2 that I know of. Grocery store and a small tool/implement company. That being said... what would have gone out of business regardless of the Walmart? There were 3-5 that went out of business before the Walmart and I've been going to Stamford for coming on 20 years now. The video store closed 3 years before there was a redbox kiosk. The grocery store went out of business and changed hands/franchises twice that I know of before the WalMart was built.

I'm not getting into the evils of capitalism here but there are more employees at Walmart now than any business they put out combined.

Definitely a complex subject. More employees in Stamford, but it affects stores in surrounding small towns too. Not saying it's evil, just not sure of the net benefit vs. loss to a region. That said, change is inevitable.

Gotcha.

It is complex for sure. I'm rooting for mom and pop stores. (work for one currently, to be honest,) but the market has said time and time again that the public wants more stuff available at a cheaper price.

The toll of this trend is unknown. Not to get too far into the politics of it but I don't think America can withstand the complete urbanization of small town America.

c-jags said:

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Gotcha.

It is complex for sure. I'm rooting for mom and pop stores. (work for one currently, to be honest,) but the market has said time and time again that the public wants more stuff available at a cheaper price.

The toll of this trend is unknown. Not to get too far into the politics of it but I don't think America can withstand the complete urbanization of small town America.

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Agreed.

Buford T. Justice said:

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May I direct you all to Kountze, Texas. (SE Texas)
Two stop lights and a Dairy Queen.
Ain't a damned thing changed since 1970.

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Hello Kountze... Woodville coming through on the way to Beaumont and then on to Texas Longhorn Club in Vinton.

When I grew up in Woodville there were two Dairy Queens and one stop light.

I am from Comanche and I love that town. We moved there in 1976 and our whole family has loved it. All of our family went to local colleges except my brother and I. We both attended A&M and he works there at the local bank. I am in San Antonio and miss Comanche, I would like to retire one day. The Don Williams song "That old Coyote Town" reminds me a lot of Comanche, surprisingly it is still somewhat thriving and doing okay. Hopefully I can retire their one day.

cancia said:

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I am from Comanche and I love that town. We moved there in 1976 and our whole family has loved it. All of our family went to local colleges except my brother and I. We both attended A&M and he works there at the local bank. I am in San Antonio and miss Comanche, I would like to retire one day. The Don Williams song "That old Coyote Town" reminds me a lot of Comanche, surprisingly it is still somewhat thriving and doing okay. Hopefully I can retire their one day.

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My uncle lived in De Leon and we used to enjoy visiting him and attending the Peach and Melon festival-and of course they grew peanuts as a cash crop back in the day. It is a beautiful part of the state.

c-jags said:

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Gotcha.

It is complex for sure. I'm rooting for mom and pop stores. (work for one currently, to be honest,) but the market has said time and time again that the public wants more stuff available at a cheaper price.

The toll of this trend is unknown. Not to get too far into the politics of it but I don't think America can withstand the complete urbanization of small town America.

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How is the new, or I shoulrd say, reopened theater doing?

I haven't been but my in laws enjoy it. My kids saw into the spiderverse there. Hope it makes it.

Howdy,
If y'all want to do something to help yalls small town or learn about a program that is trying to help rural Texas, I suggest following The Texas Rural Leadership program on Facebook. It is a program this is about of the Agrilife Extneison office at A&M and they are working to create more awareness and opportunities for rural Texas.

Where is the restaurant, Charpie? I'm that way often.

Charpie said:

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Plus Comanche has the best Mexican food restaurant outside of my moms kitchen.

I drive from Austin out towards Comanche and Brownwood a lot. I love that drive. Priddy, Mullin, Zephyr and all the towns along the way make me long for a simpler way of life

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Surely you don't mean the place on the main drag? Miguel's I think?

We went there twice and it was awful. We normally meet my in laws in comanche for half way and go to Rocking J.

Not Miguel's. Los Juanes on 16

FishrCoAg said:

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Not Miguel's. Los Juanes on 16

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I'll try that sometime. I go through Comanche 3-4 times a year.

jrwoodchuck said:

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Entirely possible even though that was a bit after I graduated. I was probably working at USG in Sweetwater along about then. My tag line after "back in the day" stories is "...and beer was involved."

