Fort Worth, Texas

     I was in Fort Worth, Texas yesterday delivering some tables for the Odd Fellows Casino Night and found myself at a railroad crossing waiting for the train to pass. As it approached I snapped a photo and another photo as the train was passing. That's when I noticed I was just up the tracks Purina Feed Mills I had posted about before. 

You can see the Purina plant on right side of the photo below. 

     Since I've had this itch to go back to the Purina plant and snoop around some more, I decided to head that way after I unloaded the tables. I didn't get very far down Samuels Ave. when I saw an old cemetery on the left side named Pioneers Rest. 
      I don't know why but cemeteries have long intrigued me. When I was a little boy the best place to play war was in the Lakeview Cemetary next to My Grandparents house. I would be all over that cemetery ducking behind grave headstones, running between the  taller ones and jumping over the smaller ones. I remember using the Mausoleum as a free base. Whenever I went inside the Mausoleum, I would laugh at the memorial marker on the wall with Lucy Boob's name. I don't know why I never got in trouble for playing in the cemetery. Not that I was vandalizing the property or anything. It just seems to me that it could be viewed as being disrespectful. A lot of my relatives were buried there before I was born or too young to know them. After I moved away to Michigan, I would go back to Port Clinton to visit few times a year. Sometimes I would bring a friend with me and take him to the Mausoleum to see Lucy. I walked around the cemetery many times looking for my ancestors. Years later  they would keep the Mausoleum locked. I still tried peeking  through the window to get a glimpse of Lucy Boob's Name on the wall. I'm pretty sure she's still there. If my memory serves me right there is also a Butt buried somewhere in that cemetery too. It's funny how I remember not laughing when I saw a "Dick" on a headstone, but cracked up every time I saw a Boob and a Butt.

     Even though I may not know anybody in a cemetery, I still enjoy walking through them. I look on the headstones names, noting the year of birth, trying to find the oldest person buried  there.

    Anyway... I pulled over to the side of Samuel Street, across from the entrance to Pioneers Rest. I grabbed my camera and as I took a photo from inside my vehicle,  I noticed the gates were locked.

     I could see on the other side of the locked gates are two Texas Historical Markers. I wanted to read what the markers said. I got out of my vehicle somewhat disappointed about gates being locked. As I walked across the road I could see the chain wasn't wrapped very tight around the gates. When I got there I pulled on the gates just to see how far they would open. Thinking maybe I could squeeze through the narrow gap between the gates like I used to do when I was a skinny boy. I opened them up as far as they would go. There was no way I could fit through the gates without hurting myself. I thought about jumping over the fence, until I saw the spikes on top and  decided for my own well being I better not try it. 

So I settled for a few photos from the fence.

The Texas Historical Marker on the left was noting the history of the six acre burial grounds that was donated to the city in 1850. The marker on the right was honoring the burial site of Mr Tarrant whom Tarrant County was named after.

I walked halfway down the sidewalk in front of the cemeteries south end and saw the name Ellis (I assumed Ellis County's namesake) and then I saw some of the taller gravestones hidden underneath old pecan trees.

     As I walked back to the my vehicle  I saw at the north end of the cemetary there was a section of fence gone. In place of the missing fence was some red plastic temporary fence. Like the kind used for construction sites. I was thinking maybe a vehicle must have recently crashed into it. I wondered if any of the grave sites had also been run over and damaged. I walked down there to look but when I got there, I saw the temporary fencing wasn't very secure. I saw this loose fence as an opportunity to enter the cemetery grounds. I easily ducked under the tempoary fencing and walked around the burial grounds for about twenty minutes looking at the names and dates on some of the headstones and taking pictures of old grave stones. I had forgotten all about looking to see if crash caused any damage.

      A lot of the grave stones were so old you couldn't read them. 

Some of the headstones had fallen down and were broken.

     While leaving I thought about what life was like 162 years earlier. I got into my vehicle and said "Giddyup Casper" Onward to Purina!
For those who don't know, I named my 1989 Toyota Van "Casper"

      I was closer to the Purina plant than I realized. It wasn't but just a couple minutes and I was parking at the same place I had before. I got my camera and cigarettes, before checking to make sure all the doors were locked. When I got out of the vehicle, I looked down  2nd Street and saw a couple white horses tied to a trailer. The side of the trailer had an advertisement about carriage rides. I had been thinking about taking some horse photos. 

First, I got a close-up of a horses nostrils.

Then a shot of the horses side.

 






Some head shots too. 

 Until I noticed the horse giving me an evil eye.  






I was thinking the horse didn't like me too much. Then the cowgirl told me she couldn't stop the horse if he decided to bite me. Thinking a horse bite wouldn't feel very good I decided to leave. I told the cowgirl thanks and bye. Walking back towards the Purina plant I saw a couple trains passing.  

One train was going very slow.                                       

 It was hot and getting late, but I waited for the trains to pass.

A few minutes went by before I could continue and walk up 2nd Street toward the feed mills.   

I saw a sign hidden under some branches of a tree. 

     It looked like, at one time, houses were on the vacant land. 

I wasn't able to get much further because the door I had entered before was closed with a padlock on it.

I decided to turn around and head home after I took a pic of  the silos with a couple platforms hanging on them. 

I guess they were being prepared for new paint.

I got back in my vehicle and drove south towards the freeway, looking at the cities architecture and stopping to take a few photos. I was thinking about the Fort Worth Water Gardens and how cool it is. I wanted to get some photos around there but I couldn't find it. 

I took a photo of The Fort Worth Convention Center while reminiscing about the ballets I attended there years ago. 

I then turned around and saw another interesting building that looked brand new. 

I got back into my vehicle and continued down the street until it ended at Lancaster Avenue. While waiting at the traffic light I looked around and there in front of me was a cool looking old building and a couple more to the right. 

I turned and parked in front of the old U.S Post Office building to take a couple photos. 

It looked like it was in pretty good shape for being built in 1933. Especially compared to the old building next to it and across Jennings Street that was probably built in the same decade as the post office. 

I snapped a few pics of the old abandoned building before heading home. The first photo I took from Jennings Street 

I got right up next to it and took a shot all the way up to the top.

I raised my camera up an took a shot of inside the old building through a broken window

And the last photo of the day taken down the rear of the building.

I got back in my vehicle and headed home thinking about making a list of the places I want to revisit next time I find myself downtown Fort Worth, Texas