Mankins (Archer County) - October 2011 photos

Mankins, which lies at the intersection of US highway 82/277 and Texas State Highway 25 approximately 20 miles southwest of Wichita Falls, is an interesting little community in that it has served not just as a ranch headquarters but also as the winter home for a travelling carnival show. Today, however, the site is all but abandoned with a population of only ten in 2000.

Derelict house and gas station at Mankins in Archer County

Car abandoned in the garage at the gas station, still awaiting another trip down the highway

The town got its semi-official start in 1886 when Sam Lazarus established a ranch just north of what is now the town center, bringing Tom Mankins down from Kansas to serve as the ranch foreman. In 1890, the Wichita Valley Railway laid tracks that connected the Lazarus Ranch with the line between Wichita Falls and Seymour. Charles Mangold of Dallas purchased the Lazarus Ranch in 1908 and built a general store and hotel on the main line of the railroad. Mangold had plans for the small community, which had been known as Lazarus Switch at the time. He started laying out streets and blocks in anticipation of farmers and others who would relocate to the town. Conflicting reports indicate that the community obtained its own post office in either 1909 or 1912; since there was already a Texas post office named Mangold, the name chosen for the postal facility was Mankins in honor of ranch foreman Tom Mankins, who now ran the general store.

Former bank building (?) in Mankins

The town grew slowly but steadily, even with the discovery of oil in Archer County in the 1920s. Between 1923 and 1926, only three oil fields were established in the vicinity of Mankins with a total of 42 oil wells. Still, the oil fields yielded enough crude to support a population of 85 (1928 estimate) as well as a bank, a motion-picture theater, several restaurants and full-service gas stations, and a school system that educated 400 students from Mankins and surrounding farm communities. A tornado struck Mankins in 1938, destroying its two-story secondary school (which also doubled as a church and a community center). It was enough to drive the Methodists over to nearby Holliday, while the Baptists used the rebuilt school as their sanctuary until they salvaged an abandoned church in Bowman and moved it to Mankins in 1941.

Mankins also became the winter home for one Dick S. Dudley, a cowboy and bronco rider who got into the carnival business before being drafted into the Army during World War I. After serving overseas, Dudley came back to Mankins, where he and his wife Ruth expanded the travelling carnival business until they were performing shows in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The D.S. Dudley Show included various rides for kids of all ages, circus-type sideshows, and a host of exotic animals. Dudley's carnival enterprise employed as many as 250 people at one point. When winter approached, however, the Dudley family settled into their home at Mankins along with zebras, chimpanzees, an elephant, and various carnival workers, which inspired countless stories by travellers who journeyed through West Texas only to encounter these strange animals and unusual carnival folk out in the middle of ranch country.

Historical marker for the D.S. Dudley Show at the former winter headquarters in Mankins

Abandoned stone veneer house that apparently served as D.S. Dudley's winter home

Another house on the Dudley carnival grounds, possibly intended for Dudley's children

Rusting truck left over from the Dudley carnival, also waiting to head down the road once again

For a long time, Mankins suffered from a lack of potable groundwater, which required the railroad to haul drinking water to the community for decades. Agricultural consolidation in the 1940s depopulated the nearby farms that helped keep Mankins in business. Mankins schoolchildren took the bus to Holliday schools since 1947, and Mankins lost its post office in either 1958 or 1963. Although access to drinking water was improved, the town's growth was reportedly hampered by the Mangold estate, which still owned many of the undeveloped town lots and refused to sell them. The population, which once peaked in 1950 at 120 (not counting the migratory Dudley carnival), dropped to 45 in 1990 and only ten in 2000. By 2005, the Dudley carnival headquarters appear to have been abandoned as well. If the family's carnival business is still in operation, any information on its current whereabouts will be greatly appreciated.

Walking through what is left of Mankins gave me the sense of what once was and what could have been. The desolation and stillness of this most unusual West Texas ghost town gives only fleeting hints as to the sights and sounds of man and beast alike, whether on the Mangold Ranch or at the D.S. Dudley Show's former headquarters, that gave Mankins its distinct history and character.