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Fellow USG Sweetwater alumni, here - my first job out of A&M from 93 - 97 (when USG transferred me to NJ). Ever get a chance to check out the contents of Norman Painter's pockets? See Hugh's missle silo? For the record, those are NOT double entendres.

Moe 92 said:

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jrwoodchuck said:

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Entirely possible even though that was a bit after I graduated. I was probably working at USG in Sweetwater along about then. My tag line after "back in the day" stories is "...and beer was involved."

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Fellow USG Sweetwater alumni, here - my first job out of A&M from 93 - 97 (when USG transferred me to NJ). Ever get a chance to check out the contents of Norman Painter's pockets? See Hugh's missle silo? For the record, those are NOT double entendres.

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No, can't say I ever did. But, I worked there about 20 yrs. before you did.

jrwoodchuck said:

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First off, let me say I never attended TAMU. However, I like to check in here every so often to see any news or what's going on in West Texas. I was born and reared in Hamlin and really enjoyed reading FossilAg's thread.

I'm on vacation right now (the first one in many years) and went to Hamlin's homecoming this past weekend. It was the second time I had been there in 47 years. It was a shock to see how the town has declined, although not completely unexpected.

I guess I'm interested to hear how your hometown has fared over the years, especially the small towns. And, as we all know, Friday night football in small town Texas still is king.

BTW, Hamlin won their game 32-6 over Hawley.

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Hey jrwoodchuck,

I wanted to chime in here on your post. I left Sweetwater High School in 1970 and went in to the army. When I came home in 1973 I went to work for HCC Credit Co. (don't bother googling it, it's long gone) and the assistant manager was a guy named Van Newberry from Hamlin. Van had just come home from Viet Nam and he went to work there a few months before me. I seem to remember he played quarterback for the Pied Pipers and it must have been mid to late 60's.

At any rate, after I left HCC, I worked at the cement plant in Maryneal for awhile, the after I divorced the office manager's daughter, I moved to Arlington and have pretty much been here ever since.

I go back to Sweetwater sometimes to try the chicken at Allen's Restaurant, (I was in the same class as Billy Allen), but since my family has just about all passed away, I have no one to visit out there anymore. I've always wondered why Sweetwater was always drying up. It's right on I-20, and I guess if it weren't for TSTC it would have been gone long ago.

Even though there sin't much to do out there, it's still attractive to me for the slower pace of life. I guess cause I'm an old codger now, I'm always amazed at how people here drive and try to burn as much gas as possible to get to the next light. I miss the drives to San Angelo and the relaxed atmosphere of west Texas.

Rbcs_2 and Hewey, both of my parents grew up in Alpine and my grandparents lived there until they passed away. I loved spending time there during the summer growing up, and hanging out in the Mexican food restaurant they ran/owned.

My uncle moved back there around 15 years ago.

BoomGoesThe said:

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Rbcs_2 and Hewey, both of my parents grew up in Alpine and my grandparents lived there until they passed away. I loved spending time there during the summer growing up, and hanging out in the Mexican food restaurant they ran/owned.

My uncle moved back there around 15 years ago.

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Summer was the best. Dang hot during the day but it cooled down every evening like nature intended. One summer my little brother and I spent every night camped out under the stars in the back yard. Great times.

Albany '88 here. So Hamlin, Anson, Hawley, Stamford were all in district when I was there. Albany has had a decline in population (went from 2A down to 1A, which I think Hamlin and Stamford did too). The state of the town goes up and down with oil prices. Haven't been back in a few years, but there was new high-end development that was paid for with $120 oil, but would be vacant if they tried to build it now.

Warren (Tyler County) here...New schools..two dollar stores..got our first red light and a bank in the last ten years...Warren's doing A-OK...

I was born in Rotan. Looks the same 57 years later.

Stumbled across this post. Eldorado class of 2005 here. Town was just a hair under 2000 back then. Down around 1500 now.

Moved to Sonora about 3 years ago. Really glad to be back out here.

