People, Places & Events

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Lake Area
Billboard
East Cedar Creek Freshwater Supply District meets at 12:30 p.m. the third Wednesday of each month at the ECCFSD office on Hammer Road just off Welch Lane in Gun Barrel City.
Eustace City Council meets at 7 p.m. in the Eustace City Hall the first Thursday of each month. For more information, please call 425-4702. The public is invited to attend.
Eustace Independent School District meets at 7 p.m. the third Tuesday of each month at the Eustace High School Library. For more information, please call 425-7131. The public is invited to attend.
Gun Barrel City Council meets in Brawner Hall at 6 p.m. the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. For more information, please call 887-1087. The public is invited to attend.
Gun Barrel City Economic Development Corporation meets at 1831 W. Main, GBC, at 6 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month. For more information, please call 887-1899.
Henderson County Commissioner’s Court meets the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 9 a.m. in the Henderson County Courthouse in Athens. The public is invited to attend.
Henderson County Emergency Services District #4 meets at 7 p.m. the third Tuesday of each month at 525 S. Tool Dr. in Tool.
Henderson County Historical Commission meets the first Wednesday of each month at 1 p.m. in the HC Historical Museum.
Kaufman County Commissioner’s Court meets the first, second, third and fourth Monday of each month at 9:45 a.m. in the Kaufman County Courthouse in Kaufman. The public is invited to attend.
Kemp City Council meets at Kemp City Hall at 7 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month. For more information, please call 498-3191. The public is invited to attend.
Kemp Independent School District meets the third Tuesday of each month in the Board Room in the Administration Building. For more information, please call 498-1314. The public is invited to attend.
Log Cabin City Council meets the third Thursday of the month in city hall. For more information, please call 489-2195. The public is invited to attend.
Mabank City Council meets at 7 p.m. in Mabank City Hall the first Tuesday of each month. For more information, please call 887-3241. The public is invited to attend.
Mabank Independent School District meets at 7:30 p.m. the fourth Monday of each month. For more information, please call 887-9310. The public is invited to attend.
Payne Springs City Council meets at city hall at 7:30 p.m. every third Tuesday of each month. For more information, please call 451-9229. The public is invited to attend.
Payne Springs Water Supply Corp. meets the third Tuesday of each month at 1 p.m. at the Payne Springs Community Center, located at 9690 Hwy. 198.
Seven Points City Council meets at 7 p.m. in Seven Points city hall the second Tuesday of each month. For more information, please call 432-3176. The public is invited to attend.
Tool City Council meets at 6 p.m. in the OranWhite Civic Center the third Thursday of each month. For more information, please call 432-3522. The public is invited to attend.
West Cedar Creek Municipal Utility District is held at 5 p.m. the fourth Monday of each month. For more information, please call 432-3704. The public is invited.

Local trustee attends program on advocacy
Special to The Monitor
AUSTIN–Kemp school board trustee Jim Collinsworth gathered in Austin with trustees from around the state Nov. 4-6, to focus on their roles as advocates for public schools with state and national policymakers.
Trustees met for the second of five training sessions sponsored by the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB). They began their activities by touring the state capitol and participating in in-depth advocacy training.
The group toured Austin’s KIPP Public School, a K-12 charter school.
KIPP schools also are located in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio and in more than 30 other states.
Following KIPP and lunch at the UIL headquarters, the group toured The Griffin School, a private college preparatory high school with a unique emphasis on fine arts.
Speakers included Arch Lustberg and Jim Bearden, CSP. Lustberg, a nationally recognized trainer in effective communication, provided the group with tips for gaining closeness with policymakers.
His client list includes numerous political candidates, corporate executives and university classes.
Bearden, nationally known motivational speaker and author of “The Relentless Search for Better Ways,” focused on techniques of successful leaders and leadership requirements needed in the 21st Century.
Selected by TASB, the group of 30 trustees is participating in a yearlong education leadership study program.
The TASB 2011 Leadership class represents Texas school districts of all sizes, with student populations of 275 to 106,000, and reflects a wide range of property wealth. Participants who complete all required elements will graduate next year with a unique TASB designation.
Each session has a specific theme that builds on the previous session and features state and national experts in the fields of leadership development and education. Teams also work on extended learning assignments between meetings throughout the year.
Created in 1993, the TASB Leadership program has more than 600 graduates to date.
TASB is a voluntary, nonprofit association established in 1949 to serve local Texas school districts.
School board members are the largest group of publicly elected officials in the state. The districts they represent serve approximately 4.7 million public school students.

