name on a goldmine, buddy, jump in before it’s too late. First step: put up a sign at the entrance to town: NEW STRAWN, TEXAS, Phil Strawn, Mayor and Chief Magistrate.
        You could do a Judge Roy Bean thing right there, you will OWN that town baby! Put out a newspaper, The New Strawn Star — lot to write about, the park, movies…

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  4. I really like towns like this…thanks for the info Phil. The rattlesnake hunt sounds like it would be fun at the time…until you thought about it.

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      1. We live in the middle of 3 acres but the only one I’ve seen in 16 years is one copperhead…I’m sure they are out there but I hope they stay there.

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  5. Interesting read. What is it with us? I recall when not so young – in the service, I journeyed to an Oklahoma town for a rattlesnake “roundup.” What was rounded-up was a collection of idiot males. So lackluster, though I did manage one sneck of pitiful size, I can’t remember much else. Odd as I’d a healthy respect for coral snakes from many encounters mowing lawn in Corpus as a much younger lad.

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    1. Corpus and the island are full of rattlers and Coral snakes. My son lives on the island and he has killed a few around his house. I’ve never attended the Rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater, but I imagine it to be like that. Hold my beer and watch this!

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  6. Years back, when stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, we noticed an uncanny abundance of rattlesnakes. Now the fact is, all snakes are “ugh,” and the venomous ones are more so, but there is a reason for snakes. So folks who don’t want to get bitten by a poisonous snake need to figure out what to do about it.

    Complicating this mess, the state of California protects rattlesnakes as “endangered species.” No, I don’t know why. Outside of wildlife protection wardens, I have never heard any state official moan about having a shortage of venomous snakes. What do you do in such conditions? You turn to the sergeant major, that’s what.

    True to form, the sergeant major had a solution. Rat poison. See, the reason we had an abundance of snakes was because we had a mind-blowing population of ground squirrels.

    So, off we went to the local hardware store and purchased rat poison. Actually, we purchased it in small amounts so as not to raise suspicion using several hardware stores. We bought a lot because we were focusing our attention on a ten-acre area where everyone parked their cars, under which rattlesnakes would slither to get out of the hot California sun.

    I’m not kidding when I tell you that within three weeks, there was not a ground squirrel to be found in the battalion area and only an occasional rattlesnake. Yay! Well, it didn’t go too well for the battalion down the road, but that was their problem.

    Considering all snakes, though, at least rattlesnakes let you know they’re present. Water moccasins, on the other hand, are damned aggressive and territorial to boot. They are mean, nasty critters.
    Don’t like ‘em. More than that, I don’t like anyone who does like ‘em.

    I’ve got a black snake living in my back garden, and that’s okay. I call him Oscar. Consequently, I don’t have any issues with those “mini” rattlers that don’t have rattles. Some snakes eat other snakes. Yay!

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    1. Now that’s a good story. We have two Roadrunners living in our wooded lot, and they do a good job of keeping the snakes in check. A Ribbon snake pays me a visit once in a while as well as a Rat Snake, I don’t bother them. I was hunting years ago and had on snake guards, glad I did, a Rattler struck my leg. I plugged him with my 12 gauge. Sounds like you took care of the snake problem. I was driving through the desert around Needles CA from Phoenix and the guy at the gas station said don’t stop to pee along the dark highway, snakes crawl on the roadway to get warm. He was right, I ran over a few of them, and didn’t get out of my car.

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  8. As a much younger man, I visited my parent’s farm in Michigan with my siblings and their families. We were a prolific bunch, and we dragged our kids along with us each time. On one of those visits, the kids encountered a rather large and thick snake while playing baseball on the field behind the house. The oldest nephew, Billy, about ten, had my Mother’s very large and heavy hoe in his hand and stood there paralyzed along with his cousins. The snake, in the meantime, coiled into a ball. Mom heard the little ones screaming and came running to learn what the commotion was about. She was an experienced field worker who knew how to deal with the devil’s serpent. “Billy,” she said, give me the hoe.”
    “No, Grandma.”
    “Billy, give me the hoe.”
    “No, Grandma, you will hurt this poor snake.”
    For the third time, she raised her voice, and forcefully urged Billy to give up the hoe, and said, “I promise I won’t hurt him.”
    Billy knew his time was up and couldn’t disrespect his grandmother any longer, and reluctantly handed her the hoe.
    Grandma took the hoe out of his hand and whacked the snake’s head off in one swift motion that was so fast no one believed she could move that quickly. “See, I didn’t hurt him at all,” she said.

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