Three strikes, and I'm out

Yes, I know it's been a long time since I updated the blog; my apologies to everyone who's been waiting for new pictures. The truth is that I had hoped to come back here brimming over with new pictures of ghost towns taken during my journey to Houston last weekend, but I had no luck in that regard. There were three candidate towns I decided to chase down, but Stoneham (Grimes County) and Old Waverly (Walker County and San Jacinto County) have reconstituted themselves into dispersed but definitely occupied rural communities, and Esperanza (Montgomery County) appears to have disappeared entirely - including the historical marker - although there is still a road in the vicinity that bears its name. You win some, you lose some. In the next few days, I will be sharing some new and exciting photos with you - I promise!

Next month, Houston or Bust

I'll be hitting the trail next month to spend a few days in Houston, and I'm hoping that at some point during my stay that I'll be able to explore a couple of ghost towns along the way. Don't have a firm list of candidate towns yet, but I'm working on it.

Bugtussle (Fannin County) - November 2010 photos

Every ghost town in Texas is a little bit different. Sometimes the locals will offer you a friendly wave as they pass you by. Occasionally they will eye you with suspicion - at one ghost town, a guy toting a shotgun explained to me that the handful of residents of his town were being targeted by burglars because of their remote location. And then there's Bugtussle.

Located in southeastern Fannin County, Bugtussle is situated at the junction of State Highway 34 and Farm Road 1550, five miles north of Ladonia and 10 miles south of Honey Grove. Don't look for any highway signs announcing your arrival at Bugtussle; when I visited in the autumn of 2010, this is the only sign I could find:

Street sign at Bugtussle Boulevard and Milton Place

When I snapped a photo of the street sign, it turns out that the sign was right next to one of the few occupied houses at the ghost town, and the homeowner came out to check on me and see if everything was all right, since he was off to run a few errands anyway. The man, whom I understand teaches at a school in Ladonia, pointed out the crumbling general store just across the street:

Side view of Bugtussle's famous general store, once known as Judge Fink Groceries

The teacher explained that there really should be a sign above the front door to identify the town, but every time the locals put up a sign, someone always comes around and steals it as a souvenir of their visit. Turns out the same thing's been happening to their highway signs; at least 70 Bugtussle highway signs have been reported stolen throughout the town's history.

Before he left, the teacher asked me if I was in the market for some farm equipment; he had a few wares in the front of his house for sale. I'm a city boy, so I didn't have much of a place to put them, but I thanked him for the offer. As he left me to explore the town, the teacher smiled and said, "Welcome to Bugtussle!"

Bugtussle as a town exudes the same sort of charm, which is remarkable considering how relatively little history there seems to be for the community. Here's what I know so far: Bugtussle (also spelled Bug Tussle) was founded in the early 1890s as a farming community named Truss in honor of John Truss, a settler who made the site his new home. Truss established a post office in 1893, but it shut down after only one year of operation. Some time after that, the community changed its name to Bugtussle, and there are three competing stories as to how this happened. The most popular of these tales revolves around a church's ice cream social held on the townsite that was ruined by an invasion of tumble bugs, but apparently some folks got a kick out of watching the tumble bugs wrestle with each other - "tussle," if you will.

Bugtussle home across the street from the general store slowly being reclaimed by Nature

During the Great Depression, Judge James Bates Fink established a Justice of the Peace court in the store (hence the name "Judge Fink Groceries"), where he performed marriages for any couple that showed up at Bugtussle wanting to tie the knot. Judge Fink reportedly charged only a dollar for his services, and he may have married thousands of couples in the little general store as word spread that Judge Fink performed the cheapest marriages in Fannin County. The fact that husband and wife could boast to friends and relations that they got married in a town called "Bugtussle" appeared to be the icing on the wedding cake.

Population figures for most of Bugtussle's history are scarce. By 1962, there were only six people living at the town, but then the David Graham Hall Foundation stepped in to rescue what was left of the town center with a 15-year lease on Bugtussle. In 1966, the population of Bugtussle jumped to 30 and stayed there for about two decades. The Hall Foundation also enabled the townfolk to start producing and selling souvenirs bearing a logo that said MADE IN BUG TUSSLE, TEXAS. A tradition was also started where an impromptu parade of antique cars would gather once a year at the Judge Fink store before heading north to Honey Grove for lunch; this parade has been going on for at least 42 years. By 1990, however, the population dropped down to 15, where it has apparently hovered ever since.