A history of mills, gins in Henderson County
By Peggy Smith
HC Historical Commission
ATHENS–As a young girl, I have fond memories of my grandfather’s gristmill in Poynor and swimming in the millpond.
T.O. Milner opened Milner’s Stone Ground Meal in 1961 because of the memories he had of his father’s gristmill in Anderson County when he was a young boy.
It was one of few around the state that could still operate from a big waterwheel, and it was the best cornmeal around (I thought).
What he built from boyhood memories was a service to the neighbors. People from all over the nation stopped there to see the mill in operation and buy meal, syrup, etc.
Charles F. Milner and Walter Scarborough were co-owners in a cotton gin in the early 1900s, when Poynor was still a new town.
Gristmills and cotton gins were a hub of activity from the time Texas won its independence and even before.
These mills and gins served the people of Henderson, Anderson and Van Zandt counties, and beyond.
Even before these counties were carved out of Nacogdoches and Houston counties, the people needed a place to have their cotton, corn and wheat processed.
There were crude mills before 1826 in Spanish Texas Missions. Settlers who lived too far from these mills used a wooden pestle in a mortar hollowed out of a log or stump.
Small farms did not have the means to take their crops to town, and many would sell to larger landowners, who combined it with what they grew.
By the 1850s, cotton was grown throughout East Texas. The soil was good and the product was needed.
Though cotton did not drive the economy like food crops did, Texas was joining the southern states in its production.
A cotton gin extracted seeds from the lint. The gin might consist of three floors.
The top floor was where the seed was stored until it was taken to market, the middle floor contained the gin, and the ground floor had a large wooden wheel, which served as the power source, driven by horses, mules or oxen.
Once processed, cotton was pressed into bales and shipped over land or river to markets in Houston, Shreveport or one of several large cities that attracted buyers.
J.J. Faulk, in his history of Henderson County, tells of a four-horse power cotton gin in Old New York around 1861, but it “dried up” during the Civil War.
It was common for gins to also take care of the milling of corn and wheat.
Faulk also told of two up-to-date cotton gins in Larue, one owned by Gus Walker and the other by E.C. Rowland and Frank Murchison.
J.M. Royall was owner of a gin in Murchison and in Brownsboro, while I.A. Barton and Sons had two substantial gins to take care of the farmers.
R.A. Parker had approved scales there to weigh and insure full return on their labor.
Faulk also tells about the bridge built by John (Red) Brown from Old Brownsboro that was used to take crops to the Colthorp Mill.
James Colthorp established a sawmill, but also had a carding machine and a grist mill.
The mill operated around the clock. Colthorp shipped flour and cornmeal as far as Shreveport and Fort Worth.
The Chandler-Brownsboro Statesman reported in 2007 that Pee Wee Ackerson found a half grist stone in Green Mill Crossing, and Kenneth Kidd recovered the other stone “with great difficulty.”
This stone is displayed in front of the museum in Edom.
Green Mill Crossing was on Kickapoo Creek, near the mouth of Tonkawa Creek.
In Eustace, there was a large cotton gin that had the capacity of producing several thousand bales a year.
In the Malakoff, Cross Roads and Wild Cat areas, D.M. Thompson and J.D. Jaggers ginned all the cotton in the community after the Civil War. It was hauled by ox wagon to Navasota and Calvert.
The Trinity River was used when the waters were high enough to ship crops to market. Cross Roads cut off some trade to Malakoff, with two gins at one time.
In the Carrol Springs area, J.B. Hogg owned and operated a water mill on Mine Creek. He ground all corn in the country for miles around, since he was the only mill there.
Roads were scarce then and trips were long and hard to mill and market.
Chandler, Goshen and Big Rock also served the farmers.
W.W. Stirman erected what was called an “undershot mill,” because of the way water was applied to the wheel.
Ten years later, Silas Rohrer had a much larger mill in the same neighborhood. Rohrer added a carding machine to card raw wool into rolls.
It ran day and night during the Civil War. Frank Hart and the Birdwell Bros. operated two gins and grist mills when Chandler was known as “Stillwater.”
John Hanson started a gin on Wolf Creek, but it didn’t do well.
He moved it south of Athens, due to the urging of Nat Coleman, a large cotton producer, who offered John four acres to move the gin. Needless to say, John moved.
The grindstone for the gristmill is still seen on the grounds near the gin.
The seed house, built in 1885, still stands, with the roof taken from galvanized iron sheeting son Ed bought second from the sides of boxcars in the Palestine railyards.
The Henderson County Historical Commission is working to preserve history. Each family and business has a story that needs to be told so that time doesn’t erase their place in history.
This monumental task can only be accomplished with your help.
Peggy Smith, Vice-Chair, Henderson County Historical Commission

Come Adopt Us At The Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake
The domino effect is a chain reaction that occurs when a small change causes a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on. My name is Domino, and I got my name not only because I’m black and white like a domino tile, but also because my outgoing, cheerful personality causes my doggie roommates to smile. This also causes our human friends to smile, which even causes the kitties in the cat room to smile. I am an 8-month-old male Pointer/Terrier mix. I love children, other dogs, and even get along great with kitties. I’ve had all my shots and am ready to be adopted. If you’d like to experience the domino effect, I am sure to put a forever smile on your face when you take me to my forever home. I currently live with a foster family, so if you would like to meet me, call my friends at the Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake at (903) 432-3422 to make an appointment. You can also email them at dogshsccl@yahoo.com.
	We have many animals at the Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake in Seven Points in dire need of a good home. Please call or stop by the Humane Society today and rescue one of these forgotten animals. The Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake is located on 10220 County Road 2403 in Seven Points. For more information, please call (903) 432-3422 after 11 a.m. We are closed on Wednesday and Sunday.
For further information visit our website at petfinder.com