W.C. Griffin '09 said:

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Stumbled across this post. Eldorado class of 2005 here. Town was just a hair under 2000 back then. Down around 1500 now.

Moved to Sonora about 3 years ago. Really glad to be back out here.

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You would have been a freshmen when I was at Wall.

Wall/Eldorado was a solid rivalry but I liked everybody there at the end of the day. He would have been a Sr. When you were a freshman, but a guy with the initials of JH was a heck of an athlete and a really nice guy.

Wall and Sonora became a bit more of a rivalry when I was there. Didn't get along with many from there like I did from Eldorado.

c-jags said:

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W.C. Griffin '09 said:

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Stumbled across this post. Eldorado class of 2005 here. Town was just a hair under 2000 back then. Down around 1500 now.

Moved to Sonora about 3 years ago. Really glad to be back out here.

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You would have been a freshmen when I was at Wall.

Wall/Eldorado was a solid rivalry but I liked everybody there at the end of the day. He would have been a Sr. When you were a freshman, but a guy with the initials of JH was a heck of an athlete and a really nice guy.

Wall and Sonora became a bit more of a rivalry when I was there. Didn't get along with many from there like I did from Eldorado.

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Yeah, we always had a great time on sports trips up to Wall, America. It was a very friendly rivalry for us. My age group in particular wasn't terribly threatening to anybody in athletics but we had a couple good games against Wall. The year after you graduated it had rained nonstop for 2-3 days by Friday and it rained through the game. We were just caked in mud and there was almost no grass left on y'all's field. We were filthy, freezing, and got our butts handed to us. I want to say we lost by 30-40 points. One of our coaches hosed us off in our gear in 40-45 degree weather so we wouldn't track mud into y'all's locker room. He may have also been working out some anger for how badly we played. Funniest part was my back up wore his Carhartt under his uniform and I looked over in the middle of a beat down to see the guy eating nachos on the sideline. Still cracks me up.

My senior year was the first year in the 8 team district of Wall, Grape Creek, Eldorado, Sonora, Junction, Mason, Ozona, and Big Lake. They district was a lot of fun because it was a lot of people we had played forever and we had a whole lot of friendships across the district. Eldorado went 1A a couple years later and stopped playing all of them. A lot of fun rivalries just died for us. I guess Eldorado-Christoval is pretty big now. They did bring back the Eldorado-Sonora game this year and it was a heck of a game that ended up 44-42 in 2OT.

Unless there's somebody I'm not thinking about, I know who you're talking about. That group of Eldorado guys your age was pretty athletic and an all around nice group. I can't think of anybody in that class I disliked and I knew all of them fairly well.

Didn't want to start a new post but looking to move out west and was wondering what some of the best smaller towns are to live in. Any help would be appreciated.

How far west are you considering? I would move to the Big Bend region in a heartbeat if the stars aligned.

TommyBrady said:

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Didn't want to start a new post but looking to move out west and was wondering what some of the best smaller towns are to live in. Any help would be appreciated.

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I don't know where you are coming from or where you are wanting to go but small town living in east texas/central texas is a hell of a lot different west texas. There is no way in hell I would live in a small town around midland/Odessa or west of that. Those little towns are a real **** hole that are really isolated. This is coming from someone who has lived in three small east texas towns and loved it and currently living in midland.

I agree with JAG03. Midland/Odessa area and small towns surrounding it are not where you would want to move to. Biggest reason for me is the the amount of oilfield traffic and oilfield trash in the area. That's coming from someone who's in it. The Abilene area has some oilfield traffic but it's not too bad. Several posters have commented about that area. Then you have the junction ozona area. Far less oil field traffic. San Angelo area has increased in oilfield traffic in the past 8-10 yrs but it's mostly around the west and north side of the area.
What exactly are you looking to do out here? Family/kids, Retire, start a business, hide, work, recreation?

We mostly just want to be able to get away during the week and allow both of us to work from home but still have a small town to buy groceries and go out to dinner without the craziness of Dallas. I think we'd rather be closer to Abilene or Lubbock than Odessa/Midland.

We mostly just need good people, a grocery store, a restaurant or cafe, and a slow pace of life.