A once-handsome two-story house about a mile north of downtown Bugtussle

Getting back to Judge Fink's iconic grocery store for a moment, it used to be the place where kids could grab a cold bottle of Dr. Pepper or Royal Crown Cola while Dad gassed up the family car. Today, this is what the inside of the store looks like:

Wares on display at the Bugtussle general store

"What'cha readin' for?"

There is one actual business that I know of that's based in Bugtussle. Jan Allen, who moved to Bugtussle with husband Lee a few years ago, brews up a little something in her kitchen called Bugtussle Burn Texas Salsa that I discovered at ZestFest 2012 in Irving. If Jan doesn't mind the shameless plug, I fell in love with the salsa at first bite, and now I always keep a jar handy at home. She has apparently been refining her salsa recipe for some 30 years, and the quality comes through in every bite. Bugtussle Burn is made with a little brown sugar and apple cider vinegar that impart an unusual sweetness to the salsa, and if you're not sure a salsa can pull off a little sweetness, try a bite and see for yourself. It only takes one bite. Don't say I didn't warn you. Just have your wallet or checkbook ready.

My travels keep pushing me into new corners of Texas I've never set foot in before, but I hope to find an excuse to revisit Bugtussle sometime real soon. Bugtussle is a prime example of why we need to preserve small towns in Texas - the world would be just a little bit poorer without it.

"Until we meet again..."

This is how I roll...

I get up on Sunday morning, watch the weather reports to see if I'll have to deal with rain, and then I'm on the road before 10am, heading up towards the Red River, braving the occasional drizzle. I start driving through northeastern Cooke County, heading towards the ghost town of Dexter with the layout of the town ruins firmly embedded in my head. Once I show up at Dexter, I plow through the woods and brave all manner of insects and arachnids to find some ruins no longer visible from the road, and I feel like a kid in a candy store. After finding practically everything there is to find at Dexter, I head off to Gainesville for a late lunch/early supper that will constitute my one square meal of the day, and then it's back to Dallas County to put in a few hours of overtime. (Hey, I have to pay for the gas somehow...)

It's 11pm on Sunday night, and the rain has picked up again, and I'm typing this in my car. Why am I not home yet? Isn't there a Firefly marathon on Science right now? Mal Reynolds intrigues me, bless his grumpy, chaotic good heart. And is there anyone who doesn't have a little crush on Kaylee, the engineer? But I digress. And I'm tired. And I'll have to share the Dexter photos with you soon - just not tonight.

Everything I know (about Belcherville) is wrong

Unfortunately, I do not receive instant notification whenever someone comments on my ghost town exploits in this blog. I do review my posts from time to time and truly appreciate all of the feedback I've received so far. One of the responses, however, was from a former resident of the Montague County ghost town of Belcherville; she informed me that some of the details in my report last October were either incorrect or needed a little extra information. So I've gone into that blog entry and made a few changes which you can read by clicking here.

Thanks, sisy - hope I got it right this time. :)

The streak has ended...

Dagnabbit. I knew it had to end sooner or later - especially with gas prices reaching blasphemous levels - but I did not visit a Texas ghost town last month.

Regular readers of the blog probably know that ever since May 2010, I have averaged at least one trip to a new ghost town every month. One month I'm checking out the smokestack at Thurber, the next month I'm being swallowed by quicksand at Lake Whitney searching for Towash. And the month after that, you might catch me watching a show at Luckenbach or bumping into the neighborhood watch at Gunsight. But for 22 months, I always visited a new site somewhere in Texas. (Yes, I paid another visit to La Reunion last month, but that doesn't count.)

Just because the streak is over, however, doesn't mean that I'm throwing in the towel. There's still a lot of Texas for me to explore, and I have lots of photos I still need to share with you. And I promised Jan of Bugtussle Burn a quick plug on my blog - it really is darn good salsa, concocted in the little Fannin County ghost town of the same name. Honest. Go get some. Don't forget the chips. And yes, I visited Bugtussle a while back - need to share those photos with you as well.

My best wishes to all of you for a happy and peaceful Easter or Passover - or both!